Experimenter is a magazine created by EAA for people who build airplanes. We will report on amateur-built aircraft as well as ultralights and other light aircraft.
Issue link: http://experimenter.epubxp.com/i/113663
H o m e b uil d e r 's C or n e r Forums Great places for information sharing By Chad Jensen I was thinking about the word "forums" recently and how it related to our homebuilt airplanes. I can't think of another word that has changed in overall reach and increased in breadth more over the 60 years of EAA history. Nowadays, the basic word has a number of meanings according to Dictionary.com. Two of them are relevant to our discussion. Both provide the opportunity for information exchange, but they give that opportunity in drastically different ways. An "old" definition, which is still very relevant today, is "a meeting or medium" where ideas and views on a particular issue can be exchanged. This definition represents what many longtime EAAers know as the group meetings that have been taking place at the convention since the early days where someone, typically a subject matter expert, will stand in front of a crowd and give a presentation on a topic or issue. We still do these forums to this day at EAA AirVenture Oshkosh. In fact, we do so many that you could pack your entire week of convention with forums! The other side of forums as we know them today is in the world of electrons and digital information on the Internet. The definition of forums in this case is simply an Internet message board. These "boards," as many people call them today, can be an absolute wealth of information. I do have to add a word of caution to that statement, however. There are members of forums who present bad information, knowingly or not, so just be sure that what you read on Internet forums is taken with a smidgeon of salt, but rest assured that much of the information you will find is good and useful. The boards available to builders today are so popular that people become friends on the Internet well before they ever meet face to face. Think about this. I am just old enough to remember when the word "Internet" was not a part of anyone's vocabulary. Today, it's so prevalent in our world that we are making friends with people of common interest without ever seeing them! Some of my very best friends have come from the period of my life when I built the RV-7 and used forums regularly. Although I sold the airplane, I still have the friends. EAA launched its new message board, http://EAAforums. org/forum.php, in July 2012, and it has proved to be a popular place for people of all build levels and diverse interests to come together to get answers to their questions and for others to pass along information to help the next person get started. There are numerous forums for almost every type of homebuilt you can imagine, and if you haven't found the right online meeting place yet, do a search for your type, or check out EAA Forums for wonderful information along with some great camaraderie and new friends! On the cover: A great view of the elliptical wing of Scott Christiansen's Ellipse. (Photography by Phil High) 2 Vol.2 N o.3 / M arch 2013