Aviation for Women is the flagship member publication of Women in Aviation International. Articles feature women who have made aviation history, professional development ideas, and current-topic articles.
Issue link: https://afwdigital.epubxp.com/i/638688
M A R C H / A P R I L 2 0 1 6 Aviation forWomen 77 CHARLIE BECKER/EAA it—doing the research, getting my garage organized as a workshop, fguring out what tools I needed, the cre- ativity, fabrication, and mechanical stuff. Every day was Christmas!" she said. "I'd do my HR job every day and then come home and do my household chores so that come Friday evening, I could go out into my shop and work all weekend on the airplane. I was as excited about building as I was looking forward to fying." She completed the Pulsar in 1997 after 20 months and 1,834 hours of building time. "I kept very thorough logs of my time. I'd look at a part and set a goal of how long I thought it'd take me and write that down to see how close I would come. I even wrote down the time I spent cleaning the shop! You might call someone like that anal retentive, and I was, but I was completely happy," she said. "Building the airplane taught me how to ac- complish things. I learned through that how to set real- istic goals and set up timelines for meeting them. These became life lessons that fueled my dreams and goals." Next she designed her f light-testing program and made a successful frst fight. Lisa few the Pulsar 400 hours, traveling throughout the United States, but then she realized she really wanted to build another plane but couldn't afford to have two. With very mixed emo- tions she sold the Pulsar to finance another building project. "When the new owner few the Pulsar away, I sat in the golf cart and just sobbed," Lisa said. "I felt like something had died. But it was what I had to do." C O V E R E D W I T H L O V E Little did she know that next project would bring even bigger changes to her life. Lisa had her eyes set on a Kolb Twinstar Mark III, a high-wing, pusher aircraft that was fabric-covered. She went to the factory, few one, and purchased the kit, but when it came time to do the fabric covering, she was a bit perplexed. "That process was different than any- thing I'd ever done before," she said. "I asked around the airport for fabric covering help and then learned there was going to be a fabric-covering weekend work- shop in Lakeland, Florida, which was just three hours from my home." "Building the airplane was the most fun thing I'd ever done in my life. I loved every aspect of it—doing the research, getting my garage organized as a workshop, fguring out what tools I needed, the creativity, fabrication, and mechanical stuff."