A religious experience

As the summer grew older our collective confidence increased.  While not yet relaxed, I was certainly more comfortable flying my new mount.  The Smith, while not yet completely trusting of her new jockey, allowed herself more, and longer moments of carefree aerial play.  I consider myself a grounded dreamer; completely aware of the gravity of my craft while allowing myself to believe that airplanes, while built as machines, possess a certain human aura.
I privately refer to it as a soul.  Like-minded aviators will understand my meaning.  The more secular reader may not.
When I was a young reporter, I was sent to cover the public opening of a local billionaire pilot's impressive stable of vintage airplanes.  One of my interviews was with the chief pilot and, when I asked him the absolutely asinine question of "what's it like to fly these things?" he said:
"At the risk of sounding cliche, Jonathan, it's a religious experience."
I loved the clip but did I really understand?  Was he being dramatic?
At the time, I had only just started dabbling in tailwheel flying and had less than an hour of aerobatics.  The bulk of my sparse time was in bovine Cessna products and slightly more refined Piper Cherokees.  I loved flying more than anything but, no, I don't think I understood.
I do now.
And so, as my ease grew, so too did the Smith's.  I swear that, as I slackened my grip on the stick, I could feel the tension melt out of her and fall away through the summer heat.  Her wings bit into the thin air with such a ferocity that I felt she was happy to be up here again, bobbing around in her natural element.  The propeller took greedy gulps of new air, driving us forward with each pass of its blades.  The flying wires hummed and whistled a tune in harmony with the Lycoming's bass track. The balance had been restored.  All was right with the world.
This continued as long as I kept things as they should be.
If I lingered too long while orbiting a small town and perhaps allowed the ball to wander as much as a millimeter...or if I touched down with too much speed and skipped back into the air, I could feel her bristle.  I had betrayed myself - given the Smith just enough to recall that it was no longer Al's hand guiding her but mine.
We began again, anew, each time.

The Smith and her home after a summer afternoon flight.  (Author's Collection)

This education, however, is nothing short of a love affair.
These summer days came in two variants.  The first, warm and clear under violent blue skies, prodded you into turning your face heavenward to be caressed by the outstretched hands of the golden sun.  You wore the second like a heavy, wet mantle.  These days cloaked all the world in sheets of silken mist and made the most familiar landmarks seem alien.  On such days, heavy with sweat and steam, one viewed the world as if passing through curtains hung one upon the next.
On these days, I stayed close to the field to practice take-offs and landings.  I very rarely stayed up for more than three or four circuits as the workload was high and, by virtue of the Smith's speed and gliding ability, wedged into unmercifully short periods of time.  Each one of these flights progressed in the same manner: my first landing was always tentative, the second was always a marked improvement of the first, the third was perhaps the best of them all and the fourth was so humbling it persuaded me to call it a day.  I always emerged from the Smith's cockpit soaked in sweat - as much from exertion as from the heat.

The Smith's cockpit.  (Author's Collection)

On those warm, clear days, I would pick a direction and endeavor to discover what lay on the far side of the nearest horizon.  Given our lack of a transponder, a southerly heading was ill-advised, illegal and surely upsetting to the man (or woman) moving glowing green blips around a screen deep inside the bowels of a basement bunker.  Still, that left us with the three remaining cardinal directions of North, East and West.
One one such foray east, somewhere past Orleans but not quite yet upon Rockland, a brief conversation with a good friend and aerobatic student, crept into my mind.  He'd mentioned he owned a farm house across from a large field where, years ago, he'd landed an Aeronca Champ.  I hadn't seen much of him this season owing to the fact that he'd spent the bulk of his time installing solar panels on the roof of his barn.  A thought seized me: didn't he say his place was around here somewhere?
I looked over the side and, much to my amazement, there was a large barn just under my left main wheel.  The barn's roof was covered in solar panels.  I swung my head out the other side and, with the bipe bobbing beneath me, spied a large field that was certainly suitable to land a little taildragger.
Could it be?
Had I stumbled upon this very place by accident?  And why did my memory of the conversation choose to reintroduce itself at this very moment where, high above these patchwork fields and surrounded by such beauty, I had plenty of cause of think of anything else?
As if to answer my query, my friend's red van came crawling down the long, winding, gravel lane towards the barn and farmhouse.  I swung the airplane around into a tight orbit.  Yes, it must be him - there's no denying it!  What luck!
I roll the Smith out of the turn, draw the throttle back and shed a few hundred feet as I swing around again for another pass.  The van is still now but half masked in shadow from the barn.  I am sure I can see a tiny figure far below, standing just to the side of the red van.  I imagine he's shading his eyes against the August sun, gazing up at this little airplane and its movements that seem far too precise to be chance alone.
I waggle my wings, claw into a wingover and return for another pass - again waggling my wings in greeting.  There can be no mistaking my intent.  I only hope it truly is my friend standing next to that van in the shade of the barn.
When I return to Rockcliffe and dig my phone out of my jacket, my hunch is validated by a series of enthusiastic text messages, each more flattering than the last.

