The Wright Place
This place is the culmination of a lifelong
dream for me. A house on an airport, a
hangar of my own, and a plane in it, waiting
for me. And the control tower (retirement
den) is just the frosting on the cake. I started
building in March 1997, picking up telephone
poles on my little hot air balloon trailer, one
at a time. (I got them from PSI for $1.00.)
They're set 8' apart, 42" below initial ground
level. I couldn't lift them to set them in the
holes, so I designed and built a 21' tall crane
with a winch at the top. It not only set all
the poles in place but also the truss, and
brought all the 4x8'sheets of OSB to the roof
for the decking. The hangar is 40' x 64'
outside, and the control tower stairs add a
16'x 8' addition on the east end. There are 27
poles and one truss holding up the west edge
of the tower. I built the roof of the tower on
the ground, since I'm afraid of heights, and
had Barney from Kinder Sign Co. put it into
place with their big crane. Best $105. ever
spent! That way I was able to finish it all
the way to the roofing, no more than 3' off
the ground!
The windows in the control tower are
hinged at the top (except the west side) so I
can wash them inside and out without getting
on a ladder. The tower is equipped with a
telephone, Hide-a-bed, TV, VCR, stereo with
tuner and tape deck, CB radio, Ham radio,
microwave oven, refrigerator, flight simulator
and even an overhead fan. People who visit
sign the guest book, get a copy of
this brochure, and, if they are pilots, sign a
rafter.
The vinyl-coated aluminum trim was bent
and put on by my son Jim, who is a pastor
in Rosco, Illinois, using a brake loaned
to us by Manon Boggs.
The 27 hangar rafters are each made with
15 separate pieces of 2x4 with 30 plywood
plates glued and screwed onto both sides of
each joint. It took me 3 months to build
them. I designed them with a walkway down
the center that I wouldn't have to stoop over
in, and stressed to hold a 2-foot snow load
and 125 pounds of storage per rafter.
The steel I-Beam over the big 42' wide door
is 15 inches deep, 44 feet long, 5-inch flange,
weighs 1962 pounds, and was built by Bud
Stahl with a 2-inch bow for prestress. It's now
almost perfectly straight, loaded as it is. Bill
Weldon brought his little crane out (bigger
than mine!), and with the help of 8 friends
from church and work, put up the beam and
all 27 rafters in one afternoon. We then sat
around and ate pizza!
The trenches I dug between the poles for
footer concrete, are 14" deep (from previous
ground level) and about 6 inches wide. I then
formed up to floor level and mixed and
poured concrete (about 32 inches deep)
between all poles. (I hate that job!) After the
first one, (there are 27), I determined that I
would not pour the floor myself! Even with
Bill Weldon's cement mixer and him hauling
me two loads of gravel, it was a nasty job!
It took me a month to put on the roofing.
I made a pattern in PowerPoint of each
shingle in the roof and designed the "8I3" (the
Federal Designation for Glenndale Airport) in
the pattern. I printed out several copies of it
and put them in the control tower windows to
refer to while nailing white shingles in the
black roofing.
Putting the OSB on the walls by myself got
to be quite a challenge when I got to the top
row, especially on the north side of the hangar
with a south wind trying to blow the board
and my ladder over backwards while I
positioned it and nailed it. I didn't have
enough hands. So I built a pulley and weight
arrangement to help raise and hold position
while I nailed.
Bill Name loaned me his powerful little
Bobcat with which I took the top foot and a half of
good rich Indiana farm dirt out of the hangar
floor. I used it to slope the outside elevation
up to the top of the footers and the ramp. I
got fill from a number of donors, the best
contributor being Bob Etherington across the
road. Bill Weldon brought me gravel in his 10
ton dump truck to level out the floor prior to
pouring the concrete.
Vinyl siding is probably the most fun.
Except when paying for it! Speaking of paying,
I had $11,900. in materials at the time of
pouring the floor. Even with the good deal
Bill Name gave me for the job, that floor and
the ramp in front came to almost $7000 all by
itself. But there is no way I could have done
as good a job as they did, and I would have
hated every minute of it. I sometimes feel
guilty about having someone else do even that
much for me, but I'm trying to get over it!
