Miller's Memoirs - Part Two

The day has been oppressively hot. 
Since early this morning, the vindictive sun has burned a searing hole in the late July sky.  The air itself is heavy and thick and it seems as though the entire world is burning.  If there were even a whisper of wind, it would blow the trees down and scatter their bones across the scorched countryside like dust. 
The scene crawling by under twin wings is uniform brown, yellow and gold - a shimmering carpet of desolation.  The hills roil and swell like a gritty sea frozen in time.  Every few miles, a old farmhouse, barn and broken fence line drift by - abandoned, derelict and cast adrift. 
Drawing a deep breath in does little more than sear my insides.  I've spent the better part of the day trying to stay awake - mouth agape, eyes staring dumbly and unfocused, sweat dribbling down my forehead - and pleading to get off the ground.
In the cockpit, here aloft, there is little respite from this hell.  Even the wind being shoved back from the propeller thrashing against the thin air is insultingly hot.
The sun remains an unflinching, relentlessly pulsating, white hot blotch on the cloudless sky.
The hum of the engine and subtle vibration of my machine is lulling me to sleep.  I gasp, taking desperate gulps of air.  I hope against hope that they might revive me.

Charlie Miller poses for a hero shot before departing on a flight.  (Photo courtesy: Charles Miller)

Still, these solo patrols are a rare joy.  There is no leader to guard, no wingman to worry about...or weep over when they fail to return from a raid.  It is only I and my airplane and all is as it should be.

Nearly, though.  I've noticed a barely perceptible change in the engine's drone.  I've felt the change rather than heard or seen it but I know something is amiss.  A quick scan of the sparse instrumentation and the mixture knob reveals itself as the most likely culprit.  In my heat induced stupor I must have brushed my sleeve against it and drawn it out further than it needs to be.  I lean forward to adjust it - happy to perform a commonplace duty that requires some measure of attention.

I feel the bone-jarring hammer blows of the twin Spandau machine gun before I hear them.   

I am suddenly very much awake.

The mixture control is quickly forgotten and I instinctively slam the stick one way and push opposite rudder to the floor.  The horizon abandons all reason and spins around madly. The sound of the slipsteam changes in tone as the wind strums the flying wires.  My stomach turns.

I am looking through a neat, little hole punched in the upper right corner of my windshield.  From its borders, tiny, hairlike cracks splay out like beams from today's harsh sun.  I've never seen such a perfect circle.  I would marvel in its beauty and simplicity if not for the fact that, had I not leaned aside to adjust the mixture, the bullet that created that hole would have buried itself below my right eye.

I jerk my head around.  My silk scarf billows out behind me as the flaps from my leather helmet slap my cheeks.  Another biplane is turning around below and behind my ship.  It has cream coloured wings with red stripes and a crimson nosebowl.  I recognise it instantly as the mount belonging to a rival ace.

I push the throttle through the gate and I smoothly pull back and to the left.  My biplane slows as we approach inverted and I add enough rudder to bring the nose around.  My target is hovering below me now and clawing his way skyward in a climbing turn.  I let the nose drop through the inverted and roll hard to the right.

Charlie Miller in FAM (right) on the tail of Gordon Skerratt's CF-REB. (Photo courtesy: Charles Miller)

The cream and crimson biplane is sitting in the middle of my windscreen now.  His wings, however, are set at a sharp angle and it is immediately obvious that he is approaching at a great velocity.  I may have but an instant to strike.

I feel the airplane shudder and slow as I fire the Vickers machine guns.  The smell of cordite fills the cockpit and dust speckles my goggles.  He flashes by over my top wing, engine snarling in defiance.  I pull back hard and arc high to the left, tilting my head back to catch a glimpse of my quarry.  My skin is on fire with the heat and slick with sweat but my insides are ice cold.  The longer this jousting match continues, the greater his odds of winning are.  I must end it quickly.

This last maneuver was more aggressive than the one before it and so the target I'm presented with is more profile and therefore, better.  I give him another two second burst blast from the Vickers.  The result is devastating.  Angry tongues of flame lick at his cowls.  The engine vomits thick, black smoke tempered with wisps of white and grey.  It billows between the wings and wires, obscuring the cockpit.

The handsome little biplane steepens her roll towards me.  I pull back on the stick and we're carried above her.  I watch her slide underneath and roll onto her back.  Then, she dives out of view.

Charlie (right) and Gord (left) in an aerial jousting match. (Photo courtesy: Charles Miller)

My senses heightened now, my eyes catch a shade of movement on the right wingtip.  It is but a dot...but oddly out of place. I roll sharply towards the new target.  My airplane responds immediately as if invigorated by this change in office - from hunted to hunter.
Our speed builds and the rush of air around the little ship intensifies to a gale.  The dot floating in the middle of my windshield sprouts two wings and a tail.  As I continue my approach, it grows larger.  I hunch my shoulders and flex my fingers around the control column.  I hear my heart thumping in my head.

My target is one of the new monoplanes.  He is cruising leisurely...and very much alone.  I am so close now that I can easily see where the fabric around the exhaust stacks has darkened with heat and grime.  I can can count every rib pushing against the red fabric.  There is a name stencilled below the cockpit rim...and a small patch of fabric covering some recent damage.  The rigger has yet to paint it to match the rest of the ship.

I trigger the Vickers guns.  I hear a metallic clang but no bullets emerge and my prey flies idly on. 

Jammed! my mind screams.

I haul back on the stick and we rush upwards.  I feel the monoplane slide beneath us.  I tilt my head back and see that I've betrayed my approach.  He is now very much aware of my presence and is maneuvering to gain the advantage.  I roll out to face him and we rush towards each other head on.  As his machine swells in my sights, I wonder what, exactly, it is that I'm doing.

I break hard, up and to my left.  The horizon tilts crazily and slips out of view and I pull the airplane into a near vertical bank.  My opponent flashes by.  The muzzles of his twin Spandau twinkle and an instant later I hear and feel his bullets whizzing past.  He roars overhead and I yank the stick into my belly and bound upwards to follow. 

This deadly dance continues for what seems an eternity but may be, in fact, mere minutes.  My new opponent is an old and skilled hand.  There are no wasted movements.  Each act is calculated and deliberate yet executed so swiftly one gets the impression he isn't thinking at all but running purely on instinct.  It becomes evident that the outcome of this meeting will not depend on who is more skilled but rather on who will commit the first error.

That, inevitably, falls to me.  I pull too hard in an effort to get on his tail.  My biplane, forsaken by her master, wallows right, then snaps her left wing down hard and tumbles into a spin.  I react instinctively and she snaps out of the spin as quickly as she fell into it.  Still, it is too late. As I pull out of the dive, his bullets are spiralling between the wings and through the flying wires.

My opponent may be faster, more skilled and able to both out-dive and out-climb me but there is scarcely a ship in the skies that can out-turn this biplane.

