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About My Airplane

I'm currently building a HiMax 1700R, a single seat wood and fabric aircraft built from plans I purchased in 2009. The HiMax is an all wood frame construction made primarily from aircraft quality spruce covered with a Dacron covering and painted with latex paint. Its top speed is 80 mph and cruises at 70 mph with a stall speed between 28 to 31 mph. It's a high wing aircraft not really designed for long cross-country flights but rather for "punching holes in the sky" and having fun.

Build status

People will often ask me, "So, how's the aircraft coming along?" in which I shrug my shoulder and say that it currently isn't. Why? Well, the short answer is money. The long answer is, I started building this when I was working at Arizona Aviation on Falcon Field in Mesa, Arizona. The company was purchased in the fall of 2007 and was hit by the recession. There is a saying in aviation; "Do you want to have a million dollars in aviation? Start with two million dollars." The owners struggled to keep the company running but, five years later, were forced to close.

What does that have to do with me? Well, I was planning on storing my airplane in one of their hangers. Now that they don't exist, I no longer have a hanger to store my airplane and finish it. The second thing that I've had to deal with is the engine. I no longer have the expertise I once had to get it running nor the tools to work on it correctly. I'm looking for a running BMW R75/5 or R75/6 motorcycle engine and the one I have is too damaged to safely continue fixing up. If you know of a good working engine, please feel free to contact me so I can see if it is something that I can use.