I lost my dad to cancer (Nov. 2005) shortly after his 86th birthday and my 54th birthday. Our birthdays were one day apart and we were as close as a son and father could be. My dad was my Best Man at my wedding.

I am a very lucky guy getting to share birthday cakes 1 day apart and having a father who shared so much of his time, hobbies and talent with me. My father epitomized the book, "A DAD IS FOR SPENDING TIME WITH."

My dad was an aviator -- a WW-2 Instructor Pilot for the Army Air Corps -- a cracker-jack A&P mechanic but most important my dear friend, and a father who always gave his family a stable and secure life. My father was frugal, financially responsible and never, ever tried to impress people with the things he owned. He was one easy going guy.

My dad traveled a lot as a pilot, sometimes flying on trips to Europe and Africa. At about 2 minutes into this 3 minute video, you'll see the jet (A Grumman G-II) he flew to Europe. This jet was based in El Paso and ironically, in the hanger next to my dad's, the Space Shuttle Astronauts had a modified Grumman G-II that they used for practicing simulated landings in at the Northrup Range Landing Site at White Sands, New Mexico. My dad met the first batch of astronauts in El Paso and they gave him a tour of their jet! Pretty cool, huh?

As a kid, I don't have any real memory of my dad being gone on piloting trips a lot because the time I spent with him when I was a kid was always high-quality time. And even now that I'm 55, I still don't think of my dad as being gone from my life -- to me, he is just on another one of his trips.

All I can recall are the hundreds and hundreds (if not thousands) of weekends my dad and I spent in our garage back home building, fixing and inventing things. My father made many of my toys when I was small and these were amoung my favored treasures. He made me cars (powered by electric and gasoline engines) motorcycles and all sorts of great things.

As a kid, my dad taught me how to use tools and eventually, I had enough confidence to build my own airplane (see my other video "Airplane I Built and Flew")

I made two videos for my dad's funeral using some clips from old family home movies, still photos and footage of the airplanes he flew when he was an instructor.

This video is the second one I showed at the funeral at the end of the service. As I watch the very last scene of a WW-2 airplane peeling off into a setting sun, I feel that he isn't gone... but just going off on another flight like when I was a young boy, and my mom is already there to greet him at his next "airport"... (Both of my parents were diagnosed with cancer within a couple of weeks and my mother passed away first.)

I would want any kid to be as blessed and fortunate as I was -- having a father who was a faithful bread-winner and someone who was always available, even into the "senior citizen" years. (less info)