In the terminal building of the Sudbury Airport, my father sits hunched over a telephone on a small desk. With the handset cradled in his shoulder and a pencil poised over a scrap of paper, he listens to the dial tone. A yellowed thumbnail grinds away at the splintering edge of the desk. Eyes flit nervously from the blank paper to the windows overlooking a quiet tarmac and the unsettled soupy haze of an unhappy sky.
A few mumbled words, a pause, and then the right hand begins to work furiously - scratching what, to the inexperienced eye, is gibberish...a mess of letters, numbers and symbols. The paper begins to rumple as it is caught between the pencil's tip and the writer's dragging palm.
All the while, the thumb continues its meaningless mission.
A mumbled thanks, the handset is replaced, notes are consulted and crammed into the pocket of a pair of dirty jeans.
Outside, a blue and white Piper Warrior waits quietly.
Ugly, swirling clouds begin to peek over the western horizon.
"Don't do it," the voice shatters the silence hanging thick in the terminal building. Mid-stride, dad stops, and looks over his shoulder at a man Ernest Gann would have described as "an old pelican." He's sitting in a vinyl chair; twinkling eyes and unruly eyebrows working over the lip of a tattered newspaper.
"It isn't worth going," he reiterates.
"I'll have a look," my dad replies...but the uncertainty and doubt is swelling in the pit of his stomach. He makes for the door.
"Suit yourself," the old pelican replies softly. Eyes and eyebrows disappear behind newsprint once again.
15 minutes later, dad is cocooned in the lonely sanctuary of C-GGDI's cockpit. Having just climbed out of Sudbury, he's taken a heading roughly south. It'll be 50 miles or so before he hits the northern shore of Georgian Bay then another 80 miles over the water to Wiarton. He's considered taking the long way around by skirting the eastern shore of the bay but the weather would be on top of him by then...and his tiny craft wouldn't stand a chance. He left Collingwood for Kapuskasing the afternoon before - stopping to drop off men and gear in Sudbury and Timmins - nearly 4 hours in the air. Today, another 2 hour run from Kapuskasing to Timmins and then Sudbury. Now, Wiarton beckons from across the bay.
Under the wings, the harsh coniferous wilderness of northern Ontario is broken by whitecaps whipped wild by the whirling wind. Georgian Bay stretches out beyond the nose and crystalline arc of the propeller. On either side, clouds billow and broil...building into ugly, cancerous masses choking the horizon.
Rain begins to speckle the windshield. The wind picks up. The whitecaps below get whiter.
Fear in an airplane is a lonely and unforgiving thing. It is cold. You shiver and sweat all at once. The numbing drone of the engine is no longer a comfort...but rather a constant reminder of your isolation and insignificance. Every decision made up until this point becomes both monumental and meaningless. One makes any number of deals and bargains, swears allegiance or fealty to any number of lords...good or otherwise. Fear whispers in your ear, breathes on the back of your neck, promises salvation in exchange for surrender. It is quiet. And desperate. And sickening.
The horizon melts away. Everything is a uniformly damp blue. There is no up, nor down. He may be in cloud, he may not. It doesn't matter. It becomes painfully evident that the bottom is falling out.
Less than 300 hours are set down in his logbook. Another 5, perhaps 10 miles on this unwise course and he'll become the textbook example of a statistic.
My dad lowers his eyes and looks hard at the instruments. His shoulders draw inward as if to steel himself against the onslaught of Fear and Fate. I'm sure he heard Murray Sinton's voice, or Alan Coulson's, Biff Hamilton's...perhaps the more recent Ken Richardson's.
"I was scared," he told me 30 years later. "Really scared. I should have listened to the old man and never tried it."
"What did you do?"
"What I'd been taught," he answered. "Make a 180 degree, rate-one turn and get the hell out of there."
30 awful minutes later, GDI touches down at Sudbury airport with an unsettled bounce. My dad walks through the rain, slowly...as if to wash away Fear's shroud.
Inside the terminal, the old pelican hasn't moved. The newspaper is lowered and the crow's feet reaching out from the corners of his twinkling eyes crease and spread.