The Smith, at altitude, against a beautiful blue sky.  (Picture courtesy: Charles Clark)

"You should come out and see our place!"  I'm finishing up at work, gathering my things to sneak off to the airport and steal away for a half hour in the Smith.  My colleague recently bought a lovely home in Chelsea on the shores of the Gatineau River.
"Sure," I answer, pulling out a chart.  "Show me where you are."
An hour later, the Smith and I are launching into the early evening sky above the old air force base at Rockcliffe.  We make a slight turn to the north and settle in for the climb to 1700 feet.
The Gatineau, at least today, is a Prussian blue - a wide slash through the southern extremities of the great Canadian Shield.  On either side, verdant flanks of the Gatineau Hills plunge sharply into the river's shores.  The Smith and I drone up this valley, careful to always stay within gliding distance of a field should the engine commit treason.  These fields, of which there are few in this valley, act as islands of salvation and the Smith and I alter our heading so as to hop from one to the next.
The float plane base at Chelsea crawls by.  My eyes search for my target: a dock jutting out into the river and adorned with two bright red kayaks.  I make a few passes over the dock and the house but fail to rouse any response from below.  Intent on making the most of this flight, I continue up the valley to the north - first to Chelsea and then Wakefield.
Wakefield holds a special place in my heart.  There's a fresh water spring, just outside of town, where my parents took my sister and I, nearly every weekend, to fetch water.  I remember the clang the metal trap door made when my dad threw it open and how the sound echoed down the cavernous mouth of the spring.  I remember the ferocity with which the water sprang forth and how cold it felt when my dad, with one arm wrapped around my waist, allowed me to lean forward into the void to collect some water.  I recall the drives, long and winding before the highway was built, and how we passed a number of gas stations with those old fashioned pumps.
More than two decades later, my wife and I honeymooned at the Wakefield Mill - where we ate our fill of steak frites, cheered on our football team in front of a crackling fire and spent an unforgivable sum on red wine and single malt scotch.  In the morning, with the sound of the river gasping through stands of old pines, we walked down to the village and along the old railway tracks, jumping from rotting tie to tie.  Every once in a while, my ears picked up the familiar, throaty hum of an aero engine and I would turn my face skyward and squint, searching.
Looking down now, eyes soft behind my goggles, I wonder if anyone down there is searching for me, drawn by the sound of my engine.
My eyes catch the iconic covered bridge at Wakefield.  Built in 1915 and destroyed by fire in 1984 before being rebuilt more than a decade later, it is one of the region's most photographed landmarks. From my vantage point, it appears as little more than a collection of crimson matchsticks dissecting the midnight blue slab that is the Gatineau River.
I elect to return southbound along the river and call again at my colleague's home.  After a few orbits, a figure walks down the dock towards the kayaks and stops by the river's edge.  I waggle my wings and I'm certain he's waving his arms in reply.  Another pass, another friendly dip of the wings and I rattle off for home.
The westerly flights are long, lazy tours.  They involve shooting a narrow alley between the Ottawa VOR and the communications tower crowning the ski hill at Camp Fortune before turning north west and skirting the Gatineau Hills escarpment.  These flights often include calling on the drag strip at Luskville and the now abandoned fly-in community at Pontiac before climbing and crossing the river into Ontario.  Here, eyes sharpened by the increase in general traffic, the Smith and I would ply the skies over Dunrobin Road from Constance Bay to Constance Lake before turning east for home.
For me, this is familiar territory as I've spent more than ten years flying in these parts.  However, in the Smith, I feel as though I'm viewing this landscape for the first time.  I'm always impressed by the beauty and simplicity in how the quilt of fields are stitched together. When the sun is high in the sky, the greens, browns and golds shimmer with intensity.  As the sun dips and the angle grows steeper, the field's deepen in color and seem to melt into an emerald sea with golden crests and cold, gray troughs.  The Ottawa river, snaking away to the west beyond Arnprior, reflects the sun as silver flashes off slashes of wet concrete.  The sky, hitherto such an emphatic blue, fades into a thin, endless slate.
There is a chill in the air.  A glance at the fuel gauge by my left knee convinces me to turn tail and flee for home.  Ten minutes later, back-lit by the setting sun, my wheels kiss pavement and the reverie ends for now.

