They Built a Plane, then Flew to Alaska
Bladen Journal, Elizabethtown, NC
September 7, 1999
By Jack McDuffie

“A trip of a lifetime!--that’s what Giles and Rachel Clark of Elizabethtown call the trip they took to Alaska in July. It was the culmination of a dream they’d harbored for many years and represented over six years of planning and hard work.

What makes their trip so unique is their mode of transportation, and how they obtained it. If you ask them how they got to Alaska, they’ll gladly tell you, “We flew there in the airplane we built.” And that they did, in an airplane they built piece by piece over more than half a decade. Their “journey’ began in 1993 when Giles, a retired superior court judge, hung up his gavel.

The Clarks, both avid flyers, say that they’d always wanted to build their own airplane but had not had the time to tackle such a project until after Giles retired from the bench.

Ironically, in an interview for a newspaper article done shortly after his retirement, the reported asked Clark what he planned to do in retirement. He responded that his ambition was to build his own airplane and fly it to Alaska. He says that when he made the statement to the reporter, the remark was made half in jest.

But less than six months later, he began the project that would eventually lead to the Clarks “trip of a lifetime.”
The Clarks’ interest in flying dates back to their childhood.

I guess I was always interested in flying,” Giles says. “I was born in the Lindbergh era. Back in those days aviation was still relatively new. When an airplane would fly over, people would run out of their houses to see it. It was fascinating. I suppose that’s where I first became interested in flying.”

Rachel, a retired educator, says she has also been interested in flying throughout her lifetime.

The Clarks earned their private pilots’ ratings many years ago and have been involved in flying ever since.

They ordered the kit for the RV-6 aircraft in August 1993 from the designer, Richard Van Gruvensen of North Plains, Oregon. The RV-6 is a very popular kit aircraft for enthusiasts. Approximately 2,000 of the sleek ‘birds’ have been built and flown, Giles says.

He says that before they began to construct the aircraft, they studied aircraft construction information extensively. In addition, they spent many hours studying the plans for the RV-6.

The Clarks are members of the Experimental Aircraft Association (EAA), which offers technical assistance to members who build their own aircraft.

Many members of the organization have built or rebuilt their own airplanes, and two fellow members of the Association were very instrumental in the Clarks’ project, according to Giles.

He says the help he received from Billy Johnson of Leland and Jack Grigsby of Hampstead was invaluable in the project.

“In fact, we built it at Billy’s shop in Leland,” he said.
Jack had built an RV-6 for himself, and Billy had previously built five or six aircraft of various types prior to this project.
The Clarks say they worked on the aircraft most of their spare time for the next five years. During that period their time was consumed with working on the airplane.

“We really didn’t think much about the trip to Alaska during that period,” Giles says. “We were too busy working on the plane.”

After finishing the aircraft in November 1998, the Clarks brought it to Elizabethtown Airport where it made its maiden voyage. Due to Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) restrictions on home built aircraft, the Clarks could travel no more than 75 miles from Elizabethtown for the first 40 flying hours. For the first three months they flew it around North and South Carolina.

In April they took their new RV-6 on a “shakedown cruise” to the EAA convention and air show in Lakeland, Florida. The trip went beautifully, says Giles.

It was then that the Clarks got serious about their dream trip to Alaska and began planning for it.

The trip required extensive planning and preparation, Rachel says. They had to comply with FAA and Transport Canada (the Canadian equivalent of the FAA) regulations. They had to plan for and obtain survival equipment, obtain customs stickers, and file flight plans for the Canadian portion of the trip. Canada requires the flight plans be filed for all flights that of more than 25 miles for point of take-off.

Another major consideration was planning fuel stops. That entailed planning for alternate landing sites in the event the primary stop was fogged in. Northern Canada is very sparsely populated and it is critical that fuel stops be planned judiciously.

Finally, after several months of planning and preparation, the Clarks were ready to set off on their “journey of a lifetime.” On July 8 at 7 a.m., they left Elizabethtown. By noon they had crossed the Mississippi River.

Their trip to Fairbanks took them four days, flying between two and six hours per day.

“We had a unique advantage in the we were both pilots,” Giles says. “While one

would pilot, the other would navigate and communicate.”

They said that the entire trip was breathtaking. Flying most of the trip at about 7,500 feet elevation, they were close enough to the ground to see clearly the landscape all around them.

We traveled over plains that seemed to stretch forever, and then through some of the most beautiful mountains in the world,” Giles said. “We got to see so much of the country in a way we never could have had we gone by another mode of transportation. It fulfilled a dream of a lifetime for us.”

The Clarks said they were most impressed by how much they were able to see in such a short time and by the friendliness and generosity of the wonderful people they met along the way.

Everywhere we stopped, people were so nice to us,” Giles says. “They were very accommodating. They would loan us their cars, go out of their way to help us, invite us into their homes, invite us out to dinner, and allow us to store our airplane free of charge.

“They were really fascinated with our plane and the fact that we were flying it to Alaska,” Rachel says.

At on place they stopped in Canada, the airfield operator even loaned them the official car. “It had printed on the side of the car, ‘For Official Use Only,’ ” Giles says, laughing.

The trip, from departure to return, took over two weeks. During their travels, the Clarks flew over 10 states and three Canadian provinces. At one point, it took them to within 150 miles of the Arctic Circle.

The airplane performed beautifully the entire trip,” Giles says. “Much of the trip was new territory to us, and the weather was beautiful virtually the entire trip until we got to Alaska. It got foggy at Fairbanks and stayed that way much of the time until the day we left. During the time we were in Fairbanks, it was daylight 24 hours per day.”

A highlight of the trip was that they celebrated Rachel’s birthday on the Chena River.

The Clarks say they plan to continue making trips about the country in their new “homebuilt” airplane.