Page 91 - Donnie MacDermid of Margaree Valley: "It could have been worse!"

ISSUE : Issue 73

Published by Ronald Caplan on 1998/6/1

knew how to fly. No. I'm building this one for myself, because I figure I can't af? ford to get into this the way they're talking and buy a share in one. So I said to myself, "If I'm going to have one, I'll have to build it." So I decided to build it. That's how I was going to get into it. And of course then, once I got the thing built, it was now a reality and I had the plane, then I had to learn to fly it. So I went down to Eastern Flying Service in Sydney--Jimmy Shanahan--and I went in and I talked to Jimmy and I told him what my plight was, you know, 'cause I really had this airplane and I'd like to learn to fly it. And he's the guy that test flew that plane for me down in Sydney at the airport. The first flight it made. (How did you get it down there?) Took it down on a truck or a trailer, I forget.... Nev? er been in the air until it went down there. He flew down one run? way in Sydney, come up the other runway, and he landed coming up. I got a picture of him sitting there, too, in the airplane. He's got this big grin on. He's still sitting in the cockpit after he's finished the first flight. (So he had the courage to fly the first plane you made.) He was an expe? rienced pilot to begin with, you see. He flew overseas during the war and everything else. And he was running a flying school there and flying and running a commer? cial service there, doing every day. So flying was his--that was his life. That was his business. It still is.... So then I got into those planes that I got now, somewhat the same way, too. There was a few fellows wanted to get interested in ul? tralights when ultralights start? ed. So we bought one first. We bought a kit from out in B.C. (What does ultralight mean?) Well, they're a lighter aircraft than a regular aircraft, and you can use a snowmobile engine in them, you see. (Donnie built one he called the Scamp. See photo page 85.) Well, that's my own de? sign, that one. It's after we got the one from B.C. Now this was a kit of materials to build it out of, and we used some of the wood out of the crate to build the airplane, because it was better than the wood that was in the kit. The kit, some of the wood was terrible. Great big knots in it across the grain and every? thing. It was terrible. So then I figured--we were running the fib? reglass shop up here then--that was the business that I had that time--Margaree Manufacturing we called it. And between Christmas and New Year's we were closed down for a week. So I figured to myself, Jeeze, I'm damn sure I can design an air? plane that'll fly better than this damn thing that we bought from B.C. Very poor flying airplane. One of the things that was very bad about it, I thought it to be dangerous. Not too bad for me, because I was already an expe? rienced pilot, so I knew how to fly. But some of the other boys that still didn't know how to fly, for them to be starting off to this new experience would be very dangerous. It had an awful lot of sweep- back in the wings. Now, a sweepback works fine on a DC-8 or something that's going 800 miles an hour. But I'll tell you, when Great Stuff 1 f ...to see do & enjoy at the Nova Scotia Museum ??' Follow ImMI the Key Tscfv''mx Education and Cult Museum of Natural History Maritime Museum of the Atlantic Ross Farm Museum Fisheries Museum of the Atlantic Wile Carding Mill Perkins House Ross-Thomson House and Store The Dory Shop 9 Barrington Woolen Mill 10 Old Meeting House Firefighters' Museum 15 Shand House 16 Uniacke Estate Museum Park Lawrence House Fundy Geological Museum Balmoral Grist Mill Sutherland Steam Mill McGuUoch House 22 Museum of Industry 23 Gossit House 24 Sherbrooke Village 25 Fisherman's Life Museum NOVA SCOTIA MUSEUM A FAMILY 0/2' MUSEUMS 11 12 North Hills Museum 13 Prescott House 14 Haliburton House Browse and shop at Aliif-eum in most locations Ql

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