The Airplane (1 of 3)

At a very early age I became interested in flying. My dad gave me some science books, including one on aviation. I distinctly remember my dad looking at the book with me one day when I was in first grade. One page gave some simple directions on how to fly an airplane. It wasn’t intended to show exactly how to do it, but just give a general idea on how an airplane is controlled. I was fascinated by the instructions, and I looked at the book over and over again, always practicing how to fly an airplane.
Push the stick forward to go down.
Pull the stick backward to go up.
Push it to the right and step on the right pedal to turn to the right.
Push and step the other way to turn left.
It was so simple to me. I really wished I could fly a plane. Gee, I already knew how!
About that time I started building an airplane. My dad told me that it cost about $5.00 to go flying in a plane for one hour. Since I didn’t have that much, I decided it might be easier to build my own. My friend Alan, well his dad was a builder. Alan had lots of wood. We spent a whole Saturday bringing wood over from his backyard to my backyard and assembling our airplane. It was made of a long two-by-four board for the main body. The wings were made of boards that were one inch thick and about twelve feet long. On top of the boards we nailed some pieces of plywood. Alan’s dad had used the plywood for concrete forms and they had a lot of cement still stuck to them.