C-FFAM maneuvering. (Photo courtesy: Charles Miller)

And so, with the bullets careening around me, I sweep into an ever-tightening left turn.  As we race around this crazed carousel, I wonder if I'm merely delaying the inevitable.  My guns, after all, are jammed.  I can't mount an attack of any kind.  To cut and run would be certain suicide.  Outside of waiting for him to run out of ammunition, fuel or patience, there is little I can do but keep turning.

At intervals, the monoplane's pilot takes pot shots at me.  His fire arcs hopelessly wide and falls away.  He cannot score a hit without tightening his turn; he is not able to tighten his turn without stalling out.

And so, we've arrived at an impasse.  I begin hammering a gloved fist against the jammed Vickers guns. 

After a few minutes, on one of my frantic glances rearward, I notice my hunter has disappeared.  I level the wings to discover he is flying alongside.  He pulls his goggles away from his eyes to reveal a jovial grin on an oil-streaked face.  He raises a gauntlet in salute, waggles his wings and starts a sweeping turn to the west.

I watch him for a long while.  He floats away until his craft becomes a mere speck and that speck fades into the countryside.  I have no concept of time.  Was I watching him for a minute?  An hour?

I am drawn again to the neat, little hole that turned this lazy, limp, sun stroked afternoon into a sweat soaked nightmare. 

Why had I leaned forward at that exact moment? 

To adjust the mixture, naturally.

Naturally, I reply.  But why not a moment earlier?  Or worse, a moment later?

Silence.  The engine's mindless hum is my only reply.

And why the mixture?  And what if my sleeve hadn't brushed against it in the first place?  What if I'd leaned the other way to, say, scratch my shin?  Or grab the chart stuffed into my right boot?

What if, what if, what if...

Charlie and FAM doing their best impression of the Red Baron.  (Photo courtesy: Charles Miller)

Now, the sky is rusting.  Every colour in the scarlet spectrum is bleeding from the atmosphere; from deep reds the colour of velvet to light yellows that remind me of cornfields in the fall.  It is as if a crazed painter, in a fit of rage, has thrown his entire palette at the canvas.  I am watching each colour smear itself against the sky, collect in heavy ridges along the silhouetted hillsides and drip onto the earth below.

It's time to go home.

I close the throttle and let the speed spill from the wings.  The earth rises up to meet me and I level off just above the countryside.  In this fashion, in order to escape detection, I will lurk back to my home field.  In short order, I realise this is an exercise in futility.  My airplane is painted an emphatic red and white.  If my intent is to escape attention, I may as well be on fire.

An ironic smirk touches my lips.  I remind myself that I very nearly was - twice.

When I reach my home field, the last of light has bled from sky leaving it an ashen indigo blue.  The landing has its usual charm but is otherwise uneventful.  I taxi to my tie down and switch off the engine.

All the other airplane are in their spots.  I'm the last to return.

Despite the setting sun, it is still very warm and I'm in a hurry to get out of the airplane.  I pull off my goggles and damp helmet and hang them on the intersecting flying wires to my left.  I run a hand through my dark hair, matted with sweat, and smooth out my moustache. I take a deep breath, wrap my gloved hands around the cabanes and pull. 

Nothing.  My legs are useless. 

Fine, I muse.  I'll sit here awhile longer.

Inevitably, my eyes return to the hole.  Its creator is lodged in the headrest behind me.  I know this without having seen it. 

I am wondering if the spider leg cracks are in fact growing before my eyes, when I see, through the hole, two beams of light piercing the gloom.  They bob and roll, seemingly at random, as they search the twilight, reaching into the thickening darkness.  My ears are still ringing from the sound of the engine but I am sure I hear the whine of a motor in low gear...and the sound linen makes when it tears.

Bunny pulls up in the duty car and bounces to a stop - grinding the gears.  He whistles and points to the offending hole.

"Nasty bit, that," he yells over the sound of the motor.  "How'd you dodge it?"

I shrug and give him a tired smile.

"Never mind," Bunny says.  "Hop in.  Beers are on you tonight!"

In a few minutes, we push our way into a crowded tavern.  The barman grins and nods toward the far corner where a table is laden with burgers, chips, gravy and pub fare.  There are puddles of beer everywhere.  Crowded around the table are the other pilots - still clad in leather flying jackets and oil-stained coveralls. 

Woven into the din hanging over the bar, I pick out solitary phrases.

"So, there I was, hanging in my straps...and Roy comes up from behind..."

"I swear I had the son of a bitch...and next thing I know, he's on my tail..."

"...out of airspeed, out of ideas and staring God in the face...I thought I was a goner, for sure..."

Bunny muscles his way in and I drop into a chair next to him.  My first opponent from this evening is sitting across the table.  He slides a large, glistening pint of ale across to me.

"Bottoms up, Charlie," Gordy says.  He's a good friend, Gordon Skerratt - perhaps the best.  On most days, he's my faithful wingman and I am his.  On this day, however, I've flamed him and his Smith Miniplane CF-REB.  His airplane is just fine and tied down a short drive away. The bullets, smoke and flame were imaginary.  The victory, however, is very real.

Gordy Skerratt in CF-REB. (Photo courtesy: Charles Miller)

I take a long swig.  The beer is cold and slakes my thirst.  I loudly proclaim that it is the best beer I've ever had.

"I thought I had you for sure," Gordy says.  "How did you get around so quickly?"

"No idea," I shrug. "I hauled back on the stick and then there you were.  I must have blacked out."

"Obviously." Gordy says, laughing.

At the other end of the table, George Jones, our local EAA president, is recounting how he came to be Roy Hems' victim on this day.  George is excitedly describing the mock dogfight with his hands.  Roy, who flew Spitfires in the second world war, is sipping beer and silently saying a prayer of thanks that today's battle was fought with their imaginations rather than with tracer bullets.

A few seats away, George Welsch, another World War II Spitfire pilot, is in conversation with one of the combatants.  He's sliding his pint in circles absent-mindedly.  Beer sloshes from the stein's mouth and collects on the slick table.  Our eyes meet and he gives me the same grin he flashed from the cockpit of his Flybaby not an hour ago.  He's the pursuer who let his prey go when my Vickers guns jammed.

I raise my glass in salute.  George, his face still dark with oil, returns the gesture.

When I get to the bottom of my first beer, another magically appears before me.  The excited chatter continues well into the evening.

The "Brampton Boys" on their way to the Battle of Caledon Hills.  (Photo Courtesy: Charles Miller)

And so it went, once a week, all summer long.  Some guys even called in sick to get out to the airport early and stake the best chance to "bounce" an opponent.  At a predetermined time, EAA airplanes would meet over the Caledon Hills north of Toronto and every pilot would be on the look out for an attack from any side.  There were no guns, obviously, so a "kill" would be scored once the aggressor pilot latched onto an opponent's tail.  A head-on attack or a strike from the side would not count.

From the ground, it must been quite a sight:  a cloud of colorful airplanes tangling like gnats, buzzing as they looped, rolled, yanked and banked around the summer sky. 

