Patrick Ancel was my father-in-law.
It sure did put a smile on my face, thanks scootrd. When my Father-in-law (Pat) decided to build that plane, he needed a place to work on it. He had a metal building put up in his back yard, a garage/shop. He had it put up in such a way as to be able to unbolt the end and have the whole end of the building removed to get the plane out, the 8' garage door was not wide enough. I would go over to visit and end up helping cut foam blocks with a hot wire cutter he had made for that purpose. Later I helped glue the blocks together forming the wings.
Pat built a scale model, using Rutan's plans as designed. He took it to the NASA engineers that he worked with, and they ran it through the wind tunnel there at Langley. After testing he and the engineers made changes to the wings. These changes were sent to Rutan, and they were approved and incorporated with all new plans sent out.
Pat continued to build the plane with the wing modifications. The plane used an ONAN engine, the same one that powers generators on many big motor homes. Pat made a few modifications to that engine as well. After he was finished and it was time to remove the plane from the garage, all his kids and spouses showed up. I walked into the garage and was looking at the plane sitting there on saw horses. I then looked at the end of the building that needed to be removed, and all the bolts that were now rusted.
On a whim I had my wife and her sister Patty hold the landing gear for stabilization. I also had her brother Ricky hold the rear wheel. I got under the plane and placed my back against the underside. Using my legs I lifted the plane off the saw horses. Yea, it was heavy, but I could handle it. I sat it back down on the saw horses. Pat seeing what I had done, realized my intent and came running with more help. By moving the plane to the side, twisting and getting one wing clear, then moving to the other side and twisting again we could get the plane out without removing the end of the building. Pat had Ricky take one side, Brother Mike take the other side, Pat took the tail. They also helped lift as we lifted and moved the plane. I lifted and moved forward, then shifted left, turned slightly so the right front wing would clear the garage door. I moved forward, then shifted right till the left wing cleared. One step at a time I moved forward till we were completely clear of the garage. Kids had kept sliding the saw horses forward so they were under the wheels all the time as we moved forward. Once outside it was then simple to sit it up in a frame built to hold it, mounted on a trailer.
The following morning (Sunday) at 3 AM I drove my truck towing the extra extra wide load on the trailer, through the deserted streets of New Port News Virginia. Onto the Interstate and out to Patrick Henry Regional Airport. I was accompanied by 4 cars with flashing lights. We had the roads to ourselves. Once at the airport, with two people on each landing point we lifted it down off the trailer and sat it on the ground. An hour later Pat took it up on it's first flight. If he had made the cockpit a little bigger, where I could have fit I would have liked to have that little plane. At 50% throttle, about 80 knots he could get over 100 miles on a gallon of 87 octane gasoline.
