Excerpt from *Airborne: Finding Foxtrot Alpha Mike*

I'm pleased to share the Prologue from *Airborne: Finding Foxtrot Alpha Mike*, available from Goose Lane Editions starting February 19th.

Prologue

It seems as though I’ve waited all summer for a day like this: a warm August afternoon cooled by a brisk breeze bringing lines of neatly formed cumulus clouds marching across the royal blue heavens.

The clouds, each one both alike and unique, advance roughly southeastward. The vanguard of the formation, a loose gaggle of ragged patches, has only just drifted over the field at Rockcliffe as I roll my biplane out of the shade of the hangar. Ten minutes later, we are threading our way northwest through the tip of the main column and climbing quickly behind the eager tug of the Lycoming engine.

We stop the climb at our usual 1,700 feet and, from our new vantage point inside a cloudless trough, spy a long cloud front stretching across the horizon before us. It appears as though a massive, snow-covered mountain has been turned onto its peak so that its low, rolling foothills loom over us like a giant shelf at great altitude. It is as if a great hand wielding the sharpest and most precise of razors has cleaved the edge of the front to form the straightest of lines for many miles. From there, my goggled eyes trace the flanks of the colossus down to a point far in the distance where it vanishes behind the green mounds of the Gatineau Hills.

My mind is quiet when I fly. Normally, it’s a chaotic mess — even though my exterior rarely betrays it. I wasn’t always like this. Years ago that stillness and peace was easier to find, and I could hold onto it longer. It happens to all of us — that noise. It is the echo of all our triumphs and failures, our discoveries and losses. Here, aloft, those voices are silenced.

I used to be a day dreamer. I’m not anymore. Life moves too quickly with work and family and obligations to permit the mind to wander. In an airplane, it’s equally frowned upon. Flying, after all, is serious business. Still, we’re alone up here — the biplane and me. No co-pilot looks at me sideways; I’ve no passenger to fret over. It’s such a lovely afternoon that it would sinful to waste this opportunity for silence and peace.

Small groups of white cumulus, having detached themselves from the main body of the cloud front, begin to influence our path, forcing us to circumvent them to the east or west. As one presents itself just below the nose and a shade to our right, I pressure the control column slightly aft, and we bound over the top and into a slight right turn. And then, the strangest thing happens. Nature conspires to assemble the perfect set of circumstances — a cloud below, the sun high above and behind us — so that we see our shadow for the first time.

Initially, I wonder what it is, that dark smudge on the cloud’s crest ringed in concentric halos of orange, yellow, red, pink, green, and blue. As my eyes blink behind my goggles, I bring the vision into focus. There we are — albeit much larger — complete with twin wings, rounded tail, and the circular shade of the whirling propeller. My other senses dulled, I gaze upon our shadow with the same wonder as one who has seen their reflection for the first time. Instinctively, with the cloud sliding away, I bank the wings and roll into a turn to prolong the apparition but unwittingly upset the balance. The image fades.

We fly on. The solid wave of cloud remains distant ahead. The seaplane base at Chelsea drifts by. A trio of float planes, gaily colored in yellow, orange and eggshell blue, bob contently at the dock. A canoe is working its way south, leaving a feathery wake on the otherwise placid surface of the river. Up here, the wind seems stronger, hastening the journey of the clouds drifting our way while hampering our progress up the river.

The cloud bank creeps closer now. I raise the nose and inch the throttle forward, adding power to begin a climb. The advantage, after all, is in height. The plane eagerly soars up toward the promise of cooler air. A quick glance at her instruments: the speed stands at ninety miles per hour, the vertical speed announces itself at an optimistic two thousand feet per minute, engine gauges normal, fuel on and sufficient, and switches in their proper places. We are ready.

I push the throttle forward to the stop and pull the plane into a climbing left-hand turn. It bleeds energy quickly as we drift sideways over the top, wings banked vertically, and slide earthward again. With the sun at our back, our first target swims into view between the cabane struts. I feel tension rising in the plane as speed and energy return. I draw a deep breath and depress the trigger on the stick.

The quick burst is ineffectual. Too far away. We close rapidly, the target quivering behind the grey wisp of the racing propeller. The edges of my vision draw away. It is just us and this hapless, little cloud.

Another burst. Whitish-grey threads are pulled away and spin off into oblivion. Right stick, right rudder — just the deftest adjustment and the target flashes past our left shoulder. We claw for altitude again as I turn my head this way and that, searching for the next aggressor or opportunity.

We roll out of the turn with the nose pointed between twin clouds at a third just above and beyond. The plane roars approval as we descend in a shallow dive towards the first two. This pass must be executed with surgical precision as there will not be another chance.

A stab of left rudder, a brief pause . . . steady. The plane trembles as we unleash a short burst. Now, before the opportunity has passed, a boot of right rudder and a longer burst at his companion. The torn cloud rolls away.

I ease the plane’s nose up and target the leader. My gloved finger depresses the trigger.

Clack. Clack. Clack.

We’ve played at dogfighting with clouds too long. So long, in fact that either my imagination is entirely devoid of shells or my fantasy Vickers machine gun has jammed. I use the extra speed to rise gently above our would-be target and waggle the wings in salute.

The timbre of the Lycoming’s growl changes, tearing the reverie apart. The throttle is a little loose and tends to creep forward. As a result, the engine has picked up about a hundred RPM. It’s more an idiosyncrasy than an issue, and given I too have my quirks, I don’t see a real need for it to be “fixed.” To do so would steal a shred of personality from this little biplane.

The cloud bank we’ve been chasing now stretches from horizon to horizon. It is darker but not particularly menacing. Its colour is owed more to how tightly the clouds are ordered rather than any perils that lurk within. As it crawls towards us, I draw in a deep breath. The air up here, measured more or less precisely by our altimeter as 2,750 feet, is violently pure. It nearly burns as you bring it in, and if you hold it for any length of time, it rushes to your head and sets off an electric tingle that crackles and buzzes down your spine to your fingers, toes, the tips of your hair. Today, there is a weight to the atmosphere, which is odd, as density typically decreases with altitude.

The cloud bank has grown closer, darker and now more menacing. Somewhere near Wakefield, we turn east and follow its billowing edge for a few miles. Every so often, we dip a wing so as to tentatively peek behind the curtain, curious to see what lies beyond. What are we looking for? Something to pursue? A reason to enter a crevasse or fjord carved into this mighty face? Or do we search for inspiration to return home?

We turn west, placing the approaching cloud front on our opposite shoulder. The high flanks of the front have now choked out the sun and dropped the temperature a few degrees. While my biplane seems content to stay aloft and fuel is plentiful, I bank the wings and pick up the river that will lead us home. A feeling of familiarity washes over me. I’ve flown these skies for a long time. This is home. Soon, the field at Rockcliffe will greet me as an old friend.

I give the rudder pedals a playful kick. It’s an old custom of mine, something of a nervous tick. The nose wags eagerly in response. In jockeying the pedals, I’m reminding my feet of their true purpose in the impending landing. As graceful a flier and as cute an airplane as she may be, this biplane can make her displeasure known when returning to earth. I approach every landing expecting a kick in the ass.

