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/142883
H o m e b uil d e r 's C or n e r Exile…A Year Without Building Are you a builder or a pilot? By Charlie Becker Last June, I accepted a job out East, and the big eyeopener for me was the price of real estate. Not wanting to take out a big loan to buy a house, I settled for a condo. When I made that decision, I knew this would mean that I would have no workshop available to continue building my Pirate Cub (www.facebook.com/PirateCub). I figured that with a new job, a new home, and a new town, I'd have plenty to keep me busy and would just put building on the shelf for a while until I could figure something out. So when I moved, I sent my "ultimate set of tools" into exile and put my aircraft project into cold storage. As fortune would have it, a beautiful clipped-wing Piper Cub became available, so I bought half of it. Without a project, I figured flying the Cub would keep me busy. I felt lost. Luckily, I was able to talk a friend from my EAA chapter into helping with the construction. What I realized during this year of exile from homebuilding is how important the building process is to me. I derive a tremendous amount of enjoyment from constructing an aircraft. The opportunity to use my "hand and mind" to create something, as Paul Poberezny often says, is very important to me. I enjoy the challenge of building and the satisfaction that comes from finally getting a part built. I realized that what gives me joy in aviation isn't so much the finished aircraft but the journey of constructing an aircraft. I was reminded that good flying weather is limited, but the opportunity to build is always available. All you have to do is walk out to your shop and turn on the lights. I learned that you don't need daylight to work on a project, but you do to fly a Cub. Good plan on paper. After having at least one homebuilt project in my workshop for the past 17 years or so, the lack of a workshop hit me hard. Every time I needed to fix something or build something, I would gnash my teeth and think, "If I only had my workshop this project would be easy!" I needed to build a taildragger towbar to make moving the Cub around easier, but of course, I had no scrap steel or cutoff saw or angle grinder or welder. 4 Vol.2 No.7 / July 2013 What this time off from building convinced me of was that my involvement in aviation has evolved to where I am an aircraft builder first and a pilot second. So I know from here on out that I'll never give up the opportunity to have a shop and a project to go with it. The good news is my wife has probably already figured this out! And soon we'll be moving into a house that will allow me to get my tools out of exile and set up my workshop again.