Dave Johnson: In 1992, I decided to start a side business, Desert Aircraft, to import, market and service the 3W motors.

It was a back yard company and profits were slim to none for the first few years. My other business carried Desert Aircraft during this time. Bryan Gillmore transferred from the old business to Desert Aircraft early on where we put his mechanical skills to immediate use. All profits from motor sales went to marketing and buying larger quantities of motors. Eventually, it became obvious that I needed to focus 100% of my efforts on one business or the other. I decide to close my original business and concentrate my time and efforts on Desert Aircraft.

During our partnership with 3W over the next 6 years, 3W engines became the giant scale engine of choice. Like many partnerships, we started to have different ideas as to how things should be done. Among other things, I didn't care for the direction things were going. In April of 1998 we reached the end and left 3W.

Rather than leave the motor business and all of our knowledge behind, we decided to develop our own line of high performance engines. We knew the market well, and knew what we liked, and didn't like, with the other motors on the market. We felt we could make the best motor and set out to do it, with the ultimate goal of our motor powering a winning plane at the Tournament of Champions.

I enlisted the help of Dave von Linsowe to help draft and engineer the DA150. Seven months later, Jason Shulman flew the first prototype on the Tuesday following the 1998 TOC.


Thanks but I think it was Adam that called his plane the Staundonkey first. It is pretty funny though.