Before long, the old air force base at Rockcliffe is beyond the plane’s long nose. I know that this was my dad’s vantage point for all his flights. This is where he once was, where I am now, and where, perhaps, at the intersection of the two, we may meet again. There must be such a place: a field just beyond the cobalt horizon where the skies are always blue and the wind is always gentle, where fuel tanks never run dry and hot coffee is never in short supply. At the end of this field, I’ll find the spirit of a westward-gone aviator and the spectre of his sprightly mount.

A squeak, a shimmy, and I’m prodded back to reality by the trundling of rubber on runway. Given that her short length predisposes her to swapping ends, my feet work furiously to keep the biplane rolling straight ahead. As we taxi off the runway at the end, we make two left turns and proceed down the taxiway towards the fuel pumps. We roll slowly past an empty tie down: the familiar plot of land where my dad’s plane resided almost thirty years ago.

I gaze at the grass swaying ever so delicately in the early evening breeze. I swear I hear the engine of his absent plane humming, a decades-old, ghostly echo.

*Airborne: Finding Foxtrot Alpha Mike* is available in two weeks!

I've got some exciting news to share!

There's been a lack of content on the blog in recent months because I've been fully engrossed in writing and publishing my first book.

*Airborne: Finding Foxtrot Alpha Mike * is published by Goose Lane Editions and will be available starting February 19th. I've included some background and ordering information below BUT if you're in Ottawa, please hold off. We'll be having a launch party on March 6th from 7 to 9 at the Metropolitain Brasserie (700 Sussex Drive) where I'll have books on hand and would be happy to sign them.

I'll also be posting an excerpt from the book this Friday. Stay tuned for that!

The cover page of the forthcoming *Airborne*, beautifully realized  by Julie Scriver with images from Charlie Miller, Anna Gaudio and Ernie Szelepcsenyi.

Airborne: Finding Foxtrot Alpha Mike 
Jonathan Rotondo

Soon to be available at your local bookstore!

The RUSH of speed
the PULL of gravity
the MAGIC of flight

Jonathan Rotondo was 28 when his father, Anotonio, died. Numb with his grief, Rotondo decided to track down the object that had once given his father so much joy: a tiny single-seat biplane called Charlie Foxtrot Foxtrot Alpha Mike. Thus began Rotondo’s journey to trace his father’s life from Italy to Canada, via the plains of East Africa.

In the sanctum of a tiny single-seat biplane, a DSA-1 Smith Miniplane, Antonio Rotondo discovered the miracle of flight. A farmer's son from San Giacomo, Antonio took his first flight over Nairobi, Kenya, in 1970 at the age of 24. By 1976, he had become a commercial pilot. Then, in the early 1980s, he purchased a single-seat, open-cockpit, home-built Smith biplane, a throwback to leather flying caps, gauntlets, pencil-thin moustaches, and twinkling eyes behind oil-speckled goggles.

More than three decades later, Antonio's son, Jonathan, came across one of only three airworthy Smith biplanes and thus began a journey to retrace his father's airborne life. He finds Antonio's first flying instructor, an Australian ex-pat living in Kenya; the soft-spoken Swiss-Canadian who managed to get Antonio's biplane into the air; the free-spirit dreamer who bought it to dogfight with his mates; and the air traffic controller who, as a teenager, bought the plans to build the biplane that Jonathan would fly 35 years later.

For more information on this book, please click here.

Rituals

In August, the Super Decathlon was grounded.  After having the right hand fuel tank replaced the season before due to cracks, the left hand tank developed the same issue - but with greater severity.  This effectively ended the aerobatic program for the 2016 season.
While I was still picking up some work on a privately owned Super D out of Cornwall, the loss of our ship did mean I now had some extra time for the biplane. 

Alone in the hangar.  (Author's Collection)

And so, on an early September morning, I rolled up the doors of the canvas hangar and wheeled the Smith into the sunshine for a look.  Aviation is heavy with rituals and the walk-around inspection carries perhaps the most weight of them all.  It can be as slow and thorough or as quick and cursory as the pilot's wishes and sense of self preservation dictate.  Still, one forgoes this rite at their own peril.  After all, $80 million airliners have been brought down by nothing more than a sliver of overlooked masking tape.

Getting ready to go.  (Author's Collection)

Now into my third season, I know the Smith well and yet, a walk around inspection takes me about ten minutes - more if I need to replenish oil, grease or lubricate a part or adjust a loose inspection plate. 
I've already participated in the ritual of checking the weather.  Today's flight will be a short one so a simple check of the written report sufficed.  The prognosticators have peered into their crystal ball and come up empty - no weather, light winds and clear skies save for the sparse scattering of cotton ball cumulus floating overhead.
A few minutes later, I'm climbing over the cockpit rim and lowering myself into the fibreglass seat.  I strap in, take my gloves off the narrow glare shield, slip them on and reach out to pick my helmet up off of the cowling, placing it in my lap. 
Now, scribbling in my note book, I begin the next ritual - start up - by memory and reflex. 


Throttle - set 1/2 to 1 inch open.
Carb heat - off.
Prime - three strokes.
Magnetos - both.
Stick - full aft.
Starter - engage.


I hear the battery relay click behind my head and the starter motor spin - but the propeller struggles to turn.  I've noticed the starter beginning to fail in recent weeks.  Another blip of the starter, the propeller swings around - once, twice - and the Lycoming coughs to life.
The engine settles into one thousand revolutions per minute.  The Lycoming engineers, far more intelligent than I, decree that the airman must wait until their engine has reached at least 200 degrees at the cylinder heads before advancing the throttle beyond 1200 RPM.  Not having the education and intelligence to question their calculations and based on the testimony of their product's continued performance over four decades, I'm quite happy to follow their instructions.
Next, the pilot is tasked with ensuring that the engine gives all indications that it will be able to sustain him for the duration of the flight.  This involves checks of the engine's ability to faithfully produce power under various settings manipulated by the pilot.  Of course, this "run-up" is no guarantee against engine failure - as many have painfully discovered.  Rather, it is a final opportunity to uncover any mechanical mischief before casting off into the wild blue yonder - where options are far less gracious and results largely cruel. 
The take-off can be a nail-biting affair in the Smith.  As we've established, the little biplane requires the pilot's complete care and attention.  Things happen quickly.  At a certain point, the pilot has a final opportunity to check his progress along the field and the airplane's systems before committing to take off.  Always in his mind is a grave calculation that, if called upon, he must make at lightning speed.  The potential consequences of aborting a take-off must be balanced against the possibility of alighting and bringing the ship around to a successful landing.  In other words, is the problem so severe to risk crashing through the perimeter fence when a take-off and modified circuit to return is all but assured?
Once the wheels break ground, the pilot immerses himself in the next ritual - expecting a loss of power at any time and deciding whether he's able to return to the field or put it down somewhere else.  Early in their flying careers, pilots are taught to not attempt the "impossible turn" - returning the field - unless they've attained at least one thousand feet of altitude.  Otherwise, they're taught to shove the nose down and aim for a plot of land able to accommodate their premature arrival.  Over time, the turn has become more improbable than impossible - some have made it, far more have not.
Soon, we've climbed above these earthbound concerns.  It's true that they still exist at greater heights but more air beneath us means more time and correspondingly more options should any inconveniences arise. 
And so, the threat of their bite is dulled.  The pilot rolls his shoulders back and allows his spine to fall against the seatback.  The right hand's grip on the stick relaxes as the left hand flexes around the throttle, shedding any residual tension.  The boots may give the rudder a playful kick as the pilot delights in the soft rocking of the biplane's nose.  A flick of the wrist produces an instant response from the wings.  Sounds fade, melting into a whisper of engine, wind, wires and heart.  The world, while terrifyingly vast, seems to close in on man and machine so that one doesn't feel quite so small anymore. 

