Building an RV - Meet Mel Hemann

Some hotrock RV jocks enjoy blasting the theme from "Top Gun" through their headsets as they taxi to the active. Mel Hemann puts in his CD of "Nearer, My God, To Thee." Which is appropriate, because when Mel takes off in his new RV-6, he becomes the only Catholic priest we know who has built and flown an RV.

Mel Hemann learned to fly in 1960, just a year after he was ordained. His instructor told him he should go for a commercial ticket because "you like flying and you’re good at it." Mel took him at his word, after his religious commitments, flying has been his main activity, both recreational and professional. He got the commercial, and then went on for his CFI. That instructor’s rating came in handy…just teaching his family kept him busy.

"My brothers John and Everett, also Catholic priests, are both instrument rated pilots, and Everett has his CFI. We finally ended up with six pilots in the family. My brother-in-law I didn’t teach…he got his instruction courtesy of the Luftwaffe and ended up flying Me 109s and FW 190s during the war. I added a few ratings over the years and finally got my ATP on the twenty-fifth of June, 1976. At the time, I was the only Catholic priest in the world with an ATP, but a few retired airline types have become priests now and I’ve lost the distinction."

Over the years, Mel has served as a standby instructor and Part 135 pilot for the local FBO near his home in Cedar Rapids, IA and the other communities where he has been assigned. He has taught literally hundreds of people to fly and for years was a presenter at FAA Safety seminars.

"Those evenings often ended with me counseling people about everything but flying…many who would never have had the courage to approach their own pastors." he says.

Mel has used airplanes extensively in his work for the Church. For 35 years he has been heavily involved in marriage and family work. Airplanes have given him the ability to achieve many things and get many places where people needed his help that just wouldn’t have been possible any other way. He often flies church officials to meetings, which has gained him some unexpected notoriety.

"I was asked to fly the Papal Nuncio, the Pope’s representative in the USA, to a meeting once. About four months later, he attended the 150^th anniversary of our diocese in Dubuque. About 150 bishops, cardinals and priests were all milling around, lining up for the ceremony, when I hear ‘Hey, there’s my pilot. Mel, come on up here’. Somehow the Nuncio had picked me out of the crowd…. there was a lot of head turning among the powers that be trying to figure out just who I was."

Mel’s flying has taken him to all fifty states, and from the Arctic Circle to the Panama Canal. He’s landed on all the Caribbean Islands as far east as St. Croix and St. Thomas. A few years ago, he spent two weeks in Tanzania, flying doctors and nurses to jungle outposts in a Cessna 206.

As he approached retirement, he began contemplating another long cherished dream: building his own airplane. Luckily, he met Lyle Hefel. Looking at Lyle’s RV-6 quickly convinced Mel that an RV-6 was his kind of airplane and that a QuickBuild kit was the way to go. Mel began work in Lyle’s shop. For the next couple years, he put in as much time and effort as he could. Even with his calling, he couldn’t expect divine intervention. He had to learn from his mistakes just like everyone else. Lyle and Harry Styr provided the help and encouragement every first time builder needs. Somehow Mel found the time, between his responsibilities to the church and his activities as the newsletter editor for the National Association of Priest Pilots, to finish N298MH.