Ok, it was now or never…I was feeling pressure from the weather forecast of snow flurries and wanted to get out before we were faced with yet another storm delay. Beverly and I assembled all of our gear (cameras, lenses, planes, batteries, etc.) and headed over to our local field where we usually fly – Brother’s Park – just across the street from where we live.

At 09:00, I looked up into the sky; it was dark, grey and overcast, with a very slight breeze from the north. Turning to the flags, they were pretty much hanging limp. I carefully prepared the World Tour Tiger Moth for its Canadian, West Coast flight.

I turned on the transmitter, extended the antenna and carefully placed it on a dry spot in the middle of the baseball diamond. I then picked up the moth, turned it over, connected the lipo to the ESC and placed it back on the ground.

At 09:10, I tested all of the control surfaces, held the tail and throttled up to do a run-up test – everything was fine. I looked over and checked the flags once again. The air was still. Beverly was in place at the outside edge of the diamond. She gave me the thumbs up – we were ready. I took a deep breath and slowly advanced the throttle. The sound of the motor increased in RPM and the moth began to move and pick up speed.

When I reached the edge of the diamond, I was at full throttle. I then increased slight back-pressure on the stick and she began to rotate and was airborne. I felt she needed almost full down-trim on the elevator at first, due my high angle of attack climb out. However, I quickly remembered how the throttle setting affects the pitch of a GWS Tiger Moth and adjusted the trim accordingly.

After flying numerous circuits around Beverly, we felt that we had captured the better part of the flight with the camera. After ten minutes, with my fingers freezing, I lined up with the baseball diamond for the final approach.

Throttling back, the moth slowly settled in its flight path towards the edge of the diamond. Crossing over the threshold, at 09:20 she settled down beautifully and came to a graceful stop. With the prop still turning, I breathed a sigh of relief and felt proud to be a part of the World Tiger Moth Tour.