"Good to see you again, young fella," he says with an unseen smile.
"Welcome back."
Monday 27 August 2012
Wednesday 15 August 2012
Ghosts
Facebook is often a dumping ground of mindless blather and rubbish. It is expanding at a rate that rivals urban sprawl. However, it can also be a tool - quite a remarkable one - shrinking the globe and revealing hidden treasures, stories and memories lost for decades.
So, in July of 2012, I sounded the depths of Mark Zuckerberg's creation for Murray Sinton. I'll admit I took a ridiculously remote shot in the dark, I told this "Murray Sinton" as much, but I couldn't shake the feeling that I was on to something.
Then, about a month later, in the dead of night, my blackberry clanged enthusiastically. It rose me from my slumber and as my myopic eyes swam in the murk to find my glowing watch face, I considered rolling over to pluck my phone from the carpeted bedroom floor.
3:24 in the morning. I'm getting up in less than 90 minutes. Forget it.
Six minutes later - another ping shattered the silence.
I felt for my glasses, pushed them on and groped for the phone lying face-down on the carpet and ringed in white light.
When I saw the name staring back at me, my body temperature jumped a few degrees.
It turns out that my absurdly long shot, lobbed through social media clear around the world, was right on target.
Murray Sinton is alive and well, and after a long aviation career, is enjoying his retirement in Perth, Australia.
Over the last few weeks, we've been swapping emails back and forth. I thought I would share one with you.
I must say I am honoured to be held in such high esteem by your late father (sorry to hear of his passing). It was something I always believed in trying to impart throughout my instructing over 30 odd years.
I read the blog from start to finish & found the history of all the air crafts I used to instruct on back when your father was learning very interesting. Sadly most of them, like your father, are no longer with us but live on in our memories.
From what I can remember your dad was a very keen & willing student who completed all his tasks diligently & enthusiastically & had that natural ability of coordination & judgement needed to fly.
If I remember correctly he was one of my first batch of pupils assigned to me by the flying school as a brand new assistant instructor. However, we got on very well throughout his quest to get his PPL which he passed on the first attempt.
Unfortunately, I do not have any photos but of course the early days of my flying career were at Wilken Flying School. The weather in Kenya being very kind to private flying as there were very few days that it kept one grounded.
Of course all of this was over 40 years ago now & I lost count of the number of students I taught since those first ones.
I, in fact, left the flying school after two years with them to further my career & spent a few years flying for a charter company before leaving Kenya for South Africa where I opted for the Corporate environment & ended up my flying days flying the Canadair Challenger series of air crafts.
This took me all over the globe & of course regular visits to Montreal for refresher simulator courses.
I am now happily retired in Perth Australia with all of my family close by.
I have regular contact with a number of those I taught way back then as most of them went on to become airline skippers & so migrated to all corners of the world.
As for the other instructors at Wilken, Mike Amos passed away a few years ago, Paul Lennox was killed in an aircraft bomb explosion on his way back to Nairobi from a visit to the infamous Idi Amin in Uganda. Alan Coulson I am not sure about but heard rumours of his demise. Clive Corner is alive & well & living in UK where he has retired.
I do still have the silver eagle tucked away with other flying memorabilia & had forgotten it was from your dad, thanks for the memory jog.
Do continue to complete this project but I don't know if I can be of any more help but would love to read its conclusion.
Keep up the good work in passing on your knowledge to your students & above all enjoy your flying days to the full.
Regards
Murray
Two things happened as I read Murray's recollections.
I grew up wanting to be a pilot - like my dad - and so, when it came to aviation, he was a giant. The fact that he learned to fly in Africa - in clear, pristine skies over the wild Savannah - only reinforced this feeling. Murray's story, however brief, helped me realize my dad and I had been in the same place, albeit separated by more than 30 years and half a globe. It unearthed a kinship I always knew existed but never fully understood.
And until Murray's note, Amos, Corner, Coulson and Lennox were just names written on the yellowing pages of an old logbook. Now, they had first names, and lives, loved ones, histories, triumphs, and tragedies...heartbeats.
