Warbird Information Exchange

Nostalgic flight home for historic bush plane

Last Updated: Monday, October 6, 2008 | 1:48 PM CT



This Waco ZKS-6, built in 1936, operated as a bush plane in northern Saskatchewan and recently made a return visit home, flown by its current American owner. (David Shield/CBC) A 70-year-old old bush plane, a mode of transport that was once the only means of moving supplies and people around northern Saskatchewan, has returned to the U.S. after coming "home" for a visit.

The Waco ZKS-6, built in 1936 and registered for a time as CF-BBQ, serviced northern communities through most of the 1940s, Jack Greening told CBC News.

Greening's late brother George, who died in 1990, flew the plane, nicknamed Old Barbeque.

The four-passenger aircraft, designed to fly executives across the country, was pressed into service for Saskatchewan's lake-dotted north when someone pulled the wheels off and strapped on a pair of floats.

Greening recalled a varied cargo, which included everything from sled dogs to barrels of fish.

Considering the rugged terrain and the often quickly changing weather, Greening said, many pilots, including his brother, developed a special relationship with their planes.

"The adversity, the bad weather that it brings you through and stuff," Greening said, "I don't know of too many pilots who were particularly conscious or proud of their skill, [but] they were proud of the good old airplane that 'got me home again.'"

After its lake-jumping days were over, people lost track of Old Barbeque. Eventually, it was bought by an American.

Jack Greening, left, reminisces with Carl Buck about an old bush plane that worked Saskatchewan's north in the 1940's. (David Shield/CBC) Ten days ago, owner Carl Buck flew to Anglin Lake, about 70 kilometres north of Prince Albert, from Minneapolis, Minn., to fulfill a promise he had made to Jack Greening to bring the plane back to Saskatchewan for a few days.

"[Jack] said I don't know how long I'm going to be on this earth, but I have a lot of old stories to share with you about Old Barbeque," Buck told CBC News, "And I just got goose bumps all over."

Greening said he was happy to see Old Barbeque one more time: "Just an indescribable feeling, I guess. Almost like you could relate it to the biblical story of the son coming home, you know?"