There were tears of joy Friday as the Airpark hangar garage opened in Guelph, Ont., revealing a family heirloom and piece of aviation history.
Roberta Lau and Evelyn Sue Wong saw, for the first time and in person, the plane their father made nearly 90 years ago.
The Pietenpol Sky Scout was built in 1935 by brothers Robert and Tommy Wong. They were teenagers at the time, and it’s believed they found the instructions in a magazine.
“It was in the early 30s. Everyone wanted to fly,” Wong explained.
Roberta Lau and Evelyn Sue Wong see their father’s plane for the first time on Sept. 13, 2024. (Krista Simpson/CTV News)
With their parents’ blessing, the brothers built the aircraft in their Vancouver, B.C., apartment.
“It was a huge experience for the whole family,” said Lau. “Exciting! Bolts, nails all over the place I’m sure, because that’s what they said. It just filled the room.”
Other family members helped with the final assembly, which was done at a nearby Boeing factory.
Robert, who built the plane even before getting a pilot’s licence, took to the skies for several months to build up his flying hours.
Eventually, he had to sell it when he moved out east.
Robert and Tommy went on to become the founders of Central Airways, a flight school and charter business in Toronto, becoming significant figures in Canada’s aviation history.
Robert’s daughters recall how, prior to his death in the late 1980s, he tried to find out what had happened to the plane he built with Tommy, but it was difficult in a pre-social media era. He did, however, find that there was no record of it being in an accident.
“He could only conclude that it might be somewhere, but who knows?” Wong said.
Then, in 2020, a self-described treasure hunter from Stoney Creek, Ont., took it upon himself to track down their home-built airplane.
Don MacVicar had already located one aircraft that was once owned by the Wong brothers and, with extra time on his hands during the pandemic, launched an extensive search.
Joining him on that quest was Cam Harrod, an antique aircraft restorer.
It took two years but the pair eventually tracked it down to the Sky Scout in Saskatoon, Sask., where the owner was storing it in a truck trailer.
“The aircraft is kind of the holy grail of the Canadian aviation home-built sort of movement,” Harrod explained.
He then purchased the aircraft and brought it back to Ontario.
“Even though it’s kind of beat up, it’s all original,” Harrod said. “The original paint is on, the original fabric is still on it. It’s a true aviation artifact.”
Wong’s daughters now live in California and Singapore but travelled to the Greater Toronto Area for their father and uncle’s induction into the Canadian Aviation Hall of Fame.
Ahead of the ceremony, they went to Harrod’s hangar at the Guelph Airpark to see the Sky Scout.
Wong was moved to tears by the experience.
“That’s what I think now when I see this: how happy they’d be. It’s really quite emotional… this was their love and how the family, the whole family, really got together,” she said.
It continues to be the family’s labour of love, as Evelyn has researched and written a children’s book titled “Ready to Fly,” detailing the story of how the Sky Scout was built.
Lau is happy the plane survived this long.
“I’m very thankful that their family kept it safe all those years and put it in the hands of someone they know is responsible enough to bring this back into history.”
The aircraft will now reside at the Guelph Airpark, where Harrod plans to restore it – a process that’s expected to take 10 years. The goal is to get the aircraft flying again.
“The airplane is alive when it’s in the air. And I want it to be alive again,” said Harrod.
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