One such heartbeat, that of Paul Lennox, was stopped with such cruelty and senselessness.
On June 27th, 1976, Air France Flight 139 from Tel-Aviv to Paris was hijacked by operatives of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine as well as members of the German Revolutionary Cells. The aircraft was eventually flown to Entebbe Airport near the Ugandan capital of Kampala where the hijackers were supported by the pro-Palestinian forces of President Idi Amin. The hijackers released most of the 260 passengers but kept 106 people - mainly Israelis - captive.
One week later, Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) troops staged a brazen raid. Under the cover of darkness, they landed a force of 100 soldiers at Entebbe Airport and stormed the terminal building where the hijackers were holding their hostages. The commandos killed the hijackers and as many as 45 Ugandan soldiers. Three hostages who were caught in the crossfire also died. The assault force's commander, 30-year-old Lt. Colonel Yonatan Netanyahu (oldest brother of the eventual Israeli Prime Minister) was killed. 103 hostages were saved. Idi Amin was humiliated.
The IDF wedged months of planning into mere hours. The success of the mission hinged on gaining safe passage through the airspace of neighbouring African nations. To do so without permission was considered an act of war. Kenya not only agreed to allow the IDF forces to fly through their airspace but offered Nairobi's international airport as a refueling stop.
Kenya - led by President Jomo Kenyatta - was sympathetic to the plight of the hostages. Jomo Kenyatta's Minister of Agriculture at the time was a man named Bruce MacKenzie. He was a former RAF pilot with deep connections to British Intelligence. He secured right of passage for the Israeli operation.
Idi Amin, it seems, did not forget this.
Two years later, MacKenzie left his ministerial post for business which took him to Uganda and other countries. He was selling radio technology for Wilken Telecommunications - part of the group that owned Wilken Aviation and its flying school. One of his clients was the Ugandan Army - and Idi Amin. He made frequent trips to visit the African dictator.
May 24th 1978 was one such day. MacKenzie and two fellow businessmen - Keith Savage and Gavin Whitelaw - made a trip from Wilson Airport in Nairobi to Entebbe in a Wilken-owned twin engine Piper Aztec registered 5Y-ACS. Paul Lennox was the pilot.
In Kampala, they met with Amin. When the business of the day was concluded, Amin saw them off at the airport. As Lennox fired up the engines at 4:19 in the afternoon, an Amin aide rushed to the side of the plane with a parcel.
He explained it was a lion's head carved from a block of wood - a gift from Amin to MacKenzie. The former Minister tried to turn it down but the aide insisted. MacKenzie relented, accepted the package, slammed the door shut and Lennox taxied for departure.
Inside the guts of the parcel, deep within the lion's head, beat a heart of explosives and a timer...ticking away the seconds each man had to live.
At 5:58 that evening, the Aztec was nearing Nairobi. Lennox keyed his microphone.
"Escarpment position, 20 miles from Wilson," the pilot reported.
Minutes later, Maasai herdsman heard a loud pop and turned their eyes upwards. Pieces of the Aztec were twirling lazily to earth in flames - like falling leaves glinting in the African sun. The four men were dead.
Idi Amin was immediately implicated. He denied the allegations and called MacKenzie one of his best friends. When Amin tumbled from power in 1979, his "special advisor", 56-year-old British born Bob Astles, was detained in Kenya - suspected as the perpetrator of the bombing and sent to Uganda to face charges. He was acquitted but served 6 and a half years in Luzira Prison. In 1985, he was released and returned to Britain where he lives now. He continues to deny the allegations.
The whispers of Idi Amin's involvement - and that of his associates - persist.
Paul Lennox, the man who signed off on my dad's first solo, just showed up for work that May day in 1978 - to do something he loved.
He paid with his life.
So, in July of 2012, I sounded the depths of Mark Zuckerberg's creation for Murray Sinton. I'll admit I took a ridiculously remote shot in the dark, I told this "Murray Sinton" as much, but I couldn't shake the feeling that I was on to something.
