WATER WINGS
Thursday, August 2nd was the third sweltering day in a row to beat down on Gatineau-Ottawa and most people in the region were cowering in their air-conditioned work spaces or, if forced outside, were reduced to a languid torpor. The Calcutta-like temperatures and humidity assaulting the AMEs and maintainers through the open hangar doors made for hard work at Vintage Wings of Canada. The day before, Mike Potter ordered all the folks at the hangar to arrive Thursday with their swimsuits and towels and be ready for a little “team-building” exercise. Come Thursday, Potter had the Beaver towed out into the blazing sun on the ramp and readied for the short hop to the cool waters of Grand Lake - one of the prettiest of the big Québec cottage lakes just a few miles north of the field.
So Marty grabbed his jams, his flip flops and his trusty Sony point-and-shoot camera and climbed aboard one of the two flights it took to ferry the entire crew to the lake. Marty's camera is about the size of a pack of cigarettes, but in his capable hands, it provided us with exceptional images of the lovely amphibian. It just proves that with an imaginative eye, great images are possible without the need for fancy equipment. So sit back on your inner tube with your toes in the water and enjoy a swimmers-eye view of Vintage Wings of Canada's de Havilland Beaver courtesy of Marty the Maintainer.
In addition to building relationships with two veterans of the RCAF, Harris was assigned two veterans of the Canadian Army. Photo: DND
