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Maybe we don't really care why Tim Morgan left


Mitch Cronin

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biggrin.gif Well, some might... Hopefully his family and friends do... for all the normal, human reasons...

This is just a post to hang here as a reminder to some of the rest of us that there are other reasons to visit the AEF laugh.gif

In case you're looking: Wish you well Tim... but geez.... the apparent obsession over your departure from WJ by some members here is getting to feel just a bit wacky...

BTW... if you happen to have too much money now, I can help you with that:

M. Cronin

5027 Franklin St.

Claremont, ON.,

L1Y 1B4

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Enjoy your beach time... Thanks for all you've done - unless, of course, history shows WJ was responsible for CAIL's demise... in which case I'd have to change that to Thanks a lot eh!

....Now... Back to those, "There I was... full power and the bugger just wouldn't climb!" style stories... anyone? wink.gif

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Mitch, I think it is very courageous of you, not only to have taken this stand, but to have spoken out about it. I just want you to know that I am behind you 100%.

I also, do not care why Tim Morgan left. In fact, up until he left, I had never even heard of Tim Morgan. I must say though, if it was really early retirement, why announce it in such a clandestine way - there should have at least been a party. But, and I know I'm probably in the minority here, it certainly isn't keeping me up at night. laugh.gif

BTW, I noticed you just posted your real name and address. I wonder how that got past admin. Didn't you just out yourself? tongue.gif

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Lets see now, dial in the longitude and then dial in the latitude then we set detonation for 15ft for maximum effect for 5027 Franklin St. L1Y 1B4,Claremont, ON. and boom! Hasta la vista Mitchmiester ph34r.gif

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Sorry Mitch, the original thread was started by the Air Canada glee club captain and fanned continuosly by a couple of his most devoted students. laugh.gif

This is followed by the now standard response to anyone who disagrees to said captain that this new person, especially one well spoken must be the original-but-disgraced-in-exile former WJ founding father.

Baldy, I really have no idea who you are but I enjoy your stuff and being mistaken for a man who played such a large part in changing the aviation landscape in Canada shouldn't be considered an insult.

My last commment on this and the other thread.

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Sorry Mitch, the original thread was started by the Air Canada glee club captain and fanned continuosly by a couple of his most devoted students. laugh.gif

This is followed by the now standard response to anyone who disagrees to said captain that this new person, especially one well spoken must be the original-but-disgraced-in-exile former WJ founding father.

Baldy, I really have no idea who you are but I enjoy your stuff and being mistaken for a man who played such a large part in changing the aviation landscape in Canada shouldn't be considered an insult.

My last commment on this and the other thread.

"Mistaken"?

Sure of that?

Do you know Baldy's ID, or are you engaging us in a little willful misdirection?

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Lets see now, dial in the longitude and then dial in the latitude then we set detonation for 15ft for maximum effect for 5027 Franklin St. L1Y 1B4,Claremont, ON. and boom! Hasta la vista Mitchmiester

ohmy.gif Geez Robert... Is my seniority spot worth all that? wink.gif

Jennifer... yes'm, "outed" I is... mind you, I've done that before... just following in the footsteps of our one time fellow and AEF master debater, Neo. wink.gif

- I miss him. (remember his invitations to send him imported beer? smile.gif )

Now now Mr. Dagger, sir..., you know better than to try to "out" anyone here who wishes to remain anonymous... don't you? ...if not, y'oughtta! How many "edited by Admin" bits have we seen here while folks have tried picking you out in the crowd....

Maverick... it's all just words... but when folks start gettin' riled and their blood pressure starts showing in those words... heck, life seems awful short for such silliness to be causing any grief.... If Baldy's here to yak, great, but if he's only here to target one particular poster and cut him down... plthth. Surely even DD had better motives.

...Still hoping to hear from some yarn teller about that time in the weather when suddenly everything went quiet.... wink.gif

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..Still hoping to hear from some yarn teller about that time in the weather when suddenly everything went quiet....    wink.gif

Here ya go MITCH

It was in the fall of 1965 and we were returning from an overnight transport trip up on the DEW Line , We had just passed Timmons and our next checkpoint prior to our home base, RCAF Station North Bay, was Earlton. As was the policy in DND, the Captain and the FO switched seats and it just happened I was taking my turn in the left seat. The Captain, who was to retire in about two years, was heavily engrossed in a copy of the Globe and Mail we had picked up somewhere, checking his stock portfolio. We were at about 7000 or 8000 feet, (can’t remember the correct altitude for direction of flight on that track) and it looked like we were soon going to enter some mid level dark looking stratus.

I mentioned the cloud formation to the Captain who merely looked ahead, grunted an acknowledgement and returned to his paper.

