Also in my garage: Van’s RV-7 light aircraft

Having decided to take the plunge, Colin then needed somewhere to assemble it: “I figured out the longest part of the plane and built a shed to fit around it in my garden, not thinking about how I would get it out again…”

Helped by father-in-law Nicholas Boothman, Colin then set about constructing the plane in sections. In total, the pair were to use 11,000 rivets in the RV-7’s construction.

The Van’s RV-7 light aircraft packs 100lb of luggage capacity

While the completed tail section and wings were able to exit Colin’s house through the front door, the fuselage was a different matter.

Fitted with its hefty Lycoming engine plus a full set of wiring and instruments, the only way it could be removed was by making a hole in his garden wall and then having it craned over rooftops to extract it from the confines of his suburban terraced home.

The final assembly was to take place at an airfield near Cirencester.

“There’s a saying with building these things: ‘It’s 90% finished, 90% to go,’” reflects Colin. “It’s absolutely true; there are masses of hours of fiddling around. On a difficulty level, it would be like making a Caterham from raw tubes.”

Colin Goodwin swaps steering wheels for a lever when flying his Van’s RV-7 light aircraft

But after five more months, the Van’s was finished and ready for the last of its LAA (Light Aircraft Association) inspections, amounting to 19 separate sign-offs in total.

Since then, Colin relates the pleasure he’s gained from flying the Van’s as unquantifiable.

Its air-cooled, 360cu in (5.9-litre) Lycoming flat-four he describes as: “Really crude… with roughly Triumph 2.5 PI levels of sophistication.”

But with its redundant systems – it will operate on one of its two magnetos if the other fails, for example – it’s ultra-dependable, which is infinitely more important.

The Van’s will cruise at 175mph and achieve around 25mpg, Colin confirms: “I’ve flown to Malta twice, which is around 1500 miles, but over a few stops. It will do Cannes, France, in one go on a still day, with 50 minutes of fuel left over.”

The Van’s RV-7 light aircraft’s navigation kit

You can see why he is so proud of what he describes as “the 911 of light aircraft”, more so because its registration – G-DMBO – was chosen in tribute to the same one used on his father’s Wellington bomber during the war.

With its vivid graphics, domed cockpit and faired-in wheels, it really does cut a swathe among the workaday Cessnas with which it shares space at White Waltham Airfield. 

Colin is clearly smitten, too: “If I’m in Malta and it’s parked next to an Airbus, I think: ‘I built this and flew it all the way here.’”

Images: Jack Harrison

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