10-year-old among the youngest to ride in plane housed in Hamilton
Dartmouth boy crowd-funds flight in iconic Lancaster bomber
A 10-year-old Nova Scotia boy has crowd-funded his way to a dream flight in Hamilton’s iconic Lancaster bomber.
Euan MacDonald started raising money this year with hoarded allowance and bottle drives to pay the $3,500 needed for a trip in the famed Second World War bomber housed in the Canadian Warplane Heritage Museum.
But his hopes really took flight after an enthusiastic online GoFundMe campaign — he makes heartfelt thank-you posters and videos for donors — spurred national media coverage on the weekend. Nearly 60 people have donated and a $1,000 gift suddenly put him over the top Sunday.
“I’m so excited. It’s just my f avourite plane. The other ones are amazing too — the Spitfire, the Hurricane, the Vulcan — but the rarest one is the Lancaster, you know?” Euan said from his Dartmouth, N.S. home Monday.
“There are only two left in the whole world that can still fly. I really want to fly in one.”
Museum CEO Dave Rohrer is pretty excited about the prospect, too.
“We’re pretty impressed with that young man. He seems to know his stuff,” said Rohrer, who saw the media coverage and had planned to offer his own $500 donation.
Rohrer said the 70-year-old Lancaster takes to the sky with paid passengers (you also have to be a museum member) anywhere from 20 to 40 times a year. It can take four people plus the crew in a flight that typically takes an hour.
The paid flights aren’t actually much of a money-maker, he said — but the resulting publicity, either through word of mouth or the media, has “important spinoff ” value for an organization that needs constant donation help.
Just maintaining the Lancaster in flight shape, for example, requires hundreds of thousands of dollars and countless volunteer hours each year.
A 10-year-old would be one of the youngest tourists to fly in the warplane, Rohrer said, but that shouldn’t pose a problem.
“The most important requirements are parental consent, that you’re able-bodied and capable of following instructions and that the captain is comfortable with taking you up,” said Rohrer, himself a pilot.
Anne-Marie McElrone mar- velled at how quickly her son Euan turned his “passion” into a mission accomplished.
“I’ve learned a ton from him — he retains a lot of detail,” she said.
“Just standing in this room I can see from here three different books on military history, a (model) machine gun and his pith helmet … But there was just something extra special about the story of that warplane.”
McElrone said the family supported Euan’s effort in part as a life lesson about the importance of working hard and pursuing a dream. The initial expectation, she said, was to slowly raise cash over time and maybe get to Hamilton in 2017.
Now, the f amily is looking at driving up this summer — and donating any additional funds raised to an Avro Lancaster restoration effort at the local military base, CFB Greenwood.
There are only two left in the whole world that can still fly. I really want to fly in one. EUAN MACDONALD, 10