Chipmunk Bites are Hard to Shake Off - Episode 57

No, this isn't another crazy wildlife episode, well, wait a second ... it may be consider a wild life aviation episode.  Find out what happens when Susanne's Dad buys a Canadian military primary training aircraft and sparks a love affair that will affect generations of her family. 

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Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:03

Welcome to the Happy to Be Canadian Podcast. I'm Suzanne Spence Wilkins, a writer who lives in rural southwestern Ontario, Canada. Each week I share an original, very short story that will have you laughing and reflecting on the simple moments of our lives. Now, on to today's episode. Happy to be Canadian, episode 57. Chipmunk Fights are hard to fight off. The De Havlin Chipmunk Airplane celebrated its 80th anniversary of its inaugural flight. This post-World War II military training aircraft has been a favorite of mine for over 50 of those years. It was designed by De Havlon Aircraft Company based in Downsville, Ontario, about the same time as the Avro Aero was materializing nearby. The Chipmunk was created to replace the Tiger Moth, a basic training aircraft at the beginning of World War II. That biplane airframe and other basic design features made the Tiger Moth look prehistoric after all the advancements made during the six years of vigorous battle. The Chipmunk was a low-wing monoplane with sleek metal and fabric parts that made it look modern and efficient. There were 1,284 of the aircraft built, 217 of them in Canada, and the others in Britain, and a few in Portugal. The aircraft introduced many military pilots to flight, including the UK's late Prince Philip, who took his first flying lesson in a British-made version and claimed it remained his favorite aircraft. The British version, with its metal frame and glass-paneled canopy, wasn't as sleek as the Canadian model, which had a smooth one-piece bubble canopy to accommodate the flying helmets worn by the new jet pilots. But the chipmunk was not a jet. It had a propeller-driven 145-horsepower gypsy major engine with a gravity-fed fuel system that allowed basic aerobatic maneuvers. I did my first roll in a chipmunk when I was 10. The rolls to the left, when the right wing went up and over were as smooth as a pig turning on a spit. But when my dad did rolls in the opposite direction with the left wing coming up and over, all the dirt and pebbles and small paper chunks that rested on the floor fell into my eyes and nose. I hated that. My dad bought his first chipmunk in 1968. And even though I have flown and owned other chipmunks, that first one was the instigator of my lifelong affection for the spunky little ex-military airplane. As they were pulled out of active service, chipmunks were released to the public in batches by Crown Assets Disposal Corporation from 1959 until 1972. There was a call to submit an offer to purchase to the anonymous Mrs. Bidgood by a specified date. The successful bidder would be notified and the deal formalized. I think my dad's successful bid was around $1,800, which was more money than he ever had in his bank account in those days. After making the deal with Mrs. Bidgood, he went deer hunting with our relatives in southwestern Manitoba. During the vacation, he called home. My mom told him she was buying a new car. She was surprised when he asked her to wait for him to come home so he could see it before she bought it. He had never checked out her car purchases before, but she relented. I don't know how the conversation went when my dad came home, as he had to tell mom that he had used the money in their joint account, where many of the deposits came from her teacher's paycheck to buy an aircraft, a De Havilland chipmunk. I do know that both the chipmunk and the car were purchased, and the marriage lasted for another 57 years. When the aircraft arrived, if it had any sensory perceptions, it would have realized it had landed in a whole new world. Before, it had been handled by a lineup of young military airmen getting their hands on an aircraft for the first time. The chipmunk would take to the air from the asphalt runways of the Royal Canadian Air Force's primary flight school at Centralia and fly solo or in formation along the shores of Lake Huron. Then it would plant itself back on Earth and wait for another ham-fisted wannabe fly boy. The airplane was well maintained by a fleet of military mechanics in huge hangars and repair depots. Now, this chipmunk was the prized possession of a small family that landed it on a grass airstrip at a farm not far from Lake Erie. It was stored in a lean to hangar that was attached to the back of the original frame barn built by the owner's great-grandfather almost a century before. When it was pulled back into its shelter, the airplane's wheels rolled on planks on the soft dirt floor, and the north wall was open to the wind, rain, and snow. A barnboard door had been cut into the back wall so that you could climb from the hangar up into the cow's manger, then walk beside the old farm tools and debris stacked against the wall to the sliding barn door. This was an optional exit route, better than crawling under the low wings that touched each side of the hangar. At the time, chipmunks were still active in the Royal Canadian Air Force, so civilians were not allowed to keep the military markings on their newly acquired aircraft. The high visibility yellow and the rondelles with the maple leaf center and Canadian flag on the tail had to be removed. Also, the military designation number must be replaced with a civil resignation. My dad decided to return the aircraft to the bare, shiny aluminum metal frame with matching silver painted fabric components. There were little remnants of yellow paint edging the circles of the thousands of rounded metal rivet heads that decorated the surface of the airplane. And I loved to pick at them. The aluminum surface, while at first looking like a shiny bullet, was hard to keep clean. Every drop of water or particle of dirt left its mark. But it did look cool with its sleek lines and smooth bubble canopy. While the outside received most of the attention, the interior of the aircraft kept its standard military bleakness. It was a tandem design with one passenger seat behind the pilot's seat. Both were bare metal buckets where, in the military, a trainee and an instructor would sit on their parachutes that were throughout to them, the bulk of the pack, under their bottoms to create a cushion. We didn't own parachutes, so we sat on compilations of pillows and cushions, some more effective than others. On one flight to put in bay on a U.S. island in the middle of Lake Erie, I sat on my mom's lap, sideways, cramped between the control stick that came up from the middle of the floor and the side of the plane. As my dad moved the stick, I was smashed into the hard metal frame with its ribs and rails. I was terrified that I would pull the emergency canopy release by accident and send the acrylic bubble blasting off, possibly into the tail fin. For most of the trip, my mom complained about my bony bum. Those were the days. The re-registration of the aircraft only hit one snag as my dad hoped to have his initials, RJS, as its call letters, but they were already taken. He had to accept CFRS. When radioed out to air traffic control or other aircraft, this identified the plane as a Canadian light aircraft registered to a specific person. Using the aviation phonetic alphabet, Dad, when approaching an airport, would call out Charlie Foxtrot, Romeo Romeo Sierra on the first broadcast, and then just Romeo Romeo Sierra on subsequent transmissions. The call sign seemed fitting because I loved the chipmunk at first sight. Just like the Star Cross lovers of Shakespeare's play, the romance was short-lived. In a couple of years, my dad sold the chipmunk to an American buyer. I don't know why. It was likely for money. He couldn't shake the chipmunk bite, though. When the last batch of chipmunks were sold off by Crown Assets in 1972, my dad put in another offer to Mrs. Biggood. He won the lottery and flew commercially with a friend to Saskatoon to retrieve one of the last military De Havlin chipmunk trainers. It was the rekindling of an aircraft love affair that would last another 33 years. Thank you for listening to this week's episode of Happy to Be Canadian. If you would like to receive an email each Saturday morning that features new short stories and more, you can sign up on my website, www.crazy8barn.com. If you would like to meet me in person and discover another way that we tell our rural stories, please join me at a Barn Quilt Painting Workshop at our beautiful eight-sided barn in Palmyra, Ontario, along the North Shore of Lake Erie. You can find me on Facebook and Instagram at Crazy8 Barn. If you are an Apple podcast listener and enjoyed this podcast, I would appreciate it if you could leave me a favorable review. And that lets Apple know that Happy to Be Canadian is a valuable podcast and it shares it with other potential listeners. I'm Suzanne Spence Wilkins, and I'm Happy to Be Canadian.