Glad to see Jim is back and still able to fire up the group!

Hope the recovery is going well.

I think the biggest difference to overcome since 30-40 years ago is the change the way people think now.
Remember 40 years ago the WWII veteran crowd was in their 40's and 50's so still in the market for a project. On the other end of the spectrum I had just graduated from high school. Most my age (at that time) were still heavily influenced by the heady days of the Apollo missions and optimistic that anything was possible. No personal computers yet existed, and no one was tell us that the earth was dying and we were responsible and guilty for any and everything bad that was happening.

The influences, sensibilities, motivations, distractions, attention spans, etc. etc. are all different now, so I am not sure that any kit manufacturer has the same fertile market that existed in the '80's, regardless of design. I think the Van's m arket is running hard just to capture the old guys like me. I the last several years, It is very rare to find an active homebuilder younger than 50  (EAA chapter group projects excluded). I used to hang around the airport as a kid for the entertainment value, and that was common. Now it seems like you need a military security clearance for that.

On the positive side. I saw two Q-200 projects this week, while on vacation. Mike Bergen gave me a tour of his plane yesterday, and Imraan showed me his project on Sunday afternoon. Mike's is close enough to get flying before too long and Imraan's has a re-tooled engine that is running now, so will get airborne soon.. Great fun to see those and I learned some new things. Back to my project when I get back from vacation. I am still positive about my old old project

Cheers,
Jay