I had wanted to build a plane for a few years and looked at a wide variety. Everything from composite, fabric, and metal construction. All varying in performance and characteristics. I am enamored by old taildraggers and like the way they fly and their personalities, so I finally settled on an airplane that seems to be fuse that interest and the desire for something new.  Homebuilt airplanes are in the Experimental category of aircraft certification. This plane is a kit plane which means that I ordered a big box of parts and manuals from a company and now need to assemble them. Some brave individuals buy blueprints to build and fabricate all the parts they need for construction. Those are known as scratch-built planes. I like seeing the work these individuals do, but I don’t think it is for me which is why I decided on a kit.

I chose to build a RANS S-20 which is a fabric covered tailwheel airplane. This allows me the same style of flying, but in a new package with better performance than the old taildraggers I fly. The allure of a slightly higher cruise and most importantly a better useful load finally made the decision.

RANS S-20 Picture from RANS website www.rans.com

The plane is designed in the light sport category with a gross weight of 1320lbs with an estimated empty weight of 720lbs. This gives the S-20 a useful load of about 600lbs. The base engine is a Rotax 912ULS 100HP which gives an estimated takeoff roll of 300ft. The cruise is right around 110mph. This is faster than any tailwheel plane I’ve flown and although it wouldn’t be the first choice for a cross-country plane, it will easily make long trips where flying is part of the adventure.

Avionics, paint, and engine for my plane will be delayed until we get a bit closer to completion. The biggest reason is to replenish bank accounts with a close second being that things change, avionics specifically. I want to see what stuff is available when I need it.

At the time that I am writing this down, I am about 2/3rds of the way through the waiting period till the kit is ready to be picked up and I’m slowly acquiring all the necessary tools. The majority of the construction will take place in 1/2 of our 2-car garage hopefully. It will be moved to a hangar when we outgrow the current space.