By John Wyman, EAA 462533, Chapter 266, Montreal
My father, Bill Wyman, passed away a year ago this past August. He was 87. A year later, I am left with many cherished memories of him and our missions we had together. I spoke of some of those at his funeral but since then a few more have come to light. They take time to surface. I am reminded of him each time I touch his old toolbox or look at the different projects we tackled together. A bolt, nut, washer, or weld is sometimes all it takes to bring back a flood of good memories. These are welcomed moments to otherwise painful ones of how he left this world. I was fortunate to have come home from a flight to at least be by his side in those last painful minutes. I made it just in time. We had a last chance to say goodbye, but it was unbelievably tough. In the end he physically succumbed to cancer, but his dementia had taken its toll, and truthfully, he was no longer fully there as I had known him for all of my life. He certainly didn’t deserve to leave that way. I suppose, no one does, so, while the good memories are fresh, I’d like to share them now for who he really was, from my eyes, and how I was blessed to have him as a dad.
He spent a lot of his spare time nurturing and guiding me in life. I’ve tried to replicate it with my own kids, but it’s not something you can simply copy. It takes time to figure that out — or, at least, it took me awhile. I wish I saw that sooner. I suppose it’s how you are raised that makes you step up and make things right for your offspring from day one. I guess I just hit the jackpot. He led by example. Oddly, there were times I desired even more, but that was asking too much of a man who was, for the most part, an opposite of my brash and demanding nature. He was a soft-spoken man, who, aside from sounding “loud” on the hangar floor (this was before intercoms became intelligible), was indeed a very gentle and kind person. Unlike me, he had patience — oodles of it! I have never seen anyone more patient than him. He had the touch to explain anything mechanically related from turning a wrench to building a bird house in the simplest of terms. “You see, this goes here, and this is how you do that…” would be the start of any explanation. If you didn’t understand his instructions, he’d calmly say them again until you got it. I don’t know of anyone who didn’t learn under his watch. He was a great teacher. He taught a lot of aspiring mechanics the basics, straight out of school, on the job.
The past year without him has seen me tackling all the same tasks he seemingly did with ease. As I repair the Cessna 140’s fabric wing, I stand back every so often and admire his work and the knack he had for it. I will ask myself, “how’d he get the dope so smooth?” Even though I was there for most of the job, I can’t remember how he was able to paint like Picasso using only a roller. Today, with a spray gun, I can barely match that quality of work. That came from trial and error. That showed natural ability. He learned the craft from another great fabric man out in our neck of the woods, Frank Gropler. He took Dad into his shop when they started restoring 690 Lakeshore Squadron’s newly purchased Schweizer 2-33 glider (C-FKRR) in the early ‘80s. There he got the basics, and the rest is history (I will do a full article on it at some point). The torch had been passed.
Dad had considered flying for a living but became disheartened with that thought in the early ‘70s, when he was just starting out as a fully licensed AME. Flying jobs were hard to come by and most of them took you away from home for months at a time. He often said that because his own father went to sea (he was a ship engineer in the boiler room during the war) he wasn’t obliged to follow suit and be estranged from his family. It also didn’t help when a flying instructor chewed him out when he tried one day to get checked out in a Cessna 172. His objective was to just take me up for my 7th birthday. In 1974 he had been absent from flying for a while. Up until that point, he’d flown several taildraggers, mainly a J-3 and a Cessna 140, earning his license initially when he was in the military as an airframe mechanic on the Canadair NorthStar (a Merlin powered version of the DC-4). Money was tight then (he’d just bought a house) and airplane rental costs were climbing, due, in part, to skyrocketing fuel prices! So — to have someone yelling at you and charging a lot of money for it — he bit the bullet and threw in the towel. He wouldn’t take the abuse. He might have regretted that right then and there, but I never knew about it until much later on… 22 years to be exact — and — even then, he didn’t hold a lifelong grudge. He knew what he was good at and was happy enough that if he couldn’t fly them, then “he’d be damn good at fixin’ them!” I was proud that he was proud, and that was all that mattered.
