Retired Cuban engineer builds his own wooden plane

Adolfo Rivera, a retired Cuban mechanical engineer, ingeniously and austerely builds a wooden aeroplane in his building's small garage.

During the last eight years, screw by screw, using Cuban wood and with the contribution of his children who cooperate with glues and tools from abroad, Rivera, a 70-year-old mechanical engineer, manufactured his winged dream: a single-engine wooden two-seater aeroplane.

Neither the economic deficiencies of Cuba, where it is difficult to acquire steel cables, wheels or the waterproofing liquid for the wings or the bureaucratic procedures or prejudices from government offices, could stop his efforts.

"It is inexplicable, what you feel, the joy, the emotion, the love that you feel for these things", Rivera said as he proudly opened the metal gate in his apartment's basement and showed the plane with its propeller facing the sidewalk.

Rivera is a university professor who went to school in Hungary during the years of the alliance between the then-socialist country and the island.

This is his ninth attempt at building an aircraft, this project was preceded by several gliders, the first of which was built in the late 60s and which for lack of fabric for the wings, never flew and eventually deteriorated; now, only photos remain.

According to Rivera's estimates, his plane has cost him about 6,600 US dollars to date, a small fortune for a person on the island, where the average salary is about 100 US dollars a month, and there are no specialised stores.

On family trips abroad, instead of returning with suitcases full of clothes or shoes, he usually returned with manuals and parts.

The man received permission for the construction from the Civil Aeronautics of Cuba in February 2012, and for almost a year, he has had all the procedures in place to fly, although the COVID-19 pandemic delayed them in their plans.

"When this plane is assembled, I know that many more ideas will come out of this", said pilot René González, president of Cuba's Aviation Club.