Canadian Warplane Heritage Museum

It was a great weekend mix of everything, including aviation, photography, comedy, food, and friends. If you have a chance to see Danny Bhoy live, DO IT! He’s hilarious!

Happy St. Patty's Day!

Danny Bhoy @ Hamilton Place

foggy Hamilton

I <3 mango pudding

tentacle art @ dim sum

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Fairey Firefly AS.5

Seeing Danny Bhoy live was my main reason for heading to Hamilton yesterday, but I decided to make a day of it and visit the Canadian Warplane Heritage Museum as well. It’s been a long time since my last trip there, nearly three years ago at the Canadian Aviation Expo in May 2009. That is an incredibly long time, given that I was a member from 2006-2009, flew two member rides in the DC-3 Dakota, and visited much more frequently prior to freelancing. It’s like seeing a friend after an extended absence — you realize it’s been far too long! Aviation was a big part of my former life in the U.S., and I don’t want to lose it.

One thing about visiting a museum frequently, particularly an aviation museum, is the question of how to photograph the static exhibits to make them interesting to the general public? After looking at my previous photosets of the museum, I noticed that I spent more time documenting the aircraft collection and didn’t really know the stories behind the individual aircraft. Occasionally I would speak to a museum guide when he’d approach me while I was shooting and looking around, but I never took a tour. Little did I know, I was really missing out.

Yesterday I took my first guided tour of the museum by piggybacking onto the last tour of the day; I joined in half an hour before the museum closed at 5pm. I just happened to be standing at a spot when the group wandered over, and I found the guide (Joe Coleman) very knowledgeable about the aircraft so I stayed and listened to the rest of the tour. He knew a lot of stories, and by telling them, that made the planes and pilots who flew them come alive. I can take pictures, but history is best told not in pictures but a narrative.

Museums rely on volunteers to operate, and the Canadian Warplane Heritage Museum has many of them: guides and restoration volunteers, to name a few. The restoration work is painstaking — imagine how difficult it is to get parts for these limited-production warbirds. By the time the Bristol Bolingbroke is finished, it will be the culmination of more than two decades of work. You can see the restoration workshop at any given day that the museum is open. One reason I take photos is to chart the progress, not to mention these guys work really hard (for free!) to further the museum’s mandate:

To acquire, document, preserve and maintain, a complete collection of aircraft that were flown by Canadians and the Canadian military services from the beginning of World War II to the present, including other related aviation artifacts and memorabilia of significant historic importance to this period.

To instruct, educate and entertain the general public through the maintenance and rotation of displays, flight demonstration, special events and activities; and encourage Canadians of all ages to become actively involved in the preservation of these aircraft.

To provide facilities for the restoration and protection, interpretation and exhibits of the collection. These will be displayed in their natural element – aerial or static, with emphasis on all aspects of safety and legal obligations in relation to both the artifacts and public; and to deliver programs that meet the standards for community museums in Ontario.

To maintain supportive exhibits to the thousands of men and women who built, serviced and flew these aircraft and in memory of those who did not return.

I’ve posted some of my favourite photos from yesterday, like this one of the CF-104 jet fighter reflected in the museum glass:

Canadair F-5 Freedom Fighter

I love this photo. If I were born 50 years earlier, would this be me?

This last shot is of an ex-Sudanese Air Force Buffalo DHC-5D that was fully restored by volunteers as a tribute to Canadian peacekeepers from Buffalo 461. The nine crew and passengers of the last flight of Canadian Forces Buffalo 461 were shot down in Syria in 1974.

Check out their restoration website here: http://www.buffalo461.ca/

For the rest of the photos from yesterday:

[thumbnails]
[full-screen slideshow]

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Flat Stanley loved his first visit to the Canadian Warplane Heritage Museum in Hamilton!

In fact, he’s still there…

I discovered when I got to my car after the museum closed at 5pm that Stanley had somehow fallen out of the camera bag. A wedding was just beginning to get underway in the museum when I left, which means either Stanley crashed an aviation museum wedding or he thought a hangar full of vintage aircraft would be a great place to hang out for a while — or both.

Can’t say I blame him!

Although, that means I will have to find a way to continue Stanley’s adventures in Toronto somehow…

In keeping with the theme, no adventure is without its share of mishaps.

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waving hello to folks in the CN Tower observatory

The sky is my happy place. As soon as I lift off, I leave my work on the ground… I’ve been working a lot lately and all I want to do is go up in a plane!

These aren’t all the aerials, but what I’ve had time to upload thus far:

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My helicopter flight yesterday, in between photo shoots. (Unsurprisingly, as soon as I arrived home, I crashed.) This is my fourth flight in a helicopter. It was shot with a phone camera, so I recommend muting it unless you enjoy the sound of rotor blades.

Flying is always my preferred manner in which to observe David’s passing due to cancer on December 18, 2005. On the weekend we met, he surprised me with my first helicopter flight.

