For my dad's 60th birthday last year, my stepmom bought him a once-in-a-lifetime chance to fly for an hour in the Lancaster WWII bomber based out of the Canadian Warplane Heritage Museum in Hamilton, ON (one of the two left flying in the world; the other's in Reading, UK).

My grandfather was a Lancaster pilot for the last couple years of WWII and then for a few years transporting troops back home afterwards, and over the years my dad has had the chance to fly in a couple other planes my grandfather flew in when he was training (for the airplane junkies: a PT-17 Stearman and a T-6 Texan).

Well, his flight date was arranged with a couple other air tourists for July 17 of this summer. Some of us in the family trekked down with him for the day (with my dad and I flying down first thing in the morning with a couple friends of his in his friend's airplane; the others driving), and I brought along my camera for the day to capture the events.

This is a book I designed and printed recently for his 61st birthday present, including photos from the day with some written reactions to keep the memory alive.

Addendum: I submitted three photos from the book to the 2011 Applied Arts Photography Awards, winning in the Young Blood category.