High-flying dream gets in shape in basement

Steve Ashby has loved airplanes ever since he got a glimpse of one flying over DeKalb-Peachtree Airport.

He was 9 then and on summer days he’d walk the seven miles from his home to the airport and hang on the fence to watch Piper Cubs and Cessna 150s do touch-and-goes.

He dreamed of flying one day, of becoming a Navy fighter pilot, but he wore glasses and the Navy couldn’t have that, so he became an attorney instead.

Ashby, who kept up with aviation by reading flying magazines, was clerking for a judge one day in 1980 when his wife saw a newspaper ad for flying lessons.

Ashby signed up and on Jan. 10, 1981, he got his license and has been flying ever since —- mostly Skyhawk Cessnas that cruise about 100 miles per hour.

That would be the end of the story except when it comes to airplanes, Ashby’s dreams never seem to end.

Now the father of three wanted to build an airplane, too, but the time never seemed right.

“It was hard to justify when you have mouths to feed,” said Ashby of Stone Mountain, who runs a private family law practice.

Vicki Ashby knew how much her husband wanted to build an airplane and so as his 50th birthday approached in May 2005 she started planning a surprise.

In lieu of presents, she asked prospective guests to contribute to the rivet fund. Rivets hold aluminum airplanes together.

Ashby, now 54, collected $2,000, enough to get him started building his aircraft —- an RV-8A, a high performer almost identical to the plane his hero, pilot Bill Randolph, built.

In June, he ordered the first kit —- the tail —- and started work, becoming part of a trend that over the past 15 years has seen steady growth, said Dick Knapinski, spokesman for the Experimental Aircraft Association, a nonprofit corporation that includes 170,000 members in more than 100 countries.

In fact, there are more than 35,000 home-built aircraft on the Federal Aviation Administration’s register.

That number, said Knapinski, has been growing by about 1,000 a year.

Ashby, a member of the local EAA chapter and the Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association, figures he’s got another year or so before he completes his RV-8A but he’s already dreaming his next dream —- flying it around the world.

“Over 2,000 people have climbed to the top of Everest but there are only eight people who have built an airplane with their own hands and flown it around the world,” Ashby said. “I hope to be the ninth.”

Meanwhile, he’s still assembling the $60,000 aircraft in the basement of his home, where he spends about three hours a night, four days a week.

He’s finishing up the installation of the wings and the flaps on Miss Vick, the name he gave the plane to honor his wife and her belief in him.

Ashby said he’ll first set out to fly around the perimeter of the United States, probably in the summer of 2010.

He won’t try to set any records, he said. He just wants to sample the country.

After that, he will begin outfitting his plane for the world flight.

And after that, who knows, but you can bet Ashby will likely come up with something.

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