Building the big door was a challenge. I
priced them at between $3000. and 5000.
without the skins, and then decided I would
do that myself too. I used 8' 2x4s joined by
2' pieces, glued and screwed together. Each
section is 6' high and 42' long, the top section
hinged from the rafters, the bottom hinged
from the lower edge of the top section. Twelve
15' sections of steel roofing provide a stressed
skin for stiffness. Ten strap hinges are on each
section, and the solid aluminum wheels at the
bottom of each edge roll up the 11' steel angle
irons bought new from Bud Stahl. The motor
(from a fan) and the transmission (from a
garden tractor) were $4.00 each at a junk
yard, as was the shaft that winds the ropes.
The entire door has cost less than $900.
Designing, building and wiring the control
mechanisms that control the door movement
was much fun, and it is so satisfying to see it
operate properly, the way I envisioned it.
Maybe something like the way God feels when
we do things the way He designed. There is a
major difference, of course. The door has no
will of its own, like we do. When the door
was sticking or giving me some of the other
troubles I've finally tweaked out of it, it was
just because of my faulty design. But now that
it's working properly, I have made up some
guidelines that will ensure its proper operation.
If the operator doesn't follow them, he's going
to have trouble. God has given us His
guidelines to keep us out of trouble, too. But
most of us just ignore them. It's obvious to
me that's why our country is in such moral
decay that we have shootings in our schools,
and bald-faced lying in our presidency. (I did
not have sex with that woman!) Our country
didn't start out that way. We started out
with prayer in our schools and prayer in
our Congress, and the Bible in our courts.
And God blessed us. Why else would we have
become the greatest nation on earth in so
short a time?
But what can we do about it? Well, I can't
change government all by myself, so what can
I do? I'll tell you what I've done. I decided to
go back to God's Instruction Manual and
follow it, just for myself. He says I'm a
sinner. No argument there. He says He loves
me and died to pay the penalty for my sins.
Hey, that's incredible! He says that I need to
believe Him and accept Him as my personal
Savior. I did that. I remember the event just
as I remember accepting Lolly as my wife
when I said "I do." It was actually a new
birth when I got saved. I am now in God's
family. I now have a further need to obey His
guidelines. He's my Father. And the way to
have good fellowship with a loving Father,
Who by the way is always right and infinitely
wise, is to do what He says.
And it's not as if it is a hardship. He gives
me such good things, and makes me so happy,
that I wonder why more people don't wise up
and start obeying Him, too. And if you think
that being blessed in this life is so great, just
think what Heaven will be like!
But the only way to get there is to accept
Jesus Christ as your Savior. The Bible, God's
guidelines, makes that very clear. There is no
other way. You just can't be good enough to
make it. But God has provided everything we
need. We just need to believe Him and receive
Him as total payment for our sins. You can
do it right now. If you do, let me know and
let me be happy for and with you. And if you
have questions, I'd be happy to share any
information I have with you. You can call me
at 765-883-5165 (I'm retired so I'm home a
lot), or e-mail me at jim-lolly@juno.com. If
I'm not home, or if you'd like to talk to
someone who knows a lot more about it than
I, call Pastor Mike Ennis at Victory Baptist
Church, Kokomo, IN. His phone is 765-453-
9768. If you'd like to check this out for
yourself, I've listed the Bible references here.
Romans 3:10,23......Everyone is a sinner.
Romans 6:23...........Penalty for sin is Death.
Ephesians 2:8,9.......We can't save ourselves.
John 3:16................God loves us.
Romans 5:7,8..........God LOVES us.
Romans 10:9,10......How to be saved.
Romans 10:13.........How to be saved.
Revelation 3:20.......How to be saved.
John 14:6................He is the only way to Heaven.
Acts 4:12................He is the ONLY way to Heaven!
John 1:11-12...........After receiving Him, we are in God's family.
Proverbs 3:5,6.........How to get His guidance.
Joshua 1:8................How to be successful.