Steve Odell earned his Private Pilot license in 1988 and has flown a wide variety of airplanes from the Piper and Cessna families. His personal mount was a Piper PA28-181. It wasn't long before Steve began to notice the fleet of cute red and white biplanes that seemed to be multiplying like rabbits around the airport. Finally, he couldn't take it anymore and he wandered across the way and told Tommy Meyer that he wanted one too. Tommy told him that he could have one, but the catch is that he would have to build it.
Although he was pretty handy with building stuff like kit cars and race boats, he had never attempted anything as complex as an airplane. Steve accepted the challenge and got busy. Steve says that Tommy was there whenever he encountered trouble or hit a roadblock, and credits Tommy for making sure the plane got finished. Seven years later, another LITTLE TOOT was born sporting the classic toot paint scheme of red and white which he applied himself using a spray booth owned by a friend. Dubbed "Odie" after the dog in the Garfield cartoon, the plane weighed in at 1,465 pounds and is powered by a 160-HP Lycoming O-320. Steve covered his plane with the Poly-Fiber system, and added a sport exhaust from Aircraft Spruce. Gary Platner acted as test pilot and flew N61LT for the first time on June 14, 2009. The rigging was done by Tommy Meyer and Phil Witt. Steve says, "What I like about the Toot is the looks, and it's a very strong, well designed airplane".