It might have been a scene out of France during the Great War or a snapshot of the long-gone era of swashbuckling barnstormers and aerial daredevils.  In this era of widespread controlled airspace, highly travelled airways, glass cockpits, urban sprawl and crowded skies, it is hard to imagine such a day ever existed.  The truth is, it wasn't that long ago that Miller and his mates were wheeling free above a quilt of farm fields, jockeying for position and glory - for the pure fun of flight.  These were carefree days. They revelled in the rush of speed, the exhilaration of the wind's breath rushing through the cockpit and along the fabric flanks, the surreal sensation of gravity's pull and lift's might...the magic of flight.

Charlie Miller and FAM.  (Photo courtesy: Charles Miller)

It is a secret not often revealed by the select few who have been tasked with keeping it.  Every so often, in rare occasions, it is betrayed in a smile, a glint in an old pilot's eye or a whispered tale.  I saw it in the first photograph Charlie sent me of his prized airplane.  Miller, clad in an old flight suit, boots, a worn leather helmet, goggles and a pencil thin moustache, is perched in the cockpit - looking over the top wing.  Even in black and white, FAM shines brightly - not a blemish on her rosy skin.  Miller's eyes are ablaze.  His face is frozen in time, a mischievous half-smile formed on his lips...as if he's in the middle of teasing whoever is behind the lens. 

If you look closely, you might just see it.

Miller's Memoirs - Part One

The recent publication of FAM's story in three parts in the Canadian Owners and Pilots Association "Flight" newspaper led to a good number of notes, emails, phone conversations and kind words in the pilot's lounge at my local airfield.
I learned a great many lessons from these interactions no matter how brief or seemingly inconsequential.
In short order, it became clear that this story was not just about an airplane, a father, a son and a shared love of flight.  It is about so much more - life, death, loss, the richness of life, our tenuous, fragile grasp of existence and our collective hopelessness when we are suddenly robbed of the tangible. 
When this happens, to an individual, we wallow  - stumbling around in the fog like a lost airplane and an uncertain crew, wincing in anticipation of the unimaginable.  For the uninitiated, think about how it feels to grope around in the blackest of dark nights, feeling for the light switch and knowing that the precipice of a stairwell lurks in the flat shadows.
When I set out, this is how I felt.  I was very much alone.  With each step, I gained companions - first singly and then in pairs.  A glow appeared on the horizon then a few orphaned shards of dawn and then, finally, the sun.  By the time I reached the wilds of this story, slogging uphill and beating my way through the vines and overgrowth of time and memory, I had the wind at my back.  The support of friends, family then perfect strangers buoyed me and spurred me onwards.

Believe me when I say, this is our story.

One of the emails came from Charlie Miller - FAM's second owner-pilot.  His note arrived in the midst of one of the most vicious flu/food poisoning hybrid maladies I had ever experienced.  Feverish and sweating, drunk with delirium and Tylenol, my swimming eyes struggled to focus on the tiny, flickering screen of my Blackberry.  I read the email three times before I allowed myself to believe that it had come from the man who sold the biplane to my father. 

Heart thumping, head spinning, I launched myself out of bed and lurched out the bedroom door and down the hallway.  I made it as far as the office which, mercifully, is home to a lumpy, yet surprisingly comfortable green corduroy couch.  I flopped onto my back, breathing hard and feeling the cold sweat trickle from my dwindling hairline, down my temples and over 3 days of stubble.

"Baby!"  I yelled - or tried to.  It came out as a croak.  I gathered my voice and tried again.

"Yeah!" Melody comes bounding up the stairs.  This frightens me since, even as an accomplished dancer, she has atrocious balance, our stairs are often polished and she had the unfortunate habit of tumbling out of control - either up or down the stairs.

There's a look of alarm on her face.  I have tears in my eyes.  The sweat is gathering in rivulets at the corners of my upturned lips.

"Charlie Miller wrote me!"  I whisper - as if saying the words out loud would rob me of this gift.

In short order, we are writing back and forth, swapping flying stories and memories.  Charlie, obviously, has many more than I do - and I'm happy to listen.  There seems to be an latent excitement in our notes that isn't immediately evident in the black and white type.  I'm overjoyed to hear from him, buzzing in anticipation of photographs, recollections and impressions of the Miniplane.  Charlie eases into it like he would an comfortable, old sweater - happy to relive the 3 years he owned and flew FAM.

Charlie Miller racing  a motorcycle that he built himself.  (Photo Courtesy: Charles Miller)

Charlie grew up racing motorcycles and boats.  An uncle's offer of a flight in a Piper Apache opened up the world of flight.  Charlie was hooked.  He started working on a private pilot license, sought out a Bellanca Citabria and discovered the magic of aerobatic flight.  After his instructor lent him a copy of Richard Bach's "Biplane", Charlie made up his mind: he must have one.

In the summer of 1978, Charlie, in his own words, was "going through one of the most traumatic times of my life.  I was nearing the age of 30, found three grey hairs, had a private pilot licence, and no airplane."  After forlornly chasing the unpredictable summer weather and here-now-gone-a-minute-later aircraft bookings, Charlie decided, against advice, to buy his own machine.

Charlie's list was short and sweet:

1.) It must have two seats (or I'll end up with an ex-girlfriend)
2.) Good manoeuvrability (or my local EAA Red Baron will have me for breakfast)
3.) Low fuel consumption - self explanatory and,
4.) Cheap - for the same reason as low fuel consumption.

So, Charlie looked up newspaper ads and sought out leads.  When he found a promising target, he packed his list, a lunch, road maps and VFR charts, fired up his Volkswagon Beetle and chased down the prospect.

Day by day, trip by trip, Charlie watched the list of candidate airplanes shrink. The Pitts S-2 gulped fuel.  The Chipmunk and Cap 10 were too pricey.  One by one, each option was shot down until Charlie was faced with a blank page and an empty heart.

"You know what you really need," Charlie's girlfriend said,  "is two airplanes."

Brilliant, thought Charlie, but I will need more money. 

And so, a la Edward Norton in "Fight Club", everything in Charlie's world appeared with a price tag hovering above it.  His 35 mm camera meant $500 towards an airplane.  A hockey stick would yield ten bucks, a tape recorder perhaps twenty.  Snow tires?  Gone too - to the highest bidder.

Charlie with his 1973 Porsche 914 2.0L.  He rebuilt it and painted it - even designed an exhaust and twin turbos "just for fun." The selling of this car would make the purchase of the Smith and Champ possible. (Photo Courtesy: Charles Miller)

"When my little white sportscar drove off with its new owner," Charlie writes, "I sat down and admired the contents of a savings book that said I was the proud owner of $9,385.78 of flying money."

Charlie knew Ernst Muller from the local EAA meetings.  Muller, of course, had been flying FAM for about 5 years and currently had the impeccable little airplane for sale.

CF-FAM in her original, EAA-inspired, paint job.  Ernie Muller is at the controls.  This shot was taken in the mid to late 70s at King City Airport.  (Photo Courtesy: Charles Miller)

Miller fell in love.  More than 3 decades later he remembers FAM "as the prettiest little blue and white Smith Miniplane you ever saw."  He'd made up his mind.  He'd found the biplane he'd dreamed of since the day he picked up Bach's book. 

