Fly boy

Danny Long has always wanted to fly, and even remembers writing an essay in the eighth grade about aviation. He has flown ultralights and hot-air balloons and now has his recreational pilot’s license. He will soon take to the skies on the wings of determination in an aircraft he is building in the hanger behind his Chadbourn home.

By RAY WYCHE
Staff Writer

Most backyard building projects are limited to bird houses, furniture, and perhaps a fishing boat, but Danny Long of Chadbourn is taking his backyard fabricating to a higher level.

Long is building an airplane – a real two-person craft – from a kit. He’s working in a modern hangar behind his house next to a grassed runway – complete with a wind sock to indicate the wind’s direction – on his property.

Long, who owns and operates an auto and small-engine repair shop nearby, is well qualified to turn boxes of aluminum tubes, sheets of metal, cables, pulleys, wires, and countless nuts, bolts and rivets into something that will “break the surly bonds of earth” and soar in the clouds; he built an ultra-light plane in the mid-1980s, which he flew for a period before selling it.

“The ultra-light was a lot of fun but this is a lot bigger undertaking,” he says of putting together the Challenger LSS (for Light Sports Special) now about three-fourths completed.

And when the last wire is connected, the engine installed and a coat of decorative paint covers the fabric and aluminum surfaces, Long will be ready to take his creation to the skies, but only after a Federal Aviation Administration inspector goes over the plane inch by inch.

“Before I can take off, the FAA has to certify this airplane,” he says.

Before the plane takes off for the first time, Long will have spent about 1,200 hours putting together his Challenger, and in each of those hours, safety has been foremost on his mind and in his work.

“I always like to be safe. There’s a certain element of risk but you can minimize that risk. I want to do it safely,” he says of his assembling of his plane.

The Challenger features dual controls in fore-and-aft seating. It is a pusher-type aircraft, with a rear mounted engine and propeller and a tricycle landing gear. It is a top-wing airplane with a braking system and other features found on factory-built planes. When completed the plane will have several upgrades that Long ordered: a radio for communication with airports, wing lights and other features such as electronic gauges not standard on many homebuilts.

The plane will be powered with a 55-horsepower air-cooled engine that will move it at a speed of about 95 miles per hour. Long said he chose this particular engine because of its record of safety.

Long’s Challenger also has a special parachute. “If something goes wrong, it will let down the whole airplane.”

Putting the many parts together to make an airplane that will pass the stringent inspection the FAA official will conduct before Long can take his creation into the air requires total concentration, even for someone as meticulous and safety-minded as Long.

“You have to think ahead,” he says as he shows an example of what that means. One half of the 26-foot long wing is almost completed; before the fiber coating was applied, Long realized that placing the wiring for the wing lights would be more difficult once the wing was mounted onto the fuselage. Therefore, before the final wing covering was applied, he made sure the wiring was properly installed within the wing.

He points to the nearly completed wing resting on two benches.

“This wing probably took a month to build,” he says.

Long cannot spend full time on his airplane; his small engine business is booming and now that spring has arrived and lawns are growing, he knows he will get many inoperative lawnmowers to take up his time.

“I could finish it in two months if I had time,” he says of his project. Even though putting the Challenger LSS into flying condition is enjoyable to Long and certainly within the limits of his skills, he is not in a rush to finish it.

“I’m taking my time because I know I will never build another one.”