Then, about a month later, in the dead of night, my blackberry clanged enthusiastically. It rose me from my slumber and as my myopic eyes swam in the murk to find my glowing watch face, I considered rolling over to pluck my phone from the carpeted bedroom floor.
3:24 in the morning. I'm getting up in less than 90 minutes. Forget it.
Six minutes later - another ping shattered the silence.
I felt for my glasses, pushed them on and groped for the phone lying face-down on the carpet and ringed in white light.
When I saw the name staring back at me, my body temperature jumped a few degrees.
It turns out that my absurdly long shot, lobbed through social media clear around the world, was right on target.
Murray Sinton is alive and well, and after a long aviation career, is enjoying his retirement in Perth, Australia.
Over the last few weeks, we've been swapping emails back and forth. I thought I would share one with you.
I must say I am honoured to be held in such high esteem by your late father (sorry to hear of his passing). It was something I always believed in trying to impart throughout my instructing over 30 odd years.
I read the blog from start to finish & found the history of all the air crafts I used to instruct on back when your father was learning very interesting. Sadly most of them, like your father, are no longer with us but live on in our memories.
From what I can remember your dad was a very keen & willing student who completed all his tasks diligently & enthusiastically & had that natural ability of coordination & judgement needed to fly.
If I remember correctly he was one of my first batch of pupils assigned to me by the flying school as a brand new assistant instructor. However, we got on very well throughout his quest to get his PPL which he passed on the first attempt.
Unfortunately, I do not have any photos but of course the early days of my flying career were at Wilken Flying School. The weather in Kenya being very kind to private flying as there were very few days that it kept one grounded.
Of course all of this was over 40 years ago now & I lost count of the number of students I taught since those first ones.
I, in fact, left the flying school after two years with them to further my career & spent a few years flying for a charter company before leaving Kenya for South Africa where I opted for the Corporate environment & ended up my flying days flying the Canadair Challenger series of air crafts.
This took me all over the globe & of course regular visits to Montreal for refresher simulator courses.
I am now happily retired in Perth Australia with all of my family close by.
I have regular contact with a number of those I taught way back then as most of them went on to become airline skippers & so migrated to all corners of the world.
As for the other instructors at Wilken, Mike Amos passed away a few years ago, Paul Lennox was killed in an aircraft bomb explosion on his way back to Nairobi from a visit to the infamous Idi Amin in Uganda. Alan Coulson I am not sure about but heard rumours of his demise. Clive Corner is alive & well & living in UK where he has retired.
I do still have the silver eagle tucked away with other flying memorabilia & had forgotten it was from your dad, thanks for the memory jog.
Do continue to complete this project but I don't know if I can be of any more help but would love to read its conclusion.
Keep up the good work in passing on your knowledge to your students & above all enjoy your flying days to the full.
Regards
Murray
Two things happened as I read Murray's recollections.
I grew up wanting to be a pilot - like my dad - and so, when it came to aviation, he was a giant. The fact that he learned to fly in Africa - in clear, pristine skies over the wild Savannah - only reinforced this feeling. Murray's story, however brief, helped me realize my dad and I had been in the same place, albeit separated by more than 30 years and half a globe. It unearthed a kinship I always knew existed but never fully understood.
And until Murray's note, Amos, Corner, Coulson and Lennox were just names written on the yellowing pages of an old logbook. Now, they had first names, and lives, loved ones, histories, triumphs, and tragedies...heartbeats.
One such heartbeat, that of Paul Lennox, was stopped with such cruelty and senselessness.
On June 27th, 1976, Air France Flight 139 from Tel-Aviv to Paris was hijacked by operatives of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine as well as members of the German Revolutionary Cells. The aircraft was eventually flown to Entebbe Airport near the Ugandan capital of Kampala where the hijackers were supported by the pro-Palestinian forces of President Idi Amin. The hijackers released most of the 260 passengers but kept 106 people - mainly Israelis - captive.
