Making the Decision - Time To Build

How long does it take to build an airplane? That’s probably our hardest question to answer accurately. There are so many factors that affect building time that almost any answer will only be true for a small number of builders. As a rough approximation, based on builder reports we estimate 2000-2200 hours of work will complete an RV-3, or RV-4 from the Standard Kit. The more highly pre-fabricated RV-7/7A, RV-8/8A and RV-9/9A Standard Kits take about 400 hours less. Building from a QuickBuild Kit should cut these times by roughly half.

There are many exceptions to these estimates. On one hand, at least one QuickBuild Kit took 2000 hours to complete…on the other Jerry Scott, of Chino, California, completed an RV-6 from a Standard Kit (an older kit, manufactured before any pre-punched components were available) in 85 days. That included paint, avionics, upholstery….everything. Try that on your calculator! There’s only 2040 hours in 85 days… so if Jerry worked 12 hours a day with no breaks and no days off, the complete airplane only took 1020 hours. We’ve often wondered what he could do with a Quickbuild!

What can you do to insure you finish your RV in a reasonable amount of time?

• Keep the airplane simple. Extensive avionics, besides being expensive and heavy, take a lot of time to install. Even small changes to the airframe can consume mind-boggling amounts of time. Just a fancy paint job can add several weeks of work.
• Work consistently. If you can spend a couple of hours every evening, your airplane will take less time to complete than if you work one long day every weekend. Momentum is important.
• Make your shop comfortable year round. You can’t do good work if you’re miserably cold or hot, and you’ll avoid the shop…not the way to get a project done.
• Get your friends and family involved, at least to a point. An extra set of hands can save a lot of time, even if they are just shoving clecoes in holes or handing you tools.
• Make as many decisions ahead of time as you can. Especially when installing systems, you’ll go much faster if you’ve thought it through and bought the parts before you actually need them. If you can reach up, grab what you need and keep building, you’ll be done much faster than if you have to stop and page through catalogs at every decision point…especially if you’re doing the research during prime building time.