New Horizons, Open Skies

It would be a long, unsteady two weeks before I would return to Brampton to pick up the airplane and bring her home to Rockcliffe.

I watched the weather for 10 days, scheming, trying to read the weather patterns in the hopes of predicting which day would provide me with the best conditions to make the important trip. 

I even asked my colleague, our local weatherman, for advice.  He shrugged.

I eventually settled on Saturday, July 5th as my target date with the Sunday as the rain date.  I booked a Greyhound bus ticket to Toronto and arranged for my uncle to pick me up downtown.

My wife Melody dropped me off at the bus station on Friday afternoon after work.  I felt a great deal of anxiety as I left her in the parking lot.  We had recently found out that we were expecting a child in the new year.  We'd had our first ultrasound only the week before.  My first glimpse of our son or daugther was a tiny flicker of a heart beat.  For us, life was changing, and I was about to embark on an adventure that wasn't without its risks.

The bus was nearly empty.  I picked a seat near the back, rested my head against the window and let the low vibration of rubber on road lull me to sleep.  I woke up as we took Highway 7 out of Perth.  I had considered taking this route by air to bring the Smith to Rockcliffe and I wanted to see what it looked like from the ground.

The scenery that smeared itself across the big bus windows was the uniform murky green of forest and swamp.  The rolling mural repeated itself until Peterborough where I mercifully succumbed to sleep once more.

Saturday morning, I woke up early and unsettled. A thousand competing thoughts waged war in my mind and, inevitably, the body was paying the price. I was able to choke down a carrot muffin and a cup of good coffee. I'd decided anything more would be ill-advised.

There wasn't a cloud in the sky and perhaps just a breath of wind. So far, so good.

Smith C-GDSA about to leave Al's hangar for the flight home to Rockcliffe.  (Author's Collection)

My uncle drove me to the airport and promised to hang around until I took off. About an hour later, after a weather briefing that yielded only the concern of gusty winds out of the west, some parting wisdom from Al, the vague notion that he was sad to see his plane go, gassing up, and a fortunate encounter with a poorly-placed fuel cap, we were ready to go.

The taxi down to the button of runway 33 is a long, lonely one with plenty of opportunities to second-guess one-self and absolutely no chance at retreat.

By the time doubt prodded me to glance over my shoulder, the path at retreat had been cut off by a plodding Cessna 172.

Another 172 floated by, bounced once and then finally settled to earth with the sagging finality of an vessel tired of flight. I waited for it to clear before taxiing out to the runway. Uneasiness, fear, anxiety and doubt fluttered underneath a blanket of muffin and coffee.

A last check, my voice weak and thin as I announced my take-off on the radio, left hand forward, right foot down, shoulders hunched forward, every inch of my body determined to fly.

The take-off roll is surprisingly short. Tail up now, I watch the edges of the runways wiggling this way and that in direct relation to the movement of my feet. More speed, more authority, swings dampening, airspeed climbing through 60, the little bipe now charging down the narrow strip of asphalt.

Seventy. Pull.

We leap into the air, flying wires trembling, knees shaking, the wind ravaging the exposed corner of the map tucked under my left thigh.

We set course for Holland Landing, 26 miles to the north-east.

The land beneath me is utterly foreign. For two weeks, I've pored over the charts meant to represent this small parcel of Ontario but either I'm looking at an entirely different patch of land, or the artist charged with the production of my map had a very bad day devoid of any inspiration. I drone on to the north-east, entirely enthralled by the mosaic of fields, fences, developments and towns, ponds and rivers drifting by.

A glance at the compass comes as a slap in the teeth. For hundreds of years, sailors, and airmen after them set their course by this marvelous instrument. Mine is a fraud - a charlatan. It spins drunkenly, left and then right, indicating anything from north to east...sometimes beyond. I decide to average the oscillations and endeavour to fly my 050 course. A few minutes later, I pull the map from under my thigh, look down over the side and identify highway 9 which will lead me to Newmarket. The airport at Holland Landing lies midway between the town and the southern tip of Lake Simcoe to the north. The sky is a violent blue. Visibility is perfect. Right on cue, Newmarket and Lake Simcoe crawl over the horizon.

Ten minutes later, I am perplexed. Newmarket lies behind me over my right shoulder and Lake Simcoe over my left. Holland Landing has eluded me.

I'd learned to fly taildragger at that strip ten years ago. I'd arrived there and departed the same by both car and airplane. I'd even watched a movie, alone, in a nearby cinema. Holland Landing's insolent game of hide and seek is a sharp betrayal.

I bank steeply into a tight 360 degree turn and the airstrip reveals itself, exactly where it should be. I'd flown directly on top of it - its presence hidden by the long nose stretched out in front of me. As if in quiet insult, the finger tip of Lake Simcoe mockingly points directly to the airport.

Right, onward to Peterborough then. Steer 090.

The compass replies with wild swings between 120 and 010. They don't call it a "Whiskey Compass" for nothing.

Out with the tightly folded map, then. Highway 7A lies beneath me, stretching in segments to the horizon in the east. I'll follow it right to Peterborough.

