Just plane passion

By JoANNE VIVIANO
VINDICATOR EDUCATION WRITER
GIRARD -- James Fetherolf points to the silver-and-black valves, tubes and wires of the rebuilt 110-horsepower engine in his garage.
"I finally got the motor in and finally got it started," he said. "The way it revs up, it sounds like a sports car."
But this is no sports car.
The engine sits at the front of a two-seat Zenair CH 701 airplane. Fetherolf has been building the plane since he bought the blueprints in 1997.
He paid $40 for the 1984 Subaru Brat engine. With some elbow grease, his own hand-crafted tools, his self-built pulley system and Harley-Davidson carburetors, Fetherolf turned the hunk of metal into his own work of art. Buying such an engine would have cost $10,000 to $12,000.
The success of the motor was key; now Fetherolf can install the cooling system and the wiring.
Pilot and technician
Fetherolf, who works as a media services technician for the Youngstown city school district, earned his pilot's license in 1998 and has been flying since 1997. He's logged about 170 hours as a pilot, renting planes to fly.
"All little boys, growing up, play with model airplanes and want to fly," he said. But Fetherolf had put it off until he took a trip to an air show in Oshkosh, Wis. The event got him "revved up and excited" and he started taking flying lessons in September 1997, working a second job to pay the fees.
Earlier that year, he had gone to an open house at the Zenair plant in Mexico, Mo. That's when he decided to buy the $300 blueprints for his own plane and started building it before he earned the license.
"It's like making clothes," he said, holding open the airplane patterns. "Instead of using materials and thread, you use aluminum and rivets."
The hardest first
He started with the wings, figuring he'd get the most complicated work behind him first.
The mechanics and the avionics of wiring the plane's control panel came later. Fetherolf, who graduated from Youngstown State University in 1983, holds an electrical engineering technology degree and serves as a technical adviser for the Girard Robo Cats, a robotics team at Girard High School.
His father, John Fetherolf Sr., was a mechanic who worked on B-29 bombers in India and China during World War II.
Father's admiration
John Fetherolf Sr., who died last year, was blind in the last years of his life, but had come to his son's garage to "look at" the plane with his hands.
"It's something I wish I could have done with him," Fetherolf said of building the plane. "He liked it."
Fetherolf has had some help from friends, including neighbor Jack Canter, who has spent hours helping with the plane's construction.
"Jack's been like a mentor to me and shown me the tricks of the old-timers. He's passing them on," Fetherolf said.
Saved money
Fetherolf built the plane from 4-foot-by-12-foot sheets of aluminum and has done all his own welding and machining. He bought each avionics instrument separately. He could have bought a kit -- costing $13,000 without the engine and instruments -- but he wanted to start from scratch and save money. He's spent about $10,000; he estimates the finished plane will be worth $40,000 to $45,000.
"I could have bought one, but you get more pride," Fetherolf said. "It might not be perfect, it might have a little dimple, it might mot be straight here and there, but I did it myself."
The final production step will be painting. The plane will be white with maroon or green stripes. It's name will be "Spirit of Parkwood." Parkwood is a section of Girard where Fetherolf lives in the same home he grew up in; he bought the home from his mother, Diane Fetherolf, who now lives in McDonald.
Meaningful registration
Fetherolf's registration number is N813DJ. The N designates an airplane; the 813 represents the date of his first date with his wife, Darlene; the D and J are their initials.
The Zenair CH 701 airplane will weigh 650 pounds empty, including its 180-pound engine. It has a takeoff distance of about 40 feet, a takeoff and landing speed of about 35 to 40 miles per hour, a top speed of 100 miles per hour and a minimum in-air speed of 28 miles per hour.
It can fly for 41/2 to five hours, roughly 500 miles, on a full tank.
Fetherolf said he hopes to get the plane off the ground this summer.
The aircraft has undergone two inspections by a technical adviser from the Oshkosh-based Experimental Aircraft Association and awaits a third for approval of its engine. Fetherolf must then take the plane on a taxi test; if it's fast enough, it then faces approval by the Federal Aviation Administration.
If the plane passes the FAA inspection, it will earn an "airworthiness" certificate. Once that hurdle is jumped, Fetherolf plans to take his plane on its maiden voyage from the Youngstown Elser Metro Airport on Sharrott Road in North Lima.
Eagerly waiting
"It'll be the greatest high you can imagine," he said.
Then what?
"I've already got plans for a new one," he said: The four-seat Zenair Zodiac CH 640 can cruise at 155 miles per hour.