One week later, Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) troops staged a brazen raid. Under the cover of darkness, they landed a force of 100 soldiers at Entebbe Airport and stormed the terminal building where the hijackers were holding their hostages. The commandos killed the hijackers and as many as 45 Ugandan soldiers. Three hostages who were caught in the crossfire also died. The assault force's commander, 30-year-old Lt. Colonel Yonatan Netanyahu (oldest brother of the eventual Israeli Prime Minister) was killed. 103 hostages were saved. Idi Amin was humiliated.
The IDF wedged months of planning into mere hours. The success of the mission hinged on gaining safe passage through the airspace of neighbouring African nations. To do so without permission was considered an act of war. Kenya not only agreed to allow the IDF forces to fly through their airspace but offered Nairobi's international airport as a refueling stop.
 |
| Bruce MacKenzie - Kenyan Minister for Agriculture, former RAF pilot, British Intelligence Operative, businessman, victim of a terrorist bombing. He was 58 when he died. |
Kenya - led by President Jomo Kenyatta - was sympathetic to the plight of the hostages. Jomo Kenyatta's Minister of Agriculture at the time was a man named Bruce MacKenzie. He was a former RAF pilot with deep connections to British Intelligence. He secured right of passage for the Israeli operation.
Idi Amin, it seems, did not forget this.
Two years later, MacKenzie left his ministerial post for business which took him to Uganda and other countries. He was selling radio technology for Wilken Telecommunications - part of the group that owned Wilken Aviation and its flying school. One of his clients was the Ugandan Army - and Idi Amin. He made frequent trips to visit the African dictator.
May 24th 1978 was one such day. MacKenzie and two fellow businessmen - Keith Savage and Gavin Whitelaw - made a trip from Wilson Airport in Nairobi to Entebbe in a Wilken-owned twin engine Piper Aztec registered 5Y-ACS. Paul Lennox was the pilot.
In Kampala, they met with Amin. When the business of the day was concluded, Amin saw them off at the airport. As Lennox fired up the engines at 4:19 in the afternoon, an Amin aide rushed to the side of the plane with a parcel.
He explained it was a lion's head carved from a block of wood - a gift from Amin to MacKenzie. The former Minister tried to turn it down but the aide insisted. MacKenzie relented, accepted the package, slammed the door shut and Lennox taxied for departure.
Inside the guts of the parcel, deep within the lion's head, beat a heart of explosives and a timer...ticking away the seconds each man had to live.
At 5:58 that evening, the Aztec was nearing Nairobi. Lennox keyed his microphone.
"Escarpment position, 20 miles from Wilson," the pilot reported.
Minutes later, Maasai herdsman heard a loud pop and turned their eyes upwards. Pieces of the Aztec were twirling lazily to earth in flames - like falling leaves glinting in the African sun. The four men were dead.
Idi Amin was immediately implicated. He denied the allegations and called MacKenzie one of his best friends. When Amin tumbled from power in 1979, his "special advisor", 56-year-old British born Bob Astles, was detained in Kenya - suspected as the perpetrator of the bombing and sent to Uganda to face charges. He was acquitted but served 6 and a half years in Luzira Prison. In 1985, he was released and returned to Britain where he lives now. He continues to deny the allegations.
The whispers of Idi Amin's involvement - and that of his associates - persist.
Paul Lennox, the man who signed off on my dad's first solo, just showed up for work that May day in 1978 - to do something he loved.
He paid with his life.
Monday 13 August 2012
Bloodlines
Nestled on the shores of Georgian Bay's southern point, is the town of Collingwood. It was founded in 1858 - well before the birth of this nation - and named for Admiral Lord Cuthbert Collingwood, the naval commander who took charge of the British fleet at Trafalgar after Lord Nelson fell. Built on the shores of the Great Lakes system and linked to Canada's commercial centres by railroad, it rapidly became an important port and shipbuilding town. From Collingwood, commerce could reach other southern ports like Port Arthur-Fort William (Thunder Bay) and Chicago. In 1901, Huronic, Canada's first steel-hulled vessel, was launched at Collingwood - heralding an industry that would endure for more than eight decades. In the years that followed, Collingwood Shipyards churned out Lakers and Corvettes for service in the Second World War with the Royal Canadian Navy.
