Coming full circle
Pilot David O’Blenis has always been a high flyer
Airplanes and the magic of flight have thrilled David O’Blenis all his life.
“I relate my life to aviation,” says the retired three-star general. “I was born on July 17, 1940, right at the beginning of the Battle of Britain, and flying has been the focus of my life from when I was very young.”
He had his first encounter with airplanes when he was just three years old. At that time, his home village of Salisbury, N.B., was one of 231 locations across Canada selected to be part of the British Commonwealth Air Training Plan. The BCATP, administered by the government of Canada, under the command of the Royal Canadian Air Force, was set up to train Allied aircrews during the Second World War.
“Yellow training aircraft were flying all the time,” he recalls. “They had quite an effect on me and many of the folks of my vintage in the village. We saw the airplanes and thought it would be fun to fly.”
That thought stayed with him until he was old enough to join the Royal Canadian Air Cadets. Run out of the local regional high school, the squadron was headed by the school’s shop teacher, who happened to be David’s next door neighbour.
“He was also a ham radio operator and I was interested in that too,” recalls O’Blenis. “But my main focus was to get near airplanes. I joined the air cadets as soon as I could.
“It is such a great program and it helped me in so many ways,” he adds, noting that as well as benefiting from an air cadet flying scholarship, he went on to “an air force-sponsored education at the University of New Brunswick.”
Most of all, he emphasizes, “air cadets made me who I am. I didn’t realize it at the time, but the training in the air cadet program turned me from a shy kid into someone who had self-confidence and started to take on leadership roles.”
After serving for 37 years in the Canadian Forces, accumulating such prestigious decorations as Commander of Military Merit, the Legion of Merit and various other accolades along the way, he moved into civilian life, heading such major corporations as Raytheon Canada, Allen-Vanguard Canada, Allied Signal and Honeywell for the next 15 years. But he balks at discussion of his career.
“I was never interested in a career in the air force,” he says. “We always said if you were a fighter pilot, you never had to work or grow up — a perfect combination. I thought of it as the fun of being able to experience the magic of flight in whatever way made sense, based on the opportunities available.”
Those opportunities included a graduate degree in engineering, teaching at Royal Military College in Kingston and increasingly senior positions in the air force, most notably three years as the commander of Canada’s fighter and surveillance forces and two years as the deputy commander of North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) in Colorado Springs.
The grandfather of four is equally uncomfortable about the concept of retirement. “I didn’t know what retirement was,” he says. “I had intended to work in the financial sector after leaving the air force and had taken some financial coursework in my spare time. Then I was offered a job in the aerospace business, which was a lot more attractive.
“There was a significant amount of good fortune in my life, in the flying business and in the rest,” says O’Blenis, who met his wife, Loreen, when he was a flight cadet during officer training in Winnipeg. “A good part is being in the right place, as well as having been in senior leadership roles in the air force from 1978. Once you get into a leadership position in industry, other leaders become your compadres and you get to know each other. Each time I was about to retire and devote my time to civilian flying, I was offered another job, so I worked in industry for 15 years.”
He mentions in passing that he was awarded an honourary doctorate for helping to establish and provide ongoing support for the University of New Brunswick’s Milton F. Gregg Centre, which leads academic studies on war and society, but quickly returns to talking about the importance of flight throughout his life.
His flying experience includes anti-submarine maritime patrols, air defence and tactical fighter operations, as well as being licensed by the Ministry of Transport as a private and commercial pilot, a flight instructor and a flight test examiner.
“There were always opportunities for me to fly, even when I was in a ‘ground’ job with the air force,” he says. “I have had a licence and flown continuously for over 60 years.”
Much of the time, he has been teaching others to fly, initially at his various postings while he was in the air force and, for the last 12 years, as the chief flying instructor at the Smiths Falls Flying Club.
“In my experience, teaching can be most rewarding,” he says. “Although, there’s no such thing as teaching in my view. There’s learning because of teachers creating an environment in which people can learn.”
This, he adds, is true even when the subject is not popular. “When I taught engineering (at RMC), most cadets were not particularly interested. They wanted to fly airplanes or drive tanks or sail ships. But the feedback was still somewhat positive. Teaching people to fly is always rewarding, because they really want to fly. Whether they’re cadets or civilians, take them to the airplane. They may be very uncomfortable and full of trepidation at first. But after a few days, they are striding, almost strutting, to their airplanes, anxious to get in and make them fly.”
For the last 12 years, David has devoted much of his time to the Smiths Falls Flying Club. As well as having served as its president three times and continuing as the chief flying instructor, he initiated a video and started a museum about the club and the airport.
“I felt this airport needed to be recorded,” he says. “It’s such a beautiful airport and it’s really intended for general little aircraft. It’s a special place that is unique in Canada in being a club and not a commercial venture.”
At a large city airport, small planes, such as the 1976 four-seater Grumman American Cheetah he has owned since his retirement from the air force, were nuisances, he says. “At the Smiths Falls airport, they are the raison d’être.”
As flying remains a key part of his life, it is fitting that his career should come full circle still closely involved with the magic of flight, as demonstrated by small planes.