Memories take wing in surprise flight
Son goes to great heights to cheer dad, a former pilot who loved and lived to fly
Planes have always loomed large in my father’s life — and in mine.
In 1973, long before I was around, my dad, Angelo Maronese, got his pilot’s licence. A few years later, he and some friends got a plane. It was a used single-engine airplane, CFSQH, and he took everyone for rides in it. One of his first dates with my mother was in the air.
By the early 1990s, just after I was born, Dad’s friends were ready to move on to something faster. That’s when Dad opted out. He sold his stake before ever taking me or my brother for a flight.
Over the years I continued to try to persuade him to take me up in a plane, without success.
Eventually I decided that if I couldn’t fly with him, he’d have to fly with me. And so about a year and a half ago — unbeknownst to Dad — I began training for my private pilot’s licence.
The idea was born in the summer of 2012, when my flight home to Toronto from my parents’ home in Thunder Bay was delayed. To kill time, Dad and I drove past the airport Esso station, where SQH had sat rusting for as long as I could remember.
While I’d heard hundreds of stories, I’d never been up close to the thing, so I convinced him to get the attendant to let us see it. Dad seemed unaffected as we walked up to it, but in his eyes I saw memories stirring. It was obvious the plane had seen better days; when he pushed on a valve, brown sludge came out instead of fuel.
“It’s probably worthless now,” he said hesitantly.
The next summer, Mom called to say Dad had experienced a fainting episode. But when I came to visit and spoke to him about it, he laughed it off.
I was 24 then, young enough to feel invincible. As far as I was concerned, Dad was invincible, too.
But I knew neither of us were getting younger.
So when two flight schools closed at Toronto’s downtown airport in the fall of 2013, I decided it was time to act. I signed up with the remaining one, Island Air.
My introductory flight was in a Cessna 172, which was similar to the SQH. We circled the CN Tower, waved to the EdgeWalkers. And just like that, the flying stories I’d heard Dad tell dozens of time took on new meaning. I was hooked.
Over the holiday I started planning for the big reveal. Maybe I could get SQH airworthy again as a surprise for Dad, I thought. Except when we drove by the Esso station, the plane was gone. The attendant explained SQH had been sold to two Winnipeg pilots.
A definite setback, but I let it go, headed back to Toronto and started practising for my first solo flight.
By early February, I had 17 hours in the air and was feeling confident for my solo despite some high winds. A saying Dad used to have about making mistakes came to mind: “When I worked with Hydro,” he used to say, “by the time you went ‘Oops,’ you were too late.” He often said the same goes for flying.
But though I was the one wrestling a one-ton metal bird into 20-m.p.h. gusts, it wasn’t me I was worried about — it was Dad.
His fainting had rattled me, and a few months later, he fainted again. I didn’t know then that he might have vasovagal syndrome, which, when triggered, suddenly slows blood flow to the brain.
But I did realize he wasn’t invincible after all. And my determination to reunite him with his old SQH gained new steam.
Months later, I finally tracked down its new owner and called him. He was keen to help make the surprise flight happen; he told me that when he was a teen, his father, also a pilot, put off taking him for a ride, too — until a heart attack ensured he’d never get that chance.
That was all it took to push me to complete my licence. I finally booked it for mid-July — on the same day I’d booked a Porter flight home to Thunder Bay.
Shortly afterwards, on the morning of July 23, I convinced Dad to swing by the Thunder Bay International Airport to look at planes like we used to. He didn’t know it yet, but I had rented a Cessna from a local flying club, and my mother and brother (who were in on the surprise) headed there while Dad and I watched some takeoffs and landings.
Then I directed him toward the club hangar. When he saw my mom and brother there, he was confused. “Let’s go for a flight,” I suggested. “What, with Eric?” he asked, referring to a pilot friend of my brother’s.
“No, Dad,” I said. “With me. I got my licence.”
For a few moments, he literally couldn’t believe it. Then he started to cry.
I’d considered what this flight would mean for me, but I hadn’t realized how much it would mean to him.
A few months prior, as part of the set-up to the surprise, I had “casually” remarked: “Too bad we never flew together, huh?”
Dad had laughed and said, “Well, you can’t have everything.”
As he climbed into the cockpit, I looked into his eyes and saw cherished memories coming to life — and a new one taking flight. Maybe you can’t have everything, but I’m so glad we had this.