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Stan French believed his aging plane needed a makeover.
"My plane, the Ercoupe, was approaching its 75th birthday so 75 years ago this month it was imported to Canada and it became a training aircraft based out of Toronto," said the longtime local pilot who is also the President of Baysar Search and Rescue in North Bay.
"As his year was approaching I just saw that the paint was getting very tired looking and it needed to be freshened up so. So I wondered 'how to I make this look appropriate for its age?' I was thinking what was flying in the RCAF around that age and the Vampire came to mind because it was also a twin-fin, twin-tail and was Canada's first jet fighter," he added.
Then an idea came to him, that maybe he could use his new RCAF labelled aircraft to do a fly-over for the Callander Remembrance Service.
French and his RCAF labelled aircraft done by See More Graphics, will do two fly-pasts, one at 10:55 and the other 11:05 a.m.
"The first fly-past will be from the north along the waterfront at 500 ft so I'll be passing in front of the parade," said French.
"The second fly-past will be from the south at 1000 ft straight over the cenotaph."
French recalls his time growing up in the Toronto area near the Downsview Air Force Base where they flew the Vampire training jets. French's dad was also a squadron leader with the RCAF and served during WWII as a radar technician in Britain and eventually was placed in command of a mobile radar unit in India to protect against air attacks from Japan.
"There was a lot of close attachment to the early RCAF," French noted due to his family ties.
"The fact that I had a chance to detail my plane in such a way that it was going to be reminiscent of those days."
French also believes this fly-by pays tribute to pilots who died during training exercises.
"On Remembrance Day, we think of members of the Canadian Forces that have fallen in war, but in the post-war, Cold War Era the RCAF suffered the heaviest casualties during supposed peace-time activities," noted French.
French received his pilot's license in 1971 on a scholarship through Air Cadets. He believes the Remembrance Day fly-over will likely be his career highlight.
"It was a dream of mine to fly with the military," said French, who served with Army Reserves for 25 years as a Mental Health Nurse and did some indirect military flying by towing gliders through the Air Cadets program.
"This has just been part of me so being able to do a fly-past and pay tribute to those who have gone before me and those who were not able to survive their time as peace time warriors in the RCAF, it is a very special feeling to be able to part of that on Remembrance Day."