Landing runway 09 at Rockcliffe after a late afternoon flight.  (Photo Courtesy Peter Szperling)

Antoine de Saint-Exupery, the great aviator and author, once wrote: "and now here is my secret, a very simple secret; it is only with the heart that one can see rightly, what is essential is invisible to the eye."
These are lofty words, yes, but so very simple.
From atop my perch, balanced on the wind, I have seen and understood the magnificence of our world.  If one, regardless of their leanings or persuasions, cannot see God in so much beauty then they are truly blind.

Signposts

I got my first bicycle - a gift from my godfather - for my 7th birthday.  He drove it down from Toronto in the middle of a snowstorm.  It was a Raleigh mountain bike in cherry red.  I still remember how the foam handlebar grips shrunk under my grip and then slowly returned to their original form when I let go.  It looked so new, sleek and fast.
However, there was 6 inches of snow on the ground and the mercury was moving in the wrong direction.
It was also far too big for me.
And I didn't know how to ride a bike.
So, my parents put it in the basement for the winter.  You would think that would deter me and, normally, you would be right.  I was not an adventurous child.  I was more comfortable in a library than on a sports field.  For a little boy, I put a tremendous amount of stock in not breaking things.  I was, simply put, abnormally well-behaved.
Still, something about that bike called out to me, goaded me, challenged me.  It looked fast even standing still.  Propped menacingly - almost mockingly - on its kickstand, it begged to be ridden.
One afternoon, I popped the kickstand back into its holder, wincing at the sharp sound it made, hoping no one would hear, and rolled it into the basement family room.  The spokes clicked softly, urging me onward.  I leaned the Raleigh up against the couch.  Taking a deep breath, I climbed onto the couch, then onto the bike.  Then, with a firm push off with my left foot, I took off across the basement, peddling furiously and wobbling drunkenly as I dodged the coffee table.
My first journey on two wheels ended a few seconds after it began with a crash into the love seat mercifully placed against the far wall.
I undertook a few more such journeys before the snow melted and my parents found a bike for ten bucks at a nearby garage sale.
My new ride was more my size.  It was a navy blue Canadian Tire brand relic from the 60s with stainless steel mud guards dented by falls and pockmarked by rust.  When the wheels turned, they sounded like a corroded cheese grater.  My dad had at least pumped the tires and greased the gear chains.  He added a pair of training wheels too.
At first, I took it up and down the driveway.  I didn't even try turns.  I just hammered the brakes, skittered to a stop, dismounted, dragged the bike around onto a reciprocal heading, hopped on again and aimed for the garage door.
This continued for days.  When I finally mustered the courage to try a turn, I settled on taking a right out of the driveway and down the street towards the stop sign three houses down.  I made that first turn by easing the huge, curved handlebars to the right and leaning my body into the turn so that the rust bucket was balanced precariously on one training wheel.  I'll never forget the sound - like kicking a jar full of nuts and bolts down a curved staircase.
Ah, but now the world was open to me.  I was cruising down a wide strip of asphalt that stretched to the horizon.  It was an unlimited view with unlimited possibilities.
The stop sign was now upon me and, in a rare show of bravery, I swung the handlebars to the left, leaned the bike onto the left hand training wheel and, with the sound of screaming spokes and clanging gears, swept into the turn for home.
In a few weeks, I ventured past the stop sign to the small creek a quarter mile beyond.  Then, up the hill to the main street.  After that, I attempted the same journey to the left out of the driveway.  Each ride was an adventure from which I returned older, wiser, emboldened.
One fine summer day, the right hand training wheel decided it had had enough and abandoned its post.  Whether its treachery was the result of too many right hand turns or my father's ineptitude with a spanner wrench didn't matter.  I limped back to my driveway - either balanced awkwardly on the main wheels or listing heavily to port.  Two days later, on a ride to the westernmost stop sign and back, the left hand training wheel followed its counterpart's example.  It had the decency to cling grimly to the axle, clattering along in my wavering wake.
Now, I was faced with the biggest obstacle in my young life and cycling career.  I was at least a quarter mile from the safety of my driveway.  I could either coast onto a neighbour's lawn and leap clear of my wounded mount...or press on.
I don't recall making a conscious choice but I do remember feeling things out.  I found that the faster I peddled, the easier it was to stay balanced and run straight.  More to the point, the bike was easier to control at higher speeds - needing only the slightest of touches on those ridiculously large handle bars.
And so, I set my eyes on my destination and, with the sun in my eyes and the wind in my hair, enjoyed the journey.

