General  Information	Technical	Homebuilt Aircraft Links	Homebuilt FAQ
Engine Info	Stories	Organizations	Fun Sites

Ron's Sea and Sky Aviation Page page is mostly for the Homebuilt Aviation enthusiast. Email me at ron@wanttaja.com with any corrections or suggestions.

Last Update: 4 March 2020

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Frequently Asked Questions (and Their Answers)

• Homebuilt Aircraft FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions List)
• Jim Pratt's FAQ site . LOTS of legal and other information on homebuilts, including downloadable copies of important FAA documents.
• Amateur-Built Maintenance (an article from the EAA Government Programs Office). Learn the legalities of maintaining a homebuilt you bought instead of built.
• Index for KITPLANES and SPORT AVIATION Thomas Decker graciously offered his index to the net, and Marc Zeitlin has done an HTML conversion. Many thanks to both these gentlemen.
• And the post popular question:  "Where can I find free plans for homebuilt aircraft?"
• The Texas Parasol.  A light aircraft constucted of aluminum tubing.  Here's a typical builder's site.

Aircraft Information

• Fans of backward airplanes shouldn't miss the Canard Aviator's Home Page .
• Guide to Experimental Aircraft . Information, links, marketplace, etc.
• HomeBuiltAirplanes.com - A discussion forum for those interested in homebuilts
• The Homebuilt Homepage is one of the oldest, and best, starting points.
• Can't figure out what a certain homebuilt looks like?  Check out the Amateur-Built Aircraft section of 1000aircraftphotos.com
• Looking for an older design that just doesn't seem available?  Check out the Vintage Ultralight and Lightplane Association (VULA) .  They're trying to gather the rights to these old designs and make them available.

Personal Sites of Note

• Airbum.Com - Aviation journalist Budd Davisson's site.  Lotsa cool stuff, some of it related to homebuilts.
• Check out Washington state aviation at Dr. Dan's Amazing Aircraft and Annals of Aviation !
• Ed Wischmeyer writes flight-test articles for KITPLANES and IN FLIGHT. He's got some of his articles on his web page.
• Ryan Young's VW-Powered homebuilt list.    Also check out his " Biased Opinions on VW-powered Homebuilts " page.
• Dick Starks of the fabulous Dawn Patrol, writes for KITPLANES. He has also written a hilarious about about building airplanes, You Want to Build and fly a WHAT?
• Barnaby Wainfan writes the "Wind Tunnel" aerodynamics column in KITPLANES. His web page has all the information on his Facetmobile.
• Ron Wanttaja . This is my "general" web page.
• Jim Weir writes avionics articles and is the owner of RST Engineering.
• My buddy John Ousterhout .  Whaddaya expect from a guy who puts a .50 cal on a 172? :-)
• Benton's Holzwarth's Homebuilt Aviation Activities and Photos .
• Bruce Simpson's Pulse Jet Engine site.  He's scratchbuilding pulse jets just like the V-1 used.
• The Cereal-Box Planes.  A long time ago, they used to print patterns for building cardboard models of historic airplanes on the back of cereal boxes.  Phil Koopman Sr. converted these to PDF files, and his son has set up the web page where you can download PDF files.  Print them out, assemble them, use a dime or a penny in the nose for ballast, and fly them!
• Holcomb's Aerodrome.  Lots of vintage aviation photos.

Miscellaneous

• If you don't want to be late, better set your watch to the current time (In GMT, of course!).
• Airport Databases
• Airnav
• AirstripAmerica
• Myairplane.com - has online FAA sectionals and terminal charts
• Project Ornithopter
• Accident Information
• The FAA Office of Accident Investigation maintains two weeks' worth of accident reports
• The NTSB maintains a list of accident synopses running back to 1962
• Interested in writing for aviation magazines?  Check out the Avwriter's Primer.

Cockpit Dimensions

• Cockpit Dimensions of Homebuilt Aircraft . Results of my cockpit measuring effort.

Construction and Design Advice

• ShopSheets!  As published in KITPLANES magazine in the mid-'90s, ShopSheets are one-page summaries of various aspects of building.
• Chris Heintz's Design College . A set of articles on a number of aspects relative to designing, building, and flight testing your homebuilt.
• Glue for wooden aircraft.  From the Sequoia Aircraft web page
• Sportair Ron Alexander's Homebuilder's Seminars
• Wings and Wheels Soaring Supplies has a nice article on how to drill your windshield and other acrylic parts.
• Sewer pipe clamps - simple but effective clamps made from sewer pipe...a 3' length of pipe produces 100 clamps.
• Bob Nuckoll's AeroElectric Connection Page
• Introduction to Composites - from the Dutch Aeroplane Company

Engine Information

• Ryan Young's  " Biased Opinions on VW-powered Homebuilts "
• The famous Swiss Muffler  - how to make your engine really, REALLY quiet
• See my Fly Baby troubleshooting page for Delco/Remy Generators and Regulators
  

FAA Advisory Circulars and Reference Information

• AC 90-89A Amateur-Built Aircraft and Ultralight Flight Testing Handbook
• AC 20-27 Certification and Operations of Amateur-Built Aircraft
• AC 65-23A Certifiction of Repairmen - Amateur Built
• AC 90-109 Airmen Transition to Experimental or Unfamiliar Airplanes
  
• Jim Pratt's Publications page is a good all-in-one source.
• AC43-13-1B,  Acceptable Methods, Techniques, and Practices - Aircraft Inspection and Repair (Zip file with all chapters - 15 MB)
  
• CAM-18.  The predecessor of AC43-13.

