BEAVER TRAILS — Grassroots Aviation at Its Best
The passionate world of aviation holds within its arms many breathtaking moments for those who seek its charms. Many have felt the seismic power of a B-1B Lancer in afterburner at an air show; a few have flown upside down with…
CALLING ALL VOLUNTEERS
If you want to be part of one of the most exciting things to happen to Ottawa/Gatineau in decades, but can only devote a couple of days each summer, have we got a job for you! …
ONE LAST DANCE
Sir George of Mayer, The Duke of Penhold, Earl of Argus-shire and Clown Prince of Vintage Wings, dances in the blue Canadian skies with an old flame – still as beautiful and yellow as she was when he was first smitten by her…
FIRST IMPRESSIONS
On a day reminiscent of a soggy watercolour painting, I participated at the Fifth Annual Volunteer (and Guide) Training Day given by Vintage Wings of Canada and held at their hangar at the Executive Airport in Gatineau….
THE GENTLE AVIATOR
This week’s story is not about the tragic end of a Bomber Command crew in the Second World War, nor hellfire aircraft carrier operations off Okinawa in the Pacific war. It is not about Merlin engines,…
BEAVER FEVER — The Great Arctic Adventure
On a cold and wet September afternoon, John Longair stood on the slick duckboards of a gently rocking, floating seaplane dock tucked almost unseen along the shores of the Ottawa River below the Rockcliffe Flying Club. …
ENTER THE DRAGON
Dan Fortin and the Nanchang CJ6A make a memorable sight wherever they go. And not because Dan is six foot three with a shaved head and a flashing smile or because the aircraft he flies is a bad-girl shade of Dodge Viper Red, …
CANUCK STORKMEISTER
Back, then we were all just getting to know the air show business and it was our good fortune to run into a bigger-than-life character like Murray, an airline pilot who simply couldn’t get his fill of flying by hauling a couple hundred butts to Acapulco….
LIVING THE DREAM
I was commuting to Ottawa that early Friday morning. Pete Spence had slipped his beautifully restored Harvard II into my backyard, which so happens to be a grass runway, and was giving me a lift to Gatineau, PQ, a two hour blue sky downwind dash…
COMMIE THUNDER
The moment I arrived at the Lachute, Quebec airport on that sunny Saturday morning, I realized my dream would come true….
ON BEING THREE
I sat there - in the Harvard cockpit, exhausted but satisfied after shutting down on the grass. Not a soul in sight, just me and the sounds of gyros winding down, metal clinking and clanking with different rates of contraction as it cooled….
MONTEBELLO — SKI-PLANE HEAVEN
As I walk up to the WACO on a sparkling day in June, light reflects off the rich, crimson, and glossy paint. This airplane is a jewel flashing in the sun! …
DER SCHONE STORCH — The Lovely Stork
Bill Ison, the Chief Flying Instructor at Cambridge Flying Group where I learned to fly Tiger Moths, started his combat service as a Lysander rear gunner in the Western Desert during the Second World War - “looking out for cannon-armed Messerschmitts…
DREAM BIG OR GO HOME — L’EPERVIER
Sometime before 1909, a small group of engineers and inventors, without the benefit of much known aeronautical science, set out to do something no one had ever done before in Canada—build a powered, heavier-than-air aircraft ..
THE BEAT GOES ON
My goal is to become a pilot in the Canadian Air Force. After graduating from McMaster University, I spent a year going through the Canadian Forces pilot selection process. After being accepted, I spent another two years going through basic officer training, second language training and waiting in …
FLYING THE TIGERS AND FEEDING THE LIONS
Not a test pilot? Not a multi-thousands hours airline pilot? Not much hope of being admitted into the world of warbird flying? There is one other way to come up through the ranks to fly vintage military aircraft - but it takes determination, stamina, skill, …
KEEP CALM AND CARRY ON
After a stellar 37 year career in the service of his country, Lieutenant General Angus Watt, Chief of the Air Staff, retires at the top of his game. Taking his place at the helm of the New Canadian Air Force will be Lieutenant General André Deschamps…
ANGEL of MERCY
As I walk up to the WACO on a sparkling day in June, light reflects off the rich, crimson, and glossy paint. This airplane is a jewel flashing in the sun! …
DOUBLE THE PLEASURE
n Canada, the Victoria Day long weekend signals the beginning of summer play and the boundless joys of being outside. Gone are the crusted snow banks, the dirty buses, the layered grey skies and the layered grey clothing,…
THE FLYING HADFIELDS
This past Canada Day, as many Canadians do, some members of one particular Canadian family gathered in Ottawa to have some fun and get their photograph taken as a memento of the day….