John Anthony David Gorham was an aviation engineer and radio controlled helicopter expert. He died last month, on November 28th, aged eighty-six. The WWII war veteran also repaired combat aircraft when he served his country in India.
His love of model aircraft, from RC planes to RC helicopters, was well known and he had been successful in many competitions for modeling.
Born in England, Gorham moved to the US in the sixties to work on a competitor project to the Concorde. He also worked on the wide-body L-1011 passenger jet airliner, overseeing the project that was being worked on by 800 aviation engineers. He was one of world’s foremost aviation experts, and even worked for NASA, offering technical reports for the US government on space flight safety.
John Peter Gorham, his son, spoke of his father’s life:
My dad was always larger than life, and he showed us with his actions that we could achieve anything if we put our minds to it.
As well as working on planes and space shuttles, Gorham also worked on radio controlled helicopters, founding the club ‘Helicopters Anonymous’. He also worked for Hollywood when they required RC helicopters, producing the models for the Gene Hackman move ‘All Night Long’ in 1981.