BONNYVILLE - For Steve Racette, it's plain and simple, he just loves flying.
Maybe it's how each take-off and landing are unique. Maybe it's the ease of flying once he's in the air. Or maybe it's having complete and utter control of his aircraft.
Whatever it is, something has the now 73-year-old hooked.
“It’s one of the most addictive things, for me anyway, that you could ever do,” Racette told Lakeland this Week. His love of aircraft started in 1965 after he helped a pilot load his plane with fuel drums in Red Lake, Ont.
“I just got hooked. It’s a thrill to fly,” expressed the Bonnyville resident.
As a farm boy who grew up in a family with 13 children in Saskatchewan, Racette had never flown, and now, five decades later, there's nowhere else he would rather be.
“I got my private pilot’s license in 1967 or 1968. Then I got my commercial license a couple of years after that,” he detailed.
Racette flew around northern Saskatchewan and Manitoba, before settling in for a job flying for Imperial Oil.
“I flew around that area for a while for different companies, then I worked for Imperial Oil in the Northwest Territories and Alaska flying for them, that was in the 70s and that’s how I made my money was flying for those guys,” said Racette.
He retired young and moved to Bonnyville. But retirement didn't suit him, so he started working as a mechanic to keep himself busy, in addition to flying.
Although he does have other hobbies such as old cars and fishing, there's something about flying that keeps bringing him back.
“Why does a person like to do anything? I just enjoy it,” he said. “I never thought about it before, but there has to be something too it otherwise I wouldn’t have done it this long."
Out of his 10,000 hours spent in the air, 70 per cent were float flying.
When asked what draws him to float flying, Racette's response was he loves to fish, he loves to fly, this type of plane gives him the best of both worlds.
If he isn't flying his Cessna 180, he can be found tinkering away on his Cessna 140.
Racette said the older model, the Cessna 140, is from the 1940s and has been quite the project. It needed a complete rebuild and still there's work to be done.
He has had his favourite plane, the 180 he calls Liz, since 1987.
Liz is a 1959 model.
“I always think to myself, in 1959 what was I doing? I was still going to school, I was what, 11-years-old and this airplane was out making a living,” laughed Racette, adding he is technically the third owner of the aircraft.
“This particular plane, it has quite a story to it,” he detailed.
The first owner of the plane had a brother who was also a pilot. He took the other aircraft of the two-plane fleet. Unfortunately, the other brother's plane went down into a lake and wasn't found for 60 years.
“It’s actually a sad story,” Racette said, adding the surviving plane of the fleet was Liz.
“This airplane now has 13,000 hours of air time on it. It’s flown lots."
Racette said Liz is "a real good plane."
Not only is it on floats, but it also has skis.
"It does everything I want to do with a plane," expressed Racette. “I’m not the type of person who wants to fly an airplane to the city and do something there. My thing is I like to go fishing.”
While he couldn't pinpoint any favourite memories as there were too many to count, Racette reflected on a recent trip to Charles Lake.
"It was a good trip, just my friends and I,” he described.
But where there are good times, there are bad.
“I’ve been forced down twice, and I am going to say it was my fault both times, it was fuel issues both times," Racette explained. “A lot of times where we were flying, we were fueling out of barrels and sometimes these barrels sit and accumulate moisture. If you’re in a rush sometimes you pump it anyway and you get water, and that doesn’t burn.”
Racette was lucky, and both times the engine stopped he was able to glide down to the water.
“As far as ever feeling I was in peril, I suppose I must have had times but I don’t recall an issue I didn’t feel I wasn’t in control,” said Racette. “There are times when you fly and it’s really nasty weather and you think, ‘boy, I really didn’t make a good decision in being out here,’ and that’s what mostly gets people into trouble, is flying above their abilities or the aircraft's abilities."
During the warmer seasons, Racette's Cessna 180 can be found floating on Manatokan Lake when not in the air. His Cessna 140 on the other hand has a bit of work to go before it will be ready to take to the sky.
For now, it's stored at a friend's place so he can tinker away on the project.
While technology may be an issue for some pilots, Racette hasn't had to worry about it too much because the types of planes he chooses are analog.
"It's not a computer flying the plane, you're the one flying it," stressed Racette. "If the plane does something it's because you did it."
With over 50 years under his wings, Racette isn't showing any signs of turning in his pilot's log.
In fact, he said, he plans to keep flying until someone of authority tells him not to.