I have many memories of dad that can’t be covered in a summary as short as this. One early one was when he was Montreal’s lead mechanic in charge of Air Transit’s Twin Otter STOL operation between Ottawa, Montreal, and Toronto in 1975/76. This was a government funded “airline” that was set up to explore the feasibility of commuter short haul travel — which would really take hold many years later with the introduction of the de Havilland Dash 8. Dad used that opportunity to finally get me a ride in an airplane after the missed checkout in the 172. He wangled me onboard a test flight and I was allowed to “fly” the Twin while sitting on the captain’s lap. That was truly where I was hooked on flying, and for the next months that was the only thing I could brag about to my friends. Dad even came to my defense the same day, after work, in front of those friends who didn’t believe I had flown the airplane. To my disbelief and relief, he stood at the end of the driveway where my friends and I were playing that afternoon and championed my “flying” to them, how I turned the Twin left and right and maintained altitude. The critics were subsequently silenced, and I had something to be proud about! That instilled confidence. It made me feel special.
I’m most thankful and proud that dad eventually got to fly for fun with our Cessna 120, CF-QWC. It was our second aircraft and the first one I bought outright and flew back home without any help. I got to check him out in it one day when he mildly asked if I could be his instructor. He was my first tailwheel student before I started doing checkouts with the Champ. This time, there was no pressure to checkout. He had already flown the tailwheel Cessna and naturally knew something about it. To our delight he aced it in about five hours without me hardly saying a word, culminating with me getting out of the Cessna midfield, saying “go have fun, do a few circuits, and I’ll see you back at the clubhouse!” (Someone once said that to me). I then gave him a thumbs up, got out of the airplane, shut the door, and walked away before he could say a word.
Dad kept flying the Cessna and a few other airplanes we picked up many years after that day when he soloed, for a second time. He banked more than 1500 hours and was a central figure to the local GA community, offering his help whenever he could and teaching by example. For many consecutive years he was the point man in a carrier like operation at the St. Lazare Flying Club’s annual fly-in breakfast, marshalling airplanes to and from the takeoff/landing zone, and was always keen to help out at the John Scholefield Space Day, which highlighted aerospace themed displays oriented towards youth. For many years he also taught the Air Cadets (690 Lakeshore Squadron) model aircraft building. He even designed the Squadron’s emblem on its crest. The list goes on and on. For every event or group that I was involved in from Beavers to Air Cadets, dad (and mom) was there for me.
I had hoped to give dad a missing man farewell fly-past after he died, but deep down inside, I think he would have shunned the attention. That wasn’t his style. I know he liked seeing other memorial fly-bys on a crisp autumn morning, but to have others called out just for that — probably — in his eyes, would have been a bit much. I’d like to instead recognize his qualities here, where others can appreciate what I have said of him. He often said I was the loudmouth that could talk up a storm.
Recently a flight attendant asked me about my dad, wondering how I’d sum up his net effect on me. I explained in detail how he shaped me into who I am today and how he gave me unconditional support and love. She commented that “he must have been very special.” I nodded “yes” (holding back the tears) and added “that I got to tell him that on a few occasions — but to be honest — I probably never said it enough for all the times he put up with my stubbornness and BS.”
As I said earlier, dad didn’t seek the spotlight. The light found him. Baseball was our favorite sport. The Expo’s in the ‘70s/80s was our favorite team. My view is that life can be summed up by the game. We either step up to the plate and hit a homerun, or we face the consequences of getting benched and seldom being played. Dad hit them out of the park. As a kid, we played pitch and catch together a lot, every afternoon. It was a ritual. I’d try to out pitch him, and he’d try to burn a hole in my glove. Those were fun, fun times. He’d go on to coach softball and be a father figure to many kids on our block. He was the star player, coach, pitcher, catcher, and pinch hitter all rolled into one. I swell up each time I watch The Natural movie, especially the ending (spoiler alert). Just the sight of Robert Redford throwing the ball to his son releases a flood. No one could have ever asked for a better Dad.
PS: It must have been more than a coincidence when I let my first officer read the draft of this article. A controller came over the radio to say that a Gulfstream G5 would be passing opposite to our direction, 1,000 feet above us, at FL410. The Gulfstream was Dad’s favourite business jet. He was mechanically type rated on all of them. He must have been listening.
BTW, dad, I’m still going to have an impromptu fly-past for you at the airfield someday. I haven’t forgotten you. 😉
John Wyman, EAA 462533, Chapter 266 Montreal, is a passionate aviator. When he isn’t in the saddle at the airline, he can be found out at the airfield doing any number of things. He likes to fly gliders, practice aerobatics, work on airplanes and fix stuff.