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Average build times

Poolecw

I'm New Here
What's a realistic total build time that a first time builder can expect when starting a new 7a project? Assume full Saturday and Sundays could be dedicated, along with some occasional evening weekday work.

I read posts and see videos where guys are taking 10 years to build an RV. Surely there has to be long breaks in this timeframes.
 
You're right - the biggest efficiencies come when you can string together at least several hours daily, multiple days in a row - takes less time to mentally catch up to the next task. Having a project at home, where you can run out and work every day, even for just an hour, will be beneficial. Progress slowed down remarkably with just a 20 minute drive to the hangar.

My goal was to get a plane, keep a wife, and make sure my family did not resent the build. Still working full time. I'm a member of the "10 year" build club, but a "forever" family. Finished it 2 years ago, no regrets, other than having to wait to fly.

That being said, now that I'm close to retirement, the NEXT plane will be built much quicker! :)

Phil B
RV-10
Bountiful, UT (KBTF)
 
Seven year club

I'm in the "Seven Year" club. I'm slow. I spend a lot of time studyjng and planning. Just passed 90% with 90% to go. Basically means the airframe is done and now it's all time consuming jobs. Canopy and fiberglass tips a done. Starting Firewall Forward soon.
 
Well, I'm a first-time builder and July 1st of this year marked 3 years since I started the project. Like you are planning to do, I'm a weekend warrior on my project with occasional evening time available to dedicate. My project is in my garage at home and I believe this set up has hugely contributed to my progress. All standard/slow build. Tail, wings, and fuselage are mostly done (minus fiberglass). I pretty much have the finish kit still to complete (i.e., slider canopy, gear/wheels, etc.) and I still don't have an engine.

I would like to think I'll be done in two years from now....but, I don't know. I think I'm ahead of the average pace for an RV7. So, I think I'm on a 5-year plan and I assure you there have been no long-term gaps when I didn't work on the project...maybe a weekend here or there that I didn't do something on it. I have been making more progress during Covid-19 because I work from home and save ~2hrs drive time each day. I've enjoyed the build immensely, family is still intact, and don't regret going standard/slow build. Hope this helps!

Ryan
 
I picked up a kit second hand that was in quick build state. The original builder spent 10 years getting it there, but had several years of inactivity. I spent just over 2 years finishing it (not yet painted or IFR capable) with almost every weekend, holiday and vacation day available. But, having A&P experience and nearly all the tools helped a lot.
 
2 years & counting

I've been building my -9 for two years now, and during that time there's been periods of fast building, and periods of things going slow. Summer is definitely much easier to get things done, as I'll often work into the evening in the shed, where it's just too cold in winter. My idea of NYE fun was riveting my left wing together! At the time I started building I was working away from home for most of the week, and that had a big impact (e.g. it took me 9mths to build the left wing, 3mths during Covid induced stay at home to build the right wing). My initial plan was to finish before a major milestone birthday coming up in about 18mths from now, which would've given me about a 3.5yr total build time. I'm now thinking that might be optimistic by about 12 months, but it depends. I've been fairly fast on some parts of the build, but slower on others (not that I really minded - I'm enjoying learning the new skills along the way). I also (dare I say it!) Alodine & prime and that does add quite a bit to the building time, at a guess I'd say 20-25% longer time on the structural stuff.

Fortunately, my kids are independent (though still at home), my wife has her interests, but nonetheless it's still a juggle to not spend too much time in the shed pounding rivets. I should also say that during the build, I've still done plenty around the house, building retaining walls, gardens, chopping firewood, helping my wife with her large four-legged friends, and even the occasional hour in a Citabria.
 
I'm on pace for a 10-11 year build, too. There was a break or thre in there to build a workshop, deal with my wife's medical issues, and adopt a baby. Now the limiting factor is just working time--it's hard to get a lot of contiguous time in the shop with a four-year-old at home and COVID isn't helping matters. I'm lucky to get 3-4 hours in per week right now. I expect another two and a half years or so, but at least now I'm past the point where the pacing item is now working time and not funding.

Philb is right about the efficiency of longer work sessions, but your ability to do those may vary. If you're retired, or don't have young children, or something like that, you will probably be able to get a lot more building time in than someone like me. My dad's -6 took 5.5 years, but he had an airline schedule and a reasonably competent helper (me) who could do small tasks after school and on weekends while he was on a trip.
 
Just over 5 years for a 7A, slow build. I'd shoot for as much weekend time as I could get on both Saturday and Sunday, and generally about 2-3 hours on weeknights (knocking off at 9 so as not to annoy neighbors or spouse). Built in the garage.

A few periods of inactivity (a month or so here and there), but then I'd get the word: "nobody is going to build it for you!". Also work trips, mostly domestic, a few overseas, about every month or two for a week at a time (gotta work to fly!).

