A CLOSE SHAVE
A day or so after rejoining the squadron, a number of army officers were attached to us for ten days, while some of our fellows went on exchange to see how the army functioned….
ME AND MR. JONES
The first day I met Gordon face to face, I brought him a lemon meringue pie. Little did I know how much he liked pie. Over the past two years and dozens and dozens of interviews, driving from Calgary to High River…
HONOURING BILL CARR — The Father of the Modern RCAF
As is our tradition, we raise a banner honouring a living veteran pilot of the Second World War. In past years, we have honoured men like Max Ward, Stocky Edwards and Bill McRae. This year, a year we celebrated leadership …
OXBOXES OVER THE PRAIRIES
This past summer, while researching images of the British Commonwealth Air Training Plan operations at No. 36 Service Flying Training School at Penhold, Alberta, I went to one of the greatest …
BODY ENGLISH — The Science and the Art of the LSO
You are standing at the very edge of a steel cliff, high above the Indian Ocean. You look backwards across a hot steel deck shimmering in the 100ºF heat to the vast expanse of pale white-blue ocean….
WTF? — Captured Enemy Aircraft
Over the past seven years of researching aviation stories on the web, I have kept a folder on my laptop dedicated to images of Second World War aircraft that had been captured and had suffered the indignity of being painted …
MOOSE JAW, SASKATCHEWAN — A Prairie Town in the Second World War
If there ever was a heartland of Canada, a place where our traditional pre-electronic age Canadian values of humility, hard work, family, honesty and cheerfulness are alive and well, …
THOSE BEAUTIFUL KIWI MOTHS
I have never been to New Zealand, that nation of two islands on the far side of my world, but I have this dreamlike image that runs in my head when that adventurous nation comes to mind….
AND THEN THERE WERE TWO
Back in 1991, working at Ottawa’s National Capital Air Show, I welcomed a young Rockwell B-1B bomber pilot as he stepped down from the ladder of his “Bone” after the long flight from Ellsworth ….
A SNOWBIRD IN HELL
I was lucky enough to be part of The Snowbirds for the 05-06 seasons. I was Snowbird 10, team co-ordinator. During this time, and since, I have heard the term "life of the rock star" bandied about….
LAST CALL FOR LANCASTERS
As the Second World War wound down in Europe, the Allied powers, which had previously been focused on the destruction of Hitler’s Nazi-run Germany, began to think about the battle to come…
THE MIRACULOUS TORPEDO SQUADRON
Mori Juzo was a torpedo bomber pilot of the Imperial Japanese Navy and one of the aviators who participated in the attack on Pearl Harbor. In 1973, Juzo wrote his autobiography…
NAVY BLUE FIGHTER PILOT — Episode Three
In the third and final episode of Navy Blue Fighter Pilot, Lieutenant Don Sheppard is now a blooded veteran, a respected and much-loved member of 1836 Squadron…
THE MEN WHO FELL TO EARTH
Throughout all of Continental Europe and the Soviet Union during the Second World War, nearly a quarter million aircraft were destroyed in combat, most falling from the skies to…
ONE WAY TICKET TO DUISBERG
When a Maximum Effort raid was called for by Bomber Command, upwards of 600 four-engined bomber crews could find themselves converging on the turning point…
NAVY BLUE FIGHTER PILOT – Episode One
Canadians like their fighter pilots. Perhaps more than any other figures in our military heritage they are a source of pride and admiration that even transcends generations…
THE MOTHER OF ALL DRONES
These days, when one thinks of drone aircraft, one conjures up an image of a sinister, beluga-shaped monster, whispering along at 20,000 feet on a moonless night over Iraq or Afghanistan. Inside its featureless head…
THUNDER AND TRIUMPH
This past summer, something happened in the warbird world that has not happened in more than fifty years, something so creative, so daring and so anticipated, …
OPERATION OVERLORD ESCORT
It’s been a few months since the 70th anniversary of D-Day. On that day, 70 years ago, Allied soldiers, sailors and airmen pulled off one of the most complicated…