I took my second helicopter flight on the Durham Regional Police’s Air1 helicopter in October 2007.

My third helicopter flight was David’s birthday on May 30, 2010.

Part 1:

Part 2:

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As I was compiling a list of my annual pilgrimages south to fly for David’s birthday on May 30, it struck me how fortunate I’ve been over the years at getting myself up in the air six years in a row. Since scattering David’s ashes on May 30, 2006 (a major feat* in itself after all that happened on that trip), there’s been all sorts of weather challenges — from stormy skies to major haze to high winds. But every year I still manage to do it, and I’ll keep doing it until I face some real inclement weather. So far I’ve been lucky it hasn’t been bad enough to call off a trip yet.

David’s B-Day 2006 – scattered his ashes
David’s B-Day 2007 – flew with an instructor at Brampton Flying Club in low visibility conditions
David’s B-Day 2008 – first flight with Alan in his Super Cub
David’s B-Day 2009 – flew with Alan in his Super Cub, landing in windy conditions [original post]
David’s B-Day 2010 – flew in a helicopter at Mount Pocono Airport
David’s B-Day 2011 – flew with Tyler and Tiffany in a Piper Arrow

The video above was from my flight with Alan two years ago, when the winds picked up so fiercely we braced ourselves for a bumpy landing. Here’s what I wrote in Flickr in the description:

Sunday, May 31, 2009

It wasn’t windy when we left Cherry Ridge Airport, but after returning from a stop at Mount Pocono Municipal Airport the winds picked up tremendously and we were landing in a crosswind. (Look at the windsock with 11 seconds to go.)

Our first attempt at landing turned into a touch-and-go and this was the second attempt. If this was a couple of years ago, Alan wouldn’t have attempted it, but he’s come a long way as a pilot and I had every confidence in him that we’d land safely. David would’ve been so pleased! (They flew a lot together in Civil Air Patrol.)

When we taxied by the airport, there was a line of pilots cheering — it was pretty funny. Rick said the people in the airport gave Alan a standing ovation.

I have yet to upload the rest of the flying photos from a week ago with Tyler as PIC (pilot in command), but it’ll have to wait until I get back. For now I’ll leave you with a video I shot three years ago on David’s birthday of his Snoopy the Aviator music box from his baby days. Aww, Beano’s in this one, too (and Xena’s in the back).

* the car broke down less than half an hour outside of Toronto, then I had to tow it, get a rental car, continue to Allentown to pick up the ashes, back to Scranton, and got a call at 7am from the museum when they found a pilot to fly from Connecticut, round up everyone and drive the 2.5 hours to Rhinebeck, NY in stifling humidity.

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Airborne for David’s birthday! Mission was a success, all credit due to Tiffany and her brother Tyler for making it happen. More photos after I get back to Toronto…

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David with Old Rhinebeck Aerodrome pilot Bill King in September 2005

A couple of weeks ago, by pure chance, I happened upon a Flickr contact’s photo of her flying with her brother over the town where I used to live with David. I was so excited I asked if she could ask him if he’d take me flying on Monday, and today I got a YES! Monday, May 30 is David’s birthday. (Which also happens to be the same day as my brother‘s, and Digital Nomad Eric‘s.)

In my sleep-deprived state, I could cry with joy. This week has been a wave of wonderful emails from new clients and happy current clients. What a boost! Now I’m ready to sleep off some of this productivity exhaustion and recharge for a work-free long weekend in Pennsylvania (I’m taking the U.S. Memorial Day off courtesy of The Firm). I’ll start driving south around dawn and hopefully bypass any storm action.

Looking forward to blue skies on Monday! Fingers crossed!

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There has been a very conspicuous (to me, at least) absence of aircraft on this website this year, in large part due to being crowded out by wedding and engagement photography. Even the travel photography has taken a backseat to the commissioned portraiture. I say it’s about time I evened out the situation!

Photos for now, commentary and more photos coming after I’ve caught up a bit on sleep!

www.challenger.ca

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Being too sick and too busy to do any shooting lately, the recent posts have been all cameraphone shots and weddings and not enough of my other interests, especially aviation. In fact, it’s been five months since I had an aviation fix: Blue Angels on Jones Beach in New York May 29, and the helicopter ride May 30. This summer I came to the sad realisation that this is the first season in five years that I will not make it to the Old Rhinebeck Aerodrome before their last day of biplane rides (extended from mid-Oct to Nov 1, but I can’t make it down this weekend). I was considering another biplane ride while in Ottawa in August, but I opted for trainspotting instead.

Now that the weddings are over for this season (there are still corporate and engagement shoots, though), I plan to post more aviation material before the end of the year. How? Good question, I’m working on it… meanwhile, for all the aviation enthusiasts out there who account for the majority of hits to this website, a guy at work taking flying lessons sent me this link (it’s safe for work, but put on the headphones!):

http://thetenarrives.com/

Wow! Watching this makes me want to play the lottery!

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