Flight Testing

• Resources on Flight Testing homebuilt aircraft . A set of links maintained by Kevin Horton.
• Sequoia Aircraft Flight Testing . The makers of the Falco kit have a good series of articles on flight testing.

Materials and Specifications

• Assistdocs.com   Want to find out the specs of military-grade hardware?  You can download PDF files of the specifications for AN bolts, turnbuckles, etc.
• ASSIST is another tool for finding military specifications
• Ryan Young's Aircraft Aluminum Sources list
• Vintage Aero Fabrics sells pre-printed WWI German lozenge camouflage fabric
• Wood as an Engineering Material - Forest Products Laboratory handbook

Miscellaneous Technical Information

• TM Sheet Metal Forming Technologies .  Not an aviation site, but full of data on metalworking.
• Wings and Wheels Soaring Supplies has a nice article on how to drill your windshield and other acrylic parts.
• Aluminum Polishing .  It's a series about polishing an Airstream trailer, but it has a bunch of good stuff in it.
• Aircraft Microphone Jack Wiring - from the AeroElectric Connection Page
• Navigation Lights using Luxeon LEDs

Painting

• Painting a Pietenpol with Latex Paint
• Painting a Fly Baby with Latex Paint

Propellers

• The Propeller Carver's Store

• The do-it-yourself 747 .  Now the truth is out....
• Wire Strike!    A Cherokee pilot flies through power lines, and not only lives, but LANDS.
• The Homebuilt Submarine .  Yes, a submarine, built out of a T-33 tip tank.
• Goodbye, John .  A farewell to a friend.
• The Auburn Witch Project .  Oooo, that's SCAAAARYYY!!! :-)
• Banner .  Everyone had their reaction to September 11th.  Here's what I wrote for our next EAA Chapter newsletter.
• An Accelerometer in Paradise .  Where would paradise be for a device that measures and stores shocks and bangs for later examination?  How about in a piece of baggage carried by a commercial airliner....
• AVweb Articles.  I've written a couple of articles for the online aviation magazine AVweb
• Planet Slickers .  My week at Space Camp for adults
• The Boeing Strike:  A Report from the Trenches .  My experiences during the engineer strike at Boeing in early 2000.
• The Boeing Strike: Armistice Day .  About the end of the strike
• Fly Baby Tales - A Fly Baby is an open-cockpit, single-seat, homebuilt airplane.  I've been flying them for about fifteen years now, and really have no urge to move on to something else.  Over the years, I've posted a number of stories of things that've happened in my Fly Baby.  These stories all all located in with my Fly Baby web page .
• Interested in writing for aviation magazines?  Check out the Avwriter's Primer.
• The Songs They Sang.  Five articles about traditional aviation songs.
• I've got Wings!  A PDF version of a pre-war Army Air Force pamphlet for kits, all about flying.
  

• Avweb's Short Final.  The online aviation maagazine AVWEB publishes a humorous aviation anecdote with its news reports.  Here's a collection of them.
• Unusual Aviation Pictures .
• The OOPS List.  In my opinion, one of the BEST sites on the net.  If you've ever heard of a funny picture of an airplane, it'll be here.
• Nest of Dragons .  A pretty neat site on weird aircraft
• Breaking the Sound Barrier .  A bunch of neat pictures of condensation clouds around near-sonic aircraft.  Also a couple of Mpeg movies.
• Jim Foreman's flying stories.  Some pretty good ones, including some about soaring.
• Check-Six.  Revisiting old aircraft crash sites.
• The Most Silly Aircraft in the World (All real!)
• Weird, Strange, and True Aircraft Photos
• Vintage Wings of Canada stories page.  Some really, really, cool historical information
• The Virtual Aircraft Museum.  Looking for a photo of a plane?  This might be a good place to start.
• Monthan Memories.  Photos of the aircraft graveyard in Arizona.
  

Homebuilt Aircraft Home Pages

Links to Homebuilding-Related Organizations and Publications

• Arlington Fly-In
• Calgary Recreational and Ultralight Flying Club
• Club Aviazione Popolare (Italian equivalent of the EAA)
• Danish Ultralight Flyer's Union
• EAA Chapter 1000 . Based at Edwards AFB...their web site has a lot of technical data
• Experimental Aircraft Association
• Federal Aviation Administration
• Kitplanes Magazine
• Popular Flying Association (aka the Light Aircraft Association)
  
• Recreational Aircraft Association Canada's equivalent to the EAA