Melberg has been a member of the EAA since 1956, two years after the organization was started by a pilot named Paul Poberezney in Oshkosh, Wis. Today there are 937 chapters nationwide.

Both the garage and the hobby shop in Melberg's Thousand Oaks home are mazes of aluminum frames, rolled-up blueprints, disembodied propellers, and books on airplane construction.

There are lots and lots of books. From these books, Melberg taught himself to build planes.

"I just picked it up as I went along," Melberg said.

It started when he was building model planes as a kid growing up in Denver.

"I had my first ride in 1927 in an old biplane," he said. "It was a prize I won in a model airplane contest."

After high school, Melberg started working as an airplane mechanic at Stapleton International Airport in Denver.

"At that time I thought I'd give up model building and started building the real thing," he said.

He became a licensed pilot in 1935. The president of Gates Lear Jet was so impressed with a biplane Melberg and two friends designed and built in 1936 that he hired him. Later, Melberg tested B-17s and then, in 1942, signed on as a pilot with Continental Airlines, where he remained for 30 years.

He flew as a private pilot until 1992 when he had a heart operation, and he had trouble getting his license back. He's not giving up. In the meantime, he's restoring a 1942 biplane and building a 270-pound ultralight plane.

Melberg designs his own planes from scratch, so he uses a lot of geometry and trigonometry. For the less ambitious pilot, there are detailed instructions that come along with planes built from kits, and with computer programs available to assist the builder.

Still, it's a very precise and sometimes tedious endeavor.

"It has to be balanced correctly," said Stucker. "You use formulas, and you weigh the plane."

The rest is elbow grease.

"I did all the sheet metal, wiring, plumbing. My wife was Rosie the Riveter," Fowler said.

Applying the Dacron fabric to the wing frame involves heating it with a regular clothing iron so the material shrinks and cleaves to the frame.

And when it's finished, the moment of truth arrives: testing it.

Stucker admits he still gets performance anxiety as he taxis down the runway in his home-built plane.

"You have a hard time speaking to the tower because your mouth is so dry," said Stucker with a laugh.

Stucker said you'll know within a few seconds of taking off whether most of your equipment is going to get you airborne. After that, you just have one thought running through your mind, he said: "Engine, keep running."

EAA members agree that what you're flying is less likely to kill you than the way you're flying it. They say most airplane accidents can be traced to pilot error, regardless of whether the plane is experimental or not.

"I would agree with that," said FAA public affairs specialist Mitch Barker of Seattle. "It depends on the ability of the pilot, but also how well the aircraft is assembled and maintained."

Barker said anybody who gets into a plane should be qualified to fly it with a pilot's license.

"Airplanes can kill you if you're careless," said Stucker.

Still, he said, "it's more dangerous driving on the freeways."

(Kim Lamb Gregory is a reporter for the Ventura County Star in Ventura, Calif.)