Build It, Fly It: Too Risky?

It wasn't that something was so funny, it was a laugh of joy, knowing that after spending 30 months building his RV-7 plane himself, he was 1,000 feet in the air.

"Every night and long day sweating in the garage and hangar, this one minute made it all worth it," said the 30-year-old Chino Hills computer programmer.

Checkoway's plane is one of about 20,400 homebuilt aircraft registered with the Federal Aviation Administration. The Oshkosh, Wis.-based Experimental Aircraft Assn. says about 1,200 are added to the registry each year, exceeding factory-built small planes.

Homebuilders, as they're known, will typically spend 3,000 hours constructing their planes, starting from the time they remove the fuselage from the plywood box until they take off.

But the world of homebuilt aviation was rocked Wednesday when a Harmon Rocket II, an aircraft similar to Checkoway's RV-7, crashed into a Seal Beach neighborhood shortly after takeoff.

Ross Kay Anderson, a 62-year-old retired Navy fighter pilot, was killed in the accident. Three people on the ground were treated at hospitals and released.

After the crash, Checkoway and other homebuilt aircraft enthusiasts began exchanging e-mails on their message boards, nervous that nonaviators would think homebuilders were cheating death by flying rickety aircraft lacking safety standards.

But homebuilders say they feel safer flying their own planes, because they are there when every rivet is driven and every wire attached.

Dick Knapinski, a spokesman for the Experimental Aircraft Assn., said most homebuilders are experienced pilots and engineers. "None of those people have any interest in being a statistic," Knapinski said. "If you're going to be transporting yourself 3,000 feet up in the air, and flying at 150 mph, you're going to make very sure that every bolt and connection is made correctly."

But therein can lie the problem, some experts say.

"It's nice to feel passionate about assembling your own plane, but there's a certain value to having it done by skilled and regulated professionals," said Richard Aboulafia of the Teal Group, a Fairfax, Va.-based aviation research firm. "You can be the best pilot in the world and have incredible motivation, but a professional riveter will know more about his craft."