"Never stop being a kid. Never stop feeling and seeing and being excited with great things like air and engines and sounds of sunlight within you. Wear your little mask if you must to protect you from the world but if you let that kid disappear you are grown up and you are dead."                                                                                                     
                                                                                                                       — Richard Bach



                     Documentation of a Journey

This project truly is a journey on many levels. During the course of conducting the research necessary for replicating this aircraft, I have been surprised to feel a connection with people and events long past that I did not expect. An example of this is to be seen within this unknown photograph above. Young men in the prime of life long since gone but, captured in a moment of obvious pride for their Squadron, Navy, Country, and most importantly,... their Aeroplane. I am humbled by the thought of being in a time, place, and of having the opportunity to bring their Aeroplane back to fly once again.

As a veteran of U.S. Naval Aviation, proud of his country and her accomplishments, I have also experienced a new found appreciation and respect for the rich Maritime and Aviation History of our British cousins across the Pond. With this in mind and in tribute to the Sopwith Baby's British Heritage, my journal pages below shall acknowledge that heritage with the image of the logbook entries of HMS Revenge on October 21 1805 at the Battle of Trafalgar.

Joe Perkel CFI, A&P, BS
Miami, Florida U.S.A                                                                                          July 31, 2008

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