Restored fighter jet Pilots Turbo Tarling and Joe Molnar stand near the restored Mako Shark T bird #346 fighter jet, which is part of the Jet Aircraft Museum's collection and is hangared in Breslau.
David Bebee/Record staff
— Turbo Tarling’s long distance love affair is as strong as ever after five decades.
The northern Alberta resident comes to the airports in Waterloo Region and London several times a year to rendezvous with his sweetheart, a sleek Cold War era training jet saved from the scrap heap.
“The Silver Star is just this beautiful aircraft,” the retired Canadian air force pilot says, winking as he leaves political correctness behind.
“It’s like a woman. All the curves in the right places.”
The T-33 is a U.S. design. The Silver Star was built for the Royal Canadian Air Force in 1958 and 1959 by Canadair in Montreal. With more power than its U.S. sibling, Tarling said the 656 Canadian-made planes were the sweetest flying version of the thousands build around the world.
“It’s got very few, if any, vices,” he said.
The Silver Star he flies from Waterloo is was purchased from the Canadian Government in 2003 by Rick Hammond, founder of the family-owned Hammond Aviation — Flite Line Services at the airport.
“It’s a hobby, but also compliments our business,” said Rick’s son, Derek. “It’s good advertising for our customers. They notice it.”
The family was also a key founder of the Jet Aviation Museum in London, Ont., in 2007.
The museum has collected five other T-33s, along with a Vampire jet. That British designed plane was the first jet flown by the Royal Canadian Air Force.
“We do it to preserve them,” said Derek Hammond. “Most would have gone to the junk yard if nobody stepped in.”
Waterloo was considered as home for the museum, but London’s airport had a hangar ready to use, Hammond said.
“It’s was really just availability of the airport. At the time, the City of London really, really pushed us to go into London.”
The “Mako Shark” markings were never worn by the Hammonds’ Silver Star, but they were on a Canadian air force T-33 that flew on the Pacific coast.
Hammond has held a pilot’s licence since he was 17. Today he’s 26 and learning to fly the Silver Star that’s based at the company hangar in Waterloo.
It doesn’t faze Hammond that Tarling is teaching him to fly a jet that’s twice his age. “It’s in good shape. It’s well built,” he said.
Compared to the single-engine propeller-powered planes Hammond is used to, the Silver Star is a handful.
“The speed, just keeping ahead of it. Everything happens very quickly in it.”
While great fun to have a jet in the hangar, it’s an expensive hobby, Hammond said.
“A good one of that type, flying in Canada . . . you can probably pick one up for $150,000,” he said.
“It’s not the purchase price that gets you. You need a small army to keep it going sometimes.”
And figure on figure on $2,000 an hour for fuel. But with a top speed of 970 km-h, it does get you places quickly.
Tarling doesn’t worry about the fuel when he fires up the Hammonds’ Silver Star for flights at air shows. He doesn’t get paid, but gets to keep flying a plane he adores. He’s flown some 7,700 hours in Silver Stars, out of a total flying time just short of 13,000 hours.
Tarling, 77, won’t say what his real first name is. He earned the nickname “Turbo” as an air cadet in 1954, and stuck through his Canadian air force career. He retired in 1982, with 11,645 flying hours in 50 types of aircraft, from Sabre and Voodoo fighters to helicopters.
After that, he flew forest fire fighting water bombers in western Canada, then retired – sort of—to Cold Lake, Alta. He keeps adding to his flying hours at the Jet Aviation Museum, along with other former air force pilots Larry Ricker and Joe Mulnar.
Tarling has to pay for his own flights between Alberta and Ontario. While here, he usually sleeps on someone’s couch.
It’s all worth it, to keep the flame alive with his grand old lady.
“I can’t say it’s a concern for me. It’s fun,” he said.
Jet Aviation Museum
Founded in 2007 at the London, Ont., airport, the museum’s goal is acquiring and preserving jets flown by the Canadian military.
Doors Open event Sept. 17, 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. and Sept. 18, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.
Flights planned by T-33 and Harvard training plans, tours of hangar where aircraft under restoration.
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