Whether An Experienced Worker Or New To Airplane Building, The One Week Wonder Project Has Proved To Be A Smashing Success

While it appears at first look the purpose of the One Week Wonder project at EAA AirVenture Oshkosh 2014 was to meet the challenge of building an airplane in one week, it was really much more than that. Participants and onlookers were able to see and touch what we love so much about aircraft home-building.

This project welcomed help from experienced and inexperienced builder alike. While many of the volunteers did have previous experience in aircraft building, they not only helped in the process but, even more importantly, they helped people with no experience to feel the excitement of achievement.

Volunteer Jonathan Oliver arrived at AirVenture on Thursday and on Friday showed up at the One Week Wonder build-center to put in a four-hour shift. He had already signed-up on the web and was planning this to be part of his AirVenture experience. He had recently completed a tail kit on a Zenith 750 Cruzer but said he considered himself a novice. While he did have a little experience from taking this Zenith course, he would be assigned a task did not require extensive knowledge.

Jonathan plans to continue building his 750 and is building the kit by individual components because he relocates occasionally due to his job. This way when he moves from one location to another, he can take the completed portion with him rather than moving an entire kit.

Volunteer Tracy Buttlef signed up ahead of time to be one of the major supporters of the project. We asked Tracy about how it worked with the inexperienced people who were signing-up for the four-hour blocks of time. Tracy responded,” Right away you can see they are very enthusiastic.”

The four-hour volunteers were assigned projects they could complete yet were not complicated. Examples are, buffing sharp edges of material, deburring drill holes, drilling holes to size, and making and mounting brackets. Of course, everyone got to pull some rivets.

Tracy said he noticed that when walking around the grounds people would often stop and ask him about the project and shake his hand for being part of it. Tracy tells us one person said to him, “This was the best thing they had seen at Oshkosh.”

(Image by Eric Van Gilder)

FMI: www.eaa.org