Welcome to the Photo Gallery
Theres no theme to this section. These are just some slides from a vast
collection of photos taken by me over the last twenty five years.
Actually, when I think about it, there is something common to all the images
here - but to demonstrate what it is, look at the picture below, then read
the short story while the images load up. (The first one will take a minute
or so - after that they should come up quite quickly!)
Canadian Armed Forces Albatross over the Maratime Provinces of Canada (Copyright
:Canadian Armed Forces, Winnipeg)
I didn't take this photograph - it was given to me, along with quite a few
other great shots - in the 1980's by the base photographer at Canadian Armed
Forces, Winnipeg, Manitoba. I put it in here because that person - I can't
remember his name now; let's call him Lucky - told me a very sad story -
sad, but probably one which will cause all aviation photographers to nod
in sympathy because they will have suffered similar, but almost certainly
not as dire, misfortunes in their constant search for those elusive 'photographs
of a lifetime'.
'Lucky' was the base photographer at CAF Winnipeg, but unlike me -and you
too, perhaps - he had more civilized interests as well. He liked to race
cars - go-karts, actually. So one July Saturday, he decided to go with some
friends from the Winnipeg Sports Car Club to help them race their kart at
an abandoned airfield twenty or thirty miles north of the city. It was a
great day, and he had a brand new toy to play with - a camcorder.. for Lucky
was one of the first people in Canada to get one, and he was looking forward
to seeing what it could do.
Halfway through the afternoon, with quite a bit of film in the'can', the
go-kart developed a fault. All the guys worked with it for a short while
but it became obvious that spare parts were needed.
'No problem' said Lucky - 'I'll go back to Winnipeg and get the part we need
- I'll be back in a hour or so'.
And so, a few minutes later, he threw the video camera in the back of the
car, squeezed his way out of the car park and headed off to Winnipeg. It
would only take him an hour.
But as all aviation photographers can tell you - an hour, a minute, a second,
is all it takes to miss that 'shot of a lifetime'.
Thirty minutes after Lucky, the only man in Manitoba with a video camera,
left the field, a brand new Air Canada Boeing 767-200, completely out of
fuel and with both engines stopped, spiralled down out of the sky and glided
in to a spectacular and skilful 200mph landing on the race track, scattering
the crowd, ripping off its nosewheel on a crash barrier which someone had
thoughtlessly built across the middle of this former runway, and presenting
the totally camcorder-free audience with the photographic opportunity of
a lifetme!
The 'Gimli Glider', as Air Canada's C-GUAN came to be known after that fateful
day in 1983, may have meant bad luck to Lucky, but the passengers were more
fortunate. All 69 on board escaped injury, and even the aircraft was able
to return to service soon after.
Why did a brand new aircraft run out of fuel , and why did it have no servicable
fuel guages? You may well ask - but it would take a bigger website
than this to explain the catalogue of errors which led to this horrific incident.
Suffice it to say that, at the subsequent Federal Government Public Enquiry,
Mr Justice Lockwood said of the crew, 'Thanks to the professionalism and
skill of the flight crew and of the flight attendants, the corporate and
equipment deficiencies were overcome and a major disaster averted.' (
'Emergency - Crisis on the Flight Deck '- Stanley Stewart - Airlife Publishing
Ltd)
The common theme of all the photographs in the gallery is that they were
all taken on those few, wonderful days when circumstances come together to
give one the luck of the Gimli Glider - and not from days when one feels
like Lucky, the first man in Manitoba to own a camcorder!
Now click on the thumbnail to see the photo! (Use your browser
to come back! )
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