Canucks Over Europe

Flying Canada’s colours at every opportunity

- David Fletcher

Aviation has been my passion for as long as I can remember. I had Royal Canadian Air Force radio-navigator wings on my chest before I had a driver’s licence. I had an airplane before I had a wife. So, when I got a very short-notice posting to Germany, I didn’t take a car—ours had suered through a year-long posting, travelling the gravel Holberg road on Northern Vancouver Island— instead, I set about figuring out how to ship our airplane.

It took a while. My wife Carol and I left Canada in August 1990, bound for Germany and the first Gulf War. Finally, in September 1992, a 40-foot sea container housing our Piper Cherokee arrived at the Canadian base at Baden-Soellingen, just as I was promoted and posted to Belgium. The first change to the aircraft on reassembly was the addition of Canadian flags to each side of the fin.

We took our little Cherokee to the Belgian base at Chièvres where SACEUR (Supreme Allied Commander Europe) kept his VIP airplane. We were excited to start touring. The first cross-country trip was to Spa, the famous auto racing circuit in Belgium. Then came a flight to BadenOos, where both the airport and the railway station were located, so our younger son could catch a train to Bavaria.