I was the guest speaker for the annual Canadian Harvard Aircraft Association banquet a few months ago. They offered me a flight in a Harvard as a thank you. The flight was booked for August 19th. Soon after Mike and I took off from the Niagara District Airport, I handed him a Christmas card which said that he too would be going up in a Harvard that day. I’m so glad this surprise was kept from him for the last month, because I was looking forward to it as much as my own flight. He was so excited! We arrived over Tillsonburg after a 45 minute flight, looking down at the Harvards we would be flying in.

We would be having slightly different flights. The aerobatics instructor who provided me four lessons in my Aerobat over thirteen years ago is one of the Harvard pilots. He was going to be my pilot that day and show me some aerobatics in this amazing WWII training plane. Mike would be going up for a non-aerobatic, twenty minute flight at the same time.

The Harvards Mike and I were in barrelled down the runway together and pulled off onto the grass runway, which they used as a run-up area. The sounds of the massive Pratt & Whitney radial engines rumbled in our eardrums – it was amazing! Mike’s plane took off first and mine lifted off soon after. As Mike headed south, we turned north and climbed to 4000′ for some aerobatics. Here we are doing a loop, roll then hammerhead. The forth maneuver was another roll, which Scott let me do myself:

I’m sure you can tell from the laughter that I had a fantastic time. The only bad part about the flight was that it ended. Scott pulled off a perfect landing and we headed back over to the hangar to wait for Mike’s plane to land. As we passed by Vyctor, he looked a little shocked to see me in a different plane:

We couldn’t stop smiling during the flight back home or for the rest of the day.

I had another amazing flight this weekend, which I will happily describe in my next blog post (which will be soon and not months away, like with my previous posts!)

Today’s symptoms: I guess I should explain my symptoms over the last few months, as it’s been so long since my last blog. Things have been rather up and down, but that’s fairly typical. I’ve been having plenty of bad days, where my symptoms have made it tough to get through the day either physically, mentally, emotionally or all three. I try to make the most of my good days, but I’ve been having a hard time getting motivated and staying focused. I think this has a lot to do with being so restricted from COVID over the last three and a half years, which has been rather depressing. We’re still having to be very careful because my MS medication depletes my immune system.