On July 25, 2010, Eileen Bjorkman's 82-year-old father, Arnold Ebneter, took off from Paine Field in Everett, Washington, to set an aviation world record in an airplane he designed himself and built in his garage in Woodinville, Washington. The 2,300-mile non-stop flight took the retired Air Force pilot and Boeing engineer eighteen hours, but the preparation took fifty years. A curiosity and aviation sideshow at one time, homebuilt aircraft now make up about one in five small, privately-owned aircraft in the United States. With contributions that include fabric covering systems, sturdy landing gears, and affordable avionics, homebuilt aircraft are a small but ever-growing part of aviation's DNA.Bjorkman uses her background as a pilot, would-be homebuilder, and aeronautical engineer to intertwine the century-long history and culture of homebuilt aircraft in the United States with Ebneter's fifty-year struggle to build his airplane. Along the way lay tales of derring-do pioneers and their fragile craft that could barely become airborne to visionaries that kept homebuilding freedoms alive in the 1940s and modern homebuilts that rival and even surpass the performance and quality of factory-built aircraft.In addition to the narrative, the book provides a non-technical window into the world of aircraft design and construction: What's involved in designing an airplane? How do you assemble a kit airplane? How have airplane designs evolved? Why would anyone want to build an airplane, instead of just buying one? The book may also be useful as a supplementary text for a first class in aircraft design.