Editorial

Fellowship of aviators

In 2016, I met Adrian Eichorn, a Beechcraft Bonaza pilot who was flying his beautifully restored 1962 P-model Bonanza around the world. FLYER Bossman Ian Seager and I helped Adrian out with some air-to-air photos of his Bonanza as he made a flight past the American Cemetery and Omaha Beach at Normandy, site of the WWII D-Day landings. Much later, Adrian recognised this occasion of assistance, among many other moments from the trip, by remarking that ‘the fellowship of aviators was alive and well’.

I was given a reminder of the fellowship of aviators recently, as I worked to get the cracked engine mount on the RV-3 fixed. It’s been a fairly big job to remove the engine and then the mount, send it off for repair, and then get all the parts ready and reassembled.

My good flying friends Jonathan and Steve helped with removing the -3’s Lycoming O-235, and then having found a low cost, secure lifting solution, (there’s a review of the Sealey hydraulic lift in Top Gear that I purchased to help with this on page 63), lifted the airframe off the gear and removed the mount. While I was tied up with work, Jonathan loaded the mount, with undercarriage legs still fitted – they wouldn’t budge – into his Honda Jazz to deliver it to UK RV guru Nigel Reddish with no delay.

Nigel stripped and inspected the mount and his welder did a beautiful job of removing the cracked tube and fitting a new one. Less than a week later, he called to say the mount was fixed and ready for collection. All done for a great cost – seriously, if you need an RV engine mount repair in the UK, there is a good reason Nigel has full LAA approval for all RVs. As I was still firmly tied to the office and with Easter weekend coming up, another flying friend, Keir, offered to go and collect the mount for me.

With all these very kind bits of help, it meant that by Good Friday I could be found in the hangar repainting the engine mount. And by Easter Monday, with more help from Jonathan and Steve, the mount was back on the aeroplane – a few days later followed the engine. Huge thanks guys!

After the isolation of recent months, it has been fun to be back in face to face contact with friends – the fellowship of aviators really is alive and well.

ed.hicks@seager.aero