Canadian Aerospace

Ontario By Air

I created this website to write about what I know and enjoy talking about (all things aviation) and share it with others without the need to be published. An old friend who was a baseball fan had a big map in his house with every major league stadium he'd visited marked with a coloured pin- his enthusiasm for the sport of baseball gave me the idea to do something in the same manner by posting everything aerospace I come across. His goal was to hit all the stadiums before he retired but in my case, there's way too many cool things related to aerospace that I want to see to ever realistically plan on taking it all in even if I limited it to a days travel from my home in Ontario. Nonetheless, I'm up for a challenge and I plan to chronicle as many of the aerospace related things I come across on this website, from airfields to astronauts.
. I have been a pilot for over 30 years and,currently enjoy flying in a homebuilt RV-4 based out of Stratford, Ontario. Hopefully, this website will afford me an opportunity to ride shotgun occasionally in some other planes (jets too!) and share my passion for aviation with other like-minded pilots. Send me your best flying stories, tips, places to visit, photos and of course, Ontario airfield/airport reviews to ed.das@rogers.com and I'll post the best submissions here regularly Photo looking West towards Centralia from my RV-4.

Neil Armstrong was Here

This jet (F5D Skylancer) is a direct descendant of the space shuttle and is the only one of four originally built still in existence http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Douglas_F5D_Skylancer. Project DynaSoar (NASA really needs a better PR department) called for a winged aircraft that could return from space and land as a normal aircraft. I remember stopping here just outside of Dayton years ago and thinking that it would be in a museum the next time around. Sadly, it still sits outside. Neil Armstrong flew this-what are you people thinking? Put it inside. Go.........Go.Go..

Space Groupie

OK, I freely admit, when the opportunity presents itself to meet with a real Canadian astronaut, in this case Dr. Steve Mclean, Canada's second astronaut to walk in space, I get as giddy as a teenage girl at Justin Bieber concert. Dr. Mclean visited our company today to inspect our lunar Rover program so i made sure I brought my special edition Air and Space, space shuttle edition for an autograph.

My RV-4 somewhere north of Stratford

Ontario is arguably one of the best places to fly in the world-lots of places to go, plenty of unrestricted airspace and generally friendly people everywhere you go. Is there a favourite stop you like to make when touring around the province? Where is it and what makes it a great destination? Let me know....

T-28 in Stratford

I always get a kick out of flying into a small airport and crossing paths with a rare bird or uncommon visitor-in this case it was a T-28 that dropped by my home airport of Stratford from Fort Erie on a Father's Day tour. This was the primary carrier training plane for the US Navy right up until the 1980's and still sports it's original arrestor hook. Of course, I never miss an opportunity to get a shot with my RV alongside another cool plane.

Scale Herc

Here's another neat homebuilt in Stratford-a 1/4 scale C-130 Hercules! So this guy decided that he'd design a build his own Herc using Volkswagon engines-pretty cool.

Son's first preflight

My son checks out dad's plane and shows his approval.

To purchase a very cool Avro Arrow t-shirt designed and manufactured by Edward Das Enterprises, click on the following link:

Latest updates..
(CLICK ON ASSOCIATED PAGES AT LEFT TO VIEW)

Mar 21 2012 Akron Ohio
Nov 14 Airplane ashtray update
Nov 7 Cincinnatti, Ohio
Sept 10th 2011 Brantford
Sept th 2011 airplane ashtray update.
July 14 2011 Charlotte, North Carolina