Hank Cheng and Ken Cheng: Meet the pilot and engineer behind Hong Kong’s first homebuilt plane

A pilot and engineer behind Hong Kong’s first homebuilt plane 

Among the many quirky hobbies of Hongkongers, building airplanes isn’t one of the most popular. But that didn’t stop Hank Cheng, a Cathay Pacific pilot, and Ken Cheng, an associate engineer at Cathay (no relation), from leading a seven-year project to build and fly Hong Kong’s first home-built, locally certified aircraft. Named Inspiration in English and 香港起飛 (Hong Kong Takes Off) in Chinese, the single-engine, two-seater propeller aircraft had its maiden flight at Chek Lap Kok airport on November 15.

“When I was a kid, I built toy planes and imagined I was inside the cockpit,” remembers Hank, whose childhood dream to build and pilot his own plane inspired him to begin the project in 2008. Ken first heard about Hank and his project at a Hong Kong Institute of Engineers dinner in 2010. “I couldn’t believe he was crazy enough to do it, but I thought it was fun and very meaningful,” he explains. “So I contacted him to get involved.”

“Building a plane sounds crazy, but it’s a relatively popular thing to do in other countries,” Hank tells us. Indeed, there are 9,000 amateur-built RV planes, manufactured by popular American kit plane maker Van’s Aircraft, currently certified worldwide, and the Inspiration is now one of them. “But it’s difficult in Hong Kong,” he continues. “If I rent a factory building to build a plane, I’d pay $30,000 to $40,000 per month. It would cost several times more than the plane. These problems don’t exist in other countries, so we had to find creative solutions.”

One of those creative solutions involved inviting hundreds of high school students from St Paul’s Convent School to work on the first half of construction, including assembling the frame and painting the plane’s body. Entirely privately funded, the plane was completed at a space in a hangar donated by Haeco with the voluntary help of Hank’s Cathay Pacific colleagues and technicians. While the Inspiration team is led by 11 core members, more than 500 people contributed to the building process. “The people involved in this project are a microcosm of the aviation sector because it had a little bit to do with everyone,” explains Hank.

Assembling the plane was, however, not without its obstacles. In fact, the project’s greatest challenge had nothing to do with technical issues. “The building of the plane only took about three years,” says Hank. But to get the Inspiration off the ground for its 30-minute maiden flight, the team then faced over three years of bureaucracy and high fees mandated by a dozen aviation-related government bodies. “In the US, it costs around US$100,000 to build a plane. We spent US$200,000,” laments the pilot.

“In the past 12 months, Ken and the other team members responsible for paperwork have been working on overdrive,” Hank points out. “Because our small, homebuilt aircraft is a first for Hong Kong, I think it’s important [for regulators] to think outside the box. The insurance for this journey, for a small aircraft like Inspiration, cost the same as an Airbus A380! It costs 10 times less in other countries.” 

“It’s like buying car insurance for a bicycle,” adds Ken. “The scale of everything we did was unheard of, as nobody had done it before... When we tried to buy gasoline for the plane, we had to buy a 50-gallon drum and use a manual pump because there were no gasoline trucks.”

Undeterred by the red tape, the Inspiration team are now setting their sights on the next objective, planned for June next year – a three-month circumnavigation of the globe. However, the aircraft must first complete a 25-hour test flight program and the team is awaiting approval from regulators to conduct the test in Hong Kong. 

“The plane is fully ready,” declares Hank without hesitation. “The most tragic fact is that technology is not holding us back. In the US, there are people trying to build their own rockets. That’s amazing. They aren’t restricted by red tape. It’s very unfortunate that our plane can’t fly because of human restrictions, because I can do it. If you give me approval, I’m ready to fill up the tank and go right now.”

Source:  http://www.timeout.com.hk