Van's Air Force Western Canada Wing

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Glorious Summer

Day after day this summer, I would be along side a young stud at the traffic light as he strained to blast off.  I let him go.  I thought back to school when teach would ask Johnny, “What did you do this summer”?  “I beat old fart at street drag!”  (Proudly.)

 I let him have his glory.  I had bigger things in mind.  I was fixing to strap myself into an RV and see what 185 feels like down along the beach where you really can see what 185 means close up and personal.  I would tell teach that I had a glorious Summer.  First biggy was riding in an RV, second was soloing an RV, third was takeoff and landing it by myself, and last but not least, flying in company with a bud.
When I open the hangar door now my bird, with nose high, seems to want to be let out.  But I wait a bit and peer into the shadows of the far bay, where sits old bud’s equally beautiful RV—waiting—waiting, like a horse without a rider, like a dog who will hunt no more.  Waiting.  Never again will I hear that engine start and run, never again will I hear old bud call and say, “Hah, you were flying today !  I know because I went down to the hangar tonight and felt your cowl—it was warm!”  Old bud is now one of the fallen.  Gone but never forgotten, because I will always have the joy of knowing the supreme gift of flying close in company and seeing how truly beautiful an RV and its golden prop looks when seen at altitude in a very late sun, peaks with pink snow reaching up way above us, and dark sea and phosphorous wake trails in the water far below us.  And then there are the pictures, lots of smiles—even at this distance you can see them.  Just off the right wing tip.  Without my old bud and my faithful RV, I wouldn’t have seen this part of aviation’s glory.

I grasp the roll bar, lean into the fuselage side and push out into the sunshine.  She starts well and quickly, and we taxi out, run up, look once again over at old bud’s hangar, throttle up and off we go.

 Here goes this old fart, 3 times faster than the street rod, airborne in a twinkling and climbing for the freeway of the air.  Don’t wait for me!  Not far off lies an old grass strip where the old and bold gather, and where the landings are the sweetest.  Wheels kiss the grass as we skim past the line of trees and the sleepy cows flashing ever slower past the wing tip.  The wispy green grass holds us, slowing without the need to brake, and we are soon among friends again with more smiles, and another RV to pore over.  Airplanes sure have a way of gathering people and capturing the imagination.  RVs, I think, even more so.

No longer will I be standing at the end of a long, empty strip wondering what could be more lonely and quietly haunting than a stadium empty of sound and people, or an airfield without the planes and sounds of engines.  No longer wishing and wondering, because RV is waiting, canopy open like beckoning arms, waiting to be let off the leash.  And off and up we go once again to dance and spring along the pathways of the air—homeward bound.

 Yes, all in all, the good and the not so good, it was a Glorious Summer.

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