Chaplain’s craft lifts him above the clouds

  • Published
  • By Wayne Bryant
  • 37th Training Wing Public Affairs
LACKLAND AIR FORCE BASE, Texas (AFPN) --  Moving checklist: Pack the boxes, stop the newspaper, arrange transportation and fuel the airplane. For a Lackland Air Force Base chaplain, getting to his next base will require a flight plan of his own.

Taking Chaplain (Maj.) Weston Walker to his next assignment at Hill AFB, Utah, will be his own home-built airplane. The chaplain recently flew the aircraft he built on a house-hunting trip to Hill.

“Flying has been an interest of mine for many years,” the chaplain said. “I learned to fly nine years ago while at my first base, Hill. It’s interesting that where I first learned to fly is where I’m flying my own aircraft to.”

Chaplain Walker has spent the last two and one-half years building his aircraft from a kit. The Zenith Zodiac 601XL is a little two-seat, propeller-driven craft.

“I worked on it whenever I could,” he said. “Some months I’d get in 80 hours and others I’d only get to work on it for 12 hours. But, if you ask my wife, she probably thinks it was more like 1,000 hours a month.”

The plane was built in his garage and major assemblies were done at a hangar he rented locally. He said it took approximately 1,200 hours total.

The all-aluminum aircraft kit, which required no bends or welds for the chaplain to make, is held together with rivets, hundreds of them.

“I did have to drill holes and put in the rivets,” Chaplain Walker said.

The plane holds 24 gallons of fuel that lasts about three and one-half hours, or about 400 miles.

Chaplain Walker aid the craft “flies very nice, especially in the morning.” But said it can get a little bumpy in the hot afternoons in Texas.

His craft was completed in January, but because it was hand built, the Federal Aviation Administration requires that it undergo testing.

Before the FAA would certify it ready for flight, the chaplain had to fly about 40 hours while running tests. He could not carry any passengers or fly more than 25 miles away from his home airport. Tests included loading the aircraft with sandbags to its weight limit for takeoff and landing.

Since testing, he has logged 20 more flying hours. In fact, his 16-year-old son, Austin, who has flown in the craft several times, is interested in learning to fly himself.

The aircraft is somewhat of a family project, Chaplain Walker said. His daughter, Whitney, added a little personalized art to the “no step” sign on the wing. While his wife, Judy, has flown with him once, she said, “At least one parent has to remain on the ground at all times – just in case.”

Chaplain Walker has been stationed at here for four years, two at Wilford Hall Medical Center and two more with the 37th Training Wing. He is the senior chaplain at the permanent party chapel.