Remembrance Day 2021 marked the end of an era for British Columbia’s Fraser Blues precision flying team.
The team, made up mostly of air force veterans, has been a fixture of the province’s Remembrance Day ceremonies, air shows and other special events for 21 years.
Founder and team leader George Miller — a former Snowbirds team leader — said the decision to retire the team was bittersweet. At 86, he said he still feels like a young man when he climbs behind the stick of his Navion aircraft.
“It’s a thrill to fly and it’s comfortable flying and it has a real fighter pilot’s feel to it,” he told Global News.
“When I climb in this thing, it’s like the aircraft I flew when I was 18.”
In its more than two decades, the Fraser Blues have had as many as eight members in the squad and have flown as far afield as Calgary, Lethbridge and the United States, sometimes putting on as many as 30 demonstrations in a year.
While every trip in the cockpit is special, Miller said nothing compares to his Nov. 11 flights, which he flies to honour all the airmen he knew who never came home.
“Remembrance Day is our singular most important event of the year, every year since I started it,” he said, recalling one good friend who died amid an instrument malfunction while on a return flight from a training operation.
“His wife was waiting for him in the base cafeteria, they had just had their first child,” he added.
“I remember him, he was my age, and I feel like he was cheated out of six years or so that I’ve had since that happened. I think of him a lot. Remembrance Day is a big thing to me.”
Dave Arnold, who has served as the team’s coordinator and commentator for close to 20 years, said the final flight was sad but that “it’s been a wonderful run.”
“The feedback I get from people on the ground is that it’s the highlight of their day,” he said.
“It’s a solemn and important ceremony, but somehow the planes flying over with the noise and the intensity pound the feeling of the day into people. Many, many, many tears.”
While Miller is retiring the blues, he has no plans to stop flying and will be hanging on to his trusty Navion.
“I’m at that age where I feel this is a perfect time for me to do my last formation trip. And I’m doing it in honour of all those people, and of my team,” he said.
“I feel like it’s time to end on a high note.”