Departures

My father sold C-FFAM on March 31st, 1988.

I can guess why but it would be just that - a guess.  He never gave a reason for the sale - not even to my mother.  In fact, he didn't tell anyone that he'd sold the Smith at all.

C-FFAM at Rockcliffe very likely around the time my dad sold it, perhaps the fall before.  The tie-down is overgrown and the grass hasn't been cut in quite some time.  (Photo courtesy: Charles Baulme)

My mom found out that summer - but not from my dad.  The new owner rang the doorbell of our south Ottawa home and she answered the door. In his hand, he held a mesh shopping bag containing some of my toys.  I'd left them in the airplane on one of my flights of fantasy. A 4-year-old has no concept of flight hazards.

My dad had divested himself of C-FTEM some time before.  With FAM's departure, his flying days were over.  The horizons ahead were not crystalline blue but dark and unfriendly.  There wasn't time to mourn...only storms to weather.

Despite this, my childhood was a happy one.  Aviation, planes and pilots were always close at hand.

Just "plane" crazy in 1985.  Note the plastic Mustang (probably a P-51B) in my right hand.  I took that thing everywhere.(Family Collection)

From the moment I could walk, I went everywhere with a book in one hand and a model airplane in the other.  We lived a quarter mile north of the flightpath for runway 07/25 at Ottawa International.  My days were spent watching airplanes roar  by.  It seemed they were close enough to touch.  I must have waved at a half million air travellers in those first few years.

Vanessa and I in 1986.  My shirt explains my life.  (Family Collection)

Our weekends were spent doing one of three activities: visiting the Aviation museum, visiting an airport or chasing balloons.  The latter involved spotting a hot air balloon, piling into the family car and quite literally chasing the balloon to discover where it would land.  It seems absurd now.  For my 6-year-old self and 4-year-old sister, it was an adventure.  Every weekend was.

Vanessa and I with Teenie Two C-GZZY at Carp in 1989.  (Family Collection)

My dad had a way about him too.  He could talk himself onto any ramp or flight line and then instantly befriend a fellow aviator.  It wouldn't be long before Vanessa and I were captain and first officer on the flight deck of a mighty Cessna 172.  We could go anywhere and do anything.  In one moment, we were the Red Baron's wingman protecting his six from marauding Allies; in the next, we were an early 30s DC-3 crew flying air mail and passengers across the British Columbia interior; and in the next, witnesses to history as we sat astride fuel tanks in The Spirit of St. Louis during Lucky Lindy's transatlantic voyage.  My dad, always, was ready with a camera.

Practicing my steely-eyed aviator look in a Cessna 172 at Carp.  I had alot to learn.  Airplanes don't fly well with control locks in.  (Family Collection)

My first flight in a small airplane came in 1990.  My dad took my sister and I to the Ottawa Flying Club's Fly Day.  We waited 6 hours to get into a Cessna 172.  My dad sat in the back with Vanessa.  I rode in the right seat next to the pilot.  After we climbed out of Ottawa's north field strip and levelled off, the pilot let me take over.  I could barely see over the instrument panel but the yoke felt good in my hands.  One tilt of the wings was all it took.  I made up my mind that I would be a pilot one day.  To be honest, thanks to the countless hours I spent "flying" the Miniplane, I always knew I would be.

A video profile done by CTV Ottawa in 2010.  The first 5 minutes are about flying and my dad.  You can stick around for the rest - it is fun to watch.  (Video courtesy CTV Ottawa via YouTube)

At 13, I joined the air cadets.  5 years later, on my very last chance, I won a power flying scholarship and the chance to get a private pilot license.  7 weeks after that, thanks to the tireless work of my flight instructor Nigel Barber and the support of my classmates, a set of enamel wings were pinned to my chest at St-Jean-sur-Richelieu, Quebec.

My mom, me and my dad after my Wings Parade at St-Jean-sur-Richelieu, QC on August 11th, 2002.  (Family Collection)

My mom was my first passenger.  I took her flying in my solo plane - an emerald green and white Cessna 152 registered C-GZSZ.  I took my dad up a month later.  Our mount was C-GZWJ which, during our training, could be best described as cantankerous and clapped out.  The 152 is not the most graceful of machines but my dad made her dance across the skies.  He hadn't touched the controls of an airplane in nearly 15 years yet his hands and feet, despite coming off surgery only weeks before, showed no signs of rust.  He taught me how to fly lazy-8s and chandelles.  I'll never forget the feel and sound of the slipstream as we rushed up the arc of the wingover then slid down to earth again.  We spent an hour and a half carving through the skies west of Les Cedres.  It felt like mere heartbeats had passed from take off to touch down.