On August 6th, 1978, Miller made a quick trip to King City to make sure his 6 foot frame fit inside the diminutive bipe.  When Miller slipped into FAM's single seat for the first time, he knew - and Muller had a deal.  After a quick pep talk from her former master, Charlie fired up the 85 horsepower Continental, opened the throttle and watched helplessly as the little biplane executed a beautiful right hand 360 degree turn. 

It would be his first education in FAM's notoriously cantankerous ground landing characteristics.  As an old Pelican once said of a much larger taildragger, "there are two kinds of airplanes - those you fly and those that fly you . . . you must have a distinct understanding at the very start as to who is the boss."

After a few additional abortive attempts and an upturned eyebrow from FAM's soon to be former owner, Charlie surrendered the pilot's seat to Muller.  Muller flew FAM to Brampton.  Miller followed in Ernie's car - peering up through the windshield in a vain attempt to keep an eye on his prized airplane.

Charlie poses with FAM at his tie down  at Brampton, 1978.  (Photo Courtesy: Charles Miller)

Charlie spent two weeks getting to know FAM...without leaving the ground.  He ran her up and down Brampton's runways; first, slowly, with the tail down then a little faster, endeavouring to raise the tailwheel and bring life to the stubby twin wings.  Each practice run was a conversation between plane and pilot; an incremental education as to what the aviator must do and when. In a single seat aircraft, it is painfully evident that there is no instructor, no seasoned veteran to guide one's development.  The airplane, therefore, becomes the teacher...but the pilot must remain her master. 

It is a delicate proposition - one that is balanced precariously, in this case, on a rigid Taylorcraft landing gear.

After two weeks of courtship, Charlie and FAM left the ground for the first time together. 

Charlie, decked in leather flying cap and goggles, gives a thumbs up before departing on a weekly EAA dogfight.  One of his opponents, Smith Miniplane C-FYSG (owned by EAA local president George Jones) is in the background. (Photo Courtesy: Charles Miller)

Miller describes what follows as "very exciting lessons taught between two short wings and a total lack of forward visibility."  FAM was everything he'd dreamed of and more: quick, manoeuvrable and exciting.  After each pulse racing flight, however, Miller would return to find his girlfriend waiting.  He still needed a two seat airplane.

Not long after, and once again thanks to Ernie Muller, Charlie found a red and white Aeronca Champ for sale and FAM had her first stablemate. 

The flights of fancy in the Smith, however, could not delay Winter's approach.  The leaves turned from green to rustic red, burnt orange and golden yellow.  The humidity bled from the southern Ontario skies.  The air grew cool and fresh then cold and sharp.  The color drained from the leaves, they turned, wilted and fell in heaps onto the brittle grass.

There was change in the air for FAM as well.  You see, in Charlie's mind, the ideal  picture of a biplane was a Pitts Special.  So, he took FAM apart - storing the fuselage in the garage of his Bramalea townhome and the wings in the living room.  Charlie insulated the garage door against the ferocity of winter but he still found it too cold whenever he opened the door to work on the airplane.  One day, an accidental but conveniently placed hammer strike opened a hole in the garage wall...and Charlie could see into his hallway closet on the other side.  This happy coincidence gave Charlie an idea and in short order, he installed a door on the inside of the closet so that he could gain direct access to the garage and his airplane.

With the temperature issue solved, he got to work.  He removed FAM's engine cowls and the sheet metal surrounding the cockpit and built new ones.  He created new coverings for the landing gear legs, found a new spinner and reshaped the nose bowl.  He made the Naugahyde cockpit trim with a rubber hose.  Charlie put in a new instrument panel, complete with a G-meter.  Then, Muller's EAA-inspired coat of blue and white with yellow and black trim came off.  Charlie repainted FAM in the iconic colours and scheme of the Pitts Special biplanes.

C-FFAM, newly rebuilt and repainted, in the Brampton EAA hangar in the spring of 1979.

In the spring, he moved the airplane, in pieces, back to the Brampton airport and put her back together. 

Now, Charlie Miller had his dream biplane and an entire sprawling province, littered with airfields, to explore. 

The horizons were wide open and plane and pilot were raring to go.


Footnotes:

This entry references the following articles and publications:

1. "On being decisive" by Charlie Miller, Canadian Homebuilt Aircraft Vol. 3, No. 2, 1979
2. "Blackhole's Buckers" by Garth Wallace, Canadian Aviation, May 1989

Into Valhalla

A snowflake is falling.  Drifting lazily in circles - each one different than the last - it drops softly through the silent air.  You learn very early in life that each snowflake is different - often in an imperceptible way - but unique nonetheless.  For a short time, as it falls, it boasts that distinction - although, really, no one will ever take note of its subtleties. 

Once it meets its snowy destination, it is swallowed by the masses.

On this particular day, this once particular snow flake has met its end on the top wing of a truly unique piece of machinery.

To look at her, you would never know her true past.  FAM looks nothing like I remember and that's painful too when you consider how it seared itself into my soul and guided what is now an inseparable part of my life.

Truly, I struggle to call it a part at all.  Without this, I am not whole...but a shell.

Before me then, lies a shell.

Someone has painted her in canary yellow.  Here and there are slashes of blue and white - almost like barred teeth but seemingly applied without care, rhyme or reason.  Her new paint scheme resembles the "dazzle" coats applied to warships during the Great War except, well, yellow.

A rather offensive shade of yellow.

Her nose is tucked into the snow as if she's hiding in embarrassment.  Her wheels are crumpled up beneath her lower wing.  Metal rods chain her to the frozen earth.  Her rudder is awkwardly deflected to the right - where it would be if you were starting the take-off roll. 

Squatting on the snowy ground, on broken haunches, her back appears hunched, coiled, fearful.

These are all living qualities that I have applied, some would say unwisely, to a mere airplane.  I don't expect too many people to understand.

In the background, an elephant ambles by.

The former C-FFAM - now a static diplay at the Granby Zoo.  (Photo Courtesy: Martin Ujlaki)

C-FFAM is now a playstructure in the Africa exhibit of the Granby Zoo.  Granby, Quebec lies halfway between Montreal and Sherbrooke to the east.  It's an incongruous final resting place and a long way from Maple Airport where FAM made her first flight.  Maple Airport, for the record, no longer exists.  It is now a housing subdivision. 

To the casual eye, it would appear that FAM's intrepid pilot crash-landed in the African dunes - perhaps on a mail run or, as was the fashion in the early days of aviation, a record breaking flight.  This pilot has since committed the fatal error of leaving his machine only to be swallowed by the sand.  The whole thing is very Saint Exupery-ish - think "The Little Prince" - although I suspect that is rather the point.

FAM is waiting for the summer when the children will return to clamber over her pockmarked skin, recently covered in $15,000 worth of fibreglass, and dream fanciful dreams of aerial adventure.

The biplane's new mission.  (Photo Courtesy: Alain Maille)

My dad died one year ago this day - just shy of 8 in the morning.  I wasn't with him.  Putting aside all the rest, that fact alone will require a lifetime of limitless self-reflection and forays into an endless emotional morass. I lack the stomach to even consider it.  One year on, I thought I would feel better.

