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 other light aircraft.
Issue link: http://experimenter.epubxp.com/i/81495
By Mary Jones "You're building a what where?" Do you tire of people asking that question when you tell them you're building an aircraft in your shop/basement/garage? I'll confess when I fi rst heard about people building their own aircraft many years ago, I looked askance at fi rst, too. But one only has to think about the reality of how airplanes came into existence to understand that building an aircraft in a garage, basement, or home shop is how all the fi rst airplanes came into existence. The Wright brothers, Les Long, Ed Heath, Bernie Pietenpol…even C.G. Taylor, Clyde Cessna, as well as all the other aviation pioneers had no aircraft company to build their aircraft. They had to do it themselves—at home. Only over time did production demands create the need for aircraft factories. This year at EAA AirVenture Oshkosh 2012, several homebuilts celebrated signifi cant anniversaries. Steve Wittman's Buttercup hit the 75-year mark, while several homebuilts celebrated 50-year anniversaries, including John Dyke's Dyke Delta and Pete Bowers' Fly Baby. While John Thorp was deep into designing his T-18 in 1962, it didn't fl y until 1963. Many more homebuilts have passed the 50-year mark, but we'll focus on these more well-known designs. What was the inspiration for these homebuilders to design the particular aircraft they did? We reviewed the archives of Sport Aviation to fi nd out… hoping to inspire today's designers and builders to put their creative energies to work to continue the evolution of homebuilding. EAA EXPERIMENTER 13