The 1971 Great Centennial Air Race

(Conclusion)

“Any way you look at it, we just shouldn’t be here.

“We should be a little cloud of smoke somewhere between Thunder Bay and Winnipeg...”

Finally in Victoria, and safe and sound, race participant Timothy Philips was telling reporters how close he and co-pilot Vyrell Mitchell had come to disaster. It was nothing less than a miracle, he said, that their plane hadn’t blown up.

His tale made hardly a blip’s notice in the news. Neither did the aircraft that were forced down, one on a Greenland ice floe. How could they compete with real drama, a fight between two pilots that left one of them bloodied on the tarmac in Scotland while the victor—police in pursuit, and thumbing his nose at being immediately disqualified—calmly took to the air, bound for Victoria?

The exciting conclusion to the Centennial Air Race in this week’s BC Chronicles.

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PHOTO: The Canadian Armed Forces entry raced in style, in a Falcon jet. —Wikipedia