Pilots Rod Church and C.W. Bingham may officially be retired but they have been working 12 to 14 hours a day for the last two months building an airplane that they intend to finish by the end of the year.
This is no small feat, either. The men are building the aircraft in Church’s garage in Canoa Seca Estates.
Church, 78, and Bingham, 76, are Green Valley neighbors with a lot in common besides the passion to build an aircraft. They are pilots who want to keep flying — and in their own plane.
Prior to retiring, Church owned his own aircraft business in San Jose, specializing in one particular small plane known as the BD-5, designed and engineered by aviation designer Jim Bede.
Church was also a middle-school teacher who doubled as a flight instructor and aviation buff.
Bingham, who goes by “Bing,” spent six years in the Air Force, eight years in the Air National Guard and 29 years as a pilot with United Airlines, retiring in 1991.
In the background for moral support is Church’s wife, Peggy, a self-described aviation “aficionado” who allows her dining area and other rooms in the house to act as storage for aircraft parts and hardware.
From a box
Church recalls the early pitfalls of building planes from kits.
“Our customers would buy the plane kits, which back then cost an average of $2,000, and they’d work on them as far as they could, sending them to us to complete when they no longer had the capability to finish the work themselves,” Church said. “Some people spend years building them.”
Church and Bingham are building a Zenith Aircraft CH750, classified as a light sport utility aircraft, manufactured in Mexico, Mo.
Church was introduced last year to the Zenith plane kit at the annual Copperstate Fly-in in Casa Grande, where aviation enthusiasts from all over the country gather to see a variety of aircraft and learn what’s new on the market.
The two men share the cost of the plane.
“The total cost will be a little north of $50,000, so we’ll each be investing something over $25,000,” Church said. “The retail, completed, flyaway price of the airplane by a firm in Georgia is over $110,000.”
They choose this model because it has a short take-off and landing design — it can do it in about 100 feet, Church said.
“It also has a speed range from a very slow 30 mph, to a cruise of 100 mph,” he added.
Church was also sold on the idea that the plane could climb to 14,000 feet and carry two adults and “a reasonable amount of personal baggage.”
“We like the idea of being able to fly very low and slow for taking pictures, too,” Church added.
“Flying jet fighters for 14 years at breath-taking speeds didn’t let you do much sight-seeing,” Bingham added. “This will allow us to enjoy the view.”
Another bonus, according to the pilots, is the plane they are building can travel 500 miles on a tank of gas.
“That’s burning only five gallons per hour and with the very wide 50-inch cockpit, this plane will provide incredible vision for sightseeing and photography,” Church said. “The instrument panels provide the kind of information that was only available to the most sophisticated of military and civilian aircraft just a few years ago.”
The engine is purchased separately.
“The airplane engine we are using is a certified engine out of one of Bing’s old airplanes by a company called Lycoming,” Church explained. “We are having it rebuilt in California.”
Would you trust yourself to build an airplane then get up the nerve to fly it?
“It’s not that hard,” Bingham said. “Rod is very good at reading the plans and then we have instructions on CDs that we refer to throughout the process.”
“If you make a hole in the wrong place, you just fill that hole,” Church said. “We really haven’t made a mistake yet.”
Church and Bingham are licensed pilots for light sport planes.
“As has always been the case for flying gliders and sailplanes, the new sport pilot license does not require a doctor-issued medical certificate,” Church said. “It allows older, or let’s say more mature people, who don’t want to go through the FAA medical process to fly an airplane exactly like the one we are building as long as they have a license to drive a car.”
The two pilots want to fly their plane by the end of the year, with sights on Ruby Star Airpark, a private airfield about 10 miles northwest of Green Valley, or Ryan Field in Tucson for their first test flight.
“We want to get away and fly to areas that are peaceful and beautiful and just go at a relaxing pace,” Church said. “We want to see places like Monument Valley or the Grand Canyon at a flying pace that we can take in and enjoy. Building and flying your own plane is worth it. It’s never too late to act on your dreams.”