The abandoned airpark at Pontiac on the north shore of the Ottawa River opposite Buckham's Bay.  It was intended as a fly-in community but never materialized.  (Author's Collection)

In this aerial refuge, we float across Gatineau and along the hills to Pontiac then across the river to Buckham's Bay.  The air is so still and the face of the river so calm that light from the sun appears to both reflect off the surface and go clear through to the silt bottom.  The result is a spectacular display of light and colour.  The radio is quiet and while I can't be sure, I like to think only the Smith and I have been blessed with this view and that we are very much alone. 

While taken on an earlier flight much later in the day, this shot nicely depicts the light phenomenon described above.  (Author's Collection)

We double back north away from Buckham's Bay, overfly Mohr Island and retrace our route in reverse.  Same route, new perspective - as I like to say.  I've spent the majority of my flying life above these hills, fields, lakes and rivers and I always manage to spy something new, interesting and inspiring.   


Overflying the Ontario side of the practice area near Fitzroy Harbour.  Mohr Island is at left of frame.  Note the stillness of the water and how the sky reflects. (Author's Collection)

Suddenly, the radio crackles to life.  The sound is almost shocking given I haven't heard another voice since leaving Rockcliffe - but at least it's a familiar one.  The Champ, with Chris at the controls, is rounding the southern tip of the escarpment and entering the practice area.
"Lima-Lima, Sierra-Alpha," I call out.
"Hey," comes the informal reply.  "Form?"
"Why not?"
We'd crossed paths on the ground at Rockcliffe and briefed for the possibility of meeting in the practice area.  Still, a quick discussion on the company frequency reviews the parameters.  We'll rendezvous over Breckenridge at 2000' and the Smith will fly lead.  I set up a wide orbit over the town so that Chris, climbing slowly towards us, may visually make contact and form up.
Aircraft move considerable mass at relatively high speeds and while it certainly is a big sky, a good look out must be maintained to mistakenly coming too close to another aircraft or worse.  Pilots are taught not to simply scan the skies but to divide it into segments to scrutinize.  This is because the human eye picks up movement.  Therefore, the view should be locked off to help spy an aircraft moving relative to a stationary background. 
The Champ does not fly quickly and climbs even slower.  Given my higher altitude, there's a greater likelihood that he'll see me first.  All the same, I push my goggles up and peer through narrowed eyes at the countryside below. 
After a short while, I pick out a tiny smudge of white emerging from the ground clutter to stand out against the green of the escarpment.  Before long, the smudge sprouts wings and a tail.
"I've got you," Chris reports over the radio.  "My ten o'clock by about two miles."
I rock my wings.  "Tally ho!"
The Champ is clawing skyward, hanging on the whirling disc of the prop.  It seems to be hardly moving, really just floating off the Smith's port broad.  I watch as Chris checks the climb and turns gently towards us before accelerating and sliding into echelon left. 
"Two on station," crackles his voice.
"Lead," I acknowledge. 

Chris and Champ C-FILL in formation echelon left near Luskville.  (Author's Collection)

For the next twenty minutes, our two-ship formation plies back and forth between Breckenridge and Luskville.  We practice turns as well as climbs and descents.  I concentrate on giving Chris the most stable of platforms to fly off and he does a nice job holding position. 
I lead us in a descent to the south-east and then around the tip of the escarpment to overfly Gatineau.  Abeam the Chelsea dam, we climb to 1700' and prepare for an overhead arrival at Rockcliffe.  Throughout, the Smith and the Champ fly as one. 

Author's self portrait with the Champ on the wing.  (Author's Collection)

As we turn south to overfly the river, I hear my Cornwall-based student announce his impending arrival.  Given he is flying the much faster airplane, our formation will join the circuit as number two for a low and over. 
Given its proximity to the ground and to other aircraft in the circuit, the formation low and over requires even greater discipline and precision than a run-of-the-mill two-ship.  We've already briefed an altitude of two hundred feet above ground with the lead aircraft calling the wing's break on the overshoot. 
Despite the lovely weather, it's been a sleepy morning at Rockcliffe.  Our arrival and the combined roar of two hundred and five horsepower shatters the peace.  As we cross the eastern perimeter fence and ease into a climb, I wave Chris off to join the crosswind for the circuit to land.  The Smith and I continue climbing to the east and will join the circuit behind the Champ - mindful to give him a wider berth to allow for our faster approach speed.
With the Champ turning final and downwind checks complete, the Smith and I sweep left out of the downwind and throttle back to begin the final descent for landing.  In only 25 seconds, our wheels will touch the pavement.
The landing is more art than science.  There is no concrete formula and the pilot must use all their experience, judgement and skill to execute the appropriate actions for an ever-changing set of variables.  Inputs - airspeed, glide slope, wind - come in and outputs - movements of stick, rudder and throttle - come out.  The approach continues and the pilot's focus narrows on the patch of pavement that will host their return to earth.  And then, finally, that sublime moment just before touch down when time seems to slow.  The pilot can almost feel the runway below his feet - as though the ship's undercarriage is an extension of his own legs.  A chirp, a rumble - the biplane wants to pull left but - no, damn you, this way! A stab of opposite rudder, perhaps a measure of brake, horses the ship back into line. 
Once clear of the runway and stopped, the pilot folds back his glove, checks the time and adds to the scribbling in the notebook kept wedged under his thigh.
In the shade of the hangar, another ritual - brakes on, throttle idle, magnetos to off then on again, one by one.  Now, throttle up to 1700 RPM, sure to be on the brakes, and slowly draw the red mixture control out until the engine gives a final sigh and the propeller ticks slowly to a stop.  Switches off, helmet off, gloves off.
To the ticking sound of the cooling engine, I unfold myself from the cockpit and stretch out my back - running a hand along the biplane's long cowling.  I rub my fingers together and chuckle softly before retreating into the hangar and rummaging through the Smith's pine kit box.  I emerge again into the sunshine with a spray bottle and a blue shop cloth. Now, to perform my penance for flight and the last ritual of the morning - wiping the smashed bugs off of my little biplane.

The final ritual - cleaning the airplane.  (Author's Collection)

Wingman II

At some point in 2015, a pudgy little Aeronca Champ appeared on the field and settled into a tie-down in the north-west sector of the airport.  White with two-tone blue trim, fat tires and chrome hubcaps, she was a fine example of the '46 vintage and, like the Smith, the only one of her kind at Rockcliffe.
Pilots of a certain vintage have a great affection for the Champ.  It's easy to understand why.  Most pilots who learned to fly between the end of the second world war and the early 70s would have trained in a Champ - and typically out of small airfields that featured at least one grass runway.  The mere sight of the little taildragger evokes intense emotions associated with youth, the excitement of that first solo flight and the promise of learning.

