Gone west

I have the sad duty to announce my long time friend Hal Schulz died in the crash of his 172 on the west side of Vancouver Island on Sat afternoon.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/cessna-plane-crash-vancouver-island-1.5406364

I first met Hal in the Canadian Armed Forces, at that time we were not air force, in name. I had just purchased a Taylorcraft and had ground looped it (no damage) and was afraid to fly it again.

He noticed and offered to check me out. We spent an hour driving up and down the 10k runway at CFB Cold Lake and I have never had a problem with any taildragger since.

He has for the last number of years, 10 or 15, not sure, had a contract with NOAA to do air sampling on the west side of the island.

He was based out of Courtney air park and once a week he would climb to 10k feet over the west shore and circling down would activate a switch which took air samples every 1000 ft. at the same time a light house nearby would sample so a complete column of air was measured from 10k to sea level.

He confirmed for me co2 levels are definitely rising.

He had done this same flight hundreds of times but this time something went wrong.

His wife called SAR when he didn't get back and they recovered him on Sunday morning.

He is survived by his wife Vivian and two daughters.

He is number 14 of friends killed in airplanes.

We discussed this several years ago and both agreed this would not deter us from flying.


It will not.

Ray

Can you tell me how EAA membership finds out when one of us goes west? Hal was a long time member of EAA.

Ray

Quote:

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Originally Posted by raytoews

Can you tell me how EAA membership finds out when one of us goes west? Hal was a long time member of EAA.

Ray

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I've often wondered about that as well when I glance over the section in the mag. I'm going to guess that when membership expires and is not renewed, a renewal follow up letter or phone call is received and a family member of the deceased provides EAA with the news. Of courser this would not apply to life members who go west so I don't know how that info is received unless family automatically gets in touch.

I was always under the impression that the chapter submitted something to EAA.

I dont think Hal was a chapter member.
So if there is someone from hdqrs watching.

Hi Ray - sorry to hear of the loss. Sounds like Hal was quite a guy.

Generally speaking, a family member or friend calls our Member Services department to report that someone has died. They are marked as deceased in our membership database and then, on a set day every month, I pull the list of those reported during the previous month and that’s the list the runs in the magazine.

I hope this helps answer your question.

Regards,

Hal


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Thanks Hal. I imagine the list gets linger every year.

Ray