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Design Serge Pennec

Building Lionel Storck

 
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Why Building....

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.