The fact is, I feel much, much worse.

It is a daily struggle for my family - one that requires, for lack of a better term, balance.

To that point, my dad was born on September 2nd - 9/2...and died on the 9th of February - 2/9.

That's oddly cyclical and balanced for a man who struggled with both.

Dad on his 66th and last birthday.  (Photo Courtesy: Family Collection)

So, almost 30 years after lighting in me that passion for flight, it seems just as oddly fitting that his former mount is doing the same for other children.

I've yet to visit FAM.  To be honest, I'm not entirely sure that I want to.  Perhaps, I'm merely not ready to.  When I first discovered her whereabouts, I was excited to visit the Granby Zoo and, who knows, perhaps sit in the cockpit again.  Instead, I embarked on this journey which has been both uplifting and crushing - often in the same instant.

I am happy I did this. I am sad that she will never fly again. 

A future pilot learning the craft.  (Photo Courtesy: Alain Maille)

I am incredibly moved, overjoyed even, that in the hearts and minds of the youngsters who climb into her single seat...she does take flight, every day, to far off distant lands and days long ago lost in the sands of time.

She will, however, remain a lasting monument to my dad and his love of flight.

Antonio Francesco Rotondo
2/9/1945  -  9/2/2012
"Blue Skies Forever..."

Descent

In the spring of 1988, C-FFAM left Rockcliffe for the last time - not on her twin wings but on the back of a flatbed truck.
Her destination was Sainte Anne du Lac - a tiny hamlet wrapped around the base of a T-shaped lake about 20 miles north of Mont-Laurier, Quebec.
Sainte Anne is home to a water aerodrome and a short grass strip.
Her new owner was Michel Lequin.
Lequin is a bush pilot and a bit of a homebuilt expert - designing and building the Tapanee Levitation 4.  I reached him by phone in May of 2012.

A brand new C-FSBQ pictured at RCAF Station Greenwood in Nova Scotia.  This picture was taken during Air Force Day in 1967.  Note the "I" struts in place of the usual "N" struts.  They are stronger while causing less drag. (Photo Courtesy: Bob McLeod)

Before C-FFAM, Lequin owned and flew another Smith Miniplane.  C-FSBQ was built by Robert P. McLarnon in Atlantic Canada - likely Nova Scotia in 1967.  Lequin bought it in August of 1976. 
Despite remaining on the Transport Canada registry, SBQ was wrecked in the late 80s - before Lequin sought out and purchased FAM from my dad.  He immediately disassembled the airplane and carried out repairs.  He put FAM back together on March 20th, 1989 - making his first flight, a local half-hour hop, 2 days later.

The weight and balance sheet for FAM prepared on the day of her first flight under Lequin's ownership.  (Photo Courtesy: Alain Maille)

Lequin replaced the turtledeck and canopy the aircraft originally wore in her first few years.
Lequin's intent was to use the biplane for aerobatics but the C85-equipped FAM was considered underpowered.  He removed FAM's original propeller and replaced it with a longer model after his first flight.  While he searched for a more suitable engine, he put nearly 30 hours on the airplane flying short, local trips.

In April of 1991, FAM was entering her 18th year and needed work. The airplane's top wing was showing some twisting.  Lequin suspected issues with the spar and decided to rebuild the wing. He moved the airplane into a friend's hangar.  Having found an engine, he removed the faithful C85 that had carried FAM through roughly 1,000 hours and in and out of airports stretching from Maple to Ste. Anne du Lac. 

Then, one summer's day in 1991, Lequin received a phone call from his friend - the hangar's owner.

"Hey, I moved the Mini outside so that I could work on my airplane," he began.  "But there's a storm coming tonight.  You'd better tie her down."

Lequin was delayed making it out to the airport and by the time he arrived, the storm had already swept through and wreaked havoc.  FAM weighed less than 700 pounds empty.  Without the engine hung on the front end, she was little more than a kite. 

The wind had swept through Ste. Anne du Lac with a fury.  It picked FAM up and flung her thirty feet across the ramp.  The little biplane landed on her back - crushing the vertical stabilizer and crumpling the top wing Lequin had been rebuilding. 

Lequin didn't think it made any economic sense to repair the airplane.  FAM was pushed up behind the hangar and left to rot - her sides laid open, wings limp and flightless, and button nose left discarded on the grass under the void where her engine used to be.

And there she sat, forlornly passing the days as the skies she used to dance in slipped by slowly overhead.  Leaves turned brown, lost their hold and fell around her.  In some places, her cherry red paint began to wear away - revealing traces of her original blue coat.  Her airframe, still solid, creaked and groaned with every passing gust of wind. 

FAM was an airport orphan and remained so for 9 long years.

C-FFAM as Maille found her in 2000 - 9 years after being wrecked in a storm at Ste. Anne du Lac.  (Photo Courtesy: Alain Maille)

Then, in 2000, Alain Maille happened by.  Maille, like Muller, Miller, Rotondo and Lequin before him, had caught the biplane bug.  For as long as he could remember, he wanted to fly one.

And so, here was one - rough around the edges but a biplane all the same.  FAM was, quite literally, in pieces.  She had no engine, no instruments, damaged wings, a crushed tailplane and was missing parts, pieces and fabric.  And yet, Maille saw none of that.  What he did see was promise.

FAM's starboard side in 2000.  (Photo Courtesy: Alain Maille)

Maille bought FAM for $5,000 and, once again, the hulk of the once pretty airplane was loaded onto the back of a flatbed and trucked south to Mont-Laurier.

FAM's crushed vertical stabilizer showing her registration and traces of her original paint job applied by Ernst Muller in 1973.  (Photo Courtesy: Alain Maille)

When I spoke to Lequin, he was very helpful in putting me in touch with Maille.  He warned me, however, that he believed Maille had bought the airplane for parts and that he feared FAM had been broken up some years ago.  He gave me Maille's contact information and wished me the best of luck.

Later that same afternoon, I made my first call to Maille's home in Mont-Laurier.  He returned the call in the evening and was immediately apologetic.  Maille believed I was looking to buy his biplane and regretfully told me that he had sold it years ago and that it was no longer flying.

My French is passable but by no means strong.  I would characterize Alain's English as more or less the same.  We fumbled through the conversation for a quarter of an hour before we discovered we could both speak Spanish.  It was a happy coincidence.

I learned that Maille had kept FAM in his garage for 5 years.  He loved the biplane and always believed he would restore it to flying condition because her structure was sound and all she really needed was some repairs, new fabric, an engine and prop.  He kept the dream alive until his Jodel  F-11 needed some restoration work and Alain needed money to get it done.  As much as it broke his heart, he sold the Miniplane to a firm that built play structures and decorations for parks.

Alain Maille's 1975 Jodel F-11 C-FJJY (pictured here on skis) - built by Peter Chandler and owned by Maille since 1988.  (Photo Courtesy: Alain Maille)

Before FAM was trucked off again, Maille, for reasons he fails to recall or justify, removed the aircraft's data plate.  He tucked it into the back pouch of the aircraft's journey log.  At my request and after explaining my quest and motivations, Alain graciously sent me everything that had survived from FAM's flying days - including the journey log, all documentation and the treasured data plate.

