South African teens fly from Cape to Cairo in plane they assembled from kit

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-48914418

by sdiq • 7 years ago

103 58 7 years ago

I think its important to point out its home assembled, this was a pre-fabbed kit. Not a from ground up designed plane.

anonoholic• 7 years ago

Not sure it's fair to call a $120K - $140K† kit (not including the cost of having the engine and avionics professionally installed) "homemade", but still an impressive flying achievement for the 17 year old pilots.

† https://www.airplanefactory.com/aircraft/sling-4-kit/

not_a_cop75• 7 years ago

I'm glad he's able to fly a plane but at this point it really feels like we're cheering on the mid upper class for their accomplishments. I want to see some kid from the slums build a real plane from spare junk yard parts. That would be much more impressive to me.

newyankee• 7 years ago

there was a story like that from India somewhere, but can't find it now

stronglikedan2• 7 years ago

but at this point it really feels like we're cheering on the mid upper class for their accomplishments.

We are, and there's nothing wrong with that.

burfog• 7 years ago

I was still really impressed by the 12,000km (7,455 mile) trip... until I saw they made 6 stops.

Getting that distance in a little plane would be impressive. Somebody even went around the world, so it can be done. One ends up flying a wing-shaped carbon-fiber fuel tank.

stagger87• 7 years ago

Build time is approximately 1300 hours. Even if it is a kit, that is really impressive.

taneq2• 7 years ago

I had the same thought, but if the team of 20 all pitched in equally that's only $7k each. Still not pocket money but it's much more attainable that way. If they got a grant then it could have been even less.

jfk132• 7 years ago

I saw this article when it appeared, but was a little disappointed that "homemade" means "built the aircraft ... from a kit manufactured in South Africa by the Airplane Factory". Not to belittle the time, effort and skill involved (both in assembling and flying it), but to me "homemade plane" carried slightly different connotations than "assembled from a kit".

(I'm no expert carpenter, but I have built some pieces of furniture from basic pieces of timber, etc.; I would consider these to be "homemade". I've also assembled flat-packed furniture from places like Ikea or Homebase; I wouldn't refer to those items as "homemade".)

867567838694• 7 years ago

Same. very click-baity title. I was expecting something more like https://giphy.com/gifs/car-homemade-zVMrf7rqfZcQM and was disappointed, not a really expensive kit-plane. I mean ya thats cool, but this is a shitty headline trying to take advantage of 1st world bias and low expectations for some clicks. I've built kit cars, race bikes from parts and other things and never once called them "home made". When they start banging out the skins on a metal press we can talk about home made...

sokoloff3• 7 years ago

This is still thousands of hours of effort, riveting aluminum, installing avionics, engine, and interior, etc.

IMO, it's much closer to making furniture than assembling flat-packed from Ikea.

lutorm3• 7 years ago

To qualify as an "experimental/amateur-built" aircraft (which is the official FAA designation for these planes), the majority (ie > 50%) of the work must be done by amateurs. This means, in particular, that the kit itself can not be more than half the work it would be to build it from raw materials. So, like other people have said, it's not like you're slapping some parts together and you're done.

scohesc• 7 years ago

Really top quality journalism by the BBC to conveniently redefine the definition of homemade to "pre-made parts and watched over by people who know what to do" in order to get more clicks through 'shocking' headlines.

40acres• 7 years ago

The #1 problem with commenting online (including this post) is the nitpicking of semantics. Truly the best way to generate engagement online is to be "wrong".

Congratulations to the pilots and those who assembled the plane, it must've been an amazing ride.

mbrumlow2• 7 years ago

What a good reason to use more precise language!

The real issue is the news outlet who wanted to generate clicks for their story.

We can all agree that "South African teens admissible airplane from kit and fly it" Is a bit less click worthy.

