[WIP] RV-14: Considerations

How much consideration is appropriate in order to accept the undertaking that is building a sheet metal airplane? Going into the project, every aspiring Vans builder knows two specific numbers. 1: The total estimated cost of the project, and 2: The total number of hours one expects to spend. For the RV-14, I expect to spend 165,000$ US on the project, and put in around 2,400 hours. From the vans website says that number should be 1200 hours, and the corresponding page on the vans site claims that the "kit only" cost is 64,300$ US for the non quick-build version. Between tools, paint, engine, avionics, and the rest, I estimate that an additional 100,000$ will be necessary. At a brisk 20 hours per week, that's 2.3 years of labor assuming no weeks off. I'm expecting to be much slower.

My thesis is as follows: You don't need to do as much thinking as I did, and one should know if they are ready to take on an RV-14 by answering 2 questions. One is simple: Is it reasonable for you to be able to produce up to 200,000$ US by the completion of this project? Not the project cost, but the cost and then some. You can do the math, and maybe you are one of the lucky people in this world who has the means. Maybe not, and that's fine! There are less intensive options, and you could send yourself into the air for 1/100th the cost through the world of ultralight aviation (safety notwithstanding). The second question: Assuming you've never cut a single 2x4, could you learn to build a barn by yourself? Without any prior knowledge, could you assemble something that may seem straightforward after completion? If you could do the legwork, the research, the ingenuity to solve the problems associated with this, and you could say this to yourself with honesty and a well-informed answer, then you have the other half of the equation.

At the time of writing, 200,000 US Dollars is about 2/3 the average price of the first house that people buy. It's enough to buy 78 butchered cattle, and can buy 1.43 GWh (120 years, avg. home) of electricity at residential rates. It would indeed buy a very nice RV-14, even a well-off rv-14 which has already been assembled. This goal is set because you will have setbacks throughout the project, and you won't be paying for a plane, but you will be fighting the financial elements every step of the way. A safety net is not enough. Your investments are not enough. You MUST ensure that you are able to fund this project through to the end or else you will have wasted all your invested money, time, and sweat for nothing.

For me, when I first started to consider building an airplane, this was roughly 2x my annual compensation, before taxes, before expenses, and probably before considering an awful lot of very important things.

I'd like to now finally present my thesis: So what? What is the cost of happiness? We have one chance in life to do what we love, and there are too many moments considering whether or not we should do them.