Buttonville Closed - Last Airplane

[Scudrunner]

Found this article on COPA and this stood out.

As of November 27th, there was one aircraft left a Buttonville, a de-registered Beechcraft Musketeer (B19, cancelled Certificate of Registration on September 12, 2022). With flat tires, de-registered and an aircraft owner not responding to the emails and telephone calls from the airport’s management, the aircraft may end up on a trailer and sold for scrap. It is reported that some resourceful pilots are attempting to buy the aircraft and put it back into flying condition. But that’s a long shot.

This is so typical of all the small airports I fly into. There always seems to be a handful of airplanes wasting away with flat tires or worse. One that stood out in Camrose a few years ago the flat tires rim had carved a good two inch gauge in the ramp over the years. I find it hard to believe that the owners just forgot they had a plane and walked away.

At best I hope the pilot kicked the bucket and had kept his toy secret from the wife for all them years but I would think a few letters in the mail would maybe get someone asking questions.

[Colonel]

It’s sad to see Buttonville go - huge blow to aviation in Toronto - but it was a long time coming. It’s the same everywhere as the land becomes ridiculously valuable.

They’re trying to shut down RHV here. They claim it’s for the children but the developers are the ones that are going to become fabulously wealthy.

[Slick Goodlin]

Guess I couldn’t have had the last plane out after all. Oh well, I’ll try at Downsview when that day comes.

[Scudrunner]

I only flew in there once with the Sovereign a few years ago, was kind of winding down at that point but certainly fun to land at in a bizjet amongst 172.

[David MacRay]

I move we buy that muskateer for “scrap” and take it somewhere up northish. As long as we don’t file flight plans or use the registration on the radio who’s going to know it’s flying?

[Slick Goodlin]

Is that Snake’s old plane?

[Colonel]

use the registration

My old friend Cal Moodie has been dead for years, so I can tell this.

He was a 1000 hour (at least) student pilot that I inherited from Bill Whaley. After considerable
prodding, I finally got him to do a rec permit flight test with Lorna DeBlicquy, that rare DPE that
would fly in an experimental. She's long dead, of course, and I was very fond of her. We got along
very well despite the fact that an ancestor of mine had an ancestor of hers killed. Sorry about that.

Back to Cal. He probably never graduated high school but he was one of the most talented people
I ever met. Loved to fly, but was a better builder. I think it was 1990 he told me if I was a pilot I had
to go to OSH, so off we went. I joined EAA at the gate. Life member now, a third of a century later.
Too many perfect airplanes to believe. Overload. I remember sitting, sunburned, dehyrated and my
feet hurting, watching Bobby Younkin do surface acro in a Beech 18 over the north/south runway.
I didn't know there were pilots that good.

Back to Cal. He built these gorgeous yellow cub replicas. Built one, I think reg ETV. Built another one
and a gorgeous set of straight floats. Cal was a pragmatic fellow, so he took some electrical tape
and put ETV on his second cub, too.

I had a cow. People think I'm sort of lawless yahoo but I've spent my life trying to keep the nutbars
around me on a leash, and all I've ever got for it, all my life, is shit on.

Cal explained to me that he could only fly one cub at a time, and he was always careful to bring
his one set of paperwork with him in whichever airplane he was flying at the time.

Jesus.

Anyways, one day Cal died. The day they buried him, it was dogshit wx. Low clouds, freezing
rain, but when one of your pilot friends is buried, you gotta put airplanes in the sky. Those are
the rules, and you have to live by them.

So I take off in one of my Pitts S-2B with Crazy Bobby Hanson in his Pitts S-2B on my wing. He
wanted to lead, but no way, buster. That's a whole different story. We head over to Perth to
the graveyard where they are burying Cal. Shit wx, but Bobby stays tight on my right wing. We
hold briefly over Otty Lake, and when old Norm on the ground with a handheld calls us in, I tell
Bobby to push the prop up all the way, and we enter a beautiful circle over Cal's body in his
open grave. I carefully kept our prop discs at max RPM aligned perfectly with the hole.

Apparently it was obnoxiously noisy on the ground. Nobody could hear a word the Preacher
said. My Dad was pleased. And so I'm sure, was my old friend Cal. I hope he smiled when
the sound of those two props at max RPM went into his coffin.

[Colonel]

Feedback ... I texted my 91 (soon to be 92) year old father a link to the above,
and he texted this back on his phone:

Read your accurate piece on Cal burial. I was there and your account is accurate ...

At the church ceremony there was talk arriving at the runway in the sky and other embarrassing weirdness. It was a blessing that the wierdness spoken at the grave was totally drowned out and by yours and Bobbie’s prop sound. Even his wife said so.

Remember that 20 years ago, Transport Canada said my father's heart was too weak to hold a medical
of any kind in Canada (FAA issued him 2nd class, we continued to fly airshows). Jim Pfaff said Dad wouldn't
live much longer and here we are. If you have a good memory you will recall that Jim Pfaff got the boot
from TC many years later when he got finally got caught on one of his shady deals.