After decade of work, Worden's dream takes wing

(Photo contributed) After 10 years of building in his Le Mars garage, Bob Worden is ready to fly his two-seater airplane -- once the runway is cleared of snow, that is. [Click to enlarge]

And now, it's finished.

A 20-foot long two-seat Europa with a three-blade propeller, the craft can fly at speeds of 200 mph.

(Photo contributed) Bob Worden's newly-completed airplane is ready to fly this summer. He already took it to the Le Mars airport to taxi at high speeds on the runway. At 40 mph, the plane is ready to lift off. Worden can take one passenger and 80 pounds of luggage with him each flight. He hopes to head to California. [Click to enlarge]

The Le Mars man can't wait to take it up for its maiden flight this spring.

"I love being in the air, seeing everything," Worden said.

He wants to fly all the way to the West Coast.

(Photo contributed) Assembling, painting and smoothing the Europa aircraft in his garage took Bob Worden about 10 years, but now he's ready to reap the benefits. He's planning to visit family after completing 40 hours of test flights this spring and summer. [Click to enlarge]

"Our kids are spread around the country -- this plane is capable of flying to California," Worden said.

He just has to talk his wife Peg into the idea.

"If it's that or stay home, I want to go," she said with a grin.

Worden fell in love with flying as a young man in the military.

He served as a medical helicopter's crew chief in Vietnam from 1967 to 1968, performing maintenance on the chopper and flying with the medevac crew as they picked up the injured from the field.

After returning home and starting a family with Peg, Worden trained for his pilot's license in Le Mars. He started off renting airplanes.

"Then I decided I wanted to own an airplane," Worden said. "I was looking around for something to build or buy."

In the mid-1990s, he saw an advertisement for the Europa, a composite aircraft kit. It caught his eye.

"It had a lot of good features -- you could fly as fast as comparable aircraft on one-third the gas, and because it was composite, the wings are super light," Worden explained.

The craft can run on auto fuel, meaning it doesn't have to burn aero fuel, which is more expensive, he added.

Worden test-flew a Europa plane and decided to make the purchase, driving to Florida to pick up the main pieces of the craft's body.

Before he started building a plane, though, Worden had to build a garage.

The Worden's Victorian home on Central Avenue used to be a restaurant, and the garage was removed to make valet parking easier, Worden explained.

With the airplane project in mind, Worden set to work on a new garage.

"I built a garage big enough to fit building a plane in it," he said. "It's L-shaped, and I worked on the plane in the back."

With pieces of the airplane in Le Mars, Worden set to work. The wings were slabs of foam.

He had to put fiberglass mesh over each piece then seal it with epoxy. It was detailed, careful work.

That's why it took 10 years to complete.

"The majority of the mechanical work was done in six years," Worden said.

The most time-consuming part was the plane's exterior, where Worden used epoxy filler in cracks and joints and painted the entire body with epoxy-based paint.

Each piece had to be sanded and smoothed down.

"It makes it super smooth," Worden said. "No ridges, no joints. The air flows over it."

The plane's color -- white -- had as much to do with practicality as preference.

"White reflects up to 90 percent of the ultraviolet rays, which can deteriorate the foam inside the wings," Worden explained.

Using black paint would be asking for trouble.

"It just soaks up the heat, pulls it in," he said.

In large letters, N4880W is emblazoned on the airplane's side.

"The number I had on my helicopter in Vietnam was 12880, but another airplane had that number," Worden said, explaining he checked the number against a database.

He kept the "880" part and added the "W" for Worden.

The plane is powered by a 100-horsepower opposed four-cylinder engine which had to be aligned just right with the plane's body and propellor.

"Otherwise it pulls the plane off to one side," Worden explained.

Finished, the airplane has a 25-foot wingspan and is 5 1/2 feet high with a 72-inch propeller diameter.

It weighs 780 pounds.

"We can pack 80 pounds of luggage when we travel," Worden said.

Worden and his passenger will ride side-by-side in a 48-inch-wide cockpit.

The landing gear -- a single wheel in the center of the plane -- retracts into a center console in the cockpit. Three smaller wheels help balance the plane as it lands and takes off.

Usually, Worden will cruise at an altitude of 3,000 to 4,000 feet, but he might go as high as 8,000 feet on long trips.

He equipped the plane with radios and a Global Positioning System (GPS) device.

Getting between 25 and 50 miles per gallon from his 20-gallon tank of auto fuel, Worden will have to stop about every 3 1/2 hours to refuel.

"That's long enough to be in the airplane at a time," he said with a grin.

The plane can handle turbulence pretty well, Worden said.

"You just slow down to like 110 mph," he said. "It's like hitting a bump at high speed. It usually only lasts a short time."

Worden was pleased with his test flight of the similar model to his plane.

"It's really good flying quality," he said. "It's responsive and not quirky."

On the off days, Worden can detach the wings from the plane and store it on a trailer in his garage.

After 40 hours of test flights this spring, Worden will be able to take passengers and fly beyond a 40-mile radius.

Worden said he's anxious for the first real flight.

"I had fun building it; I want to just fly it around now," he said.

Last fall, he spent some time with the plane at the Le Mars airport.

"You're supposed to try high speed taxiing so you'll know what the plane will do. It lifted off at 40 mph," Worden said. "It flies."