Stunt pilot Sammy Mason flying a slalom course between pines near Santa Paula, California in the late 40s.  Note the aileron deflection.  Mason went to a storied aviation career as an instructor and test pilot - which included being Steve McQueen's flight instructor. (Photo Courtesy: allposters.com)

If you ask an old hand, they'll tell you the Champ is a charming airplane.  It's true that they are not particularly fast (snail-like, in fact) and don't do any one thing particularly well.  However, they're forgiving and docile - a real sweetheart of an airplane that is simply a lot of fun to fly. 
The Rockcliffe Flying Club began operations with a fleet of Aeronca Champs so the airfield has a deep and powerful connection to the type.  I'll admit that the first time I saw India-Lima-Lima climb away from runway 09, chugging away in a valiant effort to clear the trees at the end of the field, it truly did feel like I was gazing through a window in time.

Champ Juliet-Uniform-Quebec on the take-off roll down runway 09 at Rockcliffe in the mid 60s. (Photo Courtesy: Rockcliffe Flying Club)

Champ November-Mike-Yankee, one of the Club's first Champs - mid 60s.  (Photo Courtesy: Rockcliffe Flying Club)

When I became a flying member of the Rockcliffe Flying Club in late 2002, its fleet consisted of five Cessna 172s and two 150s and Simon Garrett was the Chief Flying Instructor.  Flight instruction is unique in that it is the key to the health and safety of air transportation and yet it's the permanent resident of the dank basement of flying jobs.  That, and its practitioners are usually poorly paid for long, grueling hours sitting next to students who are seemingly hell bent on killing them.  And while the risks are sometimes quite severe, the non-monetary rewards are astronomically soul-nourishing.  Simon is one of a rare breed of "career" instructors - individuals who managed to stay alive long enough to eke out something of a living and truly live to create, foster and champion pilots of all kinds, regardless of their aspirations.  I'm not sure I've met a more generous and dedicated teacher and mentor.
In mid 2015, Simon moved on to new challenges and, in August, the club hired a new CFI to succeed him.  Like Simon, Chris Ricci drew his energy from the inherent promise of the job.  Like me, while a relatively young man, he has much of the old school in him and a marked affinity for the beauty and simplicity offered by taildraggers, aerobatics, formation, ski-flying and the like.  It didn't take long for Chris to seek out the Champ's owners and work out an agreement - flight instruction in return for the use of the airplane, plus gas.
On Chris' list of goals was an aerobatic instructor rating.  As the club's only aerobatic instructor pilot, it fell to me to help get him there.  Whenever time and money allowed, we shoehorned ourselves into the Super D and began building on his existing experience in aerobatics.  Aviation, and in particular an aerobatic airplane, is a crucible wherein friendships are formed or rendered inert.  One needs little time to discover which it will be.  With Chris, it was clear that we would get along.

Charlie Miller's Champ CF-GRN while under Charlie's care.  (Photo Courtesy: Charlie Miller)

And so, the Smith had a nicely matched and historic dancing partner in the Champ.  After all, my dad had flown one at Collingwood in preparation to solo in Fox-Alpha-Mike and before that, Charlie Miller had purchased one, sight unseen, as a stable mate for the Smith.  My dad wasn't fortunate enough to have a formation partner but Charlie had Gord and now, I had Chris.
And so, on a shockingly cool July evening, Chris and I sit under the cover of the canvas hangar and brief a quick formation flying trip.  Above, a blanket of stratocumulus - an ugly, grey and swirling morass - slides by at a decent clip.  Just outside, we can hear the windsock straining against its metal bracket.
"Hey," Chris said, more or less reading my mind.  "At least it's straight down the pipe."
About fifteen minutes later, the Smith and I climb out of runway 09 at Rockcliffe and turn left to follow the Ottawa River west.  As soon as we level out at circuit height, I throttle back to allow the slower Champ, which climbs at a speed barely faster than we stall, to catch up.

It takes Chris and the Champ a few miles but, by the time we're rounding the southern end of the Gatineau Hills and entering the practice area, they slide into position off our right wings.  Afraid to tear my eyes away from the path ahead, I quickly glance over to make sure all is well.  As if reading my mind, Chris gives me a curt nod.  Eyes front again, busying myself with the duties of a flight leader.

Heading north-west towards Luskville with the Smith leading the Champ, July 2016.  (Photo Courtesy: Chris Ricci)

In short order, we discover that our 90 miles per hour translates into about 85 for them - and that this is a good formation flying speed.  We've climbed to two thousand feet in the hopes that the ride would be smoother higher up.  It isn't so and every so often the invisible wind slams against our brave little formation.  There's little to do than stick out our chins and clench our jaws in defiance.  On the wing, Chris and the Champ cling on grimly, bouncing up and down in the onrushing current. 

The sky is uniformly grey and the land below it is equally sallow.  The Ottawa River, now off to our left and meandering north towards a sharp turn at Pontiac, is of similar complexion save for a few shimmering bands that betray the light leaking through the overcast.  Despite it being the height of summer, it's damn cold up here.
I inhale sharply and do a quick scan of the instrumentation; speed 90, altitude 2050', engine gauges green.  A glance at the drunken compass provokes a chuckle before I focus again on the outside world for other traffic. 
"Lead, two," Chris' voice crackles in my ears.  The Champ doesn't have an alternator so the radio draws off the battery.  We limit voice communication for this reason.  "Going echelon left."
"Lead," I acknowledge. 
I glance over as the Champ seems to back away slowly and then sink out of sight below my tail.  It's unnerving, not having eyes on the Champ, but I rely on trust and focus on keeping my flying as precisely steady as my abilities allow.  Moments later, the Champ resurfaces on the left wings.  Another nod from Chris.

C-GDSA as lead in July 2016.  (Photo Courtesy: Chris Ricci)

Charlie Miller at the controls of C-FFAM in her original livery, formed up on a Piper Cub in southwestern Ontario, summer 1978.  This is a screen shot from an old 8mm film found by Gordon Skerratt. (Photo Courtesy: Gordon Skerratt)

We push on as far as Luskville before angling towards the escarpment to open up a wide turn to the left.  Chris masterfully keeps station on the inside wing as I guide the formation back towards Rockcliffe. 
Despite the gravity and seriousness of the flight, it truly is great fun.  I can't help but think of Charlie Miller and Gordon Skerratt who, in two Smith Miniplanes and armed only with caps, goggles and one chart between them, set off to discover Ontario.  Neither ship had a radio, so they communicated solely by hand signals and navigated using only a moistened thumb and a map.  As Charlie describes it:


 I find out where I am, touch my tounge with a gloved finger and then press my finger against the map.  It leaves a telltale spot.  On a hot day, by the time it evaporates, I know I am about five minutes from where I was...and therefore not too lost.


On one such memorable hop - a contour flying, nape-of-the-earth formation flight in the Muskokas - they crested a small hill hiding a lake where they came upon and surprised two lovers fornicating in a canoe.  In Charlie's words:


Flat out in ground effect, both of us locked on target, our canoe comes into focus. What also comes into focus is that there are two legs, kind of pointing up and out and a white something round in between. As we both pull up and looked over the cockpit edges we see a naked guy and a equally dressed well-endowed young woman trying to wave and scramble to keep the canoe right side up at the same time. Well, based on that sight I knew we were still in cottage country.

