Tony's Toy

In the summer of 1981, my dad was 35, doing well financially, unattached with, as I've mentioned before, few obligations outside of his work.  C-FFAM was, for lack of a better term, a toy.

Dad tying down C-FFAM's controls after a flight at Rockcliffe in the fall of 1982. (Family Collection)

His regular routine consisted of putting a day's work in before driving his company car (a Honda Prelude - if that gives you an idea of how practical he was) to Rockcliffe, pulling the red and white biplane out of its tiedown and going for a half hour flight.  In his day, my dad had plenty of pastimes - yoga, judo, hunting, checkers - but flying remained his true love and the sky his happiest place.

He occasionally took the airplane on short cross country trips but they were rare.

He joined the Rockcliffe Flying Club and got checked out on the club's Cessna 150s and 172s. Being, as one pilot put them, aerial sedans that don't do anything well except get you from point to point, my dad figured they'd do just fine.

In his own plane, he preferred local jaunts or a half dozen circuits to keep his feet moving.

My dad's membership card (82-272) from the Rockcliffe Flying Club issued in December of 1981.  Twenty-one years later, I would join the club as a flying member and be assigned number 3088.  Ten years after that, I started teaching there.  (Family Collection)

His logbook entries are uncharacteristically detailed and, even more than 30 years after they were set down, betray the excitement and pride he felt when at the controls of his machine. 

The notation for take-offs and landings, "12-13", was previously littered liberally across almost every page.  Enter the Mini plane and they became "power-off landings", "gliding approaches", and on September 19th, 1981, "almost ground looped."

The Smith's biggest exposure came at Aero Fete at Gatineau in 1982.  My dad flew aerial displays in the air show.  It was an opportunity to share the airplane and his joy of flight with others.  He would brag, years later, that FAM's parking spot was next to one occupied by a Supermarine Spitfire owned by Hollywood actor Cliff Robertson and flown by Canadian Jerry Billing.  The World War II fighter towered over the diminutive biplane with the big personality.  My dad was very proud.



C-FFAM makes an appearance at an airshow!  Thanks to Canadian aerobatic champion Jay Hunt, I now know this is Aero Fete at the Gatineau Airport in the summer of 1982.  My dad is getting ready to fly an aerial display.  The Spitfire in the background (MK 923) belongs to Hollywood actor Cliff Robertson and was flown by World War II Spitfire pilot Jerry Billing.  (Family Collection)

At Rockcliffe, FAM stood out among the flock of tin-can trainers.  For decades, many of her tie-down mates had been ridden hard and put away wet.  Their paint was chipped and peeling, their engines coughed and wheezed, gauges spun drunkenly behind cloudy glass.  FAM had led a privileged life - hangared, babied, tended to by doting owners.  Her cherry red and ice white coat gleamed - even under cloudy skies.  Squatting on her Taylorcraft gear, her nose pointed perpetually skyward as if to say "that's where I belong, so what the hell are we waiting for?" 

For a pilot, that's a hard offer to turn down.

In fact, not long ago, a student and friend of mine came over for a visit and saw the portrait of my dad and FAM sitting on my mantle.  He learned to fly at Rockcliffe and was an airport bum in the days FAM was based there.  He recognized it instantly.

"I remember thinking how cool it looked," he exclaimed, eyes alight with excitement.  "It looked like a little Pitts Special."

And in a way, I think that's what brought the airplane and my dad together.  It was stylish, slick, cool, unique, charming and had a personality.  If you could have asked my dad, he would have told you FAM was him - with wings. 

Then, in April of 1982, after a short courtship, my parents were engaged.  My mom knew nothing about aviation - except that she had travelled as a passenger on a jetliner a half dozen times.  My mom loved the opera, ballet, theatre and the movies.  My dad tried to feign interest and only succeeded in falling asleep.

As you can well imagine, it didn't take long for my mom to wonder where he was stealing off to pretty much every afternoon.  When he started dropping her off at the NAC, taking the Mini plane up for a spin, then returning in time to pick her up, my mom called him out.

He responded, quite seriously, with something to the effect of "well, you wouldn't understand" and "wouldn't care to anyway."

So, my mom enrolled at a flying school at the Ottawa airport, did the ground school and started taking lessons.


The lessons went so well, in fact, that it wasn't long before C-FFAM had a stablemate - a 1964 Mooney 20E registered C-FTEM.  My parents bought it together, for the now paltry sum of $27,000 from a gentleman named Alec Gillman.  They picked it up in Gimli, Manitoba on July 24th, 1982 then flew it back to Rockcliffe via St. Andrew, Dryden, Thunder Bay and Chapleau. 


My mom cutting the grass around C-FTEM, a 1964 Mooney 20E, in the summer of 1983.  (Family Photo)

She was a sharp example of the type, the first truly high performance Mooney - clean, fast and built like a tank.  The plan, as ambitious as it was foolhardy, was to fly it down to Buenos Aires, Argentina.  It would be their honeymoon.  My dad went as far as buying the charts and mapping it out. 



My parents on their honeymoon in Mar del Plata, Argentina in September 1982.  (Family Collection)

Three decades later, the maps live in a box in my basement.  If you pull them out, it's easy to see how his enthusiasm faded and doubt swelled over central America. The lines fade and notations grow sparse.  There are a few question marks scrawled over lakes and towns. There was too much water, too much jungle, too many governments in free fall, few airports and any number of places and ways to die. 

Pan Am made more sense. 



C-FFAM, my uncle Dante standing alongside and my cousin Gianantonio in the cockpit.  This shot is taken in August, 1982 in the yard of Right Forming on Stevenage Road in south Ottawa.  After storing it in Smiths Falls for the winter of 1981-1982, my dad had the Smith trucked to the warehouse in the background where it was stored in advance of the wedding and honeymoon. (Family Collection)

FAM, however, remained the favourite. What she lacked in functionality, she made up for in the sheer fun of flight. The Mooney was the 237th "Super 21" to roll off the factory line at Kerrville, Texas. It could take you anywhere you wanted to go and as far as fuel and weather permitted - quickly and comfortably. The Smith was built in Ernst Muller's garage. It went where you pointed the nose...but low, slow, noisy, windy and, sometimes, uncomfortably.

But hey, as my dad would say with a twinkle in his eyes, "wherever you went, you did it in style."