Who are we? Sisters. Lucie is sixteen and Cayenne is fourteen. We live in Bakersfield, California. What gave us the idea of building an airplane?
HOW TO TURN AN IDEA INTO AN AIRPLANE
Woody Thompson, our Dad’s band director in high-school, built a Bowers Fly Baby. This is what made Dad believe he could do it too, and he passed the bug on to us. Our dad built a Sonerai-II plane by himself when he was twenty-six. We grew up seeing the photograph of that Sonerai and being surrounded by his projects. Helping two of his kids build their own airplane was just the sort of thing he’d do. We had conversations about it and we liked the idea. Thus far, Dad teaches us and we do most of the construction. Our dad says building an airplane is easy. All you have to do is ten thousand tasks in the proper order, and poof----an airplane magically appears.
What made us think we could do it? Our dad
is always around to show us how to do things, and we have a lot of faith in his ability to build. Also, he remembers the important little things that we forget. Like ailerons.
How long will it take? We don’t know. Building
an airplane is a turbulent operation. We had planned to finish by the end of 2021, but it seems we underestimated how much time a project like this can take. The wing ribs are done, at least. That was plenty of work.
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What type of airplane are we building? It
is a parasol monoplane designed in 1929 by Bernie Pietenpol. He called it a Pietenpol Air Camper. We chose this model because of the simplicity and beauty of its design. It is lightweight, reliable, and cheap to build. Bernie’s original choice of engine was a Ford Model-A which we hope to use as well.