And so, on May 15th, 5 days after waking up with the odd feeling that this had to be done, I held in my hands everything that was left of my dad's beloved biplane. 

As I leafed through the weathered pages, I felt the familiar feeling one gets when the tail leaves the ground and the wings are buoyed by lift.

A smooth, almost imperceptible tug on the stick and we're climbing away again.

Departures

My father sold C-FFAM on March 31st, 1988.

I can guess why but it would be just that - a guess.  He never gave a reason for the sale - not even to my mother.  In fact, he didn't tell anyone that he'd sold the Smith at all.

C-FFAM at Rockcliffe very likely around the time my dad sold it, perhaps the fall before.  The tie-down is overgrown and the grass hasn't been cut in quite some time.  (Photo courtesy: Charles Baulme)

My mom found out that summer - but not from my dad.  The new owner rang the doorbell of our south Ottawa home and she answered the door. In his hand, he held a mesh shopping bag containing some of my toys.  I'd left them in the airplane on one of my flights of fantasy. A 4-year-old has no concept of flight hazards.

My dad had divested himself of C-FTEM some time before.  With FAM's departure, his flying days were over.  The horizons ahead were not crystalline blue but dark and unfriendly.  There wasn't time to mourn...only storms to weather.

Despite this, my childhood was a happy one.  Aviation, planes and pilots were always close at hand.

Just "plane" crazy in 1985.  Note the plastic Mustang (probably a P-51B) in my right hand.  I took that thing everywhere.(Family Collection)

From the moment I could walk, I went everywhere with a book in one hand and a model airplane in the other.  We lived a quarter mile north of the flightpath for runway 07/25 at Ottawa International.  My days were spent watching airplanes roar  by.  It seemed they were close enough to touch.  I must have waved at a half million air travellers in those first few years.

Vanessa and I in 1986.  My shirt explains my life.  (Family Collection)

Our weekends were spent doing one of three activities: visiting the Aviation museum, visiting an airport or chasing balloons.  The latter involved spotting a hot air balloon, piling into the family car and quite literally chasing the balloon to discover where it would land.  It seems absurd now.  For my 6-year-old self and 4-year-old sister, it was an adventure.  Every weekend was.

Vanessa and I with Teenie Two C-GZZY at Carp in 1989.  (Family Collection)

My dad had a way about him too.  He could talk himself onto any ramp or flight line and then instantly befriend a fellow aviator.  It wouldn't be long before Vanessa and I were captain and first officer on the flight deck of a mighty Cessna 172.  We could go anywhere and do anything.  In one moment, we were the Red Baron's wingman protecting his six from marauding Allies; in the next, we were an early 30s DC-3 crew flying air mail and passengers across the British Columbia interior; and in the next, witnesses to history as we sat astride fuel tanks in The Spirit of St. Louis during Lucky Lindy's transatlantic voyage.  My dad, always, was ready with a camera.

Practicing my steely-eyed aviator look in a Cessna 172 at Carp.  I had alot to learn.  Airplanes don't fly well with control locks in.  (Family Collection)

My first flight in a small airplane came in 1990.  My dad took my sister and I to the Ottawa Flying Club's Fly Day.  We waited 6 hours to get into a Cessna 172.  My dad sat in the back with Vanessa.  I rode in the right seat next to the pilot.  After we climbed out of Ottawa's north field strip and levelled off, the pilot let me take over.  I could barely see over the instrument panel but the yoke felt good in my hands.  One tilt of the wings was all it took.  I made up my mind that I would be a pilot one day.  To be honest, thanks to the countless hours I spent "flying" the Miniplane, I always knew I would be.

A video profile done by CTV Ottawa in 2010.  The first 5 minutes are about flying and my dad.  You can stick around for the rest - it is fun to watch.  (Video courtesy CTV Ottawa via YouTube)

At 13, I joined the air cadets.  5 years later, on my very last chance, I won a power flying scholarship and the chance to get a private pilot license.  7 weeks after that, thanks to the tireless work of my flight instructor Nigel Barber and the support of my classmates, a set of enamel wings were pinned to my chest at St-Jean-sur-Richelieu, Quebec.

My mom, me and my dad after my Wings Parade at St-Jean-sur-Richelieu, QC on August 11th, 2002.  (Family Collection)

My mom was my first passenger.  I took her flying in my solo plane - an emerald green and white Cessna 152 registered C-GZSZ.  I took my dad up a month later.  Our mount was C-GZWJ which, during our training, could be best described as cantankerous and clapped out.  The 152 is not the most graceful of machines but my dad made her dance across the skies.  He hadn't touched the controls of an airplane in nearly 15 years yet his hands and feet, despite coming off surgery only weeks before, showed no signs of rust.  He taught me how to fly lazy-8s and chandelles.  I'll never forget the feel and sound of the slipstream as we rushed up the arc of the wingover then slid down to earth again.  We spent an hour and a half carving through the skies west of Les Cedres.  It felt like mere heartbeats had passed from take off to touch down.

Dad and I pose with Cessna 152 C-GZWJ at Les Cedres on October 12th, 2002. (Family Collection)

The next summer, at 19, I started working with my dad as a surveyor's apprentice at construction sites across Ontario.  We worked 6 days a week, often in excess of ten hours a day, burning in the sun and sweating over structural plans.  Sunday was our reward.  After getting checked out at a local flying club or school, we would rent an airplane, pick an airport and go exploring. 

Dad at the controls of Piper Warrior C-GNOP on July 6th, 2003.  We're halfway between Hamilton and our destination of Burlington.  (Family Collection)

In the summer of 2003, we flew Piper Warriors out of the St. Catharines Flying Club.  At the time, Air Combat Canada had an operation at the airport.  My dad insisted I try aerobatics.  I went up for an hour with Paul "Pitch" Molnar in Super Decathlon C-GVQT - and tossed my cookies during inverted spins.  Despite this, I finished the flight and returned to earth forever changed.  Ten years later, I would check "Pitch" out for aerobatics on our club's Super D. 

Dad and I with Piper 180 C-FTSZ at Collingwood Airport on July 24th, 2004. (Family Collection)

The next summer, we flew a Piper 180 out of Canadian Flight Academy at Oshawa.  On July 24th, 2004, we flew into Collingwood - my dad's first time back in about 15 years.  He didn't say much but I could tell it moved him to return to the little airport he loved so much and spent so much of his time at.  Less than a week later, he drove me to Newmarket so that I could try flying a taildragger for the first time. 

As we pulled into the gravel parking lot at Holland Landing, I expressed a little doubt.  It was a hazy day, hot and humid.  The runway was short and bordered by a cliff on one side and a highly travelled road on the other.  I had about 100 hours total time and all of it in tricycle gear aircraft that were designed to land themselves.

"Just wait till you lift the tail," he said.  "You'll love it."