Dad and I pose with Cessna 152 C-GZWJ at Les Cedres on October 12th, 2002. (Family Collection)

The next summer, at 19, I started working with my dad as a surveyor's apprentice at construction sites across Ontario.  We worked 6 days a week, often in excess of ten hours a day, burning in the sun and sweating over structural plans.  Sunday was our reward.  After getting checked out at a local flying club or school, we would rent an airplane, pick an airport and go exploring. 

Dad at the controls of Piper Warrior C-GNOP on July 6th, 2003.  We're halfway between Hamilton and our destination of Burlington.  (Family Collection)

In the summer of 2003, we flew Piper Warriors out of the St. Catharines Flying Club.  At the time, Air Combat Canada had an operation at the airport.  My dad insisted I try aerobatics.  I went up for an hour with Paul "Pitch" Molnar in Super Decathlon C-GVQT - and tossed my cookies during inverted spins.  Despite this, I finished the flight and returned to earth forever changed.  Ten years later, I would check "Pitch" out for aerobatics on our club's Super D. 

Dad and I with Piper 180 C-FTSZ at Collingwood Airport on July 24th, 2004. (Family Collection)

The next summer, we flew a Piper 180 out of Canadian Flight Academy at Oshawa.  On July 24th, 2004, we flew into Collingwood - my dad's first time back in about 15 years.  He didn't say much but I could tell it moved him to return to the little airport he loved so much and spent so much of his time at.  Less than a week later, he drove me to Newmarket so that I could try flying a taildragger for the first time. 

As we pulled into the gravel parking lot at Holland Landing, I expressed a little doubt.  It was a hazy day, hot and humid.  The runway was short and bordered by a cliff on one side and a highly travelled road on the other.  I had about 100 hours total time and all of it in tricycle gear aircraft that were designed to land themselves.

"Just wait till you lift the tail," he said.  "You'll love it."

As I walked to the plane he yelled after me, "keep moving your feet."

It was good advice.

Landing Bellanca Citabria 7KCAB C-FCWQ at Holland Landing on July 30, 2004.  (Family Collection)

I'm pleasantly surprised by how much room I've got in the front seat.  My left hand feels at home on throttle as I flex my right hand around the control column.  I wriggle in my seat and push forward against my straps as I crane my neck over the nose.  Holland Landing's runway is the shortest I've ever seen. 

"Okay, ready to go?"  Instructor John Greer is in the back seat.  He seems nice enough.  I'm reasonably sure he can't see a damn thing.  If there were a sun on this bleak day, I would be blotting it out.

"Yes, sir," I respond.  My left hand advances the throttle smoothly as I add forward stick.  The 150 horsepower Lycoming responds immediately.  With my eyes on the far end of the runway, I see that I need right rudder right away - just to keep her running straight. 

I expected that.

Now, with the speed building, the tail starts flying and lifts off the runway.  My viewpoint - both from the cockpit and on flying in general, instantly changes.  So does my centreline.  I see it begin to wander off to my right.

I didn't expect that.

"Right rudder," says Greer.  I'd already pushed my right foot forward.  This airplane has heel brakes - infernal little tabs that stick out of the cockpit floor. I am wearing my Air Force Oxfords on the advice of a glider tow pilot friend of mine.  He says the raised heels give him a better chance of getting on the brakes.

We're running down the centreline again.  The landscape on either side of the strip begins to blur.  The dewed grass and wild cotton struggling to survive along the runway's edges tremble and writhe in our wake.  Orphaned filaments float away, skimming the wet grass before becoming ensnared in emerald green blades.

Far away, an engine roars and the trundling of rubber on runway is replaced by the hiss of air caressing taut fabric. 

We're in the air now and I'm amazed by how light and responsive the Citab is.  Being used to sloth like high-wing trainers, I instantly remark that it flies like a Piper.  Greer responds by asking me to do a series of dutch rolls on the downwind.

I oblige, working hard with my hands and feet to keep the hub locked on a point on the horizon.  I'm either rock-solid or all over the place.  It's so hazy up here that I can't be sure I'm actually rolling around a point at all.  Off my left side, Holland Landing appears shrouded in mist as it crawls by.

Turning final, I'm impressed by the sheer drop of the cliff bordering the runway.

"I may as well be landing on an aircraft carrier,"  I mumble.

A muted chuckle from the backseat.  He's landed here a thousand times and can probably do it with his eyes closed.  It's just as well too as I'm sure he can't see a damn thing.

My airspeed control on final is good.  There aren't flaps on this Citab so I slip to bleed off any excess altitude.  As the speed drops off to final approach numbers, I'm feeling pretty good.

