"It's really exciting to be the owner of any airplane. However, when it's something like this, it's doubly so. It's amazing to
think of going somewhere 500 miles away and know you can
make it in two hours. And, of course, to win grand champion
kit-built award just makes it all that much better."
There are some things Andy doesn't mention about
building the EAA AirVenture Oshkosh 2012 award winner. First, he had the airplane at Oshkosh 2011 (and won
a Bronze Lindy) and listened carefully to what the judges
had to say about his airplane. From the minute he started
building the airplane, he placed great credence on the
advice of others on how to build a safe, good-looking
airplane. So, he took the judges' comments to heart, took
his airplane home, and reworked it. And he won the Gold
next time around.
Andy's story is one of determined self-education and the
pursuit of doing things right. It is also one from which others can learn.
"Even though I had a lot of friends over to help with the
big pieces and to cast their eyes on what I was doing,
looking for errors, building an airplane is basically a lonely pursuit. You spend hours and hours by yourself attending to details that you know for a fact no one will ever see
or appreciate because they're buried far down inside the
airplane. But you do those with the same care that you do
items that are right there in the public's eye. That's simply
the right way to do things. And before anything else, it's
got to be safe and reliable.
"Also, there are times when the immensity of what you're
doing threatens to overwhelm you, and doubt sets in. Those
periods can kill a project, but as long as you keep moving
and keep doing little bits at a time and never stop, the doubt
is erased by the progress being made. Progress is addictive. Once you taste a little, you want more. And before
long, you're racing down the runway in your very own
creation, and it absolutely never gets better than that."
P.S. Did we mention that he took two years to build this
Legacy, too? Oh, yeah, forgot…and while building the
Legacys, he also bought a barely started Skybolt and
finished it. Something about wanting to learn welding is his
explanation. That's almost depressing!
» Andy describes his building experiences in this
short video.
Budd Davisson is an aeronautical engineer, has
flown more than 300 different aircraft types, and
published four books and more than 4,000 articles.
He is editor-in-chief of Flight Journal magazine
and a flight instructor primarily in Pitts/tailwheel
aircraft. Visit him at www.Airbum.com.
Andy and Sam
enjoying their grand
champion award.
Photography by Jim Raeder
EAA Experimenter
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