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Today's Featured Biography
Burl Rogers
I live with my wife Martha in Chugiak, where we moved from Anchorage in August of 1994. I have a daughter Janelle living in Anchorage, and a son Keith, who lives and works in Oklahoma. I have two granddaughters and two grandsons. Martha runs a bed and breakfast and is a professional caterer, working in Anchorage, Eagle River and the Valley. She makes a killer brownie that has been written up in Bon Appetite Magazine and is to die for according to chocoholics.
After graduation, I continued to work in the family orthotics and prosthetics shop for three years, until my mother decided to close the business. A former employee bought most of the equipment, and I worked for him for another year and a half. I also joined the Air National Guard in 1962, and continued to serve as an aircraft mechanic until 1968.
In 1966, I became a police officer for the Anchorage Police Department, where I stayed until December 1969. I resigned from the force to open Northland Four-Wheel Drive & Dune Buggy Center, the first four-wheel drive specialty shop in Alaska.
During these years, my interest in aviation continued to grow, expressed through my active participation in the local RC model aircraft club. Finally, in 1978 I closed the four-wheel drive shop and went to work for an aircraft maintenance shop at Lake Hood in Anchorage. I obtained my single engine land/single engine seaplane pilot’s license in 1977 and bought my own Aeronca Sedan in 1978, as a rebuildable pile of parts. Still working for other aircraft repair/maintenance shops, I rebuilt five other airplanes under the guidance and license of the shop owner before my own plane was complete in May 1981. I used my plane to develop several modifications and improvements, which I have since incorporated into the design data for the Sedan and still produce today.
In February of 1982, I opened my own shop, Burl’s Aircraft Rebuild, a repair, maintenance, inspection and rebuild facility, and became a licensed Airframe and Powerplant (A&P) mechanic in March 1982. I also starting manufacturing on a small scale, from small replacements for missing parts on rebuilds to the Magnum I tailski, which I designed for use on my own plane in 1981 and began manufacturing for sale in 1982 – still one of my best selling items.
In January 1992, I temporarily closed my shop and went back to school to become a licensed, commercial deep sea diver learning deep dive techniques, mixed gas, saturation diving, dive medicine and underwater demolition. I was hired as dive contractor by the Municipality of Anchorage and made a successful retrieval of a ski trail groomer that fell through the ice on Goose Lake in Anchorage near the UAA campus.
In July 2000, I purchased the Type Certificate for the (Aeronca) 15AC Sedan, now known as the Rogers (Aeronca) 15AC Sedan. I also received PMA for the entire aircraft shortly afterwards. Ownership of the Type Certificate and PMA gives me the exclusive right to manufacture the entire aircraft and all its parts, and ownership of all technical data for the airplane. By this time, I was turning entirely toward design, engineering and manufacturing in place of maintenance and rebuild work. In December of 2009, I finished and delivered the first new PMA (approved) replacement Sedan fuselage for a customer in Connecticut.
In January 2000, I became a Designated Manufacturing Representative (DMIR), an appointment made by the FAA, which allows me to sell my manufactured parts to any foreign country which has a bilateral trade agreement with the United States. With the manufacturing came a name change: Burl’s Aircraft, LLC.
My latest development, the Alpha Omega Suspension System, or AOSS, was first conceived during a conversation with a client who was having trouble locating replacement hydrasorbs for a Super Cub he was rebuilding. I toyed with the idea for about three and half years, doing drawings and prototyping. Then, I began to seriously pursue development of the AOSS, receiving a patent for my design in August 2003. Final FAA approval (STC) was received on May 26, 2004. The AOSS is now in use throughout the United States and I now have customers in Canada, Denmark, Switzerland, England, Ireland and the Czech Republic.
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