The Beginning
I’ve been fascinated by things that fly and everything about them for as long as I can remember. When I was little I remember my grandpa’s airplane on the ranch and thinking it was the coolest thing. As I grew up I always wanted a remote control helicopter thinking of all the cool things I could do with it. I then got involved in RC planes and eventually on to building my own UAV, I built rockets, from airframe to engine.
As my engineering skills grew through school and even more after graduating it’s only natural I’d end up building a real plane and I would of course want to be able to fly myself and be a pilot. My passion finally got to me and I began searching for a plane. After having terrible luck finding a plane to buy (for my price range everything was really thoroughly used already) I decided the best way to get the plane I wanted was to build one. I settled on the Velocity XL for many reasons, it could travel fast, it was efficient, and it looked cool.
I started searching for a kit for sale. I figured if I could find one that someone started and didn’t finish, I might get a better price. I also had to be sure I could trust the work they’d already completed.
The first one I found I shouldn’t even mention some lady in California had it in storage with some pictures. It was completely covered in dirt and dust in the pictures but it did have an engine. For the price I thought it would be a good deal. But it was misleading, although there was an engine in the pictures… she had actually sold it. So I kept looking, and found a plane in Indiana. This may be a story for another time but this was the plane I went with. We traveled to Indiana rented a truck and brought the plane back. The guy I bought the plane from was like an older version of myself, almost all of our projects and experiences with them were eerily identical.
Anyway with the plane back in Colorado I was excited to get started building! First step was unloading everything.
