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“Have you ever had anyone throw up in your plane?”

David Watson’s eyes dart to his bright yellow 1952 Harvard Mk 4 trainer airplane and back to me.

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“Never. I usually have sick bags but I forgot to bring them so please don’t be the first,” he replies drily.

It isn’t so much a request as it is an order.

“But seriously, if you start feeling nauseous you have to tell me straight away,” he adds as we head for the cockpit.

Being that he’s sitting in front of me on our 20-minute aerobatic flight demonstration from Villeneuve Airport, I figure he’ll quickly work out if I am queasy or not. Wearing paisley wasn’t just a bold fashion choice for my fly-along; it was a conscious decision to mask any involuntary expulsions.

Photo by Ian Kucerak / Postmedia

Meet ‘The Pilot Maker’

“When people hear trainer airplane they think ‘oh, like a tricycle’,” Watson says, “but the opposite is true.”

“A pilot would typically go from training in a simpler aircraft like a Chipmonk, Cornell or a Tiger Moth and once they’d mastered basic skills they’d move into this aircraft.