Editor’s Note: The Lockwood AirCam is a one-of-a-kind airplane, tough, capable, ingenious and elegant all at once. Designed as a photo platform for a National Geographic_ story on the remote and pristine Ndoki Rain Forest in the Democratic Republic of Congo, the AirCam soon evolved into a commercially available product that continues to attract a cult following of adventurous souls._
When Phil Lockwood, the young man who would one day create the AirCam, graduated from the Florida Institute of Technology in 1982, the aviation industry was already looking grim as it prepared to enter what would turn out to be a 10-year downturn, during which time light plane manufacturing came to a near halt. The prospects looked anything but promising to a young man with a dream of making a living working with airplanes.
