“Yeah. I’m a glutton,” he said. “But you know what, I love challenges.”

Said his wife: “When he first said he was going to do the half-scale, I thought he was crazy. But I did know that it was going to happen because he never starts anything he doesn’t finish.”

The triplane didn’t originate from a ready-to-assemble kit. Sharon indicated she and her husband hit hardware stores, lumber yards, toy stores and even cake decorating stores to find pieces that looked right or pieces that could be modified for the sake of interior and exterior authenticity.

The building plans had roots in the actual Fokker Dr-1 blueprint. A friend had the plans for a one-third scale model and those plans were tweaked to help Holland craft a half-scale version.

Holland said many people have asked him why he didn’t just build a full-scale plane.

“Really, I thought about it, and I could have built the real deal in the same time, or probably less, than this model,” he said.

Like the real thing, the half-scale model flies — and flies well, according to Holland.