Dana Beebe –

 Engineer, Entrepreneur, Explorer

A Flying Sports Car – what could be a better way to get me back into flying.

Growing up with a father who was an engineer, had been a pilot and flight engineer in the Air Force for WW2 and Korea, and who helped me discover the great outdoors through Boy Scouts and family outings, made me want to do all of those same things and more later in life.

I started my entrepreneurship early in life by mowing lawns and pumping gas at our next door neighbor’s gas station when I was still a pre-teenager.  While in high school I went through the ranks of Boy Scouts earning my Eagle and getting certified in Scuba Diving along the way.  After graduating from Purdue with a Mechanical Engineering degree, I went off on my first big adventure and became a Deep Sea Diver and traveled the world, all the time looking for the next big adventure and never forgetting about my flying roots that I had yet to develop myself.

I finally found time while in Northern California and then Seattle to get my pilots license and while doing so bought my first plane, a 1977 Cessna 182Q, and I was in Heaven!  I had a Commercial Deep Sea Diving job as a career that was letting me use my engineering degree to design and build diving systems and I had my own Cessna to relax with during my time off.  Then came a wife and family!  Happy, oh yes, but an end (hopefully just a hiatus) to my flying days.

Fast forward through many years of working in deep sea technology, still scuba diving, and back in Boy Scouts as a Scoutmaster teaching boys how to become leaders and to explore their passions. When I first saw an article about the Switchblade, I was actually trying to figure out a way to have the time and money to be an aviator again. I was hooked in an instant.

A Flying Sports Car – what could be a better way to get me back into flying. I followed Samson and Sam Bousfield for the first couple of years and then when the offer came out to get a Switchblade kit at a considerable savings, I sent off my check.

Now I keep up with Sam and his crew and can’t wait to see the first flight.  I even sent our youngest son who was studying Aerospace Engineering at the University of Texas out to intern with Sam and his crew for several weeks one summer and now he is hooked as well.  Sam is doing a fantastic job of keeping all of us informed of the progress and of course of making progress towards the first flight.

The Switchblade will be my vehicle of choice and my flight into retirement so my wife and I can continue exploring this great country of ours, and even beyond!

Here’s to clear roads and blue skies!

Dana Beebe – Texas, USA