The Author with DSA after one of his early flights. (Author's Collection)

My early flights in the Smith were just like riding that old bike.  The signposts were much further away and the distance was measured not in mere feet but rather, in long miles...and yet, little else had changed.
At first, I wandered off to the east -  following the Ottawa River out of Rockcliffe, past Gatineau on the left wing and Orleans on the right, to that narrow strip of forest and farmer's fields just before coming upon Rockland.  Here, I would practice steep turns by tilting the airplane onto one wing and whipping it around, balancing a wingtip delicately on a farmhouse or intersection far below.  Then, as I caught my starting point creeping into the corner of my eye, I would reverse my roll, help the nose down and sweep elegantly through another orbit.
I followed the turns with lazy 8s - carving long, graceful, climbing lines into the endless skies.  Man and machine clawing heavenward, pulse quickening and the slipstream fading, to that lonely apex where wings part the horizon as a ship's prow cleaves the sea.  Then down, down, down that long, soft slope.  The earth rushes up to meet us.  The engine calls, the slipstream answers, the flying wires hum their own tune. The aviator cranes his neck around the windshield and thrusts his face into the oncoming onslaught of wind and speed and sound.  His is a stoic face, a mask of determination.  The chin is thrust forward defiantly - an immovable rock against the mighty force of God's breath.  And yet, now and suddenly, there appears a crack.  His eyes wince, a reflex, behind the safety of his goggles. The air is shockingly cool here.  The fissure deepens, the jaw softens. A deep breath is both painful and pleasant.  Now, the fissure is a fracture.  The mask of stone is chipped and broken away and the once secret smile bubbles to the surface.

The Lazy 8.  (Author's Collection)

A smooth movement of the right hand and a deft adjustment of the right boot and the earth falls away again.  Up, up and up into the crystalline blue - that intoxicating, hanging pause - and then down again.  Two thousand feet below, the solitary farmhouse acts as the unseeing fulcrum of this beautiful balancing act.
A tiny voice calls out.  It has many names but we shall call it Doubt.
"Enough fun for today," it chides.
I protest.  The sky is clear and fuel is plentiful.
An admonishing silence is my reply.
Doubt has a point.  One must not revel too long in the fancy of flight lest it make one soft, careless or neglectful.  My nerves are no longer raw from the excitement of the take off but not yet dulled to the point of ignorance. This is, after all, a new courtship and there is some merit in taking it slow.  We've had a dance or two and, thus far, no toes have been stepped on.
"Fine," I mumble.  Best to quit while I'm ahead.

