Re: REFLECTOR: Build Time

[Dave Black <asterisk@erols.com>]

> David,


>     Anyone who's finished an RG Elite, I'm curious, what is a good
> guess at hours to complete one. Anyone want to gander a guess based 
> on your own experience..? I'm curious
> if I put in 50 hrs a week if I could expect to finish this thing in
> a year. What's the record for one person completing one of these
> anyway? 


To date, with the airplane fully painted and just my instrument panel and
wiring left to do, I have 3600 hours in the project, even though Alan built
the wings. 

I have one of the last non-elite kits sold. But I believe the Elite would take
approximately the same build time. With all the kit improvements since then,
and if you limit yourself to simply following the Manual, I could see you
cutting this number nearly in half.

A goodly part of the overrun was from my redesigning things I determined were
failure-prone or which had a history of reported failures. Also, as mine was
an older kit, many more of the parts had to be built from scratch. 

The shortest build time I've ever heard of is 6 months (reported in the
current issue of VViews), but that was by two experienced builders. I believe
it would be more realistic to expect 18 to 24 months for a first-time builder.

But take note of what Simon said. The time quotes are for the airframe kit,
not the completed airplane. And you can take this to the bank: When you've
finished the airframe, you're halfway done. Yeah, I laughed too the first time
I heard that. 

The important thing is to keep working on it regularly and you'll get there. 


Dave Black
SW RG Topdoor