The summer of 2016 wasn’t the best summer I’ve ever had for flying, but it was still pretty darn good. My Cavalier and I got around a fair bit and went to some places I’ve never been. Plus, I flew the longest leg and fastest I’ve ever gone in my airplane.

This summer was unusually wet and cool. For instance, Calgary in July sees an average of eight thunderstorms. This year there were nineteen of them, some of them real bruisers. The weather put quite a damper on longer distance flying plans.

The big news for my Cavalier this summer was switching to a coarser prop. This really had a profound effect on the Cav’s performance, in both good and bad ways. I’m now cruising regularly between 145 and 150 mph. My takeoff roll is a bit longer, and the climb has diminished, but I can still get out of Kirkby Field with a full load, and then climb well to get to cruising altitude. I’ve definitely gained more on the top end than I’ve lost on the bottom.

The Cav’s flown me to Castlegar, BC, twice this summer, so far. Gary Abel and I went there in May and lunched with my folks. As is typically the case, it was a dream-like flight on the morning outbound leg, and a bit of a rodeo on the way home. I went again in early August and on the return flight things smoothed out considerably once I got into the Crowsnest Pass and then over Highway 22.

Lots of local flights were terrifically enjoyable, too. I flew with an old work buddy on a couple of occasions, and a new friend, Randy Fehr. He keeps his Cherokee 180 on Kirkby Field and flies it often. Barry Davis and I flew our planes to Vulcan and were pleasantly surprised to hear Kevin Cain, Pieter and Markus, all of Indus fame, in the process of landing. We enjoyed breakfast with them at the golf course.

My highlight flight this summer was to Oshkosh. I flew the Cav alongside Bob Kirkby’s Cherokee. Bob carried Carl Foreman and former club member Al Botting. I flew my longest single leg in the Cav, at 333 NM (383 SM) from Cut Bank to Sydney, MT. I also hit my personal best ever ground speed on that leg seeing 183 mph for a brief time on the GPS. It eclipsed my previous best of 174 mph gained last year on the leg from Tuscon, AZ, to Las Vegas, NV.

There was of course plenty to see in OSH, including Bashar Hussein and his son Hamsa, who were camping on the field. Brian Byl was there, too, with his Cessna 195 cadre. We enjoyed parts of the airshow each afternoon. A Canadian act consisting of four Harvards doing formation aerobatics was especially captivating, as were the enormous number of warbirds in another display.

The highlight of Oshkosh this year was easily the Martin Mars flying boat airtanker. Botting has contacts with the Coulsen company that owns the plane, and he arranged for us a private tour early on our second day.

I could throw superlatives at the Mars all day long, but it’s best to describe it as a huge boat with wings. It is truly an engineering marvel and was an incredible treat to experience.

Once done with Oshkosh, we planned to continue on to Dayton, OH, to see the US Air Force Museum there, and then come back through Chicago. However, the weather decreed that we’d have to do that another time. We turned instead for home.

Our first overnight stop was in Brandon, Carl’s boyhood home area. I wished we could have seen more of his old town, but rental cars weren’t available at our late afternoon arrival. Thunderstorms held us in Swift Current for an hour the next day, but we made it home easily that afternoon.

I don’t normally frequent fly-in breakfasts, but I hit a couple of them in one weekend in August. I flew with Gerry Macdonald, Mike Sweere and Glen Bishell into the Rocky Mountain House event, and wound up following Bashar in the circuit with his Merlin. Al Baljak was getting some cross-country flying experience with Bashar.

After breakfast we flew to KillamSedgewick for their monthly Saturday morning coffee get together. I recommend flying there since the flying club members were very welcoming and the club house is a nice facility. Their fuel was really well-priced, too.

The following day, Gerry Macdonald and Barry Wood joined me in the air in their C-182 as we headed to the Fairmont Hot Springs breakfast. I was the last person of the day to get my food, but it was tasty stuff. How do you go wrong with pancakes, bacon and eggs? The flight home was really turbulent between Banff and Exshaw, but this was expected with the winds that had developed. The turbulence was temporary and just a minor inconvenience.

I usually scoot around the south end of Calgary to get home, but this day I decided to see if Calgary Terminal could put me over the top of the city, instead.

Terminal granted my request and directed me to descend from 9000 feet to 7000. The controller vectored me first toward downtown, then from the west edge of the city, direct to the threshold of runway 35L at YYC. Within a mile of the International I was cleared direct to Chestermere Lake at 6000′. With only a few miles left in the control zone, I got clearance to descend to a height of my discretion and cleared enroute to Kirkby’s.

It’s always enjoyable flying in Canada’s controlled airspace system and this occasion was no exception. It was especially cool because I’d never flown over that part of Calgary before, and I got to see my childhood home and community from the air for the first time.

At this writing, I’m hopeful for a few more interesting flights before autumn’s onset robs us of daylight and longer distance flying opportunities.

If all goes as planned, Geoff Pritchard will be re-attaching the Kinner engine on his 1930 Fleet Model 2 biplane, and I hope to help with that project. Once he has a few flight hours with the newly rebuilt engine to establish its bona fides, I’ll escort him and the Fleet on a trip from Kirkby Field to Vernon, where he’ll keep it permanently.

I’m also hoping for one more trip to Castlegar before my folks head south for the winter. And finally, Bashar, Kirkby and hopefully Pritchard and I can complete a trip to San Diego and other points to the south in September. With any luck, there’s still a lot of flying left to do before the end of the summer of 2016.

Not all the sights at Oshkosh are politically correct.

This is definitely one of my favourites.