Working from photos in his one-car garage, he fashioned a full-scale airplane that looked remarkably like the Fokker Dr.1 flown by Manfred von Richthofen. He then hitched it to a VW Rabbit and ...

In 1911, after studying the meager material he could find in libraries, he built a model airplane, which generated so much publicity he decided to build—and fly—a full-scale airplane.