harvards flew over my house, didn't think to grab camera until too late
STRATFORD - People looking skyward over Stratford's airport Sunday morning will see two vintage Harvard Mark IV trainers roar past in formation. The trailing aircraft will peel away in a classic missing man flypast.
The salute is for Gil Ruston, killed in a crash in his Harvard Mark IV, 40 years ago to the day during an air show.
Riding in the first yellow plane will be Dean Ruston, 48, who arranged the tribute to his father. In the backseat of the second plane will be his 17-year-old son Gil, named for the grandfather he never got to meet.
They'll take off from Tillsonburg airport with two members of the Canadian Harvard Aircraft Association and fly over Stratford Municipal Airport at 11 a.m.
"It's hard to say how emotional it will be until I actually get in and see that big red radial engine start up and barf out the black smoke and taxi down the runway and lift off," said Ruston, who lives in Toronto.
He hopes his son comes away with a sense of the passion his grandfather had for flying.
"He's pretty stoked."
Gil Ruston was raised in nearby Wartburg but by 1971 was living in Georgetown with his wife and their three children. The recreational flyer was a partner in an RV dealership in Hamilton.
He bought the decommissioned RCAF trainer in 1967 and a year later put together a Harvard aerobatics team. He and three other team members were the opening act of the ceremony for the new 4,000-foot runway at Stratford's airport known back then as the Festival City Air Park.
Ruston said the probe into the crash determined his father took evasive action to avoid another Harvard that entered his path after experiencing "undesirable yaw" but wasn't able to recover from the rolling dive.
Investigators were able to view an 8-mm film of the crash, shot by the late stuntman Lucky Lott.
"From the video, if he had another 20 feet he would have made it, he would have been able to pull out," Ruston said.
Stratford Beacon Herald