West Virginia man has spent 5 years and over $200,000 building the last Convair B-36H Peacemaker in his garage

Building a plane in your garage is an ambitious project at the best of times, but one man in West Virginia has taken things to a whole new level with a Convair B-36H Peacemaker.

He’s spent the past five years painstakingly recreating one of the biggest military aircraft ever built, all from scratch in his own garage.

The incredible labor of love has already cost him more than $200,000, but he’s showing no signs of slowing down.

Every update reveals another painstaking piece of the enormous project coming together.

Building the last Convair B-36H Peacemaker from scratch

For most people, restoring a classic car is a lifetime project, but what does it mean to restore a classic military airplane?

For West Virginia creator Brian Pierson, it meant setting out to recreate an entire Convair B-36H Peacemaker, one of the largest piston-powered military aircraft ever flown.

Rather than restoring an existing airframe, Pierson is scratch-building the bomber using his own engineering, fabrication skills, and countless hours of research.

Over the past five years, he’s invested more than $200,000 into the project, with almost every visible component being made by hand.

In a recent YouTube update, Pierson explained that only a handful of genuine B-36 parts have made it into the build, including an original instrument panel, ignition switches, an astrodome, and a few other small pieces.

Remarkably, everything else has been made and built from scratch.

One of his latest milestones involved rotating the huge structure inside his garage, giving him more room to work while finally allowing him to admire the aircraft’s side profile.

The move also means he can now close the garage door, making it much easier to carry out the thousands of rivets still needed without disturbing the neighborhood.

Despite all the progress, Pierson admitted the project continues to cause fresh problems.

He recently discovered a small error in the canopy after comparing his work with newly found reference material.

While the difference is almost impossible to spot to anyone else, he openly shared the mistake with viewers and explained how he’ll adjust later sections of the aircraft to keep everything aligned.

He’s faced lot of hurdles during the build

One of the biggest hurdles has been supporting the enormous weight of the growing plane.

Pierson recently added steel supports beneath the structure after discovering aluminum simply wouldn’t provide enough strength without dramatically increasing costs.

The bomber has now become so heavy that he compares pushing it around the garage to moving a full-size vehicle across a level floor.

There’s still an extraordinary amount of work ahead.

Hundreds of rivets need installing, structural sections are still being assembled, and many interior details still aren’t done yet.

Even so, the project is beginning to resemble the famous and iconic bomber that inspired it.

Pierson joked that he’d had to push his ‘airworthy’ completion date back to 2095 after taking time away to raise more money.

His dedication has earned him a loyal following, with supporters even donating money to help keep the ambitious project moving forward.

Considering the sheer scale of recreating one of aviation’s most iconic bombers almost entirely by hand, it’s not hard to see why so many people are eager to watch every new update.