I originally started to build a Van's RV-8 and got as far as ordering the empennage and building the vertical stabilizer. If you've followed any of the latest Van's news, you'll know that they filed for Chapter 11 a few months ago and have been working towards a recovery plan. However, this recovery means that they've raised prices on nearly every component they offer, cancelled contracts on customers that have already signed and paid for kit components while also forcing the same customer to pay higher prices for the same kit, and generally strung a bunch of people over a barrel if they were fortunate enough (or unfortunate enough) to have half an airplane already built and waiting on parts. I wasn't so far along in my project that I fell into any of those groups, and while I'd still love to build an RV-8, Van's approach left me wondering if I'd want to send cash to a Chapter 11 company along with the way they treated loyal customers. I understand Van's survival is at stake, but there's something morally wrong with squeezing current customers for nickels and dimes for parts they've already agreed to purchase, and in some cases, have already paid 100% of the purchase price and have yet to see delivery.
I came across the Panther a while ago during my initial research on homebuilding, so I started digging some more into it because I thought it looked like a cool little airplane. It's a single-seater, aerobatic capable to +6/-3G, has folding wings that'd let me store it in a corner of a hangar or even inside a car hauler, and has decent range and cruising speed. I'm most interested in the sunny Saturday afternoon loops and rolls, no real need for IFR or insane cruising range or speeds, and it seemed to check all my boxes for a simple but sporty little airplane that's just fun to fly. The big downside is that it's a single-seater, but I'd probably be doing most of my flying by myself anyways. It's much the same as my riding my motorcycle or cycling: it's an activity that I enjoy for myself, but once in a while it'd be nice to be able to share it with others.
I sent some questions to Sport Performance Aviation, and I was impressed that the owner of SPA, Dan Weseman, answered me directly with straightforward replies. Dan also designed the Panther prototype so it was nice to get direct answers straight from the source rather than through a sales department. It convinced me enough that I put an order in for an empennage kit, which I received about three weeks later.
In terms of the build itself, the plane is built from corrosion resistant 6061 aluminum, a welded steel cage encloses the cockpit from the seatback (which is also protected by a beefy roll bar) to firewall, can be solid riveted or blind riveted (I've decided to build the latter), and is generally designed to be a simple build without a huge number of complex shapes or parts to fabricate. I've decided to use blind rivets because, in my opinion, they are a little easier to build with since the various bits and bobs don't need to be dimpled/countersunk, and the very nature of blind rivets means I don't need access to both the front and rear of the work piece which makes it a lot easier to be a one person job. This is especially true when it comes to items like the tailcone where the pieces are simply too large to be able to reach around to buck rivets - my wife wasn't looking forward to being jammed into the tailcone of the RV-8 with a bucking bar and a set of ear plugs. I'm okay at setting solid rivets, but the ease of setting blind rivets is really appealing to me. Plus, I just like the look of a 'mechanical' airplane. The sleek ones are cool and everything, but there's something that calls to me about an airplane that just looks functional where you can see rivet lines along with the various mechanical things that an airplane needs to fly. I'm weird that way.