Addressing the Elephant in the Room
When you tell someone you’re joining a flying club that operates experimental amateur-built aircraft, the reaction is predictable. “Homebuilt? Is that safe?” The word “homebuilt” conjures images of a guy in a garage welding something together from YouTube tutorials and good intentions. That image is unfair to the actual experimental community, and it’s worth addressing directly — because safety is not a secondary concern for South Shore Flyers. It’s the foundation everything else is built on.
Here’s what the data and the community actually look like.
The Numbers on Experimental Safety
The NTSB maintains comprehensive accident records for both certified and experimental aircraft, and the data tells a more nuanced story than the “homebuilts are dangerous” narrative. Experimental aircraft as a category do have a higher accident rate per flight hour than certified aircraft — but when you drill into the data, the causes are illuminating:
- The majority of experimental accidents occur during the initial test flight phase of newly built aircraft — before an EAB aircraft has logged any hours with a type-rated pilot community
- Builder error during construction accounts for a significant share of early-hours accidents
- For mature designs with established fleets — aircraft with thousands of flying examples and decades of operational history — the accident profile looks much more like certified aircraft
- Pilot currency and proficiency issues (common to all general aviation accidents) account for a substantial portion of the remainder
The implication is clear: a flying club operating a mature, proven experimental design — not a one-off prototype — and applying rigorous checkout and currency requirements is not accepting unusual risk. It is managing known, addressable risks in a structured way.
The Van’s RV Community: A Fleet-Scale Safety Resource
Over 11,000 Van’s RV aircraft are currently flying worldwide. That number is not just a marketing statistic — it’s a safety infrastructure. A fleet of that size means:
- Service Difficulty Reports and accident data that cover every significant failure mode the design has ever experienced
- An active, searchable technical forum (VAF — Van’s Air Force) with hundreds of thousands of posts documenting builder and owner decisions across every aircraft system
- Factory-issued service bulletins and technical notes from Van’s Aircraft addressing identified issues proactively
- A robust used aircraft market where aircraft with known good histories are readily available
- Annual RV fly-ins and type-specific safety seminars
When a South Shore Flyers member has a question about the RV-9A’s fuel system behavior at high angles of attack, there are thousands of pilots who have already asked that question and documented the answer. That community knowledge base is a genuine safety asset.
The Canard Community: Decades of Operational Wisdom
Burt Rutan’s canard pusher designs — the VariEze, Long-EZ, and the Cozy family that followed — have been flying since the late 1970s. That longevity means the community has worked through every operational quirk these aircraft present.
The Canard Pusher newsletter, originally published by Rutan’s RAF company, is an extraordinary technical resource documenting design refinements, operational guidance, and accident analysis accumulated over four decades. The Long-EZ/Cozy owners and builders associations maintain active forums, type-specific training resources, and mentorship networks. Checkout training for canard types is available from experienced instructors who have logged thousands of hours in these specific designs.
The CG loading discipline that canards require — a real consideration the club will address in checkout training — is well-documented and teachable. It is not a mystery or an obscure hazard; it is a known characteristic that pilots learn to manage as a routine part of operating the type.
Glasair Owners and Builders: A Professional-Grade Community
The Glasair family has been in production since 1979, making it one of the longest-running experimental aircraft lines in existence. The Glasair Owners and Builders Association (GOBA) provides technical support, service bulletins, and an active community for Glasair, Glastar, and Sportsman owners. Glasair Aviation’s factory in Arlington, Washington continues to support the entire product line.
The Glasair III and Sportsman, both under consideration for South Shore Flyers, benefit from this infrastructure directly. When a maintenance question arises, the answer exists — usually in multiple forms, from multiple sources, with real-world validation.
EAA: The Backbone of the Experimental Support Network
The Experimental Aircraft Association is the organizational backbone of everything the experimental community does well. For South Shore Flyers, the relevant EAA resources include:
- EAA Chapter 932 in Valparaiso: An active local chapter minutes from KMGC, providing access to technical counselors, flight advisors, and a community of experienced experimental aircraft builders and pilots
- EAA Technical Counselors: Volunteer experts who inspect aircraft under construction and after completion to identify potential issues — a free safety service that no certified aircraft program offers
- EAA Flight Advisors: Experienced pilots who help new experimental aircraft owners with first-flight procedures and transition training
- EAA SportAir Workshops: Hands-on maintenance and construction training covering composite work, sheet metal, avionics, and engine maintenance
- EAA AirVenture: The annual gathering at Oshkosh includes type-specific forums, safety seminars, and access to factory representatives from every major kit manufacturer
How South Shore Flyers Will Build Safety Culture
The club’s safety program will be built on concrete requirements, not aspirational language. The framework includes:
- Initial checkout: Every member, regardless of total experience, completes a checkout flight with a CFI who is type-current in the club aircraft before flying it solo. No exceptions.
- Currency minimums: Members must meet minimum flight recency requirements — to be defined in the bylaws by founding members — or complete a brief checkout before resuming solo flight privileges
- Safety meetings: Regular club safety events featuring accident case studies, guest speakers, and systems reviews
- Maintenance transparency: All maintenance actions are logged and visible to all members. No deferred squawks without documented concurrence.
- Personal minimums training: The club will encourage and support members in developing and documenting their personal weather and currency minimums — a core safety behavior that general aviation organizations consistently identify as accident-preventive
The Honest Assessment
Flying carries risk. All of it — in a 172, in a Boeing 737, in a well-built RV-9A. The goal of aviation safety culture is not to eliminate risk (that’s impossible) but to identify, understand, and manage it intelligently. The experimental community, at its best, does exactly that. The resources are there. The knowledge base is there. The community support is there.
South Shore Flyers will use all of it.
Join the Founders List to be part of building a club where safety is a lived practice, not a liability disclaimer.
