Panther Sport Aircraft Forums

Hi Dave -

Great to meet you and thanks for your great post! We love to have people share our enthusiasm, it's contagious!
The Panther build is very straight forward and a first time builder will benefit from how simple, but strong, the design is. The most thorough way to get an idea of what the build process is like, is to go to Tony's Picasa album/site and look at how he built the components he has so far. He does an excellent job at explaining how the process works through photos and captions.
Feel free to reach out to Tony with any specific questions - he is has a wealth of knowledge of building homebuilts and the Panther.

Thanks again for following!
-Rachel

Hey guys!
My name is Dave and I have been following the progress and must say I'm hooked! It has been a dream of mine to build my own aircraft and I have been looking at the Sonex/Onex but the Panther changed my mind! Such sweet lines and a real performer in the air. I love it. I'm still realistically a few years from a purchase but it WILL happen and when it does I'm all in! My big question is about skill level. As I have never built before I was drawn to the Sonex for its simplicity and large network of builders to draw from. So my concern is whether a first time builder will be able to handle the Panther build. Any advice would be much appreciated. It's actually the Cougar I'm looking forward to checking out. As a former USN T-34C instructor I have an affinity for the tandem seat configuration.
As I said I'm Dave Pletcher and live in Pittsburgh. I fly for United on the A320/319. Prior to United I was flying P-3Cs and T-34Cs for the Navy. I'm so looking forward to finally getting to see/learn the general aviation side of flying.
You have a beautiful machine Dan (and all). Cheers!