Colin Hales is well known to me as a reliable engineer and a true original. I trusted him with the maintenance of my Supercub. I watched him build not one but two of those little aeroplanes he flew over amazing distances....solo around the UK and then the northern Atlantic route ending up visiting the friendly Russians.
He is not the sort to complain. It was a couple of fractured vertebrae that put him in the Japanese hospital; after that his friends got together to raise funds.
Whether for his medical treatment, the return of his aircraft, he is not exactly living in luxury, he is not that sort of guy.
He is, actually, a very good speaker. We asked him a couple of times (before the round the world attempt) to give a talk during the Shenington Regionals. He is completely genuine in every way.