Significant changes in Homebuilt Judging are coming, with implementation expected at next year’s AirVenture. Dave Juckem, chairman of the Homebuilt Judging team, held a forum earlier this week and announced some of the anticipated updates. Here’s a preview of what’s likely on the horizon.
First—and perhaps most important to aircraft builders—will be a return to scrutinizing builder logs to ensure the aircraft was built by the owner. The build log may be in any form (e.g., paper, digital, URL, etc.). The log will not be judged for quality, but it must be adequate to show who built the plane. This marks a clear shift away from awarding “pro-builds.”
The second change—already implemented this year—is that the judging team is working to identify potential award-winners on the first pass for a second, more in-depth viewing. The panel is contacting top contenders to schedule a time later in the week when the owners can be present at their aircraft, allowing the full judging group to evaluate these candidates more thoroughly.
Additionally, changes are coming to the Paul H. Poberezny Classic Award and the Stan Dzik Memorial Award for Outstanding Design Contribution. After this week, the judging team will begin re-writing the official rules and plans to share the updates this winter, likely through EAA’s Sport Aviation.
At last! Some of the awards over the last few years have been for aircraft that have highly polished paint, straight stitching lines but are overweight and have dubious airworthiness qualities. Craftsmanship counts but not at the expense of airworthiness or flying qualities and performance. Innovation should also score. The underlying construction is as important as 20 layers of polished paint.
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