I was born in Brazil and I’ve loved airplanes for as long as I remember. When I was little, my dad used to take me to our hometown airport just to watch planes taking off. We would also go to a park where people flew control line models. Those fascinated me but my modeling activities only started 15 years ago when, as newlyweds, my wife gave me a free-flight rubber powered kit called Vespinha (“little wasp”). I had a blast building it and soon moved to RC power planes. A couple years later we moved to a city with no other modelers but with lots of open space, which I thought would be good for flying those things without engines I had seen in a Tower Hobbies catalog. Pretty soon I met another modeler in town, and I was lucky to find out he was not only the best craftsman I had ever seen, but also a past South American free flying champion. He taught me not only how to build airplanes using modern methods, but also what were those thermals that could hold your glider up for hours. We built and flew sailplanes together, and ended up participating at the first Brazilian F3J Nationals in 1999 with home designed and built sailplanes.

At the end of that year, I was invited to work in the USA and one of the major reasons for the big move was that St. Louis had a large glider club, which I joined right away. A month later I already had a Chrysalis hand launch built in a hotel room.

In 2004 (and lucky as usual) I met good friend Marc Gellart, who had just moved in town and told me about the Ohio Valley Soaring Series, known as OVSS, which he had started several years before.

This series consists of usually 8 contests in several Midwest towns and points are added for each contest to select an overall winner. So I went to my first out of town contest which was in Chicago and was immediately hooked. That year I was the Sportsman Class champion, which was created to motivate new fliers into contest flying. These days I'm the score keeper for the class, won my first OVSS contest as Master in 2007 in Louisville to finish the year in 4th overall place. Fourth place was also my finishing place at the 2006 Nats flying RES, just luck on my side once again. 

I love building as much as I love flying, and I enjoy all Dr. Drela's designs. I have built so far several Supergees hand launch, a composite Allegro 2 meter, a composite Bubble Dancer and a Supra for good friend Tony Estep. I'm currently working on my own Supra which is a 134" unlimited glider with the challenge to meet the design spec of 48 oz ready to fly. This is when the 10th gram scale becomes your best friend (or worst enemy)! Several types of Kevlar and carbon fabric are used along cores of CNC-cut, high-load, 60 foam. MGS epoxy is used for building, and the finish will be Klasskote epoxy paint, which is light and bonds really well. Aileron and flap controls will be made per plans using a rotary system known as RDS, which is all internal to reduce drag.  The foam cores and carbon spar for the Supra center panel are pictured above.

Isabela, struggling to hold up her father’s 51-ounce homebuilt vacuum-bagged Supra. 

The Supra was maidened in summer 2008 and proved deadly on the OVSS circuit.