In all my communications with Charlie, there's an obvious undercurrent of nostalgia but also pride...in that his adventures in FAM are, in a large way, responsible for the flight Chris and I are enjoying today.  It's all the more meaningful when you consider that, had my dad not purchased FAM from Charlie nearly 30 years ago, this flight and everything it represents simply wouldn't be. 
It's an undeniable and powerful thread as real and tangible as the one keeping the Champ firmly anchored on the Smith's wings. 
It's about a quarter to 9 in the evening by the time our little two-ship formation arrives overhead Rockcliffe.  The last of the light is leaking through the gaps in the overcast, which, where thickest, has become almost black. 
"Low and over?" Chris asks.
"Good idea," I respond. 
We begin a wide and gradual, descending spiral to shed altitude.  The wind has died off somewhat so the abrupt jolts are fewer and further between.  Chris keeps station beautifully as we round out onto final approach and sweep across the field in formation.  My radio calls and the combined clatter of our engines has attracted a small group to the runway's edge to witnesses our "beat-up."  As the end of the field approaches, I go to full throttle and peel away to the north.  Chris maintains runway heading to allow me the space and time to rejoin the circuit, land and taxi clear. 
No canoes or coitus but great fun all the same.
A few minutes later, having cleared landed and cleared at taxiway Bravo, I'm using the light of the radio to jot down notes.  Over the swishing of the prop, I hear Chris call short final for runway 09 and glance up to see the Champ's silhouette glide in over the western fence.  Suddenly, it appears to stop in mid-air, seemingly hovering only inches above the runway - before dropping onto all three points.  The wings rock slightly as the little Champ slows to a brisk jog and then a walking pace.
Chris taxies off and, once again, sidles up next to the Smith.  I raise my hand in greeting.  He and his mount appear only as a silhouette, backlit by last light of a dying day, but I can tell he's smiling at the promise of a new tradition.

Working aviator

As the season progress, the natural order of renewal followed.  Spring gave way to summer.  The rains slowly subsided, winds calmed and colour returned to the country side.  The sun was a constant companion and warmth returned to the air.  The airplanes and their pilots grew busier as well.  It seemed that the machines flew constantly given that the flight line was almost always empty during the day, with only black patches of oil betraying the fact that an airplane had been in the tie-down at all.  The Flying Club enjoyed a more-or-less constant stream of students.  A few instructors moved on to other jobs, new ones appeared and students shuffled around.  Rockcliffe's song was one of pistons hammering away on take-off and wings whispering as they glided down the final approach for landing.  It might be the echo of history or the inherent promise in one learning to fly, but there's something about that place that just makes it stand out.
Against this background, my professional flying career developed.  As I said, it had never been on my radar as a viable option - and, to be honest, it really wasn't viable - but I revelled in it.  My uniform consisted of a blue company polo shirt, sun faded and oil stained cargo shorts that had once been brown, a tattered twill belt and a pair of holed loafers.  I wore my old, sweat, oil and dirt encrusted RCAF ball cap with pride.  My skin glistened in the sun and under the film of sweat and oil and my clothes smelled of sunscreen and avgas.  I walked the ramp until I wore out the soles of my shoes. I lost weight.  Not only did I fly, but I pushed airplanes around, gassed them up, replenished oil and, on occasion, rooted around behind and under seats to reattach belts or coax a flat battery back to life.

Steely-eyed and far too serious.  My first flying job in April 2010 as a Class 2 Aerobatics Instructor on the Burkhart Grob G115C.  Go Pack. (Photo Courtesy: Jason Burles)

The full-time aerobatic instructor pilot hamming it up, summer 2015.  (Photo courtesy: Ernie Szelepcsenyi)

We were so far from the "glamorous" pilot life of starched shirts and shoulder boards that my compatriots pined for.  It's true that I smelled and was, generally speaking and more than most, filthy.  At the very least, however, I was happy.
It was not unusual for me to teach a lesson in the Super D and then jump into the Smith for a quick flight.  The two airplanes, while both taildraggers, could not be more different.
The Super Decathlon traces it's lineage all the way back to the venerable Aeronca Champ.  The Champ, while introduced just after the close of the Second World War, first flew more than a year before the armistice.  In a 5-year production run, more than 10 thousand were produced in a number of variants.  It taught an entire generation of pilots how to fly. In fact, the Flying Club's original fleet was nearly entirely comprised of the plucky tailwheel trainers and it's rumored that the remains of one still lie at the bottom of the Ottawa River, just off the airport. The Champ, like the line of trainers it is responsible for (the Citabria and Decathlon among them), remains a popular general aviation aircraft today.
In a pack of mules, the Super D is a thoroughbred.  The Club's Super D pilots are a tight knit bunch and, almost to an individual, extremely protective of "their" airplane.  Newcomers are regarded with a measure of suspicion until judged that they "get it."  It's nothing personal.

Returning from an aerobatic dual flight.  I'm in the back seat in the orange sweatshirt and Matt McCuaig is up front.  (Photo courtesy: Chuck Clark)

Tailwheel airplanes usually expose a weak pilot but the Decathlon is such a good-natured, pussycat of an airplane that it tolerates an unfair amount of abuse before running out of patience.  Today, most pilots, the author included, are trained on aircraft with a tricycle landing gear; that is to say, two main wheels and a smaller wheel under the nose.  This configuration was, at inception, marketed as "Land-O-Matic" - implying that the airplane can land itself.  While not entirely true, one can land a tricycle airplane with very little interference from the pilot by simply smashing it into the ground at any degree of crab and, after a certain amount of squealing from the tires, have it right itself and roll merrily along.  This is thanks to clever engineers having arranged the centre of gravity to be ahead of the main wheels.  If the aircraft does not touch down in line with its direction of travel, Sir Isaac Newton, dead now for nearly 400 years, takes corrective action and pulls the airplane into line again.
Taildraggers, however, have the centre of gravity behind the main wheels.  Therefore, when the aircraft touches down at an angle, the centre of gravity tries to pull the tail around.  If unchecked, this swing can become a ground loop - or worse.  So, these machines require a firm hand, some measure of attention and functioning feet. 

Didn't believe me?  Here's proof.  (Courtesy: Cessna)

I was fortunate to have learned this early on in my flying career - at my father's insistence.  With barely 80 hours, I checked out on a cute little Citabria near Newmarket.  Once the tail came up, I was hooked.

With Super Decathlon C-GKXD at CYRO (Photo Courtesy: AR Photography)

When the Decathlon joined the line, I checked out in the back seat because that's where the instructor sits.  It's an infernal pit of exquisite design - robbing the pilot of any forward view and giving him or her the basic tools of stick, rudder and throttle.  There is also a seatbelt should the aforementioned not keep one out of trouble.  In order to survive, one learns to take-off and land using peripheral vision.  One also acquires an ear and hand for what certain speeds and attitudes sound and feel like.
By the end of my first season in the back, I was comfortable.  Mid-way through my second season, the front seat just felt odd.
All this to say, I love the Super D and am almost eerily relaxed flying and teaching acro in it.  I know her every nuance and tendency, rib and stitch, nut and bolt.  I understand the language she speaks and when I'm away for a while, I worry about her well-being.  Because of this love, I subconsciously - and sometimes, I'll admit, unfairly - hold others to the same standard.

