To Slip the Surly Bonds of Earth
Posted:
Lunch in Duluth, Wine near Cape Town, and Meetups at Oshkosh: Jim Moshonsky Shares His Love of Flight with Stories – and a Generous Contribution to Confederation College’s Aviation Program
by Graham Strong
Jim Moshonsky’s passion for flying is clear. That’s not surprising for a graduate of Confederation College’s Flight Management program. But it is particularly poignant considering that he wasn’t able to make flying a career. Bad eyes limited his advancement options after he graduated in the mid-1980s.
“My eyes weren’t the greatest to start with, and I guess they got worse. I decided it wasn’t going to work as a career,” Jim said.
So, he put his dreams on a shelf and went back to school. Jim got his engineering degree from Lakehead University in 1989, started working at Venshore Mechanical, and eventually put together a partnership to buy out the founders. Today, Jim has the opportunity in retirement to embrace his first passion once again.
“It’s the freedom. You can go anywhere. You get in the plane and you can go east, west, north, south,” he said. “It’s like they say: ‘A mile of road can take you a mile, but a mile of runway can take you anywhere.’”
Jim, who says he hates driving, had his pilot’s licence before he had his driver’s licence. He earned it through the Thunder Bay Flying Club in the early 80s before enrolling at Confederation College.
“There was a huge aviation community here. There were private airplanes in hangars all over the airport and lots of recreational flying.”
Jim hopes to revive that aviation community once again. He wants to start a COPA – the Canadian Owners and Pilots Association – chapter here in Thunder Bay. In the meantime, he’s embraced his own flying again in a big way, now that his three sons are grown.
“There was a big sabbatical of probably about 20 years. I’d be working out of town five or six days a week. Then you come home, and of course you want to spend time with the family. So, there’s no time to fly.”
Retirement Brings Time
Several years ago, he and a friend bought a 1966 Cessna 172 “for the price of two snowmobiles”. The two friends taught their sons how to fly and took trips to the annual flying meet-up in Oshkosh, Wisconsin. Along the way, his passion for flying grew again.
“I built a float plane about six years ago out at camp – my sons and my wife Kathy helped me with that.”
That was a Lockwood AirCam, a plane designed as the name implies to be a stable aerial camera platform. Jim said it’s fun to fly, but it’s slow and not really built for cross-country flights.
“As I was nearing retirement, I decided to build an airplane so we could travel.”
This year, he completed his own Van’s RV-10 kit plane – a beautiful red and white plane out of Oregon that was fully customizable to many different specs. Jim opted for the four-seater, one of the few of its kind in Canada, because that particular model gave him more options for travel.
At a cruising speed of just over 200mph (321.87 km/h) and loads of room for luggage, the RV-10 fits the bill. Not only is it great for hopping around Northwestern Ontario, Jim and Kathy can take others with them for flights into the States. For example, one day this summer, they flew down to Duluth with another couple to spend the afternoon in Canal Park.
But their flying adventures aren’t relegated to North America only. In 2020 and 2022, they travelled to Africa with three other couples and rented planes for a couple of four-week air safaris. During their multi-country tour, they flew over the scrublands of South Africa, explored Namibia’s Skeleton Coast largely accessible only by air, and even did a flying wine tour in the Stellenbosch region outside of Cape Town. Jim’s passion for adventure is almost equal to that of flying, and the freedom to go places that cars can’t take you is certainly part of its pull.
Aviation Vital to Northwestern Ontario
Jim also realizes the importance flying has in Northwestern Ontario where travelling to places inaccessible by car is part of day-to-day life. There are several remote First Nations you can only reach by air in the summer, and many fly-in businesses thrive on the remote lake resorts throughout the region. Then of course is the fact that Thunder Bay and many communities in Northern Ontario are among the most isolated in the Western world. It’s the airplane that connects them all. Flight is inescapably integrated into Northwestern Ontario’s economy and lifestyle.
That’s why Jim decided to make a generous contribution to the Aviation Program to support this vital industry in the region.
“We need this program here,” Jim said. “Aviation is a lifeline to many communities in Northern Ontario and especially the fly-in First Nations. So it’s important for us to ensure we are training the pilots we need to keep that lifeline alive and well.
“The fact that the program is local means that you can learn how to fly at Confederation College and get a job without ever leaving the region. Plus, this program attracts students and future pilots from outside the region.”
Jim sees his donation as building on what’s already come.
“The ACE facility is second to none. It’s part of what makes the Aviation Program at Confederation College one of the best, if not the best, in the country. It’s given me so much, I felt it was important to give back so that others can make a career in aviation, or maybe just for the love of flying.”
We Can All Help Ensure Aviation Remains Alive and Well in Northwestern Ontario
Confederation College is long-recognized as having some of the best aviation programs in Canada, both in the air and in the hangar. But our fleet of training equipment is aging. We need to replace/upgrade equipment and expand our programming now to meet the demands of tomorrow’s aircraft industry.
You can help along with Jim! To make your donation to Confederation College’s Aviation Program, please visit the link below and select “Aviation Reunion Fund” in the Designation box:
https://www.confederationcollege.ca/department/advancement/donate
Help our aviation programs “Reach New Heights”!