The Old Days

[Maple Leafs]

Moncton flying club in 1983, 35 bucks for solo in a tomahawk and 45 bucks dual. It was 145 bucks in a Seminole, dual only.

How have time have changed.

Tomahawk, spin likes a son of a bitch until Marmalade taught me how to do it. Got me pulling out on headings in a spin. Great instructor. He left the club and went to Ottawa at Rockcliff I think. My hat goes off you Marmalade where ever you are.

Who was the guy that painted the dollar sign on the roof of the hanger? Legend.

Met a lot of good friends there, don’t see them much anymore, but Christ, what a time.

Thanks guys.

Any MFC guys out there. Reunion in the works.

How about the Mc Clure. Pete from the UK that came down to the dorm and rattled on the dorm doors saying ‘brings out you dead’.

Or the guy that put av gas down the floor hallway of the dorm and lit it on FIRE. Never seen so many ghetto blasters go out the window.

MOM, made some good meals.

Times were fun.

The boys from Labrador were especially good guys. Got to love a Newf.

I guess we are more mature now. I is a pulot.

Many good guys from the Caribbean but didn’t know the guys from Libya that well.

Any good stories.

[J.O.]

Brantford Flying Club, 1979 - 1986. Some great memories!

C150 dual was $37.50 per hour, solo was $22.50, Aztec was around $100 dual and you could rent it solo! Even had a Rockwell Commander 112 for a while, what a fun machine.

The C150 would spin very nicely and predictably, with no nasty tendencies like the Tomachicken (once met a guy who had an early edition Tomahawk go into a violent flat spin that lost over 5000 ft and ended up sending the fire extinguisher out through the back window in the recovery)!

Great instructors back in those days. Denis, who went on to Air Canada shortly after he sent me solo. Brad, the quiet one who sadly ended up getting out of the flying business. Jimmy the comedian, who moved on to flingwingers for a while but in the end also ended up out of flying; and Scotty, who always made learning interesting and fun and has gone on to great things in his career (now flies the 777 for SAL). And the folks I instructed with, Don, Jim B, Jim M, Cor, Gloria and so many more who came and went. Great comrades one and all.

Lots of crazy parties, trips to Oshkosh, Dayton Museum, or the Sunday breakfast flights to places like Kilarney Lodge. Spot landing tests, bombing contests, crazy flying stunts that some of us were lucky to come home from (ahhh, to be young and invincible again!). And the die-hard members who were always around during the weekends and on Wednesdays for lunch, some of whom have since passed on. Walter, Doc Quinlan, Garnet, Father JV, Frank, Ed and so many others. I miss you guys alot.

Pipeline patrols, frost flying, the United Way fly-a-thon, and so much more. Low level nav exercises. Hours and hours in the circuit for rwy 23. Partial panel ADF approaches under the hood (Great, now I can't get the "FD" beacon's morse code out of my head!).

Sometimes I miss those days and those folks, they're the soil and the fertilizer of my craft. I admit that don't miss the instructor's pay cheques, though! Tough way to pay the bills.

[cj3pilot]

Central airways ytz 1969 $11.00 solo $ 15.00 Dual and then 1972 Guelph $75.00 pa-30 long gone but not forgotten

[JetA]

Yes those were the days.

I was reading on another board where guys were saying how much in debt they are from flight school now.

One guy said he in in debt $115,000 US and has a student loan where his payments are $1100 per month for the next 15 years!!!!!!
Any job he gets won't pay enough to cover his loan let alone money for food , rent, car gas etc.... I guess he will be living at home.

I sure am glad I did my training before the price of fuel went up.

[Chuck Ellsworth]

Central Airways, Toronto Island Airport.

1953: Solo $8.00 per hour.....Dual..$10.00 per hour.

[cj3pilot]

Central airways with the Wong Brothers.I soloed in C-150 IN 1970 we made them rich and that was 17.000 hours ago and then some.

[Moose47]

G'day

When I started to carry on with my multi-engine training, I did so in Kingston. I flew a PA-23-250, CF-GNA with an instructor by the name of Dave Sly. At the time (July 1976), it was 75 bucks an hour.

I can not remember exactly what I was paying for a C-172 at the Kingston Flying Club, but it was very reasonable especially for a young Private not making a whole lot of money.

The C-172 I flew the most in Kingston was CF-YOK. Just an all round good handling bird. The airplane was later sold to an elderly couple who hit a tree, crashed and burned on a dusk take-off from a very short grass field.

Cheers...Chris