But the real story here is about how manufacturing is about to make another shift now that the places we have been shipping our manufacturing off to have raised their GDP.

briandear3• 7 years ago

In the aviation community, homebuilt = kitplane.

morley• 7 years ago

How feasible (I guess in terms of costs) is it to build a real home-made airplane? I guess the obvious place to start is to reproduce the Kitty Hawk plane with modern (ostensibly lighter and cheaper) materials?

spitfire• 7 years ago

Very! There's a number of aircraf that are plans only. They used to be the main homebuilt aircraft around. Thankfully kit built is the major bulk of homebuilt aircraft today.

If you had $20K it's perfectly possible to build a day only single/twin seat runabout.

http://www.chilton-aircraft.co.uk Plans available free after permission to build from Mrs. Ward.

https://www.pietenpolaircraftcompany.com Plans available for $180. Wood kits with all the wood for specific parts available in the $75-$300 range.

noir_lord• 7 years ago

With the plans and a basic toolshop I'd imagine quite straightforward*

* Assuming mechanical ability and a toolshop and not making the engine.

Wright brothers did it from first principles, built the engine and where bike technicians.

Wouldn't be cheap though for the equipment.

People built planes as a hobby pretty much as soon as they were a thing, the internet and overnight shipping would help, be thousands of hours work though.

This one is really impressive https://generalaviationnews.com/2010/12/05/savor-the-experie...

And he has a site here http://www.aerostruk.com/the-plane/

sokoloff3• 7 years ago

The airframe is relatively straightforward (albeit a lot of work). Trying to make an engine at home from first principles is, for most practical purposes, prohibitive or at least, ill-advised. Even people who do automotive to airplane conversions often run into issues. Innovate on the airframe if you must, but choose a proven aircraft engine.

AWildC1826• 7 years ago

Don't let the "kit" part put you off. It still requires a ton of effort and skill. You aren't getting an Ikea plane in a box, you're getting a bunch of rough cut aluminum and some plans. You still have to trim and debur the parts to their final specifications, align everything, and rivet it together all without damaging things.

Source: currently working on an RV-8 in my garage.

For those interested in what you have to do, here's another builder's blog (not mine) https://www.rv8-hangar.com/latest-progress-2/

The contents of a typical kit: https://www.vansaircraft.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/rv-7...

JasonFruit4• 7 years ago

For anyone interested in a very different aircraft that might meet more people's idea of homemade, I'm building a 1930s Pou-du-Ciel from scratch according to plans I translated from French. It's a wood-and-fabric tandem-wing design that was the start of European homebuilt aviation. My build log is at http://pou-du-ciel.net.

jfk132• 7 years ago

Now that is really cool!

AWildC1826• 7 years ago

That's an awesome project!

For those following, there is an entire range of home-built options out there. The most complete being quickbuild aluminum and steel tube aircraft like the kitfox, followed by aluminum parts kit aircraft like my RV-8 and the Sling from the article, and plans aircraft like the Rutan series, most notably the Long-EZ (now Open-EZ) which can still be built in a time period comparable to the aluminum kits but all you get is some plans. Then on the far end of the spectrum is crazy people like JasonFruit here who have historical and one-off designs and therefore have to do a lot of the engineering work without the huge communities built around the other designs :)

cyanoacry• 7 years ago

And for those that wonder what a more "modern" scratchbuilt plane is like, check out the Cozy Mk IV: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cozy_MK_IV. Made from fiberglass and foam cut to templates that came with a set of plans (with a handful of pre-fab parts).

A typical builder's log: http://www.cozy.simpex.com/

source: I, too, am building a plane in my garage. https://twitter.com/acozyplane

JasonFruit4• 7 years ago

The Cozy is a beaut too. I love it when we come out of the woodwork like this!

AWildC1826• 7 years ago

I know a couple people who built the Cozy Mk IV. They're sweet airplanes!

JasonFruit4• 7 years ago

Using Twitter as a build log is frankly genius. It would have saved hours of work on my website.

segmondy• 7 years ago

I have always wanted to build an RV, but I have a car that's sitting to be remodeled, so I know that I shouldn't undertake the plane. How long have you been working on yours? What's your progress rate?

