By Alan Harrington,
August 21st, 2023
BURLINGTON, ON
Inspired by this August 14 article in the Gazette, I clicked the link to learn more about flying on one of the heritage aircraft at the Warplane Museum in Hamilton.
It was surprising to see that some of the flights were quite affordable – a couple hundred instead of thousands of dollars.
The Warplane Museum is an excellent institution – that does Hamilton proud! Canadian Warplane Heritage Museum – Canadian Aviation History | Wartime Vintage Aircraft
It is known for having one of only TWO flying WWII Lancaster bombers in the world. (The other named “Thumper” lives in the UK)
This very large (for its time), four-propeller airplane would cost a family of four $ 14,600.00 to fly for an hour.
Too much for my budget.
Harrington gets a different look at the pair
The museum has ten other flying vintage aircraft to choose from, so I selected the “mini-Lancaster” Beechcraft Expeditor. It has a similar split tail section and dark green colour like the Lancaster.
These Beechcraft airplanes were built from 1937 to 1970 in Wichita Kansas where they made 9,000 of them. This particular one marked “BAE” was built in 1946.
I booked my “flight for one” with take-off scheduled for August 20 at 10:15 am.
It was a beautiful sunny Sunday morning and I arrived at 9:00 am just as the museum opened. Got checked in. Watched as about 5 airplanes were rolled out of the hangar and onto the tarmac. Met my fellow passengers and pilots, signed our papers, walked to the runway and jumped in the tiny plane.
There’s room for two pilots and four passengers who each get a window seat.
After a full preflight check of everything including oil, fuel levels, safety checks, etc,… the starboard side propeller was started up.
Harrington was in the air and loved every minutes of it.
You can feel its power while seated inside the craft. Next, the prop on the port side started spinning and created more shaking.
The pilots got the props synced so they’re in harmony and the taxi down the runway began.
There were not many airplanes on the runway that morning so we were cleared for takeoff.
The noise level amped up and the old bucket of bolts got shaking – but you would too at age 77. The earth fell below the wings and we were up in the air – smooth as the breeze.
This particular plane tends to yaw – (move left and right) – something called the “Wichita Wiggle” due to its short length.
If the plane was a bit longer – it would lessen the wiggle.
We rose up over Hamilton – then Aldershot and Burlington to get a good view of the pier.
Quick bank over to the Skyway Bridge and Lift Bridge below it..
The only thing missing was a ship passing through the canal.
The steel mills and then Canada’s WWII warship HMCS Haida were in our sights in the harbour.
At only about 1000 feet altitude it was easy to get a bird’s eye view of all kinds of local landmarks including the Hamilton airport itself.
With HMCS Haida in his sights Harrington might consider the Senior Service – I should take him aboard and show him where I slung my hammock.
Twenty minutes in the air went by quickly – but that was all the time that was really needed.
One final turn put us back in the path for the runway and we slowly touched down.
Modern planes have their third wheel in the nose while these old planes have their third wheel in the rear which requires a certain skill from the pilot to land.
Pilot line up for a landing at the Hamilton International Airport: Harrington is hooked for life?
We jumped out – thanked the pilots and scooted back to the hangar to get our certificates.
It always stirs my senses to think we sent our young aviators up in these tiny metal boxes in WWII – knowing many would not return.
Amazing also is that this airplane was built only 43 years after flying began in 1903 – and now we’re 77 years further in technology.
Big thanks to all the volunteer pilots and mechanics at the Warplane Museum for putting our safety foremost and all the years of maintenance to keep these birds flying.
Thank you to the Gazette for the excellent suggestion.
I have already selected the C-47 Dakota for my next trip – which is a bigger plane and a longer flight @ 50 minutes..
Just need to find 10 fellow passengers.
Related news story:
Warplane Museum offering flight in vintage aircraft
This was a great read. I wave at you all when you fly over our house (one block north of Joe Brant). Been there for over 1/2 a century.
There’s two things that NEVER get old for me; the lakers coming in and the beautiful birds flying over our house. It was a time-honoured tradition that our family would attend the Air Shows at Hamilton Airport for father’s day. Miss those days. Miss my pop :- ( Thank you for this 🙂