Thanks for the Memories

Today it finally hit home. While coming out of the service department in the local Honda dealership in North Bay, I heard the sound of a light aircraft up above making its way through the bright blue sky. Instinctively, and as always, I looked up to watch the wonder of flight. It was then that a rush of nostalgia came over me as I saw a pretty little Cessna 140 making its way south to a new home and with a new owner.

It all started in 1980, when upon graduation from Ryerson in Toronto and with only 45 hours as a pilot, I headed off to Summerside, PEI to take a look at a 1946 Cessna 140 that was advertised in Canadian Plane Trade. It was love at first sight and I purchased Charlie Tango with the money I had earned working on railway extra gangs and section crews during the summer months while in college.

Cessna 140 C-FKCT - Summerside, P.E.I., March 29, 1980

The weather did not cooperate after the purchase, and I was stuck in Summerside for a week, my first experience of many to come, waiting for the sky to clear. Finally, when the clouds broke, and after a cursory check ride with the previous owner, I headed out across the Northumberland Straight en route to my new home in Kamloops, B.C. That was the first of many trips spent with Charlie Tango exploring Canada by air.

C-FKCT - Toronto Island, May 1980

My logbook is full of memories in that terrific little airplane. Of almost leaving the runway in Edmundston before I had mastered the technique of a taildragger. Of that first trip across the country skirting the islands of the north shore of Superior en route from Marathon to Thunder Bay.

Along the north shore of Superior - May 1980

Of landing at many of the old airfields across the prairies constructed for the Commonwealth Air Training program. Of the view of Moose Lake and Mount Robson while crossing the Rockies via the Yellowhead Pass.

Entrance, Alberta - May 1980

I explored B.C. extensively for the next year and remember flying the Coquihalla Pass long before the super highway was constructed, viewing the many spectacular railway trestles that once occupied that route. Then it was off across the country again via the Rogers and Kicking Horse Passes to a new home in Thunder Bay, Ontario. There, with Charlie Tango resplendent in a new paint job, we explored the beauty of the Canadian Shield and Superior. During one sad occasion, we spread the cremated remains of a dear friend over the Sleeping Giant from the air.

The Sleeping Giant from C-FKCT, Thunder Bay, Ontario - May 1983

And one summer, I was posted in Rivers, Manitoba where Charlie Tango and I had an entire abandoned air force base all to ourselves. There were two spectacular trips to Oshkosh, one flying side by side with another 140 all the way from Thunder Bay, the second all the way from Edmonton.

Oshkosh International Air Show - August 1983

And then there were the times when the classic mistakes with weather were made, when the odds were against me, but my number simply had not yet come up.

In 1986, I sold Charlie Tango to my father who had just received his pilot’s license at the age of sixty-two after accompanying me on the first trip to Oshkosh. I fell into the trap of the desire for a bigger faster airplane, but never once did my affection for Charlie Tango fade. My Dad flew her around the patch for the next 14 years out of Cooking Lake, Alberta.

Dad and C-FKCT - Circa 1986

Every time I would visit Edmonton, we would head off in Charlie Tango for some fun, best of all to the fly-in breakfasts in Camrose. But age caught up with Dad, and the time finally came to let her go to a new and younger owner. I made one last trip across the country with Charlie Tango in May 2003. I decided to fly her back to North Bay, where I would be in a better position to sell her. On departure from Cooking Lake, Dad stood on the floatplane spit at the end of runway 10 and waved goodbye as we climbed out overhead. I am sure he felt the same way as I did today watching Charlie Tango disappear off into the horizon with her new owner.

Thanks from the two of us old friend, and take care.