AWildC1826• 7 years ago

If the car is taking forever the plane won't go any faster. I'm about a year in with the tail mostly done and waiting on the fuselage to get in (QB wings).

My personal progress rate has been fairly slow since I work full time but others in my situation have gone a lot faster.

briandear3• 7 years ago

To be fair, “homebuilt” or technically “amateur built” is a category defined by the FAA. So homebuilt is the accurate term for this story.

https://www.faa.gov/aircraft/gen_av/ultralights/amateur_buil...

Someone1234• 7 years ago

What does the FAA (and their definitions) have to do with a story in the BBC about a South African aircraft kit flown by a South African teenager, written by a journalist living in Cape Town? Those definitions don't even apply to all of North America, let alone Europe, or Africa.

briandear3• 7 years ago

The question was about the validity of the term “homebuilt,” the point is that there is regulatory precedence for such a term. The British use a similar term. https://www.caa.co.uk/General-aviation/Aircraft-ownership-an...

As does South Africa:

http://www.caa.co.za/Airworthiness%20Documents/FAQ%20-%20Ama...

Since HN is an American site, a reference to the FAA is helpful. I didn’t have time to look up regs for Egypt, but the point is that amateur built aircraft is defined by regulation and doesn’t necessarily mean what people want it to mean. In aviation, homebuilt is exactly how people refer to kitplanes.

sokoloff3• 7 years ago

In the largest airplane market in the world (by numbers), the aircraft would be called an E-AB (Experimental-Amateur Built) or colloquially/more commonly "a homebuilt".

It does not seem unreasonable to use the same language when describing that same accomplishment being done elsewhere.

ipsum2• 7 years ago

If anyone is also disappointed that this was assembled from a kit, there's a Youtuber (Peter Sripol) actually making homemade planes: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O6sy5bt4D-Y. Would recommend his channel.

mhb• 7 years ago

German Scientists Pull Off Truly Autonomous Aircraft Landing in Stunning Video: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20391108

ohaideredevs7• 7 years ago

You also don't have to understand anything about anything. That's not to take away from what you are doing, but the title completely misrepresents the amount of competence of these (likely spoiled) kids.

Also, what's the total cost (for ALL parts, but without labor)? I looked at their site and it seems to list $30-40k but I don't see the engine included in the part list.

bdamm• 7 years ago

That's an entirely unfair characterization. I've seen many different clubs working on many different kit planes, and they all require high-level capability, attention to minute detail, and very little or no tolerance for a sloppy or partial job. It's true that people can start these projects with no experience, but they sure don't end with no experience. Typically people that see these projects through at any level of involvement become experts in some part of the work by the end.

ohaideredevs7• 7 years ago

I am pretty sure a redneck doing custom welding and ECU mapping on a LS1 turbo is much more of a technical accomplishment. Genuinely.

AWildC1826• 7 years ago

Wat.

You can go off and just buy the kit if you want to die I guess...

I ended up taking a class on airframe construction from a licensed A&P and probably spent several hundred hours doing research at this point.

Engines can be anywhere from a 10k run-out old Lycoming or a $40k+ brand new IO-540 in a crate.

On the issue of "spoiled kids" there are a bunch of schools in the US that do a similar build project (typically an RV-14 LSA). It's not uncommon for more vocationally oriented high schools.

ohaideredevs7• 7 years ago

Thanks for info on costs. I wonder how these compare to Cessnas.

dang2• 7 years ago

Please don't take HN threads further into flamewar.

We detached this from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20396583.

verisimilitudes• 7 years ago

I usually see Hacker News praise African youth for building something, no matter how trivial. I wonder what makes this case different from those others.

In any case, good for them.

hkai• 7 years ago

Perhaps an article without the photo would attract more praise? What do you think?

South African teens fly from Cape to Cairo in plane they assembled from kit

Related Stories