In the fall of 1975, my father made the drive north from Toronto, pulled into the parking lot at Collingwood Airport and walked into the offices of Collingwood Aviation Academy.
In the mid-70s, "Collingwood Air" was a thriving flight school that went out of its way to provide a home for hobby pilots and fledgling professional aviators alike. The school ran a varied fleet of nearly brand new Piper Cherokees for basic to advanced training, a Cessna 150 Aerobat and Bellanca Decathlon for aerobatic and upset training and also had access to a variety of aircraft for specialised work. The airport was isolated enough to provide ample airspace for training with very little transit time...yet close enough to the busiest airspace in Canada. There were trailers available for rent if a student wished to stay the night and the main building was equipped with a shower and small kitchen. My dad quickly set himself up and began his commercial pilot training under Chief Flight Instructor Ken Richardson and a group of dedicated instructors.
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PA-28-140 C-FUYL now based in Indian River, On and owned by Charles Brown. This was one of the first Canadian registered aircraft my dad flew at Collingwood. In this aircraft, he and Ken Richardson made a cross country flight from Collingwood to Goderich to Waterloo and back on October 16th, 1975. (Photo Courtesy: International Cherokee Pilots Directory)
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PA-28-140 C-GNEG - the aircraft my dad flew when he passed his license conversion flight test on October 27th, 1975. J. Worts was the pilot-in-command. (Photo Courtesy: Apex Used Aircraft Sales)
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| My dad's view that day. (Photo Courtesy: Apex Used Aircraft Sales) |
Since he was so familiar with the Cherokee, his license conversion and training went well and it wasn't long before he was looking for some specialised experience. The RF-5 had shown him that flying was not limited to straight and level, point "A" to point "B" fixed altitude plodding. Beagle Pups and Chipmunks hammered the point home. Flying could be as pure and passionate as a Shakespearean sonnet or as graceful, light and melodic as a skilled pianist tickling the ivory keys. And so, inevitably, in the spring of '76, he found Bellanca Decathlon CF-ZUR and convinced Ken Richardson to go for a spin - quite literally. They likely added a few hammerheads, some Cuban 8 work and an avalanche or two for good measure.
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| Bellanca Decathlon N329J (formerly CF-ZUR) pictured for sale at Lakeland-Linder Regional in Florida on April 18th, 2010 - 34 years and 2 days after the Richardson-Rotondo dual flight out of Collingwood. (Photo Courtesy: Ray Barber) |
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| Chipmunk N280RD (formerly CF-CYM) captured at Tulsa, OK in November 2006. (Photo Courtesy: Danny Fitsche) |
At 6:30 on August 24th, 1976, dad took off from Maple Airport in Piper Cherokee C-GPBW with Department of Transport Examiner D. Delap in the right seat. When they landed two hours later, Tony Rotondo was issued license number YZC-164741 and became Canada's newest commercial pilot.
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| Commercial Pilot License YZC-164741. (Photo Courtesy: Family Collection) |
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| A bill for the rental of PBW for August 1976 showing 2 hours dual and .8 ground briefing. It cost a grand total of $47.20. I believe this is the bill for his commercial flight test. It was found crammed into the sleeve of his logbook. Saving all manner of receipts was an unfortunate habit we shared. (Family Collection) |
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Piper Cherokee C-GPBW, built in 1974 and my dad's commercial flight test mount, pictured here at the St-Lazare Fly-in in 2007. It is based at Lachute and still registered.
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| Pre-flighting Grob G115C C-FYMP at Ottawa soon after completing my commercial pilot training. (Photo Courtesy: Megan Harrison) |
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| Royal Canadian Air Cadet Flight Sergeant Michael Rotondo with Piper Tomahawk C-GTZY at Windsor. (Photo courtesy: Michael Rotondo) |
36 years after that August evening, once again, almost to the day, his youngest nephew would win his wings in Piper Tomahawk C-GTZY.
