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Local puts aircraft together

Ever thought about building your own aircraft? Well you can. Just order the kit and you’ll receive it, with the thousands of pieces, two thick manuals and a roll cage that will become the cabin.
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Ron Wyers works on the fitting for the aircraft that will be used as a flight trainer at Western Aviation Services.

Ever thought about building your own aircraft?

Well you can. Just order the kit and you’ll receive it, with the thousands of pieces, two thick manuals and a roll cage that will become the cabin.

“Then you start adding on and building everything together,” says Ron Wyers, who builds the planes at his business (Western Aviation Services) at the airport. “They’re relatively easy to put together because all the holes are pilot-drilled.”

Wyers puts together the planes mostly for clients who buy the kits and pay him to assemble them, sometimes fully and sometimes just part way. The plane he is currently working on, an advanced ultralight, will be used for flight training for their business.

The process of assembling the planes is tedious and Wyers cautions that to get started the person would have to be prepared.

“When you start off with them it’s thousands of parts,” Wyers says. “You get kits and if a person has lots of time and is handy with tools they can put them together themselves. They have to get inspected as they go though.”

Wyers assembles the plane in its entirety, to make sure all the pieces fit and to drill through the pilot holes with the proper measurements.

The ultralight that is being built for flight training is almost complete and just needs the electronics to be wired, the windscreen to be fitted, the cabin to be assembled and the wings to be attached. Wyers points out the wings hanging on a rack.

“Advanced ultralight; that’s strictly a weight category,” Wyers says. “We handle all this stuff, propellers, engines, floats – all the accessories that go with it.”

The planes don’t come cheap; costing what most pay for a car for the kit.

Wyers has had the business at the airport since 1997.

“We’ve been a dealer for the RANS aircraft now for at least eight years,” and he has built  several of their models.