Twenty some odd minutes later, the twin fingers of Lake Scucog drift by. I envy the people living on the island in the middle of the lake and then think twice about it. I'm entirely alone at 2500', wrapped tightly in the conversation between engine and slipstream, sandwiched neatly between emerald fields dotted with multi-colored roofs and pools and a sapphire sky unspoiled by neither cloud or flying machine save my own.  I am the one to be envied.

I let out a cheer. It is swept away instantly. Remarkable.

I pick out Peterborough as a pale patch cut out of a oval-shaped wood and the fingernail of a runway centered neatly therein. As if in reply, I find myself jostling the rudder pedals to mimic what I'm sure will be a very involved landing. The bipe eagerly wags her tail. Yes, I reply, we'll see.

As I cross overhead the field, I see the windsock is stiff out of the west-north-west, indicating some 20 knots with periodic gusts. The runway at Peterborough is oriented east-west, so, at the very least, we'll be landing into wind. I throttle back as the runway hits my left shoulder, and sweep into a base turn, wings level to make sure I won't cut anyone off, then another left turn onto the final approach.

A small river sweeps by underneath, then a stand of tall trees with limbs waving frantically. Now, 7000 feet of asphalt stretches out in front, 85 mph on the airspeed, the Lycoming generating 1700 rpm.  The threshold flashes by underneath my twin wings, stick back, speed spilling away, the airplane slows, seems to billow out like a handkerchief thrown from the window of a speeding car.

A squeak, the beginnings of a swing right, a stab of the left foot to stop it and suddenly the world is still.

Power off.

We're down...and stopped...

I look over my shoulder. There is perhaps 300 feet of runway behind me. We may have rolled 50 feet. 50 feet would be generous.

I taxi clear of the runway, shut down on the ramp, gas up, chat with the fueler and half a dozen pilots wanting to take pictures and take a look inside. An old hand, ferrying a brand new, state of the art Cirrus, abandons his machine and her new owner to reveal he once owned a Pitts S-1. His eyes twinkle when he talks about it and asks about my approach speed and how squirrely she is on pavement. After a few moments, we exchange names and a handshake and he walks over to the shiny, composite, parachute equipped Cirrus in the next tie down. He does so without enthusiasm.

Next, a student pilot flying his first solo cross country from Toronto Island to Muskoka then Peterborough and return. He expresses some concern about being kicked out of the nest so soon, dealing with gusty winds, and the anxiety associated with it all. I confess that this is my second landing in an airplane I had to teach myself to fly. We are brothers - despite the fact that we will soon fly off in different directions and are very likely never to meet again.

My cousin Michael walks out of the terminal. He's an aviation student at Seneca College - now based at the airport. We visit for more than an hour and a half, looking over the charts and deciding it would be best to forego my stop in Smiths Falls and continue home to Rockcliffe.

We briefly discuss flying south east for Kingston, refueling there and then turning north east for home. The choice is not an easy one. Between Madoc to the east and Perth, there is nothing but 60 miles of forest, swamp and rocks with a sparse seasoning of lakes. Between Kingston and Perth, there are only lakes.

We decide following Highway 7 east for home is the lesser of two evils.

It's also exactly what my dad did 33 years before.

The path I took to bring the Smith home on July 5th, 2014.  (skyvector.com)

And so, at 2:15 in the afternoon, the Smith and I clatter into the sky above Peterborough, turn right and pick up the highway. In no time at all, shepherded east by that brisk tailwind, I see the old ultralight strip at Norwood, just before the town of the same name. It is still marked on aviation charts but I know it to be abandoned. Just the day before, I eyed it from the rearmost seat on the bus. The gravel runway running parallel to the highway is increasingly overrun by grass and brush as it runs east. The shade sheet metal hangars are empty, devoid of airplanes. Instead, trailers litter the ground. I know that the new owner prefers it this way but that he leaves the runway clear if plane and pilot ask for permission to use it in advance. The former owner kept it as an active airport but he died in a plane crash near the strip a few years ago.

In a moment, the strip is gone, replaced by the town and then Havelock with a cluster of three lakes to the north and, to the south, the Trent river looping north and then away again to the south. Far to the south, the Campbellford VORTAC is firing invisible beams out from its centre, like spokes on a wheel. Other airplanes latch onto these signals and follow them to far off places. I see no such companions. If they exist, they are far above me and we are blissfully ignorant of each other.

Next comes Marmora, then Deloro and finally Madoc with a lake my chart has named Moira to the south. Two small boats play on her surface, leaving playful, winding feather-tails behind. They twist and tangle, threaten to soundlessly bump into one another and, at the very last instant, separate in a spray of ice white speckles.

Now, far ahead over the nose, the concrete ribbon on highway 7 melts into the horizon. The same highway lies below my left main wheel. In between, it snakes in behind vast woods colored a deep, dark green and lighter patches of light emerald that I know to be bogs and swamps - not fields.

Up until this point, I've been making regular positions reports over each town - announcing my position, height and destination. I imagine a man (or a woman) sitting in a dark room, cigarette smoke clinging grimly to the ceiling as a bare lightbulb hangs down like a sun through the clouds to mingle with the glow from a radar screen. The slowly moving blip on his screen now has a name...and a voice.

