A legacy of America’s first licensed airplane pilot is slowly taking shape inside a Vancouver warehouse.

The project is a full-sized replica of a 1912 Curtiss Pusher biplane — an aircraft that made Northwest aviation history 105 years ago when Silas Christofferson flew from the roof of the Multnomah Hotel in Portland to Vancouver Barracks.

When finished, the replica under construction at Fort Vancouver National Historic Site is scheduled to go on display in June 2018 at Pearson Air Museum.

It’s a fitting destination, since the area around the museum grounds is pretty much where Christofferson ended his 12-minute flight on June 11, 1912.

“There are no original Pushers” they could duplicate, team leader Mike Daly said. So when team members started in the spring of 2016, they relied on plans that had been part of an earlier project, a scale model of the Pusher several team members helped build for the museum.