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James Redmon's Berkut Thirteen By Budd Davisson
When you first meet James Redmon, EAA 423498, most
recently of Frisco, Texas, he impresses you as a fairly
normal airplane addict. Then you meet Thirteen, his
glass-backward alter ego that is actually a Berkut, a
homebuilt design named after a Russian eagle that
catches and eats wolves. (That should tell you something.) At that point, you begin to re-evaluate using the
word "normal" to describe him. This guy is the epitome
of an airplane addict, and he redefines the word
"homebuilder."
of the kit parts. (Berkut builders eventually wrote a
manual from their experiences.)
It takes a really hardcore builder to complete a sophisticated, 250-plus-mph aircraft that had no building
manual and almost no customer support because the
company went out of business before delivering all
A self-proclaimed Air Force brat whose father was a
career Air Force pilot, James had his sights set on being an airline pilot. Out of college, he worked as a flight
instructor to build flight time, but the job environment
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Vol.2 No.7 / July 2013
James said, "I obviously didn't know the business was
going to fail when I bought my kit in 1993. However,
I don't regret my purchase for a minute. The Berkut
has given me much more than I have given it. If I had
known then that the build was going to be so long and
hard, I would have done it anyway because the results
were worth it."
Photography by Jim Koepnick