The Man Has Style

 

Vice-President of Maintenance Andrej Janik gives Dave O’Malley helpful tips and tricks for taming the Packard-built Merlin 266.

Dave O’Malley isn’t just a pretty face, folks. In fact, he is a man of a great many talents. In addition to being the artist behind all of Vintage Wings’ branding and marketing, and the brain behind the weekly stories, he can now claim being able to perform a run-up in a P51D Mustang. Yesterday afternoon, amid grey skies and the occasional raindrop, VP of Maintenance Andrej Janik gave O’Malley the chance of a lifetime. After some intensive TLC, the Mustang needed to have a run-up done, and what better way to thank a man who has donated 10,000+ volunteer hours, than to put him in the cockpit? The radiance from O’Malley post-run-up smile could be seen miles away.

Andrej goes over the cockpit layout with Dave before start-up (the engine started up on the first try, by the way).

All photos HF.