He always maintained he had a second logbook. I've yet to find it.
To discover any further flying in FAM, one needs to consult the aircraft's journey log.
It reveals my dad's last recorded flights in the Mini plane took place on September 19th, 1983 - one in the morning, the other in the evening.
I was born a little more than a month later on November 21st at 11:11 in the morning.
My birth didn't dissuade my father from flying. If anything, it spurred him onwards. By all accounts, I was a screaming banshee that could only be calmed by a) my mother, b) riding in a car driven by my dad around a local parking lot as my mom did groceries or c) being at or in close proximity to an airport or airplanes.
While he never logged another flight in FAM, there were dozens from 1983 to 1985.
My mom is positive he flew the Mini plane during the spring, summer and fall at least twice a week. After dinner, while my mom was washing the dishes, the conversation would go like this:
"While you're cleaning up," he would say - shoes on, keys in hand. "I'll go to the airport, do a couple of circuits and come back."
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| "Where I was once and where I hope to be again soon." My first (and only) picture with C-FFAM. My mom is trying to get me to look at my dad. This shot was taken in May or June of 1984. (Family Collection) |
On weekends beginning in the summer of 1984, my parents would pack me, a basket of food and a lawnmower into the pick-up truck and make the drive to Rockcliffe. I'd sit in the Mini plane while my parents cut the grass around TEM's tie down. Then my mom would pull me out, my dad would jump in, fire up the Continental and taxi out for a local flight or some circuits. We'd eat lunch as we watched.
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| This isn't me - but my cousin about a year before I was born. Still, this shot tells the story of my very early years and, in a prophetic way, the story of FAM's eventual fate and destiny. (Family Collection) |
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| FAM taxiing down Alpha taxiway at Rockcliffe. (Family Collection) |
In this fashion, I grew up at the Rockcliffe Airport surrounded by airplanes, pilots, the sounds of engines and the smell of cut grass mingled with avgas. My earliest and happiest memories are there. They are the reason I'm in aviation. They are why, 30 years later, I can't help but smile as I walk across the ramp to a waiting Super D.
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| C-FFAM being hauled away on a Right Forming flatbed prior to be painted over the winter of 1985-86. One of Rockcliffe's condemned hangars is in the background. (Family Collection) |
In the fall of 1984, FAM's paint job was starting to show its age so he had her coat refreshed.
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| FAM with her newly applied paint job in the fall of 1985. If you look closely, you can see the old RCAF hangar in the background has been marked for demolition. What we'd do to have that hangar back! (Family Collection) |
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| The gleaming Smith Mini plane in its tiedown at Rockcliffe in the fall of 1985. C-FTEM is in the background. (Family Collection) |
In September of 1985, my dad went into business for himself.
On November 18th, my sister Vanessa was born.
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| In one of the old Aviation Museum hangars at Rockcliffe in January of 1986. My dad is holding my newly born sister Vanessa. (Family Collection) |
By his own admission, these two events changed my dad's outlook. He now had two children and a wife who stayed home to care for them. He had to provide and worked hard to do so. Having struck out into the business world for himself, the pressure was doubled. This had to work and perhaps flying was too much of a risk.
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| Dad, Vanessa and I at Ezeiza International Airport in Buenos Aires, Argentina - October 1987. (Family Collection) |
Years later, he would explain, with a chuckle of regret, that he got "cold feet."
The flights began to dwindle...which makes the hours and minutes that were neither recorded nor logged so special.
They only existed in his mind and heart. They were and will always be his alone.
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| This picture, while taken in the fall of 1981, pretty much says it all. (Family Collection) |
Maybe it's better that way.
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