Never in a hurry, but steady progress the whole time, pretty much.

Biggest advice? Do *something* every day if you can, whenever possible if you can't. Do absolutely everything you possibly can *at home*, before moving it to the airport. Remember to make haste slowly (don't get in a hurry with a task).
 
Our (standard build) -9 took me 2yr 7mo and all of that was pretty much every waking moment that I wasn't at the day job. I was highly motivated and had a lot of domestic support such that almost my only responsibilities were to go to work, make a buck, and build the plane that whole time.

Our second build... Well, it is right here next to me and I think we're on about year 12, but obviously I'm not grinding away at it. I'll get to it when I get to it.

I think the key is to start NOW. Even if you don't know how you're going to finish it. It just might change your life. It did for us.
 
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I built my 8 in 3.5 years. That was working on it almost every day, some days it was 10 minutes other days 10 hours, just depending on what life allowed and how much I felt like working on it. I think 3-5 years is realistic for a motivated builder that really wants to get it done.
 
My quickbuild 7A took 6 years including paint. Was paying as I went so was waiting for money at times. Wanted to enjoy the build so I never misses a ski powder day or a hiking trip. I enjoyed the process.
 
Oh, this is easy. It's going to take up all your time until you get it done.

That! There were quite a few days that I made the 1hr commute to the office in the morning and couldn't remember the drive when I got to my desk. Was I sleeping? Nope, high on RV building for the commute.
 
For me it was 12 years on the calendar.

Take off five years of major breaks for taking care of family...births, deaths, marriages...the stuff of life. Time when months, or years, would pass without a thought to building.

Seven years of semi-focused building is left. Take off two years waiting for kits to arrive, engine and prop to ship, weather to clear, finances to line up. Five years.

Subtract the hours of idle time trying to pick up where I last left off and I bet I could have built it in three years.

First flew it three years ago, and I wouldn't trade a minute from the day I ordered the first kit. Enjoy the journey!
 
Build Time

I bought a partial build that was at about the quick build stage for wings and fuselage. Spent the first six months going through every rivet and checking the plans and build. All excellent but needed the service bulletin updates done so took the stabilizer apart to do the big one and update the elevator trim to electric. Now 4 years on and general observations are that the mechanical airframe work goes fairly quickly and predictably. I had a good set of tools, mechanical skills, large home workshop but this was my first aircraft build. The apparent progress really slows down for firewall forward, avionics and canopy build. Any time you go off plans there is a lot of time spent figuring parts, making sure you are not screwing something else up, reordering parts and reworking when you do. Being retired I try and get something done every day to make progress. It will get done when it is finished and should fly when there is a vaccine for Covid. would have been flying by now if not for the virus.

KT
 
Multiply times Pi.

An acquaintance told me to multiply the estimated time and money by Pi. He turned out to be right. I originally planned for $35K and 2 years.
 
Well let's see... m girlfriend at the time bought my tail kit in 02 or 03... I should be flying later this year. There was at least a 10-12+ year no work at all hiatus in there though.
 
I took 4.5 years. Lots of weekday evenings in the garage, and long days on the weekend. I only took a couple of months off over the duration. Business trips, family vacations, holidays, etc.
It isn't a race, but if you do something everyday, it will eventually be ready to fly.
 
Slow-build 7; 8.5 years of mostly all weekends and holidays, 99% done solo; lots of planning and VAF reading during the week, but not much shop time due to family and life constraints. It's hard to believe it took that long.
 
Van's had a story back in the 90's about a guy that built a 6 in 6 months.......NOTHING pre-punched.......:eek:
 
Fast build RVs

I took a look at a 9 that had been built from quick build kits to flying in less than a year for a friend that was considering purchasing. It was probably safe but all the places in the build where you have to take your time and iterate to the final solution needed clean up remedial work. We didn’t even take the inspection panels off , just walked away. For home build kits Vans have done an amazing job but if it was production engineering the grade wouldnt be that high and to build it fast, good production engineering is required to do it once and get it right. So a good question to ask of any seller is time to completion and be very wary of those that got done really fast.

KT
 
5 years

I built by quick build 7A in 5 years. Here's the biggest key to a "quicker build"
on any of the kits. Have the project in you house/garage/building/whatever so that's is nearly immediately available. That way you can do it more frequently. Also VERY important is a comfortable shop.... heat or AC as needed. All this info is in the Vans Manual too.
 
If you want to fly, buy a flying RV.

If you want to build, any reasonable calendar time to build will take a pretty dedicated effort. Building is fun and learning the skills to do it is a great experience. Hours aren't a great measure. If you do multiple hours every day it will take way less total time than 10 hours one day and a week long break to the next session. If you are a perfectionist, double the amount of time.

