After thinking of building a Rutan Longeze and getting the plans I eventually built a Quickie 2 from a raw materials kit. This took years as I was working long hours at the time and also had to give time to being a family man. I sold the project when it was almost complete, with only the surface finishing and painting to be done and a friend who ran a paint shop completed it and flew it for a while. He has since sold it and as far as I know it is still flying.
I next built a Jabiru SP470. THis was another all composite aircraft which was a nice little aircraft with rather peculiar handling characteristics but good fun for over 3 years.
The next homebuilt aircraft was a CZAW Sport Cruiser which I built with a friend from a kit. This was all metal held together with pop rivet fasteners - thousands of them! This flew well but my partner in the project wanted his money out so we sold it.
I then bought an RV9A that had been built by someone else and am currently enjoying flying it. This is the best homebuilt aircraft I have flown by far with very nice coordinated handling and excellent performance, being both fast but also able to land at a reasonable speed which enables me to get into and out of short grass strips when necessary.
The world of home built aircraft building is very much more regulated here in the UK compared with the US. Before starting a project it has to be registered (and has to be an approved design). The builder is then given a build schedule and each stage has to be inspected and signed off. Also we are not allowed to fly IFR or at night in homebuilt aircraft. However, one big advantage is that we are allowed to do our own maintenance, subject to an anual inspection, which is a considerable cost saving over the operation of a production aircraft where all maintenance has to be done at a professional maintenance organisation and everything has to be signed off by licenced engineers.
Chris