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Sunday June 24, 2007

Cardiologist close to realising dream flight

Story and photo by STEVEN DANIEL

MALACCA: Flying an aircraft can be thrilling, more so when it's a plane you've put together yourself.

Dr Lee Boon Leong, 58, is a cardiologist by profession but during his free time, he takes off like a bird, launching off in light aircraft such as the two-seater he is currently assembling in his “workshop” – a corner shoplot in Kota Laksamana here.

It does not matter that he almost died in a trike (part hang-glider, part micro-light) he had built when it crashed in Johor after running out of fuel two years ago.

Hands-on job: Dr Lee and his assistant Carol Lee putting together pieces of the two seater aircraft that the cardiologist is building in his workshop in Kota Laksamana, Malacca.
It was “just a misjudgment of fuel load,” Dr Lee said, adding that the trike was his first project when he decided to pursue his childhood dream of flying eight years ago.

“I was not from a well-to-do family. My father had a bicycle shop and for three years, I had to help out after school.

“I developed an interest in flying while in school but poor people cannot afford expensive toys,” Dr Lee told The Star when met at his workshop yesterday.

The workshop contained two long wings propped against the wall, toolboxes full of various gadgets and shelves littered with aircraft parts. At the back of the workshop was a “plastic room” for painting works.

When asked what his wife thinks of his passion for flying, Dr Lee said that his wife had always been very supportive of his hobby.

“Flying is just half the fun, building the aircraft completes it,” said Dr Lee with a twinkle in his eye, adding that for the last two years he's been working on a “kit version” of the RV-7, a two-seater plane popular in the United States.

The RV-7’s kit comes complete with all the necessary welding, moulded canopies and fibreglass parts, inclusive of pre-punched rivets and boltholes. All the hardware is also provided.

“Even though I am not exactly building the aircraft from scratch, I have a lot of drilling, clamping, cutting, wiring, painting and other work to do before it is ready to fly,” he said.

Once completed, the aircraft would weigh between 680kg and 816kg with a body length of about six metres and potentially could fly to a height of 1,115m. On paper it has a top speed of 335kph.

Dr Lee said that the kit manufacturers estimated that it would take 2,000 “person hours” to complete the plane and giving himself a target of end 2009, he feels that he is already halfway there.

“My plane is capable of flying around the world and I hope to some day achieve this dream,” said the beaming father of two adult sons.

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