Smith Builder Assistance A

Last winter, Steve Smith and his brother Alan decided it was time for them to do something different. As far back as they could remember, their family had always had some kind of connection with flying, so, they decided that whatever they did, it should be aviation related. They decided to build an airplane.

Neither Steve nor Alan wished to launch into a project that would take forever to finish. As they searched for a suitable aircraft, near the top of their list was: proven design, availability of an advanced kit and demonstrated ease of assembly. They also started to look for a building site that would accomodate their project, preferably one that offered "builder-assistance".

After weeks of research, they had found what they were looking for. During those weeks however, the project had also evolved: they had now decided to build TWO airplanes together, one for each of them! But perhaps even more important, they had found a secret weapon that would ultimately insure the success of the whole venture: Alan's ever-supportive wife Nathalie.

The following story is a summary of the whole experience, as told by Nathalie. She was there every step of the way, making sure the hundreds of parts and pieces and tools were identified, ordered, and on-hand for Alan, Steve and their helpers. As the airframes and engines and instrument panels came together, Nathalie also made sure the wood stove didn't go out, that check-lists and schedules were adhered to, and that snacks and lunches were ready when needed. She even got to know the staff at the local Ace Hardware store very, very well... This is their story:

In the Summer of 2006, Alan and Stephen started looking into flying and airplane ownership as a life-focus exercise to offset too many hours spent at work. We spent lots of time researching possible airplanes and reading through the “for sale” listings. Our initial criteria called for an airplane that would take two people on a reasonable cross-country trip with an acceptable degree of comfort and a healthy dose of fun. The more we learned, the more we were able to refine our parameters. Although Alan and I both have our private pilot license, albeit with few hours, expedience dictated a Light Sports Airplane (LSA) as a starting point for Stephen.

Selection of our aircraft involved even more internet research and a few field trips. We were after an LSA craft with good chance of actually reaching the LSA speed limit. We were also looking for a low stall speed, good visibility, and two places side by side configuration. We also wanted something that was proven, backed by a successful company which we could expect to be around for a while, with successful craft in the air. After an extensive process of elimination, a bit of compromise and a few deviations into the realm of fringe concepts, we settled on Zenair’s Zodiac 601XL with a Jabiru 3300 engine.

A common predilection towards technology and gadgets eliminated older craft. Our price constraints narrowed the field even more. Our requirements and objectives increased as we learned about all of the options and alternatives. In the end, we just couldn’t find a COT (“commercial off the shelf”) aircraft that delivered what we were looking for.

I heard that quite a bit in the last few months. I think I still have some incredulous co-workers and family members to this day. We didn’t really want to build an airplane; maybe that’s one of the reasons why it only took us four months to do it.

Hi, I’m Nathalie, and this is the story of how I, my husband Alan, and his brother Stephen built 2 Zodiac 601 XL airplanes from (almost) scratch with plenty of help from the Quality Sport Plane crew in Cloverdale, CA.