Author's self portrait.  (Author's Collection)

We turn westward and ease into a dive, racing home.  In a few minutes, Rockcliffe presents itself exactly where we left it. The winds are as they were when we departed, a gentle sigh out of the west. A trio of tin can trainers ply the circuit, dutifully announcing their positions in the impossibly wide carousel.  I fit myself in as best I can, mindful of staying tight to the field but slow enough to not upset the rhythm of the pattern.
This is my fourth approach in this airplane.  The last three, upon reflection, were a random collection of single-sense snapshots. This one will prove to be very much the same.
The sound of the engine making 1700 RPM.
80 MPH on the airspeed indicator.
The comforting aroma of doped fabric.
Rockcliffe's single runway unfurled over the nose.
The clockwork ticking of my heart.
The runway falling away.
Whistling wires.
A jolt, boots jockeying rudder pedals, gloved hands moving on their own, an impressed mind behind unbelieving eyes.
Stillness.
I glance at my watch. Twenty-six minutes have passed since we switched on the engine. Truly incredible.
I never tire of the wonder I feel when I consider that we can assign such a specific number to an experience that feels like both a few ecstatic heartbeats and a wistful eternity.
The Smith, somehow, understands.  Wrapped in the rhythmic, mechanical sound of the engine ticking over is our secret.  We are beginning to understand one another.  She still has a lot to teach me and I have so much to learn but, like that old navy blue bicycle so many years ago, we have passed our first lesson.
Tomorrow, we'll add another step to this aerial dance.

Allure

Legend has it that Frank Smith designed his namesake biplane by chalking its outline on a hangar floor.  Another version has Smith sketching it out on the back of a napkin over eggs, bacon and black coffee.  It's easy to believe these stories because the airplane really does look like it was born as a chalk outline or a rough sketch.  The fuselage and tail group are welded steel tubing with wooden stringers lending shape.  The short, stubby wings are straight and flat and look like they could be built on a kitchen table.  The skin is doped fabric.  The airplane is exactly as Frank Smith intended it to be when he dreamed it up in 1956; cheap, fun and dead simple.

Author's self portrait.  (Author's Collection)

The Smith Miniplane emerged from a class of small, single-seat biplanes that included the Pitts Special and the Mong.  The Mong was built for speed and the Pitts for hard aerobatics.  The Smith falls somewhere in between the two as a fun, fuel-efficient giggle machine.  Hundreds were built in living rooms, basements and garages.  Now, there are six survivors on the Canadian Registry and only three that are flying.

You don't strap into the Smith - you wear it like an old sweater.  I often need to remind myself that C-GDSA was stretched by 6 inches from the original length of 15 feet, 3 inches.  An extra 6 inches of wingspan either side of centreline was added, builder Al Girdvainis told me jokingly, to improve the biplane's glide.

Ready to go. (Author's Collection)

Once you settle into the sanctuary of the single seat, the first thing you notice is the smell.  Old biplanes have a distinct odour - a comforting aroma of fuel, oil, varnish and dope.   It reminds me of my late grandfather's shoe store in Argentina. 

The panel is as bare bones as it gets.  Everything is within easy reach.  The stick came from a surplus CF-104 Starfighter.  The buttons once used to launch missiles or bombs now fire the starter and open a radio channel.  There's plenty of power for the 770 pound airplane with a Lycoming 0-235 pulling 115 horse power up front.  Full span ailerons give the airplane fantastic roll authority.  The bipe is a little heavy in pitch but that's easily forgiven.

The take-off roll is like trying to grab a tiger by the tail.   The relatively short distance between the tail the the wings make the airplane extraordinarily shifty in the longitudinal axis.  If you need rudder in the Smith (and you will), you'd better feed it in before you need it...otherwise, it's too late.  The end result is fit of frantic peddling from the pilot.  The cockpit floor is entirely yellow except for two small patches of shiny silver where 35 years of boots, first Al's, then mine, have worn the paint away like the relentless river smoothes a stone.

Once the wheels leave the ground, the Smith is light and lively.  The white-knuckled anxiety of the take-off run is washed away by the rush of the slipstream swirling through the cockpit, tugging at your shoulders and cloth helmet.  As the ground drops away under the twin white wings trimmed in red, it's easy to settle down.  You can fly the airplane with just two fingers.  She does exactly as asked. 

