Further clarification:  Rick Schrameck did not state quite right the building of my Epic kit by amateurs for the “education and recreation”  There are more than 350 man days of amateur building, utilizing time as the metric.  This includes my sons, friends and myself.  Rick left out the friends that contributed. 

In my case amateur builders have completed 62% of the tasks on a modified 8000-38 that reflects the Epic or 56% of the tasks utilizing the FAA’s 8000-38.  Yet the denial is based on “In my experience, to produce an airplane of this sophistication within 234 days would have required substantial professional assistance.”  My response is yes there was substantial professional assistance and it was clearly less than half. 

Just a couple of side notes: 

Cirrus builds a plane in 7 days!  And that includes paint, upholstery, panel, propeller and engine which are specifically excluded from the 51% amateur build requirements.

The Epic is no more complicated than the Lancair IVP that my sons and I built.  It is bigger so one can actually get at things more easily.  It has 2 more systems than my IVP has—air conditioning and deice boots.  I actually learned how to put on boots working with Epic’s A and P.  The parts fit straight out of the mold—it is amazing what Solid Works and CNC tooling can do to generate molds that produce parts within a few thousands—parts that are so smooth and accurate that you can do the body work for the entire plane in less than 100 hours. 

Carl Cadwell

909 North Kellogg Street

Kennewick, Washington 99336

(509) 735-6481

1-800-245-3001

Fax:  (509) 783-6503

carlc@cadwell.com

www.cadwell.com

www.quickmed.com