Lone Wolf

During the flying season, the Smith is one of three flying biplanes on the field.  I say flying because the Canada Aviation and Space Museum has a whole mess of biplanes under its roof.  DSA's companions are a pair of WACO UPF-7s, identical but for one letter in their registration marks, that endlessly hop tourist rides from May until October.  In the winter, the Smith is Rockcliffe's only permanent resident with twin wings. 
As such, and likely also due to her dwarfish appearance, she attracts a fair amount of attention.  Certain curious parties yell inquiries through the perimeter fence.  Some slam on brakes and shout questions through open car windows.  Others wander over to have a look and a chat.  Still others accept my offer to climb in.
"It looks like a lot of fun to fly."
"Sure is," I answer.
"How does it do with aerobatics?"
"I don't know," is my reply.  "I don't fly acro in it.  Steep turns, lazy 8s, chandelles - that's about it."
"So, what do you do?"
"Whatever I feel like," is my honest reply, usually accompanied with a shrug.  "Sometimes I just point the nose in a certain direction and see where that takes me.  Other times, I just bomb around, go see my buddy's cottage, or follow a river...you know..."
Some do, some don't.  The ones who don't get it are given a different answer.
"I hunt Cessnas."
"Really?"
"Yeah," I say earnestly, nodding.  "150s, 152s, the later 172 models.  The older ones with the flat 6 are a little hard to catch but with a good deflection shot, I might get lucky."
"Huh..."
"Yeah, and I got a chopper out by Wendover a few days back," I pop a stick of gum into my mouth and grin. "Bag two more and I'm an ace."
You can almost see the gears working away.  Is he serious? Does he really hunt Cessnas?
My grin widens.  He'll be looking over his shoulder next time.




Hunting Cessnas.  (Author's Collection)

The storylines of my flying the Smith, in some ways, run in parallel to the lone wolf patrols of Bishop and Ball nearly a century ago.  Clearly, I am blessed to fly in peace-time, at much lower altitudes, in fair weather and without the added worry of flak, enemy fighters, balloons and the fairly constant spectre of engine or catastrophic structural failure.  Still, my craft's charming inefficiency, the way the wind sings in the wires, the whisper of the slipstream caressing the fabric flanks and how the air pools and swirls in the open cockpit remain largely as they were in the days of my heroic forebears. 
Truth be told, my greatest aerial foes are the wayward gull and the increasingly populous and menacing drone.
My first "kill" wasn't a Cessna, in fact, but a Piper Cherokee 140 - white with blue trim - over Gatineau just south of the Chelsea dam.  I had just left Rockcliffe's circuit, turned to the northwest to pick up the Gatineau River and was about to begin a climb when something moved just on the border of my vision.  I checked the climb, turned my head to the right and picked him out almost instantly.  He was just below the horizon, a moving piece against the static puzzle of the city beneath.  It took me a moment to see that he was climbing and moving towards me.  I slowed down slightly and turned right so that my path would take me behind him while still maintaining visual contact.
He literally flew into my sights, plodding along from right to left, right across my nose at a few hundred yards.  I pressed the trigger on the stick and opened a radio channel with my thumb.
"Bang," I said.
The Cherokee didn't even flinch.  He continued west, likely on the way to Carp, trailing imaginary smoke.
The next victory was a 172 based at Rockcliffe in nearly the same fashion and in exactly the same spot as my inaugural Cherokee.  He was returning from a flight to Toronto Island as I was running the Camp Fortune gap back into Rockcliffe.  I caught him in the pre-dusk sky as I finished my climb to 1700'.  He was way up there, over my left shoulder and descending.  I watched him get lower and grow larger until we were in lose formation.  I gave the Smith a little right aileron and left rudder, coaxing her into a gentle sideslip, and put the 172 on my nose.  She hung there, a black silhouette against the golden sky of a dying day...and then I gave her a three second burst.
Out of the slip, then.  I keyed the mic, announced my presence and suggested he might wish to enter the pattern at Rockcliffe ahead of me.
The Cessna put her nose down and accelerated away, the last rays of sunlight dancing in her smoky wake.
Occasionally, would-be prey reveal their location quite willingly - particularly in the practice area straddling the Ottawa River north of the capital.  Each time a new airplane enters the practice area, it announces itself in the same manner as a debutante is introduced at the ball before demanding to know how many suitors are in the hall and from where they hail.  The result is a nauseating litany of replies punctuated with periodic squealing as two attempt to relay their position, mission, favourite color and food at once.  This repeats itself each time a new player is introduced or every 5 minutes, whichever comes first.
In the practice area, airplanes and their crews seize gargantuan, three-dimensional swaths of land with the zeal of a gold rush prospector.  Whenever an aircraft betrays even the possibility of threatening the borders of their aerial fiefdom, the resultant call is laced with enough paranoia that one begins to wonder if the radio truly plays a greater role in avoiding the mid-air collision than, say, the human eye.
On one such flying day, I was returning home to Rockcliffe by following a south-east track about a half mile south of Breckenridge - a hamlet on the Quebec shore of the Ottawa River.  I had been making the requisite radio calls, dutifully adding my voice to the chorus.
So, you can imagine my surprise when I hear:
"Biplane over Breckonridge, come in!"
"This is Smith Miniplane Delta-Sierra-Alpha," is my cheery reply.
"Yeah, this is Cessna 172 Fox-Uniform-Charlie-Kilo," says a voice dripping with contempt. "You should really make position reports because I'm up here at thirty nine hundred feet doing spins."
You can almost hear each of the four gold bars on his shoulder in his venomous rebuke.
I consider my response. 
It really should be something along the lines of should you actually get that pregnant sow to spin and if you have the great misfortune to still be spinning when you arrive at my meagre altitude of 800 feet above ground level then, my dear sir, you've greater concerns than a mid-air collision with me.
I look up.  There he is - barely a grain of sand in a sea of blue.  My thumb is poised over the push-to-talk.  I take a deep breath of fresh air and open my mouth to speak.
Up front, the Smith's Lycoming purrs steadily.  Something in the sound of the engine and slipstream makes me take pity on the poor soul nearly 3000 feet above, sweating as he saws back and forth on the control yoke, wincing as he listens to the engine surging as he forces his reluctant craft into violent earthward gyrations. 
Down here, life is good.
"My apologies," I want him to hear the smile in my voice.  "I'll make more position reports next time!"
I punch the flip flop on the radio and switch frequencies for Rockcliffe before the Cessna Captain is able to reply.
If only all such unpleasant things could be stopped with the simple push of a button.