As I walked to the plane he yelled after me, "keep moving your feet."

It was good advice.

Landing Bellanca Citabria 7KCAB C-FCWQ at Holland Landing on July 30, 2004.  (Family Collection)

I'm pleasantly surprised by how much room I've got in the front seat.  My left hand feels at home on throttle as I flex my right hand around the control column.  I wriggle in my seat and push forward against my straps as I crane my neck over the nose.  Holland Landing's runway is the shortest I've ever seen. 

"Okay, ready to go?"  Instructor John Greer is in the back seat.  He seems nice enough.  I'm reasonably sure he can't see a damn thing.  If there were a sun on this bleak day, I would be blotting it out.

"Yes, sir," I respond.  My left hand advances the throttle smoothly as I add forward stick.  The 150 horsepower Lycoming responds immediately.  With my eyes on the far end of the runway, I see that I need right rudder right away - just to keep her running straight. 

I expected that.

Now, with the speed building, the tail starts flying and lifts off the runway.  My viewpoint - both from the cockpit and on flying in general, instantly changes.  So does my centreline.  I see it begin to wander off to my right.

I didn't expect that.

"Right rudder," says Greer.  I'd already pushed my right foot forward.  This airplane has heel brakes - infernal little tabs that stick out of the cockpit floor. I am wearing my Air Force Oxfords on the advice of a glider tow pilot friend of mine.  He says the raised heels give him a better chance of getting on the brakes.

We're running down the centreline again.  The landscape on either side of the strip begins to blur.  The dewed grass and wild cotton struggling to survive along the runway's edges tremble and writhe in our wake.  Orphaned filaments float away, skimming the wet grass before becoming ensnared in emerald green blades.

Far away, an engine roars and the trundling of rubber on runway is replaced by the hiss of air caressing taut fabric. 

We're in the air now and I'm amazed by how light and responsive the Citab is.  Being used to sloth like high-wing trainers, I instantly remark that it flies like a Piper.  Greer responds by asking me to do a series of dutch rolls on the downwind.

I oblige, working hard with my hands and feet to keep the hub locked on a point on the horizon.  I'm either rock-solid or all over the place.  It's so hazy up here that I can't be sure I'm actually rolling around a point at all.  Off my left side, Holland Landing appears shrouded in mist as it crawls by.

Turning final, I'm impressed by the sheer drop of the cliff bordering the runway.

"I may as well be landing on an aircraft carrier,"  I mumble.

A muted chuckle from the backseat.  He's landed here a thousand times and can probably do it with his eyes closed.  It's just as well too as I'm sure he can't see a damn thing.

My airspeed control on final is good.  There aren't flaps on this Citab so I slip to bleed off any excess altitude.  As the speed drops off to final approach numbers, I'm feeling pretty good.

The edge of the cliff flashes by and away under the wings.  The runway swims up.  Power off, stick back into the flare and hold it here.

Hold it.

Be patient.

A squeak, a slight hop and we're down.  A little shimmy of the nose as I find my feet again, then stick all the way back to pin the tail down.

"Again," says Greer.  I apply full power and off we go.

"That wasn't too bad," I think to myself as we climb out for another go.  Now, at the time, I hadn't read Ernest Gann's Fate is the Hunter.  In fact, I had no idea it existed.  If I had, I would have recalled his first landing in a DC-3, how swimmingly well it went and his check pilot's subsequent warning that "a whore is easy to meet."

My next landing could have been an amusement park ride.  I only remember the first bounce...then bailing out of it with full power after what I'm sure was a minor stroke. 

Another couple of (better) circuits later and we taxi off.  My dad is grinning from ear to ear.

"She almost caught you there, eh, son?"

"You could say that," is my sheepish reply.

"You know...in the Mini plane," he begins.  "Sometimes, it felt like you had to pedal her down the runway...I had to move my feet that much."

"Otherwise, she'd bite you in the ass."

That's how FAM came up in conversation.  In fact, I didn't know her callsign until well after I got my license and we started flying together.

Every flight, every drive to the airport, every conversation about flying...the Smith Mini plane factored into in some way. 

My dad would tell brilliant stories and paint vivid pictures of what it was like cocooned in her single seat open cockpit.  I felt as though I had truly come along on all their fantastic adventures,  Still, I could hear a tightness in his voice.  He talked about that airplane like an old girlfriend that had broken his heart.

Every time I suggested tracking her down, he'd brush it off.  In his eyes, I could almost see the reflection of the instruments. 

I never pushed the issue.  A man has the right to hold onto a memory and even to live in it.

So, we set out to create our own memories.

Dad with Cessna 172 C-GBRI at Arnprior in 2003 - more than 20 years after flying it at Orillia during his float training. (Family Collection)

On one such flight, we were strapping into Cessna 172 C-GBRI for a short flight from Rockcliffe to Arnprior.

"I've been here before," my dad suddenly says.

"Rockcliffe?"  I laugh.  "Yeah, no kidding?  Me too."

"No, I mean, here," he insists.  "In this airplane."

I dismissed it.  Cessna built more than 43,000 172s - more than any other aircraft in history.  The odds were astronomical.

Alas, no, I was wrong.  On our return home, a quick check of my dad's logbook revealed the truth.  My dad flew BRI and sister ship QUO, both now on the flight line at the Rockcliffe Flying Club, in 1979 and 1980.  Dad was working on a float rating in Orillia in those days.  BRI and QUO were brand new.  After more than 20 years, it was a nice reunion.

Our last flight together.  May 13th, 2010.  (Family Collection)

On May 13th, 2010, high above Constance Lake near Ottawa, the faraway buzz of an airplane's engine is the only soundtrack to a breathtaking aerial ballet.

My dad's flying the airplane - a snappy Burkhart Grob 115C registered C-GKPB.  Loop, hammerhead, another loop, then a barrell roll.  I've been instructing aerobatics on the Grob for a little more than a year.  I started the flight by offering some verbal assistance.  Now, I've fallen silent - watching my dad handle an airplane he's never flown before, doing maneuvers he hasn't flown in thirty years.  As we crest the top of the barrell roll, I watch his eyes flit from his pivot point to the nose, then slide down the wing to the next reference.  Hands and feet react to what his eyes see.  He's had a rough time, my dad.  The radiation treatments beat him up pretty good.  He's bounced back nicely, though.  That's why we're up here, ballistic over the top of a loop now.  He's earned this.

My dad is dying. 

Yet, here we are, gathering speed down the backside of the loop, in silence, doing something we both love.  No matter how our relationship has changed, grown difficult, evolved for better or worse over the last few years - this is our common and strongest bond.

We're rushing downhill out of the loop and up to the vertical line of another hammerhead.  He hits it perfectly and sticks it there.  The Grob is an ungainly gull and we won't draw this line for too long.  His left leg, his good leg, pushes his boot against the rudder pedal.  He's timed it perfectly - which is critical. 

The world stops.  A sigh.  Was it me?  Him?

I can't tell.

