The recent sale of the Kitfox from the badass high action Jonas team combined with the concurrent Jonas new design/build of Defiance and the Patey build of Scrappy has me thinking… I do not know the FAA laws and that may kill this thought, but here it is.


With the new vision and freedom of truly custom built designs, I see an unfilled huge opportunity for custom fuselage/cage specific suppliers and for custom wing specific suppliers. With the wing / cage connection design an agreed constant (Beta / VHS), it would be possible to build a perfect plane from dozens of custom non related suppliers. We are already doing this with props, engines, gear box, gear, tires, brakes, panels, why not have options for inter-changeable fuselage/cages and wings and feathers. Cable control will probable be easier than pushrod with so many variables.


My custom build would start with a wider cage for sure - I am a bigger guy and I want more comfort - I am so tired of the skinny 60’s era side by side shoulder width - I will give up speed to have more a little more width. Im not interested in stol competing so for power an Edge 120-150ish would be fine. I do want to drop into rough places so I would want a stol wing for sure with flaps, larger feathers for better slow speed control, and nice TK1 gear and big Alaska tires and Beringer brakes for ground control. All my flying would be local so a climb pitch prop wins over cruise - ground adjust is fine. I like to camp so I need a larger baggage area and it would be great to be able to flatten out the seats (or detach backrest) and suspend a sleeping pad inside. Im a tech guy so the panel would be full Garmin glass. I do not care about exterior shine, so the cover job would be single color oratex - whatever color is on sale that day wins.


If I could acquire a wide cage from Jonas or Patey or other and a stol wing with flaps from Steve I would start tomorrow. Third party inspection of welds and build would be on my list.

The wildcard and mild barrier to entry is the cage jig. A true square box frame can be home built with the right skill set and tool box or can ordered from any respected precision machine shop and delivered on flatbed anywhere - this would be the starting point for a square jig. Once the new custom cage jig is final set inside the frame box, source the tubes precision with perfect fit ends from a local CNC shop and you are in the custom cookie cutter cage business. At the end of the day, the cage jig is king - no cage, no nothing.


As I said at the top, I do not know what FAA rules say about this buffet style build. What are the regs on building the core plane (fuse/wing/feathers) with components sourced from more than 1 supplier. Would each finished build need a type cert?

In the biking world, it is now very popular to buy a naked carbon frame, and add every single component from rims to tires to brakes to seat to pedals to chain to gears to hub set, to handle bars - everything - to build a truly custom one of a kind bike.


This user controlled and defined build may be the direction we are heading. Question is would you do it - would you buy a cage and wing from different suppliers just as you do a engine and tires now. With the bush designs this is easy, others including plastics not so, but for the space we are playing, I think this may be an option.

Just a thought.