There must be as many reasons to build an airplane
as there are builders on the planet .... there are, of course, common
points. Here are the main reasons that led me ..
Passion: Let's start by stating the obvious,
one must be passionate by planes and love flying them. In my
case, it is also a bit false, since aviation is not a passion and
has never been ... it has always been a real "obsession". My
father always told me it took me when I was little, about three
years old. When he asked me what I wanted to do, I'd say "go
see the planes" and we spent hours at as close as could
be form the runway to watch them evolve. One of my cousins,
Alain Mazalerat, gave me my first flight when I was about 5 or 6
years. In doing so, I Alain infected me with the piloting virus,
a probably very contagious disease because my son caught it too;
he is now a commercial pilot in Canada. I’m so grateful to
Alain and my father for giving me the passion that leads me every
day, and very thankful to my son who motivates me and keeps abreast
of the project that we both wanted to share so badly.
Finance: Then it comes to money. A plane is
expensive, very expensive. To fly, the solution the most commonly
adopted is to sign up in a flying club; this is still expensive
but more affordable; additional interest flying in clubs is that
you meet other pilots and can discuss our passion without annoying
everyone. The disadvantage is the availability of aircrafts,
especially when one wishes to travel over long periods, because
monopolizing an airplane deprives the other members from flying. The
problem is solved when you own your plane... but then we are back
to the finance matter! Building your own aircraft makes it
affordable and Gaz’aile is really a very economical solution.
Enjoy DIY: He who has proposed that these criteria
alone, cost, availability of aircraft and passion of flight, was,
in my opinion very little chance of success. He would miss the fun
of creating these own hands the plane of his dreams. Skip over 3000
hours in a garage to charge, pasting, cutting, sawing, planing,
sanding, filing, soldering, screwing, making mistakes and start
over without love working with his hands is utopian. For me, "tinker"
is a passion and produce something with my hands is a real pleasure.Until
now, the hours I spent on my flight gave me a pleasure far beyond
my expectations.
Eager to learn:
I should add that I always had the vice of wanting to know how "stuff
works". Building my plane is a real opportunity to learn more
about these wonderful and enchanting flying machines.
To make it short: combining my yearning of learning and my passion
for aviation, creating "my" machine, knowing it by heart,
traveling with it when I please, the immense pride of having done
myself and at an affordable price, are essentially the motivations
that lead me to build "my plane."
Family support: Again, all the
motivations of the world would fail without the support of your
family. My wife supports me in this project, despite the concerns
it generates and the time I spend in "the garage". I will
never thank her enough. Without her, I would never have been
able to launch and find the energy to go forward.
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