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My life has revolved around airplanes since I was fourteen years
old. It didn't come as a surprise to me when my three sons all
decided to become commercial pilots. I never remember encouraging
any of them to pursue a flying career. In fact, I may have
suggested alternatives, but that didn't stop them from doing the
one thing that was completely natural to them. All my children,
including my three daughters, grew up reading maps. Each took their
turn sitting in the co-pilot seat acting as the navigator. Their
navigation skills were superior to many of the pilots that I hired.
On one occasion, my oldestson, John, had to map read for a pilot
who got lost when he decided to fly over a fog bank. When the fog
finally cleared, they were about twenty miles beyond their
des-tination, Raney Lake. There were no rec-ognizable lakes in
sight. John spotted a village on a lake and they landed to
ascertain their whereabouts. Once they had established their
location, John easily navigated them back to Raney Lake. That same
pilot never did learn to read a map and eventually got stranded for
several days on a lake near James Bay.When John completed his
commercial license in the spring of 1972, he hadn't yet trained on
the Beaver and we needed another Be a ver pilot immediately. I had
confidence that he could learn the skills q u i c k l y, so I took
him with me on a fire patrol in Biscotasing, twenty miles south of
Chapleau. We we restationed there for about four days when I was
called back to the base in Chapleau for some other emergency. I had
an aircraft fly down to pick me up and left John with the Beaver to
continue by himself. The weather was still very dry and the fire
danger was extreme. Two days later, it began raining to the west
and the Beaver was no longer needed for fire patrol. By the time
John arrive dback in Chapleau, the storm was very close and the
winds were blowing down the river at over 30 mph. He landed the
Beaver in front of the airbase. Then his difficulties began because
he couldn't get the aircraft turned downwind to taxi it back to the
dock......
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