Demo-ing a hammerhead in KXD.  Richard Himbault is up front while I fly from the back.  Rich is one of the nicest and most enthusiastic pilots I've flown with - and a good stick too.  (Author's collection)

"Right rudder, right rudder, right rudder!"  my voice, fighting the roar of the engine.
The airplane, at a comically slow pace, wanders for the left edge of the runway.
"Move your feet!" I jockey the pedals.
"Stick forward," my voice again.
Feeble response from the front seat.
"Stick forward!" Louder now.
"More?"
"Yes, more."
"Why?"  I know they say there are no stupid questions.  They're wrong.
The airplane lurches into the air, sideways naturally, and behind the power of the 180 horsepower Lycoming, flies out of ground effect a little earlier than it should.
"That's why," I have to stifle a laugh.
"Oh," comes the bewildered reply.
"Fly the damned airplane," I say gently, softening the bite of my words.  "Don't hang onto it like you're walking the family dog."
In the air, she flies like most other airplanes of her class do - except it's louder and draftier in the cockpit.  When it comes to aerobatics, she does every basic maneuver fairly well and is forgiving enough to handle some ham-handedness from the neophyte. 
The landings are, for a tail dragger, largely non-eventful.  The airplane has a fair amount of drag and isn't a great glider so getting it down isn't a problem - even given the absence of flaps.  That's usually one of the first things people notice when they walk up to the airplane.
"Oh," they say, genuinely surprised.  "No flaps."
"Nope," I reply, cheerfully.  "You don't need them."

Power Flying Scholarship 2002, Eastern Region, English Flight, Les Cedres QC.  I'm in the back row, 5th from the right.  Chuck is to my right.  The aircraft is Cessna 172 C-FSEX.  Only a few of us ever got to fly it and only at the end of the course, but we had to have it in the flight photograph.  (Photo courtesy: EVVRE)

It wasn't that long ago, however, that I might have asked the same thing.  When I was doing my license, one of my classmates had a flap failure returning from a solo cross country.  I was in the old lounge studying when a pack of blue flight suits rushed by the door. 
"What's up?"  I called out.
One of them poked their head in and said, "Chuck's flaps don't work.  He's been flying around for the last hour to burn off gas.  We're going out to watch him crash."
I know how it sounds, but it underscores my point.
I drove out in the company van with our instructor, who was talking him down on a handheld radio.  We parked on the grass taxiway, a few hundred feet past the threshold.
"Cedars Traffic, Zulu-Sierra-Zulu, turning final for runway 25," Chuck's voice, normally thin, sounded thinner.  He was tired - having flown from Cedars to St-Jean and then overflying Cornwall on his way to Gatineau before returning to Cedars and droning around for another hour.  While not explicitly articulated, the goal was to lighten his fuel load and correspondingly reduce his chances of bursting into flames if the landing ended in a crash.  Again, it sounds like overkill, but we were students and, at the time, Chuck was solo and may have had 35 or 40 hours of total flight experience.  He sounded scared.  Hell, I was scared.
"Okay, Chuck," Nigel began.  "Keep the speed up, fly 70."
It was nearly dusk.  I could just make out the outline of the little 152, a green and red smudge at each wingtip, landing light blazing.  I watched it come down the approach.  He looked fast but Chuck was doing a nice job.
As ZSZ crossed the threshold, Nigel raised the radio again.
"Start your flare now, Chuck," he began.  "Keep it straight, hold it off, keep holding it off...good..."
ZSZ raced by about two feet off the runway, silent except for the whistle of the slipstream.  He floated till midfield and then the wings gave up and ZSZ sagged onto the runway.  No crash, no fire, no death.  A non-event.
Years later, Chuck recalled that he wasn't at all frightened by the prospect of landing an airplane without flaps.  Rather, his concern lay with the malfunctioning electric flap motor and its less than ideal location below one of the fuel tanks.  A few days after the incident, the maintenance guys showed him the flap motor.  It had slagged and there was clear evidence that the unit had been gleefully throwing sparks.
A year later, ZSZ would be written off by a student pilot practising take-offs and landings on a calm day.  After a series of bounces that would make an out of control elevator feel like one of those tea-cup rides at the community fair, her nose gear gave out and the rest of the airplane followed.  So much for "Land-O-Matic."

Cessna 152 C-GZSZ, my solo plane and Chuck's mount for his flapless landing, shown here in August 2008 - five years after its unauthorized tail dragger conversion by nose wheel failure.  (Author's collection)

The Super D is an honest airplane and does exactly what you want it to do and smartly.  As long as you're patient with the flare and you follow the cardinal rule of keeping her straight, everything unfolds as it should.  In challenging conditions or on days when the pilot lets his attention lapse momentarily, the airplane will protest with enough obvious warning signs to alert all but the most incompetent aviator. 
As I said, I love the Super Decathlon and regard it as an old friend.  There's a tremendous amount of comfort, familiarity and trust between the airplane and I.  There must be, given the maneuvers we undertake together.  It didn't come instantly but rather, was built over hundreds of hours and many years.
I love the Smith too, as it truly is my airplane - and yet, it is a different kind of love.  The Smith challenges me, judges me, gives me a good swat if I don't do things just so.  It was a long time coming - dropping into the cockpit for the first time.  Every time I do, I think of everything, good or bad, triumphant or tragic, that had to happen to put me here - in this airplane and this moment.  And while that first landing resulted in an absolute cock-up, every minute since that baptism by fire has been something of a love affair.
Around the time Chuck made that flapless landing at Cedars, I fell in love all over again with biplanes.  My dad's Smith had faded into my deep memory - her button nose poking out from behind the mountains of rubbish that collect in a teenager's mind over time.  Nigel and I had just landed at Gatineau in a Cessna 152 Aerobat.  We'd left Cedars perhaps two hours before, stopping in St. Jean-sur-Richelieu and overflying Cornwall before alighting here for gas and a stretch.
We were standing on the ramp, next to our mount - Nigel leaning back against his hands to loosen his back while I knotted my blue flight suit around my waist - when this tiny red devil of an airplane came blazing down the runway trailing a white wake of smoke.  Its approach was silent - only the flash of movement caught my eye.  Then, suddenly, as it drew abeam where we stood, there was a snarl and the airplane seemed to stand on her tail, bending the sky as she clawed upwards along the arc of a loop.  There was a mad tumble at the top, the aircraft whipping round smartly and flashing her wings in the summer sun.  Then down again she came, buzzing like an angry bee, and tore off across the tarmac again.
Nigel, shielding his eyes against the sun, let out a low whistle.
I stood there, rooted to the ground, awe struck. 
The little ship now followed a steep, angled approach - always turning until just over the numbers.  Then the airman balanced his ship on an invisible cushion of air and let her drop gently onto the runway, swinging the rudder this way and that as they rolled to a walking pace.  He taxied off, spun in a circle and fired off a burst of smoke-oil.  It roiled up, teased by the slowly turning biplane and fanned by her prop, until melting into the blue above.
It was a Pitts S-1 and it looked remarkably like my dad's Smith.  I spent the flight home thinking about all that time I spent pretending to fly it.
Twelve years later, it would no longer be a dream borne of a distant memory.
And in that way, the Smith provided a momentary escape from my newfound working life.  It was a throwback - a reminder of the days when Nigel sent me out on my own to hone my craft.  Everything was new and exciting.  No matter how many times I viewed a particular town from the air, I could always pick out something I'd missed.  The Smith managed to transform even basic maneuvers into something of an experience.  It gave you the oddest sensation, turning round in circles while feeling as though you and the airplane were precisely balance on the tip of a needle two thousand feet above the ground.  You felt every ripple in the air mass.  On smooth days, it felt just like gliding across a still lake in a small sailboat; on bumpy days, like running the gauntlet of flak on a balloon-busting mission over the Western Front. 
No matter what, however, the Smith always managed to put a smile on your face.  Each time I landed from a flight, only to resume my work on the airfield, I did so with an increasingly far-off look in my eye - not unlike my Dad's when he recalled his flying days in Foxtrot-Alpha-Mike.

