LEROY o@ca.on.middlesex_county.london.london_free_press 2008-03-07 published
CLEAVE,
Marian
Frances (née
HUNTER)
We are sad to announce that Mom passed away on Monday, March 3rd,
2008 at Strathroy Middlesex Hospital at the age of 88. She resided
most recently at the Country Manor in Thedford. Previously she
and the family lived in Port Lambton and Sarnia. Mom was predeceased
by her husband, William Thomas (Bill)
CLEAVE.
She will be missed
by her five children; Carole
CLEAVE of Lake Valley Grove, Babs
and Brian COLLIER of Errol Village, Marnie and Nick
MECHALKO
of Lazy Acres, Tom
CLEAVE of Georgetown and Martin
CLEAVE of
London, formerly Sarnia. Marian adored her grandchildren - Kacy
and Rob WEEKE,
David and Brooke
COLLIER, Mark and Dawn
FAIRBAIRN,
Jay and Julie
SHEPPARD,
Nathaniel
SHEPPARD, Jenna and Mandy
SHEPPARD,
Andrew and
Di MECHALKO,
Mary and Derrik
MECHALKO, Tyson
CLEAVE
and Carrie
LANE and Mindy
CLEAVE.
Her special joys were her thirteen
great-grandchildren. Marian leaves behind her older sister Babs
LEROY and three nieces and their families in California. She
is also survived by Jack and Fran
CLEAVE and many nieces and
nephews in Canada. She was predeceased by Harry and Verna
HUNTER
Frank and Jean
CLEAVE. In honour of Mom's wishes, there will
be no funeral. We invite family and Friends to join us at a party
to celebrate Mom's life on Sunday, March 9, 2008 at 2: 00 p.m.
at the Sarnia Yacht Club, 1220 Fort Street, Point Edward. In lieu
of flowers, donations to the Inn of the Good Shepherd or your
local food bank would be appreciated (cheques only please). Arrangements
entrusted to the D.J. Robb Funeral Home, Sarnia. Messages of
condolence can be sent to djrobbfh@ebtech.net
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LERVOLD o@ca.on.york_county.toronto.globe_and_mail 2008-07-11 published
Ottawa pilot lived for his plane - and died in it
By Peter CHENEY,
Page A3
For six years, Bruce
MacKINNON worked in his garage in southeastern
Ottawa, building an airplane so perfect it didn't need paint
to cover the errors that usually come with shaping raw metal
into a flying machine.
Instead, the naked aluminum skin of Mr.
MacKINNON's
Van's RV-3
was polished to a mirror finish, exposing every detail. His airplane
could stand the scrutiny: Each rivet was flawless, and the panels
fit with BMW precision.
"It was a Swiss watch," said aircraft expert Dale
LAMPORT, who
served as a technical adviser to Mr.
MacKINNON. "
You couldn't
do a better job."
Mr. MacKINNON was a Renaissance man. He was a licensed pilot,
a trained commercial diver, and one of the world's top experts
in the arcane yet critical field of bird and airplane interaction,
studying ways to prevent crashes caused by bird strikes. He was
a highly placed official at Transport Canada, but had spent years
working as a park ranger. He graduated from the University of
Calgary, where he paid his way by working as a machinist.
Mr. MacKINNON was 61, but could pass for 45: He got off the bus
miles before his office, so he could get in an hour of walking
before work. Aviation was a lifelong passion, and he had always
dreamed of building an RV-3, a tiny, single-seat machine that
appeals to purists. He bought a kit in 2000. By the time he emerged
from his garage workshop six years later, he had created a flying
dissertation on the art of aircraft construction, perfect in
every detail.
Mr. MacKINNON's relationship with his airplane was not uncomplicated.
Shortly after finishing it, he considered selling it, concerned
that the dangers of flight might be excessive for a man with
a wife and a young daughter. "He assessed the risk, and he drew
the line in a new place," said fellow pilot and airplane builder
Randy LERVOLD.
But then Mr.
MacKINNON changed his mind, deciding that he would
keep flying after all. A few weeks later, he e-mailed Mr.
LERVOLD
to tell him how much he enjoyed his airplane. "Glad you stuck
with it," Mr.
LERVOLD replied.
And it went on from there. Almost every weekend, Mr.
MacKINNON
would head out to the Carp Regional Airport to work on his treasured
RV-3, then take off for a flight over the green Ontario countryside.
Mr. MacKINNON's love affair with his airplane came to a tragic
end last Sunday, when he died in a fiery crash at Simcoe Regional
Airport, north of Toronto. Although the accident is still under
investigation by the Transportation Safety Board, it appears
the crash was caused by a landing that went bad, bouncing him
back into the air nose-high and creating an unrecoverable low-altitude
stall.
Mr. MacKINNON lived in Ottawa with his wife, Sylvie
LALONDE,
a school principal, and their 10-year-old daughter, Maxine. Ms.
LALONDE
wept as she recalled her husband's passion for flying, and for
the little airplane that ultimately killed him.
"Bruce loved everything about it," she said. "He loved being
in the sky, he loved airplanes and he loved talking to the other
pilots. It was part of him."
Ms. LALONDE said she had always harboured concerns about the
risks of flying, but knew that it would be useless to ask her
husband to quit: "That sense of adventure was important to him.
I couldn't keep him back. If I told him it was too dangerous,
he'd say, 'You don't understand.' "
Ms. LALONDE didn't find out about her husband's death for nearly
two days. She and Maxine had gone to a chalet near Mont Tremblant.
Mr. MacKINNON had planned to spend some time flying, then join
them later in the week.
When the Ontario Provincial Police finally tracked her down,
Ms. LALONDE instantly knew what was wrong. "I know what you're
going to tell me," she said.
For his fellow aviators, Mr.
MacKINNON's crash is yet another
reminder of the risks inherent to their chosen passion. "You
can't deny it," said Mark
RICHARDSON, an airplane builder who
shared a hangar with Mr.
MacKINNON. "… You train, you study and
you prepare, but you can't make it go away."
Mr. MacKINNON was considered a careful, well-prepared pilot.
After completing his RV-3, he travelled to Oregon to take training
with an RV specialist, even though he was already an experienced
flier. "Bruce wasn't a slipshod guy," Mr.
LERVOLD said. "He did
everything by the book." As he built his RV-3, Mr.
MacKINNON
consulted with a long list of builders and experts, picking their
brains on everything from aerodynamics to metal fabrication.
Mr. RICHARDSON, who watched Mr.
MacKINNON take his first flight
in the RV-3 in 2006, said other pilots would study his crash
in the hope that they might avoid a similar fate.
"You learn from other pilots' experiences," he said. "You just
hope that you don't end up providing a learning experience yourself."
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