As I make my way onto the sprawling Royal Air Force (RAF) base in Yorkshire known as Leeming, the sound of a Rolls-Royce – Turbomeca Adour Mk.951 turbofan, generating …

Most pilots who flew the Supermarine Spitfire will agree that it was a great aircraft, easy to fly and with no nasty surprises for even a ham-fisted driver. But when we began adding external gadgets …

Harry Boyle was one of seven Canadians, including myself, making up the majority of pilots in the Defence of Takoradi Flight during 1942. Harry’s insatiable curiosity frequently got him into trouble …

On 26 March 1942, His Majesty King George VI and his wife, Queen Elizabeth [now known as the Queen Mother] paid a formal visit to the early production line of Avro Lancaster Mk. I bomber aircraft being built at Yeadon, England….

Today, there are but a few old fighter pilots left from the Second World War who can claim that they survived a tour of dangerous low level ground attack missions in the Hawker Typhoon…

The “Clasp”, as tiny and seemingly insignificant as it looks, is a deeply powerful symbol of respect and gratitude to a fast disappearing group of Canadian men who undertook a complex task with appallingly mortal risk, …

This past weekend, 1 June 2013, the great Canadian fighter ace, Wing Commander James Francis Edwards, paid a visit to the Vintage Wings of Canada hangar in Gatineau. Stocky and his wife Toni were in town for …

In the seventy years since the night of 16–17 May 1943—the night of Operation Chastise—the events that transpired on that moonlit spring night have been made into feature films, documentaries, novels, non-fiction books,…

It’s a famous photograph... at least here in Canada. It depicts two Flying Officers of 403 “Wolf” Squadron, RCAF. Both men are Canadian, both born in or near the Québec city of Montréal. Both are fighter pilots,…

This story details my adventure at Hopes Advance Bay, a tidal bay on the west side of Ungava Bay in the extreme northern province of Québec, Canada during July–October 1956. It was merely a spot on …

The first time I met Archie Pennie, he was 92 years old—a tall, slender and boney man in a blue on blue argyle sweater and powder blue trousers. His face was long and narrow, full of anticipation…

I often shake my head today at the voyeuristic and Pavlovian attention certain, shall we say, “celebrities” get for doing so very little. In the worst case scenarios, you have those plasticized…

When my father, F/L John W. (Jack) Chalmers wrote his memoirs as an RCAF navigator instructor, it was appropriate that he include some of his poetry that was inspired by his service in uniform during …

We were grinding along at twelve thousand feet in cloud, minding our own business halfway between Ottawa and New York City in a North Star freighter. It was the gutted…

Since the early years of the last century, when the bewildering sight of flying machines began to fill the sky, the dreams of young boys and girls were lit by a new fire, one painted…

A day or so after rejoining the squadron, a number of army officers were attached to us for ten days, while some of our fellows went on exchange to see how the army functioned….

The first day I met Gordon face to face, I brought him a lemon meringue pie. Little did I know how much he liked pie. Over the past two years and dozens and dozens of interviews, driving from Calgary to High River…

As is our tradition, we raise a banner honouring a living veteran pilot of the Second World War. In past years, we have honoured men like Max Ward, Stocky Edwards and Bill McRae. This year, a year we celebrated leadership …

This past summer, while researching images of the British Commonwealth Air Training Plan operations at No. 36 Service Flying Training School at Penhold, Alberta, I went to one of the greatest …