YOUR SPACE: God tells man to build plane
J.D. Jackson is a man with a deep faith and a very understanding wife.
The question is: Will these be enough to get his airplane off the ground?
He says the Lord told him to make a 26-foot wooden prototype of a two-seater plane to fly missionaries to remote places.
"I would literally sit there and whatever dimension He gave me, that's what I built it to," says the zealous, tattooed man in a ball cap and Broncos T-shirt. "I call it my little Ferrari of the Outback."
Citing trade secrets, he refuses to unwrap the blue tarp covering the wingless, engine-less fuselage perched on landing-gear tires from a John Deere riding mower. It looks like a blue whale on wheels.
Jackson, 40, a former airplane mechanic, quit his maintenance job at Church For All Nations in February to finish the plane he says came to him in a holy vision two years ago. As real planes rumbled overhead, he built the scale model in the basement of his rental home that sits in the flight path of the airport.
Last weekend, a crane hoisted it from the backyard onto a flat-bed trailer.
Destination: Steamboat Springs, to hook up with an engineer Jackson has never met, yet totally believes can help turn the model into a working fleet. "The Lord gave me his name."
Jackson didn't Google the engineer to see if he even existed. "I learned not to do those kind of things, because the Lord says, ‘Why are you questioning me on that; don't you trust me?'"
His wife, Artaya, stands by her man.
"I used to get anxiety, but that was in the fifth year of marriage," she says. "This is our almost 11th year of marriage, so I've gotten over that anxious feeling."
She and their two young daughters are moving with him to Steamboat Springs.
The family uprooted from Washington state two years ago because he says the Lord told him to go to flight school here. He got a student pilot license before the earthly matter of finances took over.
The plane cost about $2,000, so far. The wood was salvaged from booths used at a church festival.
"We rely upon the Lord for people to fund us," Jackson says. "He always provides. Always."
Getting from a wooden prototype to an actual fleet of planes will take more than a wing and a prayer. It'll take millions of dollars and plenty of FAA approvals.
"To be honest, people think I'm nuts," he says. "The idea is to motivate people that anyone can do it. People are afraid to try. You can create a lot of things from the couch, but unless you get your hands out there and try, you never know if you're capable."
Of course, it helps to have a hand from above, which his wife hopes will point permanently to Steamboat Springs.
"It's our final destination. We're done moving," she says. "The Lord knows I want roots."
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