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