Printed by the Review
Air show attracts astronaut, Lt.-Gov.
Plus an estimated 10,000 aviation buffs to weekend display
Posted By BY JENNIFER PELLEGRINI REVIEW STAFF WRITER
Bjarni Tryggvason can recall the first time he wanted to go into space.
“Oct. 4, 1957,” he said, asking who could remember the memorable event of the day.
The answer “Sputnik” is met with a grin.
“I was a little kid,” Tryggvason said.
“Sputnik was launched and that was so amazing to me.”
From that day, until July 20, 1969, when Apollo 11 mission commander Neil Armstrong and fellow astronaut Buzz Aldren stepped foot on the moon, Tryggvason kept his eyes on the skies, dreaming of getting there himself one day.
Then reality set in. Born in Iceland and raised in Canada, it seemed all but impossible to a then 23-year-old science student that a Canadian would even float weightless in space.
“Right up until (then) I was figuring out how to run away from home, move to the United States and become an astronaut,” said Tryggvason.
“Then I stopped. I said, ‘You’re never going to do it. Get on with what you’re going to do.’”
As Tryggvason later learned, never say never.
In 1982, he answered an ad in the paper, looking for people willing to take part in Canada’s fledgling space program.
A research engineer doing aeronautic studies at the National Research Council in Ottawa, Tryggvason applied. Although he had long since given up on flying into space, he was an avid pilot, a hobby he picked up right after high school.
He was one of Canada’s first six astronauts, but had to wait until 1997 to make it into space aboard the Discovery mission which took place in August of that year. For 12 days, he circled the world 189 times, covering some four million miles.
“I worked the science side of things,” said Tryggvson. “On a vibration isolation technique, to see how fluids behave in space.”
A chance phone call from Garry Beck, the airshow’s spokesman, led Tryggvason to Niagara Falls this past weekend. An avid flier with the Canadian Harvard Aircraft Association, Tryggvason has a network with restorers of the Silver Dart aircraft, which has toured Niagara schools this year.
One call led to another, and Tryggvason was invited to take part in the Friendly Foes Above the Falls airshow held at the Russell airfield on Sodom Road Saturday and Sunday.
Ontario’s Lt.Gov.David Onley was
in Niagara for the 68 Cadet Squadron parade in St. Catharines when his aide-de- camp informed him of the airshow taking place just a short drive away.
Onley, an aviation buff, leapt at the chance to attend and spent the afternoon watching acrobatic flights and the culmination of the day’s events: A fly-over including a Lancaster Bomber.
“We just literally dropped by and ending up staying for the afternoon,” Onley said. “There aren’t many airshows when you can get up this close to the planes.”
The high-profile visit thrilled Russell, whose own roots in aviation go back to the days spent on his grandfather’s farm in Goderich, where he would watch the Lancaster bombers coming back to the air base station after training.
“I’ll never forget that experience,” said Russell, who counts a Messerschmitt 109 E, Spitfire MK9, Hurricane MK 2 and a Harvard as his collection.
That’s why he wants to share his love of aircraft history with the world.
“It has really been a wonderful day.”
Article ID# 1074841
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