Wednesday 1 August 2012
Miller Time
By August of 1978, Ernst Muller, in his words, "had another airplane on the go" and sold CF-FAM to Charles Miller for $6,000.
Muller flew the airplane from its operating base at King City to Brampton on August 6th, 1978. Miller took possession of FAM on the following day - reporting the aircraft to be in very good condition.
He made first flight - a 15 minute local trip - 6 days later and immediately set out to make the little biplane his own.
At 190 pounds, Miller was a bigger man than his predecessor, so he moved the seat down and back slightly to accommodate his larger frame. Miller removed the canopy and turtle deck - replacing them with a single curved Plexiglas windshield and a streamlined headrest.
He then gave it the paint job it would wear for the bulk of its life.
Miller had Muller's blue and white coat stripped off and replaced with a base of bright cherry red. To the the top of each wing, six ice white lines were applied - spreading out from the centre line like the rays of a rising sun. Four smaller ones graced the top of the horizontal stabiliser while a broad white band was painted down each side from the end of the engine cowling to the tip of the tail. The aircraft's wheel pants were similarly adorned.
FAM's slick new paint job gave it the air of a smallish Pitts Special. He typically flew the airplane on weekends and, from the frequency of his logbook entries, one can assume he had a ball doing so. The 14 pages chronicling Miller's 340 hours at the Smith's controls are crowded with entries outlining several flights a day. On some days, Miller would do 2 or 3 quick jaunts around Brampton. On others, he would embark on cross country flights - dropping into any of the dozens upon dozens of small airports that littered the patchwork fields of south-western Ontario in those days. His snappy little biplane turned heads wherever it went.
He apparently had so much fun flying the little machine that he forgot to log, and lost, flights between March and July of '79. These flights accounted for 70 hours...and were eventually found and logged by the pilot along with a sheepish notation.
The aircraft's journey log highlights one stark difference between the airplane's first two pilots. Muller's logbook entries were complete but spartan. They outlined the particulars of the flight but nothing more. If Muller was Hemingway, then Miller was Dickens. His entries leap off the rough pages of FAM's journey log with the same enthusiasm and descriptiveness as when they were set down more than 30 years ago.
On September 24th, 1978, Miller participated in a United Way Air Day from Brampton to Guelph and then did a little formation flying with the Experimental Aircraft Association (EAA) during the return trip. In March of 1979, he replaced the aircraft's spinner, nosebowl, cowling, fairings, rudder cables, landing gear bolts and seatbelt.
In June of that year, CF-FAM's registration was changed to C-FFAM to bring it in line with the Department of Transport's new registration convention. Miller dutifully advised the ministry.
August and September of 1979 were a challenge for plane and pilot. On August 25th, Miller lost power on take-off from Guelph. It happened again in Erin on September 1st prompting the pilot to wonder aloud in the logbook if the cause was the fuel surge Muller had likely warned him about or carburetor ice. He rerouted the fuel line to troubleshoot the problem. In King City the next day, he aborted a take-off run after losing power and it seems he had had enough. The following morning, he made a fuel flow check, installed new fuel lines, cleaned the tank and carburetor. Outside of a partial power loss in-flight near Guelph nearly three weeks later which Miller attributed to carb ice, FAM had no further engine issues.
Muller flew the airplane from its operating base at King City to Brampton on August 6th, 1978. Miller took possession of FAM on the following day - reporting the aircraft to be in very good condition.
He made first flight - a 15 minute local trip - 6 days later and immediately set out to make the little biplane his own.
At 190 pounds, Miller was a bigger man than his predecessor, so he moved the seat down and back slightly to accommodate his larger frame. Miller removed the canopy and turtle deck - replacing them with a single curved Plexiglas windshield and a streamlined headrest.
He then gave it the paint job it would wear for the bulk of its life.
Miller had Muller's blue and white coat stripped off and replaced with a base of bright cherry red. To the the top of each wing, six ice white lines were applied - spreading out from the centre line like the rays of a rising sun. Four smaller ones graced the top of the horizontal stabiliser while a broad white band was painted down each side from the end of the engine cowling to the tip of the tail. The aircraft's wheel pants were similarly adorned.
