Three days after our Fly-In, I was on my way via commercial aircraft to Calgary to attend the COPA Annual Convention and Fly-In, which ran from July 17-19. The first day upon arrival was visiting with old friends that I had not seen in over 20 years!
On Thursday it was back to work - attending Board of Directors meetings that lasted most of the day. We then moved onto Springbank Airport some 15 miles west of Calgary where the Convention was in full swing. It was reported that almost 700 folks took in the excellent dinner of western beef!
In the crowd we ran into more friends - one in particular from 2003 ... we were on our way home from Oshkosh when about 6 planes including ourselves became grounded in Gore Bay due to terrible weather - Michael Shaw of Orleans ON was one of our 'grounded group' (along with Kevin Psutka and Nick Liddell from England) who got to know Gore Bay quite well after his 4-day stay! Nice to catch up on all the news with you Michael!! Chatted with Cheryl Martel from Oshawa who flew out in her Cessna 172 with co-pilot Doug Raine and his wife Dorothy. They had no problems with stops in Gore Bay - Marathon - Thunder Bay - Dryden - Lyncrest - Brandon - Weybourn & Medicine Hat before hitting Calgary... a total flight time of 19.4 hours!
Fred & Marilyn Bruinsma along with Jim & Jane Farrell and three other aircraft from Goderich got as far as Fort Francis ON where they became grounded for two or three days - so they all left their planes there, rented two vans and drove the 20 hours (non-stop) to Calgary. Moe Hanif (from Kincardine) told me that he managed to get as far as Kenora ON, then was grounded for 5 days because of the weather - he never did make it to Calgary, just turned around and worked his way home via Duluth MN and Gary IN.

At Springbank Airport it was my pleasure to accept a cheque in the amount of $600 from Fred & Marilyn on behalf of COPA Flight #45 Goderich to go into "The Freedom to Fly Fund" (formerly known as the Special Action Fund) This donation from Flight #45 is from various fundraising events they have held over the past months. On behalf of COPA, Thank you very much!

There was much to do on Saturday at the Convention - various booths and a multitude of aircraft. Dinner was held in the Red and White room in McMahon Stadium - a fine facility with a sold-out crowd of 450 in attendance.

On the first day of August, I traveled with Lorne Schroeder to Edenvale for the Annual Gathering of the Classics. The weather was perfect, and visitors from many miles away came to take in this ever-growing event.

Upon trying to land, we had to overshoot twice (the second overshoot was due to another aircraft, eager to get to the festivities, on final about 1/4 mile from touchdown cut the corner, was about 200 feet directly below me and landed in front of me) before finally making it to Edenvale's brand new 13x31 runway, 4000 feet in length. Unfortunately the last 1000 feet were closed due to an accident, of which we thought was a Cessna 190 with bent wing.

Once on the ground, with lots of volunteers we were marshaled promptly to a parking spot. If you like vintage aircraft, this is the place to be, something for everyone! We saw and met with a multitude of fellow flyers, took many photos and enjoyed lunch.

We left around 1:30pm, no problem getting out! Of course, each year is a learning curve, and due to the massive numbers flying in for the show, hopefully Edenvale will have some sort of ground-crew control set up for next year! However, all in all it was a great event and enjoyable day!