iwillvol

If you want to own and fly a canard in India, I suggest buying a flying airplane in the U.S., load it in a shipping container and ship it.  You can buy a flying U.S. Long-ez for $35,000 to $40,000 and shipping it is not very difficult--easier than building one.  The cost to do that would probably be less than the cost of ordering a U.S. Velocity kit and building it.     . . . If the Indian authorities will let you fly it.

 

I have met Europeans who buy U.S. airplanes and ferry them to Europe.  They say U.S. prices are cheap compared to European prices.

 

There is very little "risk" in building from plans if you use the proper materials and follow the plans.  Download the "Open-EZ" plans at this site and take a look.

 

You need to investigate the costs.  A European friend of mine recently ordered a pre-cast nose from Aerocad to repair his wrecked Cozy.  He paid $1980 for the nose, $500 for shipping to France, and 669 Euros ($723) french import tax!  $3200 total!  He could have built a nose for less than $500, I expect.  

That makes sense, although it'll be difficult to import a used aircraft.

Yes, i've gone through a lot of literature, a lot of build logs, multiple POHs, newsletters, most of the forums. However since you and a lot of people here are amazingly intelligent/experienced/talented/worked hard, it might seem easy to you. I don't want to bet on myself without anyone's physical help and oversight on the first one, and i want to get flying quickly.

Therefore what you said makes perfect sense, to buy and fly, and then build. I'll go to the Customs Department in the coming week and figure out the import of a used aircraft. Will update soon!

In case you have any potential airplanes, please share

Thank you for your time!

If you are interested in canard aircraft, that's what this what this site is for.    Before you go to far, check what is possible in India.  You might be wasting your time trying to build a homebuilt airplane there.  Some countries make it so hard, it's just not practical.

 

I see that there is an EAA Chapter in India, Chapter 1596 in Secunderabad, so maybe it's possible.  

http://www.eaa.org/en/eaa/eaa-chapters/find-an-eaa-chapter

Hi Kent,

Thanks for looking up the link, i have seen that before, and basically the gentleman who chairs the chapters is an Non Resident Indian (NRI) based out of USA. So it's a chapter, but nothing really happens there.

There are legal provisions in India which are very difficult to exercise, however i will fly in the middle of the desert with no active military bases or airports in a radius of 200kms. So it's cool, i will fly in that region until the red tape is cleared out in parallel. There are a few kits here and there, but they're very basic X-Airs/Zenith. Nothing even remotely close to beautiful canards.

Precisely for the reasons you mentioned, I am looking for something that is as close to a CKD (completely knocked down) kit as possible. Although i'm confident in my capability to make a Rutan composite on foam structure, i don't want to risk it with the first one. I am looking at pre made canards for sale and kits like Velocity and AeroCanard for this. Also, to add: i need everything except the Lycoming/other engine since the lack of an ecosystem in India will make it very expensive to service it throughout it's life.

Only took a quick look, and for the most part, things look decent (although web pics are notoriously hard to interpret, even if you know what you're looking at).

 

However, the contour of the top of the elevators is incorrect - it's been filled in (possibly by micro, possibly by an incorrect hot-wiring) and is missing the recurve. It will have to be recontoured prior to final finishing. You should point this out to prospective buyers.

Wow, as a first time builder it's fascinating to see you point out minute details with just a glance. Thank you for that!

Marc,

 

 

I hadn't noted that. Thanks for pointing it out. I'll knock up a template from the m-drawings / plans and do a compare and see if there is a mismatch. I can't imagine that it will be hard to fix either way.  I'm pretty confident in Dennis' work, not that anyone is infallible. That canard is a work of art when you see it up close honestly. 

 

How have you been?

 

Nathan

Hey Nathan, can i email you to take the commercial aspect of this conversation further?

I'm a first time builder and there's no amateur flying ecosystem in India. So i've got a lot of questions (read: not so smart questions) about this project, may i ask them here?

Hi Nate,

Is it possible for you to share the mentioned online log?

Regards,