The idea of building a plane has been in me for quite a long time but I’ve never really thought I could do it. I used to be an avid reader of rvproject.com (now defunct) and it was a gripping tale of a plane taking shape but it looked really really complicated. I’m excited when I replace a door, fix a toilet, change the spark plugs on my car – would I really want to sit in a vehicle which I had created? And then came this tweet:
A little investigation revealed the STOL750, a light sport airplane that looks a lot of fun to fly, but is also aimed at the novice kit plane builder. Looking over the information on their website this really seems like something I could do. Better still you can try it out for an outlay of “just” $400 (plus tools etc) – if I am totally able to follow a detailed photo plan, and yield a rivet gun then I’m only out the cost of a weekend away. Oh, I’m also totally humiliated but that’s for me to deal with later!
And so, a week or two later, I’ve received the official information kit from Zenith, and a detailed DVD on how to build their rudder/intro to working with metal. The former is exciting, the latter (other than attaching the skin) looked real straightforward. Maybe I really am going to do this?
Looks like I am going to London for work in July so, depending on the how long it takes for the rudder kit to ship, it will probably be August before I start anything for real. But until then, one thing I know I can do is websites, so here is what will either be the tale of N750PS, or a sorry tale of a idiot who doesn’t now a cleco from a rivet.