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ORIGINAL: MasterG2kTR

While I am not an aviation enthusiast, I strongly recommend you plan a trip to Oshkosh, Wisconsin next August. The first week in August is the annual EAA Fly-in convention, and yes, this is the big one for all the airheads (no pun intended) out there. There you will be able to meet and talk with all kinds of hobbyists, home builders, and pros, with enough info to send you to the moon. I've attended the fly-in myself a couple of times just for the visual impact of variety and wonderment.

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ORIGINAL: anthrosub

It depends on what sort of flying you want to do. I have found that to be the biggest determining factor in what sort of plane to build. In my case it was just being able to fly and also being able to afford it. I started off with hang gliding and graduated to ultralights. Of course, things have changed since I built my aircraft (I built three over 10 years of flying). It used to be you needed a pilot's license to fly and getting the training would cost around $2500 (in 1980 dollars). Then if you didn't own a plane you would have to rent one which would run maybe $75/hr. plus fuel which back then sold for around $9/gal. This was just to fly.

So my solution was to get into ultralights. They have also come a long way since then. I built a Weedhopper, then a Phantom, and finally a Hiperlight biplane. The Weedhopper was basically a powered hang glider in terms of performance but the Phantom and Hiperlight were true aircraft. The Hiperlight was fully enclosed and the Phantom had greater G-force ratings than most fighter jets and could actually do aerobatics.

Today you can buy a Phantom for around $13K (I bought and built mine for $3500). The Hiperlight is available for $16.5K (I bought mine for $8400). You do not need a license to fly these aircraft but you do need to know how to fly and know all the FAA rules and regulations. If you do not want to get into ultralights, the next step up is a Sport Pilot's certificate and a plane that is approved for that class of flying (mostly short hops during the day in good weather). I have been thinking of getting back into it myself. I stopped after 10 years because flying alone can get boring after a while and as one of my buddies said, "Eventually you get tired of drilling holes in the sky."

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ORIGINAL: hizgeorgiapeach

You were paying a LOT for you fuel - and for your CFI.  What area were  you flying out of that things were that expensive??
 
When I took my primary training - '91/'92, and even when I did my instrument training in late '93 - avgas was running about $3.89 a gallon here in OKC, and the planes I was renting (primarily a Piper Cherokee, Piper Arrow, and Piper Tomahawk) were running between $45/hr for the Cherokee to $65/hr for the Arrow.  (The Arrow was more expensive because it was both hi performance and retrac - got both those sign offs on my certs in the same plane.)