Area pilot builds aircraft in his garage

Pilot David T. Morgan, of Monroe, has been building an RV-12 single-engine airplane with the help of his wife, Rose, in their one-car garage in the Mount Pleasant Retirement Village.

Denise Wilson/Contributing photographer Pilot David T. Morgan, of Monroe, has been building an RV-12 single-engine airplane with the help of his wife, Rose, in their one-car garage in the Mount Pleasant Retirement Village.

ENLARGE PHOTO

Pilot David T. Morgan, of Monroe, has been building an RV-12 single-engine airplane with the help of his wife, Rose.

Denise Wilson/Contributing photographer Pilot David T. Morgan, of Monroe, has been building an RV-12 single-engine airplane with the help of his wife, Rose.

ENLARGE PHOTO

Denise Wilson/Contributing photographer Pilot David T. Morgan, of Monroe, has been building an RV-12 single-engine airplane with the help of his wife, Rose.

ENLARGE PHOTO

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By Denise Wilson, Staff Writer 3:48 PM Thursday, July 9, 2009

Pilot David T. Morgan, of Monroe has built many airplanes with his brother and been around these vehicles most of his life.

In September, Morgan, 76, who is a civil engineer retired from his father’s general contracting company in Middletown called B.D. Morgan & Company Inc., and a sister company Morgan Engineering and Concrete Company, began building a RV-12 single-engine airplane with the help of his wife, Rose, in their one-car garage in the Mount Pleasant Retirement Village on Muskingum Street.

The kit aircraft, which is designed and founded by engineer Richard VanGrunsven from Van’s Aircraft in Aurora, Ore., is a 100 horsepower, two-seat, all metal, side-by-side airplane that meets the certification standards of the Light Sport Aircraft category.

Morgan, who took his first flying lesson at age 12 and got his license at 17, said he decided to build the RV-12 aircraft, similar in size to a Cessna 152, as an “insurance policy for old age.”

Morgan, who currently pilots a twin-engine Beechcraft Baron six-passenger airplane, said he has to have a current FAA physical and private pilot’s license to operate that vehicle.

“With this (RV-12) airplane if I have a valid drivers license, I’m legal to fly as a FAA medical. In other words, they’re thinking if your physically capable of driving a car, you’re physically capable of flying a plane,” he said.

“I’m having a little bit of medical problems and it’s my insurance policy that if I don’t pass my physical that I can fly this with my driver’s license.”

He said he flies regularly between 75 to 125 hours a year mostly to his vacation home in Punta Gorda, Fla.

Morgan said he is not sure when he will complete building his plane, which is estimated to take the average builder about 600-900 hours to complete an unpainted RV-12, according to VanGrunsven Web site, www.vansaircraft.com.

“It could be this fall, it could be by the end of the year or it could be next year sometime. I don’t know. I don’t rush. I’ll probably have 1,000 hours in when I get done,” he said.

Morgan said he’s enjoying assembling the plane, which will require the wings and tail to be installed at Middletown’s Hook Field Airport.

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