Back in 1970, France, Germany and the United Kingdom created the Airbus Industrie in order for European aviation firms to compete with American companies such as Boeing, McDonnell Douglas and Lockheed in the development of a passenger plane that would carry between one hundred and one hundred and twenty people that would be used to fly short to mid distances at a low cost.
Three years ago, local Springbrook, Wisconsin man, Jesse Kaufman, came up with his own version of the airbus.
Jesse was raised around large equipment and lots of scrap metal. He’s an excavator by trade, but he’s the type of guy that if he can think it, he can manufacture it. “Anything’s possible,” he says. The area in Springbrook where he lives is replete with rolling hills where the scenery is beautiful, but the topography makes it really tough to hunt there.
“We started out standing on fifty-five gallon drums,” says Jesse, “so we could get a little height to see farther, but we needed to go higher.”
Several years ago he repurposed an old school bus into a hunting shack on wheels that would take them to various hunting destinations, but then Jesse decided, why take the bus? Why not park the bus and let the deer come to him?
On an eighteen foot upended repurposed fuel tank that is buried in ten feet of dirt, he placed another school bus and then added a thirty-five foot grain elevator as a stairway to the stars and recycled railings were added to the elevator up to his twenty-eight foot tall airbus.
Stepping inside the bus, the twenty-two windows offer a 360-degree view of the two hundred plus acres and he’s added electricity, comfortable seats, a table and chairs, a camping toilet and a TV. There’s a heater and plenty of room for sleeping bags so he can go to sleep the night before and wake up the next morning already in his stand.
He’s not the only one who likes the airbus. Local deer have claimed their spot beneath this tall monolith and have made their beds directly below using the bus for shade and a place to sleep that’s out of the rain.
It was a neighbor who took the original photo of the bus and it’s gone viral with the help of the internet Chasing White Tails site, a San Antonio, Texas newspaper, the Country Today magazine, plus Mossy Oaks and the Browning websites and others.
He’s been interviewed by KARE 11 news, Fox 21, WCCO and Texas radio with more to come, no doubt. After all, how many times can you take a Sunday drive way out in the country and spot a school bus riding high above the trees.
But this isn’t the only thing he’s done. Ask his daughters, Lexi, age eight and eleven-year-old Emma. Right outside their back door dad has created a 120 foot Slip and Slid that ends right in one of the many ponds on the property.
Now that he has everyone’s interest, he’s thinking seriously of marketing the airbus and is starting to check out all the hoops he’ll have to go through to rent it out.
It would be fun to sleep in the clouds, kind of like flying in an actual airbus, but without the turbulence, the crowds and cranky flight attendants.
He’s got a Face Book page called School BUS Deer Stand.
Last Update: Dec 14, 2018 12:57 pm CST
