Through The Mist Darkly

There are tougher jobs around than being a firefighter, but not many that come to mind.  All weekend, there’s been a competition at the park near our house so I took a wander over to check it out.

Teams of men (and women) take part in relays that involve running up 5 flights of stairs, hauling up a coiled hose, running back down, moving a heavy weight with a sledgehammer, running a slalom course, precision hose work and finally dragging a life size dummy across the finish line.  All in about twice the time that it took me to type that out.

These people are in shape!  And they’re not all the young bucks that you would imagine.  A couple of guys in their 50’s were hauling ass through the course wearing 100 pounds of gear.

We see them hanging around the fire halls and shining the rigs but it’s important to remember what they do for a living.  They work hard and we should all be proud of their service.

Two weeks ago, I attended the 60th anniversary celebration for the Avro Jetliner.  The highlight for me was meeting the chief designer, Dr. James Floyd, and having him sign the limited addition poster that was available.  Well, I finally got the poster into a frame.

A beautiful image (and a very poor photo of it) depicting the beautiful lines of a revolutionary airplane.  If you look closely, you notice that the reflection on the runway is not the Jetliner but the Avro Arrow.  Dr. Floyd was also chief designer of the CF-105.

Donald Lawrence caught a shot of Jim signing the poster for me.

The first flight of the venerable Lockheed C-130 Hercules takes place at Burbank, California.

In 2007, the C-130 celebrated 50 years of continuous service.  Over 40 models and variants have been produced over the years.

Pictured above is a C-130H flown by the Canadian Air Force.  I took this recently at the Trenton air show.