MY DESERT BOOTS squelched onto Red Lake’s docks in Northwestern Ontario, Canada and there, right before my wide-open youthful eyes, rocked Noorduyn Norseman CF-BHU. Loaders shuffled freight, others thunked fuel drums onto the aircraft’s plywood floor, and one dragged a fuel hose to the blackfly-encrusted wings. A Cessna 180 skimmed the community’s slightly rippled Howey Bay and settled in with barely a shimmer.
The day before, Ontario Central Airlines chief pilot Roly Heinl had risked his life in CF-BHU’s right seat watching everything my hands touched. No