Designing a Brand New Sport Plane, with Steve Wood

By John Zimmerman
Sep 23, 2025
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Pilot's Discretion Podcast, episode 113

Designing a clean sheet airplane and introducing it to the world by flying to Oshkosh is a bold plan, but that’s exactly what Steve Wood did this year. He tells us all about the Spirit Engineering SE-1, including why staying quiet was important for the company, why good looks matter in an airplane, and why they designed their own engine. Steve also worked at Cessna many years ago, so he talks about the glory days of GA, including the launch of the Cessna Caravan. In the Ready to Copy segment, Steve discusses common design mistakes, the Skypup ultralight, and the Cessna 303.

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Quotes:

Why good engineers aren’t enough to make a successful airplane: “you have to couple those people with people who understand how to manufacture a complex product to a schedule, a cost objective, and a quality standard.”
Staying quiet: “my resolve at the beginning of this project was: we're going to stay here, we're going to keep our mouths shut, we're going to take care of business, and when we know we're ready, we'll go.”
The importance of looks: “among all the other things that airplanes must be, they have to look good.”
Why Spirit designed its own engine: “we became increasingly nervous because we realized that a corporate board meeting at any time could shut off a supply of engines.”
The benefit of folding wings: “This airplane is 7 foot 5 inches wide when the wings are stowed. That's not an arbitrary number. That was based on our study of what is the trailer width that's allowable in 49 of the 50 states of the United States.”
Flying just for fun: “Flying is one of those magical things we get to do. It's one of the most free things we get to do.”
Cessna in the glory days of GA: “I arrived there in the mid- to late 70s at Cessna, and things were booming. I mean, we literally could not build airplanes fast enough.”
Designing the Caravan: “Originally, believe it or not, it was going to be a tailwheel airplane. And marketing said, ‘no, we don't think so.’”
Why the original design matters so much: “you can ruin a great concept with poor execution, but the reverse is not true.”