Soaring over Manitoba’s plains might not be everyone’s favourite way to spend time. But for one 91-year-old Winnipegger, it’s what he was great at.
Glen Buhr first took off in a glider in 1967, when Canada turned 100. Now, 57 years later, he is finally retiring from the pilot’s seat.
He has logged 3,621 flights as a member of the Winnipeg Gliding Club in Starbuck, Man., the equivalent of a flight every day for over nine years.
“It was the way to fly, and it turned out in my opinion, probably the best way to fly,” Buhr said.
He landed for his last time at the end of the season in October, in his personal glider he bought a few years ago.
Over half of his flights were as an instructor, keeping the pastime available for younger generations.
Buhr said he didn’t want to put away his glider, but doctors told him it was time to call it a career, at least as a pilot. But he said he will continue to stay on as an active member of the club, and hitch rides on two-seaters with the other 30 members of the group when he can.
“I really miss flying, and flying on my own,” he said. “Once I can’t do that anymore, I’ll miss the people.”
Buhr bought his first glider a year after he joined, which cost $3,000 that he split with four other friends.
He bought his newest model around a decade ago, at $100,000, over 33 times more expensive than his first model. The new craft allows him to stay in the air for longer.
“It gives you a bigger range, a bigger flight,” said Buhr. “I was checking my logbook, and my average flight time was just under three hours, you don’t just go up there and expect to glide back to ground. We like to go soaring.”
“It’s like the eagles, the hawks, gulls, you see them, and they don’t flap their wings very much,” he said. “They just circle in rising air.”
He said the club has changed a lot while he’s been part of it, membership peaked years ago at around 100 people, but is still strong with three communal gliders for people to use and learn with.
Buhr said while he will miss going up as a pilot, he is still an active golfer and gets crafty with his shots at the snooker table with friends, enjoying the retired life.