On a cold and wet September afternoon, John Longair stood on the slick duckboards of a gently rocking, floating seaplane dock tucked almost unseen along the shores of the Ottawa River below the Rockcliffe Flying Club. …

Dan Fortin and the Nanchang CJ6A make a memorable sight wherever they go. And not because Dan is six foot three with a shaved head and a flashing smile or because the aircraft he flies is a bad-girl shade of Dodge Viper Red, …

Back, then we were all just getting to know the air show business and it was our good fortune to run into a bigger-than-life character like Murray, an airline pilot who simply couldn’t get his fill of flying by hauling a couple hundred butts to Acapulco….

I was commuting to Ottawa that early Friday morning. Pete Spence had slipped his beautifully restored Harvard II into my backyard, which so happens to be a grass runway, and was giving me a lift to Gatineau, PQ, a two hour blue sky downwind dash…

The moment I arrived at the Lachute, Quebec airport on that sunny Saturday morning, I realized my dream would come true….

I sat there - in the Harvard cockpit, exhausted but satisfied after shutting down on the grass. Not a soul in sight, just me and the sounds of gyros winding down, metal clinking and clanking with different rates of contraction as it cooled….

As I walk up to the WACO on a sparkling day in June, light reflects off the rich, crimson, and glossy paint. This airplane is a jewel flashing in the sun! …

Bill Ison, the Chief Flying Instructor at Cambridge Flying Group where I learned to fly Tiger Moths, started his combat service as a Lysander rear gunner in the Western Desert during the Second World War - “looking out for cannon-armed Messerschmitts…

Sometime before 1909, a small group of engineers and inventors, without the benefit of much known aeronautical science, set out to do something no one had ever done before in Canada—build a powered, heavier-than-air aircraft ..

My goal is to become a pilot in the Canadian Air Force. After graduating from McMaster University, I spent a year going through the Canadian Forces pilot selection process. After being accepted, I spent another two years going through basic officer training, second language training and waiting in …

Not a test pilot? Not a multi-thousands hours airline pilot? Not much hope of being admitted into the world of warbird flying? There is one other way to come up through the ranks to fly vintage military aircraft - but it takes determination, stamina, skill, …

After a stellar 37 year career in the service of his country, Lieutenant General Angus Watt, Chief of the Air Staff, retires at the top of his game. Taking his place at the helm of the New Canadian Air Force will be Lieutenant General André Deschamps…

As I walk up to the WACO on a sparkling day in June, light reflects off the rich, crimson, and glossy paint. This airplane is a jewel flashing in the sun! …

n Canada, the Victoria Day long weekend signals the beginning of summer play and the boundless joys of being outside. Gone are the crusted snow banks, the dirty buses, the layered grey skies and the layered grey clothing,…

This past Canada Day, as many Canadians do, some members of one particular Canadian family gathered in Ottawa to have some fun and get their photograph taken as a memento of the day….

Thursday July 8th dawned over the Calgary International Airport (YYC) with a beautiful cloudless sky and a light breeze that would keep the afternoon’s 27°C temperatures bearable – the kind of weather perfect for a family picnic or airshow. …

Friday, July 29th, 2011. Imagine a foursome of golfers at the Huron Pines Golf and Country Club near remote Blind River, Ontario, about to tee-off from the 18th on a wet afternoon. The skies are dank and glowering, the air humid and close, …

You call your self a warbird mechanic? Really? You short pants wearing, candy-assed, sun-block covered, flip-flop shod, sunny weather warbird mechanics from Kissimmee, Florida, Mojave, California, or sunny Jindalee, Queensland have nothing on…

As winter began to close in on the southern-most regions of Canada, temperatures began a steady crawl downwards, rains turned icy, and Canadians broke out the fleece, boots and layered up. But farther north, much farther north, along the shores of James Bay, the Florida-shaped extension of Hudson Bay that drives deep into …

So, first mission. Yes, well, it was obviously awesome, crazy, unbelievable, totally overwhelming. My captain is really nice, though I do feel bad for him for having to put with up me, as I'm sure even just yesterday was a test of his patience….