Now, I won't bother with the position reports. For the next 60 miles, the endless morass of trees, rocks and swamps repeats itself. If the engine quits, I'll have precious few choices - each one poorer than the last. I pull the bipe's nose up and gain another thousand feet. If the unthinkable should happen, it will buy me an extra thirty seconds - perhaps a minute, but no more.

My eyes scan the engine instruments every 15 seconds - looking for any sign of trouble. Alas, the engine does not betray me. Oil pressure has sat, unmoving and resolute at 80 since we left Peterborough. Oil temperature - 60...and has remained so for my entire time in this airplane, and 575 hours before that...and roughly a thousand more before that when it pulled a PA-12 around the sky for nearly 10 years.

I confess ignorance when it comes to engines but watching one behave so well and with such unerring faithfulness is a rare pleasure. In sharp contrast, when they do misbehave, the results are swift and coldly cruel.

Puffy bands of cumulus clouds have now appeared on the horizon and inch towards us. Every so often, we are cast in shadow as one passes overhead. On the ground below, darker patches dot the landscape, matching the clouds' overhead march. One out of every four clouds is ringed in a translucent silver halo, backlit by a sun arcing to the west, behind us.

At regular intervals, I hear another pilot on the radio, reporting their position over another town or lake. They are never near me but I hear them with such clarity. Given I am very much alone, I am content to fly in silence.

And yet, I'm suddenly seized by a desire to know exactly where I am and, by a simple calculation, discover how far I've got to go and how fast or slow my progress has been. I pull the chart from under my thigh and discover that I've flown off the edge. This is easily remedied by unfolding the map and refolding it to reveal the next part of the trip. I'd been warned by Al that this is no easy feat in a single-seat, open cockpit. I thought he might have been exaggerating.

He was not. At once, the map, formerly tightly folded into a neat rectangle, is billowing like an angry cloud in the small cockpit. My gloved hands abandon the stick and throttle and try to jam the map back into a reasonable rectangle. The airplane drops her left wing and claws into a climbing turn. I peek over the edge of this wildly agitated map and am alarmed to see nothing but blue skies and a single cumulus cloud standing sentry. Right elbow down on the map, left arm tight against my body, I'm wearing the map like a towel as I grab the stick and return us to straight and level flight.

The engine is racing. I stretch a finger from my left hand and hook the throttle back. I consider letting the map go, to hell with you, but in Al's story, it leaped from the cockpit and wrapped itself around the brace wires holding the tail together. The drag caused such an alarming rattle in the elevator controls that he landed at the first airport he saw, conveniently located under his wing. I don't need the map to tell me that the only airport within 50 miles of this desolation is Tomvale - somewhere to the north. And I know with certainty that I wouldn't be able to find it without the damned chart.

After two or three minutes of wrestling, at intervals with the airplane and the map, I manage to roll it into a tightly crumpled little cylinder, and jam it under my thigh for the rest of the flight.

Soon, the vast forest gives way to farmland, first in pairs and small groups, then in wide swatches as if cut by the hand of a master tailor. Here too, the vast pack of lakes that have been constant companions off my right wind, abruptly stop. This place is called Perth. Here, I'll turn north east, still following the highway, cross Mississippi Lake where boats and watercraft still play, and descend towards Carleton Place - careful to drop below 2500 feet lest I offend yet another man (or woman) in a different dimly lit room hundreds of miles away.

In another 20 miles, the airport at Carp plays the old trick of hiding under my nose, so I skirt around it to the west, cross Constance Lake, lined by angry white caps that march like an army across her dark grey face, and then traverse the Ottawa River. I emerge on the other side, perhaps a quarter mile north of the Ottawa VOR and cross the escarpment south of Camp Fortune. This is now familiar territory, airspace I regularly ply during trips in the Decathlon. The Chelsea Dam sits balanced on the propeller hub, with the Gatineau Airport beyond. To the south, Ottawa fades away from the bridges linking her to Gatineau. A little to the east, framed by the right-hand cabane struts, is Rockcliffe.

My first call to Unicom is an emotional one. My voice is cracking. It's been a long journey and one that is perhaps a decade in the making. This landing at Rockcliffe is both an exclamation mark and an ellipsis. It is both an end and a beginning. The dispatcher confirms that winds are strong and gusty out of the west. The runway, however, is wide and familiar. I sweep overhead, cut the power back and carve a descending 180 degree turn to return across the field at circuit height. The Miniplane has the gliding characteristics of a grand piano and gleefully bleeds altitude. Two turns later, I'm looking down the length of this historic airstrip. In a few moments still, another Miniplane, the first since C-FFAM almost 30 years ago, will call it home.

The speed sits at 85 with the Lycoming pushing out 1700 rpm. The runway swims up to meet me. I've flared slightly high and now we're dropping. A burst of power and the descent is arrested. We touch down on all three points and bounce into the air again. At the second time of asking, she stays earthbound and we roll to a stop abeam Bravo taxiway.

The happy pilot having just arrived at Rockcliffe after nearly 3 hours of flying.  (Author's Collection)

And now, we're home.