The Fall

The 2014 open-cockpit flying season slipped away gradually, silently and with little fanfare. Darkness began to advance on light.  The days became shorter with each sunset.
As we mourned the loss of those precious minutes, the warmth leaked from the air.  It grew chilly and then cold.  T-shirts and shorts turned into light sweaters and long pants, then an insulated jacket, long underwear and joggers.  Eventually, my sheepskin gloves came out.  Finally, a balaclava joined the ensemble. 

The winds stirred and strengthened.  The clouds, thicker and more robust in the weightier air, betrayed the wind's breath as exhaling largely out of the west.  The face of the Ottawa river deepened from blue to grey. The Gatineau Hills slowly aged from green to a breathtaking mosaic of every conceivable hue of brown, red, yellow and orange.  And then one day, there were no leaves at all - only naked trees standing sentry on the muddled brown face of the hills.  In some places, pines defiantly retained their verdant cloaks and, rustling in the late autumn wind, mocked their defrocked neighbours.

The face of the earth had changed.  This aging, this thinning of the surface, exposed elements I'd never seen before...or, if I had, I'd forgotten about them if I'd paid them any attention at all.  Here - a rocky outcropping springs from the side of a hill and plunges down its face like a silvery waterfall frozen in time.  And there - an old yellow school bus, tinged in rust, inexplicably sits in the middle of a stand of trees a good mile away from the nearest road or trail. 

In some ways, the progression of summer into fall into early winter reminded me of the passing of a loved one.
Strong and vibrant for so long and then with time - slower, older, withdrawn.
Sickness or old age sets in and visits are shorter, dominated by recollections of the earlier days when strength, time and possibilities were in abundance; sad smiles cross thinning lips, crease skin like leather.

And then one day, they're gone; just an impression on the couch, an empty seat at the table, a bed stripped of linens, a half-glass of water and smudged reading glasses on the bedside table.

It made me feel sad.

The Smith, however, took what I saw as a slow, bittersweet death and turned it into a rebirth.
Invigorated by the cooler, denser air, she leapt into the sky and climbed like a homesick angel.  The engine, while perfectly faithful over its 40 year life, sounded like it had rolled off the assembly line at Williamsport the week before.  The fat, stubby wings cleaved the thick air with renewed vigour and buoyed plane and pilot aloft on the rising tide of the autumn air.

The author's self-portrait of fall flying. (Author's collection)

While the Smith was content to keep climbing to her service ceiling and very likely beyond, I almost always pulled up on the reins around 2000 feet.  The main reason was the cold.  The loss of just a degree or two at altitude made a shockingly painful difference.  With shoulders hunched and elbows drawn tight against my body, I cowered behind my goggles and relished the heat from my breath pooling beneath the ski-mask drawn over my nose.  The Lycoming's roar eventually subsided into a dull, monotonous hum behind the tinny ringing in my ears.  While I was laid bare to the elements in my open cockpit, the blast of the propeller and the weight of the air rushing past created something of a capsule against the outside world.  Eerily silent, life rushed by at 100 miles per hour.

The secondary reason was our collective size.  At not quite 16 feet long and 18 feet wide, the Smith lived up to its moniker.  I'd taken the Miniplane up to almost 4000 feet a few times and it felt as though we were in orbit.  At that height, peering tentatively over the side had a dizzying effect.  And it was lonely, humbling and, at times, frightening.  The experience, more than any other in my life, swiftly brought to bear my insignificance.

The Smith remained aloof.  After all, she'd been to Oshkosh twice, crossed half the continent and even vaulted the Northumberland Strait at the same height that made me nervous. 

Despite her silent chiding, we had made huge progress during our first season together.  I was still scared of the airplane, yes, but the sentiment had dulled from wide-eyed terror to fearful respect.  There was still much handwringing prior to each flight.  I routinely spent twenty minutes (or more) standing outside the hangar, rocking gently from foot to foot, watching each of the three windsocks in the same way a surfer gauges the waves before paddling out beyond the break.  On some days, having rolled up the doors, pulled out the Decathlon, prepared the Smith and made ready for flight, I would sigh, nod resolutely and do everything again -  in reverse.

"A plane isn't a car," my dad had said to me once, a long time before I'd started flying.  "You can't just pull over if something goes wrong."

It was true.  Best case scenario, you had to find an airport or field to land in as soon as practical; worst case, you had to put it down in whatever clearing the outside world afforded you in your moment of need.

Once I started flying and frequenting airports as the owner of a crisp, new pilot's license, another quote was unapologetically drilled into my head.

"Aviation in itself is not inherently dangerous. But to an even greater degree than the sea, it is terribly unforgiving of any carelessness, incapacity or neglect."

The quote, attributed to a Captain A.G. Lamplugh and 1930s London, was widely reproduced on aviation posters and it was a virtual certainty that one of those publications hung somewhere in your local airport crew room, dispatch area or classroom.

In my case, it lived on a square foot of yellowing melamine board hanging above the toilet at the flying school where I did my night rating, commercial license and aerobatic training.  Every time I took a piss, I read that quote and took in the image of a burned out Curtiss JN-4 "Jenny" biplane hanging in a blackened oak tree.  Only the airplane's rear fuselage and tail remained.  The tree, standing out darkly against the misty expanse of what I assumed to be the airport property, appeared to be the only obstacle for miles. 

The "Jenny" poster.  (Image courtesy check-six.com)

Every time I looked at that poster, I thought of those two guys and asked myself "why?"
In an effort to not end up like the two chaps in the tree, I approached each flight - not just in the Smith but any flight - as an evolving dialogue in self-awareness.

Am I ready?  Am I safe?  Am I prepared? Am I able to handle what may come?  Do I have a way out?

If the answer to any of those questions was "no", I went home, poured myself a drink and toasted Captain Lamplugh.

Taxiing in from the last flight of 2014.  (Author's collection)

And so, our first season unfolded tentatively and even then in the most conservative fashion.  By the time of our last flight on Tuesday November 11th, 2014, we had logged a little more than 22 hours and each minute that been an investment and a learning experience.

