Experimenter is a magazine created by EAA for people who build airplanes. We will report on amateur-built aircraft as well as ultralights and other light aircraft.
Issue link: http://experimenter.epubxp.com/i/101874
I f I C a n D o T hi s careers. Granted, I know how to use the basics: hammers, drills, and screwdrivers, but not really for anything more challenging than the sort of furniture you have to assemble yourself. In addition to my general inexperience with tools, I'm also an impatient, procrastinating perfectionist, which is a spectacularly bad combination of traits. This means that if you want a lousy job started late and done hastily, but never actually finished since it won't live up to my impossibly high standards, I'm your man. In spite of, or maybe specifically because of these traits, I've always looked at real builders and restorers with a certain sense of awe. I'm an enthusiastic spectator, and as an EAA staffer, an unabashed advocate for the real "doers." I can speak their language to a degree—I can order dinner but will never pass as a native—and for some reason, I'm always an honorary member of that nebulous group defined as those who "get it." Still, I sometimes glance nervously over my shoulder, wondering if someone is going to call me out and remind me that I have no business here. When I've visited projects in progress, admired, or even flown someone's finished aircraft, I've come away with a tremendous appreciation for the work that went into it, but I've always left with an unspoken and slightly depressing "But…I could never…" In addition to being a little depressing, that's also frustrating, and as it turns out, completely wrong. When I found out that EAA staff would have the opportunity to build an airplane, a Zenith CH 750, I was stoked. In fact, I was a little surprised at how excited I was until it hit me: I'd be working on a project that was essentially guaranteed to succeed. Led by experienced staff builders with as many as 30 people working on it at various times, not to mention the stellar support from Sebastien Heintz and everyone else at Zenith, this airplane will be finished and flown, period. And more to the point, this will happen with or without me, and there's almost nothing I can do to screw it up. My only obligation is to show up, get my hands dirty (figuratively speaking), and learn. In short, given the combination of this support and the fact that the CH 750 must be one of the simplest kits out there, it feels as if all of us working on this project are absolutely spoiled rotten. But really, it just comes down to a bunch of EAA members helping each other out, which I think is exactly what Paul Poberezny had in mind at that first meeting 60 years ago this month. Jef Benedict (lef) and Timm Bogenhagen check a measurement. Jef is Visual Display Coordinator for EAA's Marketing group while Timm serves as EAA's Ultralight/Lightplane Community Manager and is also a Member Products Specialist. 50 Vol.2 No.1 / January 2013