Having looked at the photograph, I congratulate you Don on an excellent job under no doubt considerable circumstance.

Touch wood, ( meaning frontal lobe), I hope I am not faced with the same. The handful I have had has still resulted in either two or three others turning and burning. Oops – lost one -  ho hum.

However, I urge you not to walk away from your love of flying and the dream of your own aeroplane.

Last Friday, the local authority gave me my medical back – sure with minor restrictions, but on Tuesday I towed my beautiful Lancair out of the hangar, loaded on a bit of gas, and blasted off.

Don, it was great – and I thought I might never fly again because of the big PC.

The day was fantastic, and it was a delight to flog around the bay, then into the training area for a few manoeuvres to sharpen the coordination up a bit, then back for what was a damn good landing – and that was not as good as the one you did by the look of your aircraft.

It seems to me you did everything right in your approach to the situation, and having walked away, you can be proud of it.

The ladies and gentlemen of this peer group would with a doubt be of one mind that the real tragedy would be for you to stop doing what you, and the rest of us, love.

Don, I didn’t build my Lancair, but I treat it as if I did. I look after it like a baby. I have spent a lot of money on it improving equipment and complete re-upholstery, and so I feel I have some input into it. I don’t know how I might feel if I had your situation as far as a rebuild is concerned, but I do know that in the last three uncertain months I was like a bear with a sore head, not because of the big PC and all of its ramifications, but because I might not fly again. Even she who must be obeyed was sympathetic. (She is in truth a great lady and I am fortunate).

Don, although I am reluctant to mention this publicly, I shall do so because everything is relative, and I don’t want you to make a decision you might regret later.

In 1989 I was sacked by my company that I had loved and flew for, for twenty years. I was out of work for six years, and during that time, in 1994, my wife died. As devastating as all that was, for whatever reason, life is good.

I think you have had a deep and meaningful experience that many of us might not handle as well as you, and it is time to capitalise on it, not walk away from it.

The chances are it will never happen to you again, and if it did, you might do even a better job – though I seriously doubt it possible.

Stick with us Don.

 

Dom Crain

VH-CZJ

The best Lancair in Australia