Life has changed a lot for many men in the past fifty years. Nowadays, it’s common for younger men to go through life without needing to change a tire or do any handy work, just like I used to.  My dad wasn’t into mechanical stuff either; he sold insurance and played the trumpet on weekends.  So, I never learned about building things and had no interest in it.  It’s never to late to learn to build your own aircraft.

But things have changed, and now I’ve spent four years building my own airplane, a Rans S20.  I’ve been a pilot for over forty years, but the idea of building my aircraft never crossed my mind until roughly ten years ago.  Building this aircraft is definitely one of the most significant and complicated projects I’ve ever undertaken.

I had zero knowledge or experience in building aircraft, so it has been a whole new and unfamiliar world for me. To make it even more challenging, I decided to buy a fuel-injected engine, which wasn’t included in the kit.

Surprisingly, building the airplane has become even more rewarding to me than flying – at least for now :-).