I personally made the call recently to sell my -7 project. It was fun and I learned a lot but I wanted to spend time with family and on other hobbies, instead of by myself in the workshop. I also like flying my -4 better than the -7, I couldn't see that much effort to complete it, just to be able fly heavier passengers once or twice a year.
 
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Every time someone has asked, I say it's going to probably be done in about 2 years. That response has been going on for about three years now. I've made peace with the fact that it will be done when it's done and it's not a race. I think it would have taken at least 3x longer if it were not in my garage. I got the most done during stretches where I worked on it at least 1 hour a day. Whenever I took 2 or more days off in a row, I lost momentum, forgot where I was, and lost time. This is why I turned down a hangar when it became available and put myself back at the end of the line. Once it's in the hangar work is likely to slow to a crawl :(
 
3 yrs, 11 months for me (1st time builder). All slow build. Averaged 3-4 full work days per week.
 
An acquaintance told me to multiply the estimated time and money by Pi. He turned out to be right. I originally planned for $35K and 2 years.

T,act = T,est x Pi

That is great :) ... and absolutley accurate!
 
14 years of the equivalent to working on it every Sunday afternoon (4.5 hrs average per week) = one finished slow-build RV7A. 3312 hrs total shop time logged.

2.5 hr build sessions seemed to be the most productive. My project was a 15 minute drive from home which significantly limited the number of evenings I would go to the shop. I used these evenings for reading, planning, ordering.

I prioritised build quality and features over speed of construction, and very glad I did.

Advice:
Keep the momentum going. Do something (working, figuring, studying, ordering parts) every day.

Hit the floor running when you actually get to the shop.

Don’t work when visitors are in the shop, unless they are there to help.

BTW, I love the way this plane handles and performs. Nothing to fix or change.
 

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Actual shop hours?

First time RV-8 slow-build.
99% of the time solo.
Started early 2012, working mainly on weekdays off work (had irregular working shifts).
Very rarely on weekends.
I suffered two, 1 year breaks due to changing continents and professional duties.


Years and months of building time can be irrelevant to some point.
Between working on weekends only or building full-time, building from their homes or further away, building simple or complex, many factors will impact calendar lenght.
From December last year, I took the liberty to take a sabaticcal to work full-time on getting the project to flying status. (note that I didn't mention complete, as it never is...;))

I keep a build time log, not as accurate as a flying logbook but close enough.
To date, I'm at 1925 hours shop time in 715 working sessions. That's 2.7 hours per workday on average.
That's not including study, VAF, research, planing, etc. which is considerable.
I would like to be flying yesterday of course, but I resist temptation to rush anything prefering to do my best to a acheive a best practice standard or better.
I understand that 2500 - 3000 hours are common build time for a 7 or 8 model?

It would be informative, to learn from those who did keep a time log of their build, to have an their actual build hours.
From there, one could extrapolate the calendar lenght required according to their work availabilities.
Passion, Perseverance and Patience are my 3 "P"s
Keep pounding, etc...!!!:D
 
My standard built 7 is declared airworthy by the DAR and waits now for registration. Started in 2009 but there was a 7 year break in between due to things that can come along with life. That makes 4 years with around 3000 shop hours. But everybody counts different and i never put myself in a hurry.

As others mentioned already... best advise is to do something on the project every day you can afford to do so. And if it's just 30 minutes/day, that's completeley fine. At some point it will be finished and you will not care if you don't get an article in guinness book. You should not compare yourself with others as everybody has his/her own pace.
 
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Purchased a pretty much untouched -7 QB kit and completed in 14 months. I had previously completed an early slow build-6 in 2 years. Not having a normal 9-5 job allowed me to devote large blocks of time to the build. I found that usually took me an hour or so to get "up to speed" in the shop, then I would stay at it for 8-10 hours at a clip. Think ahead and order what you will need well in advance as not to delay your progress, have everything you need on hand. Give yourself plenty of lead time when ordering engine, prop, avionics and interior.
VAF is a fantastic resource for a builder.
 
Slow build all the way. I took 4 1/2 years to complete my 7A. It would have taken much longer if I hadn't been able to build it at my house. On some days I only worked on it 5 minutes, but I did work on it some almost every single day. I didn't keep track of my hours because I couldn't see how that would be relevant -- the FAA doesn't care.

My tips for finishing:
1. Work on it every day.
2. Don't add too many extras (There's plenty of time for that after it's flying).
3. This is important, don't wait on anything. Make sure that you understand the lead times for everything. Plan to have everything you need for the next task at least a month in advance.
 
2,000 hours... ish

About 2,000 construction hours however you do it... a bit less if you stack it up, and a bit more if you drag it out. Lots more if you really drag it out.
 
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