Not me. I made my choice and I’m happy with it. But I swear I have not had this much well-intentioned second guessing since I announced my engagement to the woman I’ve been married to for nearly four decades.
“You should build a Hatz.” No, I love the look of the Hatz but it’s not LSA. “Oh, a Hatz Bantam.” Nope, sorry. I’m tired of aluminum, it’s got a welded fuselage (which I did not want to build) and at the time I was looking was designed ONLY for a Jabiru engine, nothing else. “Oh, you should build a Murphy Renegade.” Ummm, nope. Two-strokes are simply not an option for me. And on and on, with every non-LSA, or steel fuselage, all aluminum or single seat variation on the planet mentioned.
“Oh, just go find someone’s abandoned project.” No thanks, I think I can do fine at creating my own problems, no need to try to find what someone else did wrong or “different” along the way. I’m not traveling the country inspecting half-built (or wrecked) airframes to see if they’re suitable. And would YOU buy that plane that was built but has been sitting for a few years, and has never flown? Maybe there is a reason it’s never been given an airworthiness certificate.
Holy crap. Can’t a guy pick an airplane and build it without everybody on the planet having a better idea? No matter. I’m building on. I learned my lesson the first time around. It’s really easy to get wrapped up in so much well meaning advice that you spend a few thousand hours on something like this, and never finish it.