|
|
||
|
|
||
| I grew up around airplanes. My father was an Air Force pilot, and one of my earliest memories is of him putting me in the cockpit of a T-33 and saying, "Don't touch anything!" I could not have been more than 5 years old, probably 3 or 4. |
|
|
|
|
||
|
|
||
|
I also remember when I was 6 and we moved to France and had to stay in the BOQ because our furniture had not yet arrived. Apparently the BOQ was near one end of the runway at Laon AFB, because I distinctly remember waking to the double boom of igniting afterburners as the Voodoos took off early in the morning. | |
|
|
||
|
|
||
| My first ride in a small plane happened in Montgomery, Alabama. Dad was stationed there the final 5 years of his Air Force career. Just before he retired from the Air Force in 1968, a friend of his offered him the use of a Cessna 190 for a year. The friend, Bill Podoll, was going to Vietnam; he did not want to sell his plane, and he did not want to let it sit for a year, so he worked out a deal with Dad to use and care for the plane. |
|
|
|
converted from the Cessna 190 I first flew in. |
||
|
|
||
|
From 1968 until 1985 or so, I was "around" airplanes, getting rides on occasion, helping out at airshows, things like that. Then I got busy with my computer programming career and had very little to do with airplanes. | |
|
|
||
|
|
||
| In 1998, after the tornado hit our house and my business was dying a premature death, I grabbed $5000 from my savings and said, "This is going toward getting my Private Pilot's license." Think of it as therapy. I started lessons in May and in September ($6500 later) I passed my checkride for my license. |
|
|
|
after my first solo flight, July 20, 1998. |
||
|
|
||
|
One thing I had wanted to do since high school was build experimental category airplanes. Now that I had a pilot's license, I figured it was time to get serious about building something. Various projects have caught my interest since 1998, but the one that I have settled on is building a replica of the Epps 1924 Monoplane. | |
|
|
||
|
|
||
| It takes a long
time to build a plane, so I can't help but daydreaming about subsequent projects.
One possibility is an ultralight built using the same techniques as
the Epps 1924 (wood and fabric), but a pusher with a slow turning prop designed
to be quiet. This would be my aerial photography plane. Another idea is to build a Midget Mustang with retractable gear, powered by a Honda V-4 engine. To get an idea of how it might look, I "photoshopped" an image of Jim Butler's retract MM1, changing the cowling lines (see the two little exhaust stacks ;-) and adding a belly scoop for the radiator. |
|
|
|
below - proposed V4-powered retractable gear Midget Mustang |
||
|
|
||
|
Another dream of mine is to build a replica of a Lockheed Sirius. The Lockheed planes of the 1920's and 1930's are among my favorites. The Vega came first, followed by variations using the same fuselage and wing in various combinations. The Vega was a high wing, the Air Express was a parasol wing, and the Sirius, Altair, Explorer, and Orion were low wing variations. | |
|
|
||
|
|
||
| To me the Sirius is one of the most beautiful airplanes ever built. The first Sirius was built for Charles Lindbergh and now resides in the National Air and Space Museum. The most beautiful Sirius, in my opinion, was the one called "Anahuac", which was built for Col. Roberto Fierro of the Mexican Air Force. That is the plane I would like to build a replica of. |
|
|
|
|
||
|
|
||
|
I plan to update this area as projects progress. Keep checking back! Who knows what you'll find! | |
|
|
||
|
|
||