One of a kind.
A pilot in Grant, Nebraska takes wreckage from an old plane to engineer a new one.
Everybody needs a hobby. Some carve others build cars but pilot Bob Bounds build airplanes.
"There are several classifications of experimental, this one is what you call an experimental amateur build. So it's not certified, it's a home built airplane. I'm the home builder,” said Bob. “It's a pretty popular hobby although not a lot of people jump into it, it is kind of a good hobby and I enjoy it. It just takes all your money and all your time."
Bob fell in love with this aircraft in 1989. Realizing he couldn't get his hands on the original plans he bought the wreckage of a sister plane that crashed in the mountains of Idaho.
"Basically you get the dimensions of it and I made a set of drawings so that I could have dimensions to go by and then I just started building it off the dimensions and how it was built," he said.
He reversed engineered the plane. Took the wreckage apart piece by piece and drew up his own plans to create a one of a kind, completely unique aircraft. 7 years later this is the fruit of his labor.
"This is a foam and fiber glass airplane. It's a foam core fiberglass composite construction. The original one was called a "prospector" and I renamed. I call this one a "bearcoop" so yeah, its unique. There's nothing like another airplane like it,” said Bob.
The aircraft still in the experimental stages, once completed, Bob plans to fly his new airplane to Canada to fulfill one of his lifelong dreams.
"Once I get out of the test phase, which is 40 hours of flying, I'm going to fly the heck out of it. I'm going to take it to the mountains and go fishing. It's kind of my dream to take it into the back country airstrips and plan to fly it hard," he said.
Story and Photo: http://www.knopnews2.com