The last flight was brief and meant only to warm the oil enough so that it would be easier to drain from the engine.  I took the biplane out to the other side of Orleans, circled JP's farm twice and then returned to Rockcliffe.  My landing was perhaps our nicest of the season and, as I taxied back to the hangar, I marvelled at what I took to be the Smith's grace.  It made sense that the little ship, knowing her pilot had barely hung on all season, would help put that kind of exclamation mark on the year.

Plane and pilot at the close of the 2014 season.  (Author's collection)

When we arrived at the hangar, my best friend was waiting to give me a hand with the work.  We drained the Smith's oil and replaced it with 5 litres of preservation oil for her winter hibernation.  We carried out some minor corrosion prevention work and removed the battery.  We worked in silence; our labour - a solemn veneration to the passing of the season.

It was dusk by the time we had her back together and tucked into the corner of the hangar.  The Decathlon followed suit.  I let Seamus out by the side gate before rolling down the doors and tying them up.

Preparing the Smith for winter storage.  (Author's collection)

A peaceful silence covered the field like a blanket as I padded back to the clubhouse.  It only took me a few steps to realize that the only sounds I could hear were my breath and the soft scraping of my boots on the crumbling pavement.  Anyone who has spent any time at an airport will tell you that these are rare moments.  Airports, particularly small community fields like Rockcliffe, have a unique soundtrack: windsocks rustling, engines coughing to life before settling into a rhythmic purr, the clang of a wrench, a backfire, the rattle caused by a youngster hanging off the perimeter fence, muttered curses and happy greetings shouted across the ramp...

And yet, tonight...none of that, not a whisper, not a breath besides my own.

I would have stopped to experience this rarity fully but it was cold.  The blanket of darkness had been pulled tighter around the field so that only the last belt of daylight shone through along its edges.  On this night, this dying blast of sunlight was a shimmering ochre tinged in auburn and purple.  It lasted for some thirty seconds, with only the raked tail of a small Cessna (a 150 or 152) by the fuel pumps breaking its dominance of the horizon.  When it sank below the far horizon, only the lights of the clubhouse guided me.

The clubhouse was nearly empty.  The dispatcher was working behind the desk, updating aircraft journey logs chronicling a busy day of flying.  We chatted idly as I rummaged through the cash box looking for one of my instructing paycheques.  Two men, who I assumed to be the pilot and passenger of the Cessna sitting outside, were loitering by the rack of snacks the club offered for sale.

"Everything's a dollar?" one asked.  He had a pair of aviator sunglasses pushed up onto his forehead.

"Yep," I replied, scribbling down the particulars of today's flight and oil change in the Smith's journey log.

"I'll take a Snickers."

"Help yourself." 

I snapped the log shut, dug my car keys out of my mail box and, saying goodnight to the dispatcher and nodding to the Cessna crew, stepped out into the November night.

When I arrived at work very early the next morning, my email inbox was flooded with messages about a small plane crash in Algonquin Park.  The aircraft, a Cessna 150 on its way from Rockcliffe to Buttonville with two people on board, had made a mayday call around 8:30 Tuesday night.  They were lost in deteriorating weather, running low on fuel and needing a vector to the nearest airport.  An Air Canada flight, cruising overhead at well over 30,000 feet, picked up their call for help and relayed it to the Joint Rescue Coordination Centre (JRCC) at CFB Trenton.  It was determined that the lost airplane was somewhere north of Haliburton/Stanhope Municipal Airport and deep in the heart of the Algonquin Highlands. JRCC scrambled a Hercules and Griffon helicopter to respond while the Air Canada crew tried to keep the pilot calm.  Another aircraft activated the runway lights at Stanhope in the hopes that the lost crew could see them. 

They made their last radio call at 9:28pm, almost three and one-half hours after departing Rockcliffe - which lay only an hour and a half's flying to the east.

The accident site was eventually located in a heavily wooded and hilly area about 20 miles north-east of the airport at Stanhope.  A Canadian Forces search and rescue technician was lowered into the crash site at 4:30 the next morning - about an hour before I learned of the crash - and confirmed that both pilot and passenger were dead. 

By mid morning, I had connected the dots and realized that they were the two guys I had crossed paths with in the clubhouse the evening before.

I have been fortunate in that, thus far, I have been largely untouched by the cruel finality of aviation's ugliest side.  I had a few acquaintances die in plane crashes.  I think of one fairly often - although I'm not entirely sure why as we didn't know each other very well.  I suppose it's because he was very kind to me at a time when I was starting a job in a place that was very intimidating and where I knew few people.  While we hadn't spoken in some time, his death affected me deeply.  Every so often, I come across a picture or a social media post and I'm taken back to a beach on Lake Ontario.  He's standing in the warm light of a giant bonfire fed by pilfered avgas - offering a cold beer with an outstretched hand and a mischievous smile.

The deaths of these two strangers rattled me to my core.  Why would anyone embark on that kind of flight, I wondered, with incredulity bordering on fury.  A light, single-engine aircraft crossing the dark, featureless, unforgiving expanse of Algonquin Park, at night, in strong winds and deteriorating weather is at best, a bad idea and, at worst, the eventual tragic result.  Why didn't I ask where they were going?  If they'd told me, I would have suggested staying the night or, if they absolutely had to go, recommended heading south-west to Kingston and then following the illuminated ribbon of Highway 401 to home and safety.  Would they have listened?  Would it have mattered?  I'd flown over the relatively well-populated southern extremities of that area before, in daytime, and was struck by how brutally inhospitable it was. 

At any rate, nothing could change the fact that they ended up smashed against a non-descript hillside in the middle of nowhere for no good reason.

The Transportation Safety Board of Canada released some preliminary information about a month later.  The agency said the aircraft's propeller struck a 20 foot tall tree about 30 feet back from where the main wreckage came to rest.  Investigators found a little more than 6 gallons of fuel in the Cessna's tanks.  The photographs suggest the airplane struck the hillside with significant force.
I can't imagine what they went through in those final moments.  I hope they had no idea of what lurked in the darkness.  A significant part of me hopes they weren't aware of the final link in a chain of extraordinarily poor decisions.

An alternate view of the same Jenny in the same tree.  I'd never seen this one before this writing.

All I could think about was that old poster hanging above the toilet.  I couldn't rid my mind of the Jenny and the tree.

A week later, on a chilly morning under searing blue skies, I went for a walk with one of my best friends.  We had been colleagues at the station for nearly a decade, coming into the business within months of each other.  While our careers followed similar paths, I now found myself behind the camera while he still plied his trade in the public eye.  Our friendship grew out of the workplace to include starting a private riot when the Vancouver Canucks let their Stanley Cup slip away, downing a case of beer while doing a terrible job of painting a garage door and depraved bachelor party shenanigans that won't be outlined here.  I was godfather to his three sons and he would take that role when our child came into the world.

We walked in silence.  Every so often, I looked up at the sky, squinting against the light, and thought it could be worse.

"Well, it was great working with you, brother," John said.

We both knew that we were done.  Having come into the television news world together, it was fitting that we would leave it jointly - at least for the moment.

Half an hour later, each of us was read a script.  Our network had, through a major restructuring that had become à la mode in recent years, cut some 80 positions.  Ours were among them.

Two days before my 31st birthday, less than 3 months before the birth of our first child and for the first time in 15 years, I found myself without work.