THE FLYING HADFIELDS

Sep 16

This past Canada Day, as many Canadians do, some members of one particular Canadian family gathered in Ottawa to have some fun and get their photograph taken as a memento of the day. The Hadfields of Milton, Ontario are in most respects like any other Canadian family out for a flag waving afternoon of fun. But that's where the similarities end.

The Hadfields have one common thread that binds them together - they love to fly. Patriarch Roger Hadfield began flying, amongst other aircraft, B-17s for Kenting Aviation and ended his professional career with 25,000 hours as a Captain with Air Canada. Roger and his wife Eleanor passed on to their children many traits: height, dark brown hair, a love for music, work ethic, a sense of adventure and a passion for flight.

His sons Phil and Dave followed in their father's footsteps and are Air Canada Captains today - Phil on the Boeing 767 and Dave on the Airbus A330. Both have thousands of hours in the air. A third son Chris went the military route to follow his dream of being an astronaut. He flew CF-18s, became a test pilot and continues his career today as Canada's senior astronaut. Dave's son Austin is also a professional pilot flying Beech 1900s out of Thunder Bay, Ontario and his wife Robin is a private pilot as well.

So when Dave and Chris' busy schedules found them together in Ottawa on Canada Day weekend, the nucleus of an idea was generated to capture the family in the air in some way. Unfortunately brother Phil was tasked by Air Canada and son Austin had flying duties, but Vintage Wings management did everything possible to make an Air-to-Air family portrait a reality regardless.

This meant ensuring our F-86 Discovery Air Hawk One Sabre, High Flight Harvard and Stocky Edwards P-40 was serviceable and fuelled. This of course meant in turn that key maintenance staff would have to work on the National Holiday, but they were, as always, up to the task. Vintage Wings of Canada Photographer-in-Residence Peter Handley would be the shooter and jovial and experienced Ulrich Bollinger would fly the Harvard as a platform for Handley.

In addition portrait photographer Richard Allnutt would have about ten minutes after the flight to photograph the three Hadfields on the ground. While the team waited for the 90 degree crosswinds to settle down to safe limits, it was decided that the portraits would be shot prior to the photo flight.

The plan was for Dave Hadfield in the P-40 to head down the Ottawa River and the Gatineau Hills away from the control zone and holding off Bollinger's left wing. The P-40 could stay nicely with the slower Harvard, but the Sabre would have lots of difficulty maintaining position. It was decided that the Sabre would do a series of left hand circuits moving east, coming up on the two Second World War aircraft slightly higher that the Kittyhawk. This would prevent the Sabre from being "eclipsed" by the P-40 in Handley's camera frame. Then the group would turn back west repeating the same formation and closing circuits. As it turned out, Chris was able to hold position on the Kittyhawk for several minutes on one circuit. The results found in Handley's memory card afterwards were as good as we had hoped.

After a half hour of shooting, Chris peeled off to join Potter for some dissimilar formation training with the Mustang, but soon learned that Mike had some technical issues and had landed. He then proceeded to suck air though the front end and blow fun out the back hole, spending the next half hour carving turns and setting up low level rips down the runway. Dave and Roger spent the next half hour together flying the Ottawa Valley. For one half hour the Hadfield's held air superiority over the wide river valley and shared a particularly rare and special time together.

We now invite you to join the Hadfields on this greatest of all Canadian holidays as they gather in the sky for some fun and photos.