The nose slices left as the rudder comes in to the stop.  We're pointed straight at the centre of the earth again.  I catch a glimpse of the May sun shimmering on the lake's surface.  Even into the spring, little flakes of ice have survived, huddled together in the middle of the lake.  The sunlight leaks through the propeller's gossamer disc as the earth slides away beneath the belly.

"Okay, Pop," he says to me.  "Let's go back.  I'm done."

In my heart, I knew it would be our final flight.

Cold Feet

My dad's first logbook runs out on July 31st, 1982.  He flew the airplane from Rockcliffe to Gatineau and back over the lunch hour - logging half an hour in the air.  Up to that point, he had logged 406 hours and 36 minutes.

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."

"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.

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)

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.

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.



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)

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.

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.

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. 

This picture, while  taken in the fall of 1981, pretty much says it all.  (Family Collection)

Maybe it's better that way.

Tony's Toy

In the summer of 1981, my dad was 35, doing well financially, unattached with, as I've mentioned before, few obligations outside of his work.  C-FFAM was, for lack of a better term, a toy.

Dad tying down C-FFAM's controls after a flight at Rockcliffe in the fall of 1982. (Family Collection)

His regular routine consisted of putting a day's work in before driving his company car (a Honda Prelude - if that gives you an idea of how practical he was) to Rockcliffe, pulling the red and white biplane out of its tiedown and going for a half hour flight.  In his day, my dad had plenty of pastimes - yoga, judo, hunting, checkers - but flying remained his true love and the sky his happiest place.

He occasionally took the airplane on short cross country trips but they were rare.

He joined the Rockcliffe Flying Club and got checked out on the club's Cessna 150s and 172s. Being, as one pilot put them, aerial sedans that don't do anything well except get you from point to point, my dad figured they'd do just fine.

In his own plane, he preferred local jaunts or a half dozen circuits to keep his feet moving.

My dad's membership card (82-272) from the Rockcliffe Flying Club issued in December of 1981.  Twenty-one years later, I would join the club as a flying member and be assigned number 3088.  Ten years after that, I started teaching there.  (Family Collection)

His logbook entries are uncharacteristically detailed and, even more than 30 years after they were set down, betray the excitement and pride he felt when at the controls of his machine. 

The notation for take-offs and landings, "12-13", was previously littered liberally across almost every page.  Enter the Mini plane and they became "power-off landings", "gliding approaches", and on September 19th, 1981, "almost ground looped."

The Smith's biggest exposure came at Aero Fete at Gatineau in 1982.  My dad flew aerial displays in the air show.  It was an opportunity to share the airplane and his joy of flight with others.  He would brag, years later, that FAM's parking spot was next to one occupied by a Supermarine Spitfire owned by Hollywood actor Cliff Robertson and flown by Canadian Jerry Billing.  The World War II fighter towered over the diminutive biplane with the big personality.  My dad was very proud.



C-FFAM makes an appearance at an airshow!  Thanks to Canadian aerobatic champion Jay Hunt, I now know this is Aero Fete at the Gatineau Airport in the summer of 1982.  My dad is getting ready to fly an aerial display.  The Spitfire in the background (MK 923) belongs to Hollywood actor Cliff Robertson and was flown by World War II Spitfire pilot Jerry Billing.  (Family Collection)

At Rockcliffe, FAM stood out among the flock of tin-can trainers.  For decades, many of her tie-down mates had been ridden hard and put away wet.  Their paint was chipped and peeling, their engines coughed and wheezed, gauges spun drunkenly behind cloudy glass.  FAM had led a privileged life - hangared, babied, tended to by doting owners.  Her cherry red and ice white coat gleamed - even under cloudy skies.  Squatting on her Taylorcraft gear, her nose pointed perpetually skyward as if to say "that's where I belong, so what the hell are we waiting for?" 

For a pilot, that's a hard offer to turn down.

In fact, not long ago, a student and friend of mine came over for a visit and saw the portrait of my dad and FAM sitting on my mantle.  He learned to fly at Rockcliffe and was an airport bum in the days FAM was based there.  He recognized it instantly.

"I remember thinking how cool it looked," he exclaimed, eyes alight with excitement.  "It looked like a little Pitts Special."

And in a way, I think that's what brought the airplane and my dad together.  It was stylish, slick, cool, unique, charming and had a personality.  If you could have asked my dad, he would have told you FAM was him - with wings. 

Then, in April of 1982, after a short courtship, my parents were engaged.  My mom knew nothing about aviation - except that she had travelled as a passenger on a jetliner a half dozen times.  My mom loved the opera, ballet, theatre and the movies.  My dad tried to feign interest and only succeeded in falling asleep.

As you can well imagine, it didn't take long for my mom to wonder where he was stealing off to pretty much every afternoon.  When he started dropping her off at the NAC, taking the Mini plane up for a spin, then returning in time to pick her up, my mom called him out.

He responded, quite seriously, with something to the effect of "well, you wouldn't understand" and "wouldn't care to anyway."

So, my mom enrolled at a flying school at the Ottawa airport, did the ground school and started taking lessons.


The lessons went so well, in fact, that it wasn't long before C-FFAM had a stablemate - a 1964 Mooney 20E registered C-FTEM.  My parents bought it together, for the now paltry sum of $27,000 from a gentleman named Alec Gillman.  They picked it up in Gimli, Manitoba on July 24th, 1982 then flew it back to Rockcliffe via St. Andrew, Dryden, Thunder Bay and Chapleau. 


My mom cutting the grass around C-FTEM, a 1964 Mooney 20E, in the summer of 1983.  (Family Photo)

She was a sharp example of the type, the first truly high performance Mooney - clean, fast and built like a tank.  The plan, as ambitious as it was foolhardy, was to fly it down to Buenos Aires, Argentina.  It would be their honeymoon.  My dad went as far as buying the charts and mapping it out. 



My parents on their honeymoon in Mar del Plata, Argentina in September 1982.  (Family Collection)

Three decades later, the maps live in a box in my basement.  If you pull them out, it's easy to see how his enthusiasm faded and doubt swelled over central America. The lines fade and notations grow sparse.  There are a few question marks scrawled over lakes and towns. There was too much water, too much jungle, too many governments in free fall, few airports and any number of places and ways to die. 

Pan Am made more sense. 



C-FFAM, my uncle Dante standing alongside and my cousin Gianantonio in the cockpit.  This shot is taken in August, 1982 in the yard of Right Forming on Stevenage Road in south Ottawa.  After storing it in Smiths Falls for the winter of 1981-1982, my dad had the Smith trucked to the warehouse in the background where it was stored in advance of the wedding and honeymoon. (Family Collection)

FAM, however, remained the favourite. What she lacked in functionality, she made up for in the sheer fun of flight. The Mooney was the 237th "Super 21" to roll off the factory line at Kerrville, Texas. It could take you anywhere you wanted to go and as far as fuel and weather permitted - quickly and comfortably. The Smith was built in Ernst Muller's garage. It went where you pointed the nose...but low, slow, noisy, windy and, sometimes, uncomfortably.

But hey, as my dad would say with a twinkle in his eyes, "wherever you went, you did it in style."