The edge of the cliff flashes by and away under the wings.  The runway swims up.  Power off, stick back into the flare and hold it here.

Hold it.

Be patient.

A squeak, a slight hop and we're down.  A little shimmy of the nose as I find my feet again, then stick all the way back to pin the tail down.

"Again," says Greer.  I apply full power and off we go.

"That wasn't too bad," I think to myself as we climb out for another go.  Now, at the time, I hadn't read Ernest Gann's Fate is the Hunter.  In fact, I had no idea it existed.  If I had, I would have recalled his first landing in a DC-3, how swimmingly well it went and his check pilot's subsequent warning that "a whore is easy to meet."

My next landing could have been an amusement park ride.  I only remember the first bounce...then bailing out of it with full power after what I'm sure was a minor stroke. 

Another couple of (better) circuits later and we taxi off.  My dad is grinning from ear to ear.

"She almost caught you there, eh, son?"

"You could say that," is my sheepish reply.

"You know...in the Mini plane," he begins.  "Sometimes, it felt like you had to pedal her down the runway...I had to move my feet that much."

"Otherwise, she'd bite you in the ass."

That's how FAM came up in conversation.  In fact, I didn't know her callsign until well after I got my license and we started flying together.

Every flight, every drive to the airport, every conversation about flying...the Smith Mini plane factored into in some way. 

My dad would tell brilliant stories and paint vivid pictures of what it was like cocooned in her single seat open cockpit.  I felt as though I had truly come along on all their fantastic adventures,  Still, I could hear a tightness in his voice.  He talked about that airplane like an old girlfriend that had broken his heart.

Every time I suggested tracking her down, he'd brush it off.  In his eyes, I could almost see the reflection of the instruments. 

I never pushed the issue.  A man has the right to hold onto a memory and even to live in it.

So, we set out to create our own memories.

Dad with Cessna 172 C-GBRI at Arnprior in 2003 - more than 20 years after flying it at Orillia during his float training. (Family Collection)

On one such flight, we were strapping into Cessna 172 C-GBRI for a short flight from Rockcliffe to Arnprior.

"I've been here before," my dad suddenly says.

"Rockcliffe?"  I laugh.  "Yeah, no kidding?  Me too."

"No, I mean, here," he insists.  "In this airplane."

I dismissed it.  Cessna built more than 43,000 172s - more than any other aircraft in history.  The odds were astronomical.

Alas, no, I was wrong.  On our return home, a quick check of my dad's logbook revealed the truth.  My dad flew BRI and sister ship QUO, both now on the flight line at the Rockcliffe Flying Club, in 1979 and 1980.  Dad was working on a float rating in Orillia in those days.  BRI and QUO were brand new.  After more than 20 years, it was a nice reunion.

Our last flight together.  May 13th, 2010.  (Family Collection)

On May 13th, 2010, high above Constance Lake near Ottawa, the faraway buzz of an airplane's engine is the only soundtrack to a breathtaking aerial ballet.

My dad's flying the airplane - a snappy Burkhart Grob 115C registered C-GKPB.  Loop, hammerhead, another loop, then a barrell roll.  I've been instructing aerobatics on the Grob for a little more than a year.  I started the flight by offering some verbal assistance.  Now, I've fallen silent - watching my dad handle an airplane he's never flown before, doing maneuvers he hasn't flown in thirty years.  As we crest the top of the barrell roll, I watch his eyes flit from his pivot point to the nose, then slide down the wing to the next reference.  Hands and feet react to what his eyes see.  He's had a rough time, my dad.  The radiation treatments beat him up pretty good.  He's bounced back nicely, though.  That's why we're up here, ballistic over the top of a loop now.  He's earned this.

My dad is dying. 

Yet, here we are, gathering speed down the backside of the loop, in silence, doing something we both love.  No matter how our relationship has changed, grown difficult, evolved for better or worse over the last few years - this is our common and strongest bond.

We're rushing downhill out of the loop and up to the vertical line of another hammerhead.  He hits it perfectly and sticks it there.  The Grob is an ungainly gull and we won't draw this line for too long.  His left leg, his good leg, pushes his boot against the rudder pedal.  He's timed it perfectly - which is critical. 

The world stops.  A sigh.  Was it me?  Him?

I can't tell.

The nose slices left as the rudder comes in to the stop.  We're pointed straight at the centre of the earth again.  I catch a glimpse of the May sun shimmering on the lake's surface.  Even into the spring, little flakes of ice have survived, huddled together in the middle of the lake.  The sunlight leaks through the propeller's gossamer disc as the earth slides away beneath the belly.

"Okay, Pop," he says to me.  "Let's go back.  I'm done."

In my heart, I knew it would be our final flight.