FAM's slick new paint job gave it the air of a smallish Pitts Special. He typically flew the airplane on weekends and, from the frequency of his logbook entries, one can assume he had a ball doing so. The 14 pages chronicling Miller's 340 hours at the Smith's controls are crowded with entries outlining several flights a day. On some days, Miller would do 2 or 3 quick jaunts around Brampton. On others, he would embark on cross country flights - dropping into any of the dozens upon dozens of small airports that littered the patchwork fields of south-western Ontario in those days. His snappy little biplane turned heads wherever it went.
He apparently had so much fun flying the little machine that he forgot to log, and lost, flights between March and July of '79. These flights accounted for 70 hours...and were eventually found and logged by the pilot along with a sheepish notation.
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| A page from FAM's logbook while Charles Miller owned and flew it. (Family Collection) |
The aircraft's journey log highlights one stark difference between the airplane's first two pilots. Muller's logbook entries were complete but spartan. They outlined the particulars of the flight but nothing more. If Muller was Hemingway, then Miller was Dickens. His entries leap off the rough pages of FAM's journey log with the same enthusiasm and descriptiveness as when they were set down more than 30 years ago.
On September 24th, 1978, Miller participated in a United Way Air Day from Brampton to Guelph and then did a little formation flying with the Experimental Aircraft Association (EAA) during the return trip. In March of 1979, he replaced the aircraft's spinner, nosebowl, cowling, fairings, rudder cables, landing gear bolts and seatbelt.
In June of that year, CF-FAM's registration was changed to C-FFAM to bring it in line with the Department of Transport's new registration convention. Miller dutifully advised the ministry.
August and September of 1979 were a challenge for plane and pilot. On August 25th, Miller lost power on take-off from Guelph. It happened again in Erin on September 1st prompting the pilot to wonder aloud in the logbook if the cause was the fuel surge Muller had likely warned him about or carburetor ice. He rerouted the fuel line to troubleshoot the problem. In King City the next day, he aborted a take-off run after losing power and it seems he had had enough. The following morning, he made a fuel flow check, installed new fuel lines, cleaned the tank and carburetor. Outside of a partial power loss in-flight near Guelph nearly three weeks later which Miller attributed to carb ice, FAM had no further engine issues.
In late July of this year, my mom uncovered a nondescript beige envelope while packing up my childhood home. On the front, scrawled in pencil in my father's easily recognisable hand was the following note addressed to me:
Jona -
Please keep this envelope for me - this (is) the biplane log book.
Thanks
Dad!
Thanks
Dad!
Inside, as advertised, were full sized copies of FAM's logbook - but they were incomplete. The entries only covered the time Miller owned the airplane. After leafing through, I soon discovered why. Tucked into the spine of the photocopies was a neatly folded piece of thin stationary - a letter addressed to my dad and written by Charlie Miller more than 25 years before.
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| Charlie Miller's letter to my father requesting copies of FAM's logbook. The letter was written June 8th, 1987. I'm not sure my dad ever replied. (Family Collection) |
It's a short note - and obviously a follow-up - asking if my father had sent copies of the aircraft's logbook. Given I found the letter with the requested copies and my dad's impressive ability to not bother with this sort of thing (more a product of inattention than malice, I might add) , I'm almost positive Miller never received the documents. I considered the discovery a windfall, given this project's juncture, and called the number for Miller that I found scrawled on the back of one of the copies. Not surprisingly, the number had been disconnected. Internet searches failed to reveal any likely contact information and since Charles Miller is about as common as John Smith, calling them all would require a robot dialer. The two contradicting addresses on the photocopies and the letter led to nowhere. The last certain record of Miller comes from Transport Canada and a 1941 Fairchild 24 registered as C-FFUH. It was deleted from the civil aircraft register on October 3rd, 1991.
As I've been unable to reach FAM's second owner and pilot, his meticulously maintained logbook entries are my only source to tell the aircraft's story during the time he owned and flew it.
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