On a recent trip to Perry, Georgia, I had the chance to catch up with my friend and fellow Swift owner, Brian Ellingham. It wasn’t strictly a social call: My Swift needed some minor maintenance and I knew it would be in good hands with Brian.
Since my last visit several years ago, his business, Tailwind Aviation Solutions at Perry-Houston County Airport (KPXE), has grown exponentially. What was once a single shop is now a complex of two maintenance hangars, a flight school, and a new 6,000-square-foot facility housing a massive paint booth, along with the original Cessna factory tooling, jigs, and spare parts for an iconic vintage aircraft, the Cessna 195.
When asked how all this came about, Brian recalls helping his dad work on aircraft.
“When I was a little kid, I was stuffed into the tail cone of a T-6 and holding a bucking bar, so I kind of grew up into it,” he recalls.
That early experience led to a stint in the Air Force as a C-130 crew chief, followed by a career at the Warner Robins Air Logistics Complex, where he recently retired as a program manager for military sales.
The day I visited KPXE, his shop held a Cessna 310, two Globe Swifts, an Eclipse jet, and a Temco T-35 restoration project. Tucked into a back corner were several racks of aircraft parts, ancient plywood crates, and a long table where two young women were hard at work sorting new aircraft ribs. I had stumbled onto “The 195 Factory.”
Yet another arm of his aviation enterprise, The 195 Factory is Brian’s latest acquisition, and how it came to Georgia from its previous home in New York is a whole other story.
Suffice it to say that when Brian purchased a “flyable” Cessna 195 a few years ago, it ended up being a project. Of course, projects need parts — sometimes lots of parts. And when the New York company producing Cessna 195 parts came up for sale, Brian saw an opportunity and jumped.
Along with the new business, more staff was needed. Enter Alyssia Hall and Sophia Wozniak.
Alyssia came to aviation in 2023 through a client she worked for.
“The couple I cleaned for owned a Columbia 350 and he asked me what I wanted to do for a job,” she says. “I said maybe aviation mechanic, because I liked working on cars.”
That client introduced Alyssia to Brian Ellingham, and the eager 23-year-old started out on the ground floor (literally) by cleaning up the shop and sweeping the floors.
Soon she was shadowing one of the shop managers and before long he put her to work on aircraft.
“I basically did all the dirty work that no one really wanted to do,” she says. “They had me crawl into the fuselage, remove pulleys that they couldn’t get into. And then Brian taught me how to paint and prime. That’s where I excelled and I still do that today. I would say the biggest thing I’ve painted was the skeleton of a fuselage. I’ve painted flaps, ailerons, rudders, wingtips…all the good stuff.”
In the fall of 2025 when three truckloads of Cessna 195 materials arrived from New York, Alyssia got involved in organizing and cataloging “extra parts, extra hardware, extra shelves, extra everything.”
Then she learned the art of producing airframe parts by forming new aluminum sheets with original Cessna tooling.
As her skill set grows, Alyssia is studying for her A&P certificates and working under the supervision of experienced mechanics in the shop.
“Working on the job is helping me to associate what I’m studying in books to aircraft,” she says. “So I can kind of look at the engine, say, oh, this is how this works. This is how the fuel works. This is how the exhaust works, this is how the hydraulics work.”
When asked for any favorite “aha” moments from work, Alyssia lights up.
“An aha moment is when I paint and something comes out perfect,” she says. “I’m like, this is amazing! And then when you’re making the 195 parts and the bends come out beautiful and the sanding … you can run your fingers over the edge and it doesn’t give you splinters or anything like that. Just seeing how a sheet of aluminum is able to form into a part that goes into a fuselage or wing of an aircraft. I think that’s the most ‘aha’ moment there is. A lot of satisfaction.”
Alyssia’s partner in parts production is Sophia Wozniak. A vivacious 21-year-old, Sophia recalls how she came to aviation.
“I went to college first to do aircraft structural technologies, and then I found out that instead of it being a two-year process, it was going to be longer than that and more costly than that,” she says.
Fortunately, Sophia has a flight instructor friend, Camden Berry, who introduced her to Brian, and the die was cast.
In her first week at work in the fall of 2025, Sophia remembers, “I was organizing and counting every single part that we had gotten shipped in. All these shelves, all the 195 parts. We call it ‘195 Land.’”
Like Alyssia, Sophia is working towards her A&P certificates and assists on jobs in the shop.
“Every other night I try to at least read a chapter if I can, take some notes, go over it, and you apply what you learn in the book,” she says. “You see what you’re doing, you apply what you have read, you connect the dots, and you get it done.”
Reflecting on her favorite experience at work, Sophia says, “I think all of it collectively is a great experience. I mean, you’re making sure these parts are in perfect condition to send them out so that people can fly. I think it’s great — the people who entrust us with this part-making party that we have going on.”
At the end of the day, what does Brian find most satisfying?
“You know, I’d say the biggest thing that stands out to me is just being able to grow some of these younger folks in aviation,” he says. “Because not that many people are getting into it. Teaching them what a high standard is and just seeing them take that direction and make it their own.”
Like their fellow craftsmen at Tailwind Aviation Solutions, that high standard is what Alyssia and Sophia embrace. Seems to me that they’re not simply producing parts — they’re building a future.
For more information: TailwindPXE.com
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