The Dakota, (DC-3), droned on and soon we were IFR. A few bumps occurred and then a bit of rain. It began to get quite bumpy so I retarded the throttles a bit, reduced our incredible forward velocity of 120kts IAS by about 10 kts and the Captain slowly folded up his newspaper leaned forward and stared into the darkness.

Then all hell broke loose.

The rain turned to hail and the racket was unbelievable. The Dak pitched forward, abruptly turned to the left and before I knew it we had close to 90 degrees of bank on. The port engine started to cough and sputter. I fought the hard left bank and managed to get the aircraft to what I thought was level flight but it didn’t happen. We were now in a ever tightening spiral dive which abruptly spun over to a right hand spiral dive. The port engine had iced up and the Captain was pouring the carb heat to it. The engine sputtered and then screamed into full power. The airspeed was about 110 kts, I had the nose just above the horizon on the attitude indicator, full power on, and the aircraft was still sinking. We passed about 4000 feet when the windshield on my side cracked and then split and pieces tumbled into my lap. The right hand windshield split but did not cave in. At about the same time we popped out of the cloud at about 2500 feet, in a tight right hand turn, the wind howling into the cockpit. The hail had stopped and we seemed to be clear of the imbedded CB.

We were both soaking wet and shaking as I put the aircraft into level flight looked over at the Captain, my mouth dry and said, “what do we now??” . I had the speed back to about 100 kts and the wind noise was tolerable and I was surprised that there wasn’t that much of a breeze in the cockpit.

We decide to drop into Earlton and check the damage. It wasn’t the best landing in the world but it was successful. We kicked out all the glass in the left hand windshield, and the crewman pulled all the shattered glass out of the landing light enclosures in each wing. He then found some cat-gut, sewed up the tears in the fabric covered tailplane and used a pair of wire cutters to remove the HF antennae as it had come off just above the cockpit ceiling and was trailing behind the aircraft like a piece of spaghetti. The nose area looked like it had been worked over by a maniac with a sledge hammer and a ball peen,

The Captain called our CO and between them decide it was OK to fly the DC-3 onward to North Bay and they would look at it there. I was relieved that I would not have to be in the left hand seat as it was now seat swap time, as I had just finished the last leg. The Captain climbed in the aircraft and promptly sat down in the right seat. I was told to sit down. His explanation to me that “I had not finished my leg, therefore I would have the air conditioned side and complete my part of the mission .” Besides he added, laughing hysterically , “You’re just a young buck and this will give you the idea of what is was like to fly the Tiger Moth “.

We went home to North Bay at a low airspeed and surprisingly it was not that difficult doing the T/O or landing as long as one crouched down and just kept ones eyes above the glare shield. The funny part of this entire episode is that I don’t even remember submitting an incident report, perhaps the Captain, did but by the next week the entire incident was forgotten except that the Dak was out of service for about 2 months as the nose, which took the brunt of the hail beating had to be replaced.

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Thanks, Kip! Not that its anywhere near as interesting or severe, but I too encountered the absolute worst embedded CB in my entire short career on a bag run flight from Timmins to Earlton (the homeward portion of Kapuskasing-Timmins-Earton-North Bay-Toronto) in a Caravan. As I recall we ended up giving Earlton a miss that night and continued to North Bay...cheers and thanks again. biggrin.gifbiggrin.gifbiggrin.gif

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thumbs_up.gif Right on Kip! Thanks for that!! Well done. Great story.

... but now I havta ask.... ...why didn'tcha just fly around that there dark stuff? unsure.gif

...Did I already tell you about my near encounter with misery in the form of cumulo nimbus infrontof mitchus? ...ferrying a 150 home from Maple to Markham... big, black, grey, and bright white stuff all around.. grey started seeming more prevalent... thought I was heading between two of the darker patches into what I guess I musta thought was gonna be clear on the other side?... unsure.gif (still vfr) ...a familiar voice comes through Buttonville tower's frequency, "Mitch, switch to 1??.8 [whatever the air to air freq was?]"... that was a friend of mine, one of the instructors who worked at Markham, who I'd flown to Maple with in another 150, to get this little airplane...

..clickety-click-click...

"Ya Wally?"

"...you planning to fly right through the middle of that CB?"

"Heck no! I thought this was the way through?"

"Follow me."

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Glad he was there... we went a bit north and flew around for a while in sunny day, bright blue sky, watching an incredible display of rain and lightning just to the south of us... landed uneventfully in Markham once it had all moved south... about half an hour later I guess.

Cheers! cool.gif

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ohmy.gif Geez Robert... Is my seniority spot worth all that? wink.gif

Mitch, just pulling your leg, besides I am a list oner, so I gain nothing by your being vapourized biggrin.gif

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