Frank Smith's specification sheet on the airplane says it climbs at 2,000 feet per minute.  I've never timed it.  The VSI, which I'm fairly certain served in World War Two, gives only three indications: level, 2,000 feet per minute up and 2,000 feet per minute down.  The compass is equally as delinquent - spinning drowsily in circles, daring the pilot to take an average and roll the dice on a heading.  I discovered very early on that I was better off following a road or shoreline than a compass heading.  There's another charming complication too - map reading is next to impossible in an open cockpit airplane.

So, one occupies oneself with getting lost at 100 miles per hour.  There's a great liberty in picking a river and following it to a little town with an old church at its centre and a collection of wilting farmhouses standing faithful guard around its perimeter.  There's a certain magic in pulling out your chart that evening, still tingling in the afterglow of flight, using a cup of coffee and a half-eaten sandwich as paper weights, and tracing an oil stained finger along that nameless river to that nameless town.  You might discover that you'd been there before, either by car or by airplane, and you might be shocked to realize how different it looked from that open cockpit wedged between twin wings.  You've never seen greens, golds, cobalts and rusts until you've seen them from a thousand feet, slowly wheeling around fabric wings that quiver in the early evening rush of air.  That feeling of wonder and admiration never fades, never grows old.  It stays with you until it's replaced by another.  Only then is it stitched into an ever-growing quilt of memory and experience.

At a certain point, an unseen hand guides you home; one last orbit of that town shimmering in the summer heat, a gentle turn to follow the river that carried you here, a dip of the wing or an s-turn every so often to see ahead.  You might be Bishop or Barker, Richtofen or Voss patrolling the western front in 1917. An enormous airliner slides overhead, ruining the reverie.  It must be thousands of feet above, although it's still so big it threatens to blot out the sun.  All 250 souls are completely unaware of your existence and that suits you just fine.

The little river bleeds into a bigger river and you roll into a sweeping right turn for home.  The flying wires sing a different tune with a slight discord.  A little less right rudder and the orchestra of wind and wires resumes its happy hum.  A quick glance reveals them to be trembling in harmony. 

As your home field crawls out of the glare of the low sun, there's a nervous shuffle of the feet.  The nose waggles from side to side in response.  This is necessary because the final approach in the Smith is akin to riding a baby grand piano down a water slide at 85 miles an hour - blindfolded. 

In fact, there's a guy in the States selling his Smith right now.  His advertisement reads:

"I'm 70 years old and I want to land slower."

Turning a long final for Rockcliffe.  (Author's Collection)

I keep circuits as tight to the field as possible and fly a carving approach from base to final at 100 miles per hour.  The Smith bleeds off energy easily so that I'm able to slow to 85 with 1700 rpm on as I drop over the trees towards the runway.  The airplane swoops into the flare, sunlight crashing through the propeller's disk and I push my head all the way aft against the headrest.  Blind out the front, I use peripheral vision to keep the airplane straight and centred on the runway.  As I slowly pull the power back, the speed spills from the wings and the little bipe settles onto the asphalt with a skip and a hop.  My feet resume their familiar dance.

It's a joy to fly the Smith but the possibility of sharing it is just as rewarding.  It is, after all, the same airplane that sparked my love of flight as a toddler and so I won't miss a chance to get a youngster into the cockpit.  For even the most seasoned pilot, however, the airplane has a magnetic draw.  Three or four new friends come by to introduce themselves and have a look each time I roll it out of the hangar.  Only one in four correctly identifies it as a Smith yet every one of them smiles as they poke their head inside the cockpit, or run a hand across the button nose or pluck at a flying wire.

When they walk away, there's a lightness in their gait.  I like to think the little bipe awakened something in them, a primal love of flight or a sense of wonder not unlike the one that convinced Wilbur and Orville to quit building bicycles and try their hand at airplanes.

Flying a "beat-up" of the field at Rockcliffe. (Photo Courtesy: Peter Szperling)

For me, there's nothing quite like flying a single seat biplane.  When the goggles come down and the left hand goes forward, it's just you and the airplane. 

There is no greater freedom. 

There is no greater escape.