Homemade plane takes maiden flight

A project that's been in the making for more than 10 years has gone sky high - literally.

It's a homemade airplane made at the home of Walt Pickering of Paradise by Walt and his son, Gordon, who will be taking the experimental amateur aircraft back to LaPine, Oregon, where he is a practicing veterinarian. For now, however, FAA regulations dictate that the aircraft be flown for 40 hours before he can fly it 400 miles to Oregon.

Gordon flew his new plane for about 30 minutes the first time last Wednesday, but he also took a 50-minute ride as a passenger. "I think the plane is absolutely amazing," said the 58-year-old Pickering, who has had his license for about 28 years. "It flies and handles even better than I had anticipated," he said.

Since then, he's flown it twice and loves the way it handles. "It's way more responsive than I thought it would be." With Gordon having to get back to his practice in Oregon, Plains resident Ed VonHeeder, a pilot and a friend of the family, is helping Gordon log the necessary hours.

The plane's tail number – N526WP – includes his father's initials and his father's birthday, May 26. Walt, who turned 86 Wednesday, flew the plane for only about 15 minutes, but plans to fly it again before it goes to Oregon. He said it flew very nice with a quick response time.

The aircraft is a Bearhawk 4-Place STOL (short take-offs and landings) plane. Walt finished the plane on Nov. 7 and had it inspected by an FAA examiner on April 28, which took about two hours. "They inspected the entire aircraft for the overall safety and quality of workmanship," said Gordon, who didn't see the plane until May 16. "I was pretty much blown away when I saw it," he said. Walt had the wings removed and trucked the plane to a hanger at at Plains Airport in December.

Walt began working on the plane in 2010 after purchasing the already built wings from Barry and Nancy Shutt of Washington. Walt did the bulk of the work on the aircraft in his shop at his Paradise residence, but he had to do some minor tweaking at the airport, including adjusting the flight control panels for proper tension last week, said Gordon, a 1980 graduate of Plains High School.

Walt worked on the plane mostly during the winter months, putting thousands of hours into it over the years. Gordon estimated that he helped with only about five percent of the work. The plane is about 20 feet long, weighs about 1,500 pounds, has a wingspan of 32 feet, and will house a Lycoming O-360 engine.

This wasn't the first plane erected by Walt, who got his flying license in 1956. He made a two-seater Christiania MK1 in 2000. Gordon's plane is a four-seater with a higher payload that can carry an estimated 1,200 pounds and can cruise around 130 mph, said Gordon.

One particularly meaningful part of the plane's finish was a visit from Nancy Shutt, whose late husband, Barry, passed away just as he started making it, completing a portion of the wings, and selling the project to Gordon. "I reached out to her to be there for the Bearhawk's first flight. She was not expecting me to contact her after all of these years and it has been a very special connection for her," said Gordon. In addition, Bob Barrows, the man who designed the plans for the plane, traveled from West Virginia in June last year to see the progress.

Gordon said he'll be making periodic trips back to Plains this summer to fly it, but looks forward to getting it back to Oregon. Although he could only work on the aircraft with his father periodically, he said it was an "incredible journey to share with my dad."