• Age: 10
• Grade: 5

They were nicknamed Snow Eagle, Flying Knight, Bush Angel, Punch, Doc and Wop. They worked in open cockpits and flew through cold, snow and fog without the benefit of radios, maps or weather reports. They flew over the Barrens, frozen lakes, boreal forests and mountain ranges by dead reckoning and line of sight. They landed on makeshift runways, glaciers, muskeg, tundra and glassy lakes. Comrades of the wilderness, they were Canada’s early bush pilots.

 

L.D. Cross brings us the incredible stories of the brave and enterprising pilots who rolled back the boundaries of western and northern Canada, delivering mail, medicine, miners and all the supplies needed by frontier settlements. Flying such planes as Curtiss, Bellanca, de Havilland, Fairchild, Junkers, Norseman, Stinson and Vickers, they were the off-roaders of aviation, venturing where no others dared to go. Climb into the cockpit with these pioneering pilots for an exciting trip into Canadian aviation history.

L.D. Cross is an Ottawa writer and member of the Periodical Writers Association of Canada (PWAC). Her business and lifestyle articles have appeared in publications such as Home Business Report, Modern Woman, WeddingBells, Fifty-Five Plus, enRoute, Aviation History, and Legion Magazine. She has won awards of excellence for features and for editorial and technical writing in the International Association of Business Communicators (IABC) Ottawa EXCEL, competitions.

 

Cross is also co-author of Inside Outside: In Conversation with a Doctor and a Clothing Designer, which is about achieving a lifetime of feeling good and looking good.

L.D. Cross' profile page

The era of the bush planes and the pilots who flew them is filled with stories of exploration and adventures . . . A recent title that is easy to read and focuses as much attention on the machines and the historical “firsts” as the people who built and flew them is Flying on Instinct: Canada’s Bush Pilot Pioneers by L. Dyan Cross. —Winnipeg Public Library Reader’s Salon

"A fascinating look at an important but unknown aspect of Canadian history." —BC Books for BC Schools/i>

Flying on Instinct: Canada's Bush Pilot Pioneers

“Bush flying began in Canada.” So begins a fascinating look at an important but unknown aspect of Canadian history. After WWI, returning Canadian pilots and a surplus of planes created opportunities for commercial travel, airmail and cargo transportation, and travel to remote communities. Surveying for mining and geological operations; forest-fire patrolling; rescuing the stranded, sick or injured; and bringing supplies to remote outposts could now be done in far less time. Pilots were challenged by blinding blizzards and bone-crushing cold in their open cockpits. Landings took place in inhospitable terrain. Often they improvised with the most basic materials such as wood from a dogsled to fix a broken propeller. The brave and adventurous men and later, women, who were flying “by the seat of their pants” are recognized in this latest volume of Amazing Stories series.