By Mike Davenport, EAA 89102, Langley, British Columbia
Baker, flight instructor, air traffic controller, antique aircraft restorer, hot rod builder, a man of many talents, willing to share his knowledge and time with anyone who can show an interest.
Born in Bavaria in southern Germany in 1943, he moved to Canada with his parents in the early ‘50s, eventually arriving in Mission, British Columbia, where his father started a bakery. It all ended November 12, 2023, when at 9:45 p.m. he surrendered to his cancers after years of fighting.
In the early days, he worked for his father in the bakery, pulling the early shift, 3 a.m. until whenever, earning the money that went to flying lessons in 1964 at Abbotsford.
He worked as a flying instructor from 1966 to 1970 that included a stint running a remote school in Powell River. Later in 1970, he joined Transport Canada and worked in ATC initially in Abbotsford, then in Langley, and then back to Abbotsford until he retired in 2000.
He and Wendy built a log home in Aldergrove and later added a small shop. When his neighbour needed a bigger shop for his trucks, Werner negotiated a deal to get the original smaller one. This he added on the back of the original, lifting it over the fence with a crane, thus increasing his shop space by more than 125%. Now he had the front for a paint shop and the back for covering and each could stay clean.
His passion for flying included the mechanical side completing restorations of at least five J-3 Cubs, as well as the Porterfield in 1981 and the Fairchild in 1991. He and Dan Holliday together built a Marquart Charger, and he assisted on the construction on Dan’s Piper. He played a major role in the completion of Jim Briton’s Staggerwing. He somehow found time to help me with my Stinson, both in painting and in an engine change as well as many annuals. He obtained his airframe license in the 1980s, allowing him then to do annuals and sign out his own work.
He gave many area pilots their tailwheel checkouts, including yours truly, insisting on only three-point landings and laughing madly when things went a bit sideways.
He taught me and many others how to hand start an airplane, and for those who know how that is done, part of the call out by the pilot is the status of the mag switches; most of us will call out ‘switches off’ and the person propping will pull it through a few blades. Werner used a different terminology, and I quote, “switches say off.” There was a good reason for this as one day, he was starting a Cub, heard the call — switches off — and pulled a blade through. The engine started and a blade struck him on the head. This could have been fatal and of course while it was painful and not a little embarrassing for a high-time instructor; but what was even more embarrassing was the resulting and inevitable nickname — piggy bank — from the slot in his head.
He was a director of the Canadian Museum of Flight here in Langley and for a period applied his expertise in both maintenance and flying to the Waco Cabin, Fleet Finch, and Tiger Moth. When the Mooney Mite was sold, he delivered that to the new owner in Washington state.
The Arlington Airshow benefitted from his expertise as a judge in the antique and classic classes.
His skills were acknowledged by many all over the Pacific Northwest. It was impossible to go anywhere with him and not meet some of his many friends and associates. Most recently at Paine Field where we ran into a fellow Fairchild 24 restorer and air race pilot John Penney, who incidentally flies a MiG-29 Fulcrum for Paul Allen in his spare time, another who had traded his Vampire for a Tudor. And of course John Sessions, the owner of the Historic Flight Museum who had questions on how to sort out his Staggerwing.
The Abbotsford Airshow also saw him participate in many fly-bys, either in one of his own classics or the museum’s biplanes.
He was an early supporter of the EAA’s Young Eagles program and helped organize first flights for some 700 (?) kids here at Langley. He personally flew over 100 kids.
He is survived by his wife Wendy, two sons, Mike and Rob, grandchildren, and countless friends and acquaintances here in British Columbia, the West Coast, and across Canada and the U.S.