At 95, Gene Lemiski of Alberta, Canada, longed for decades to be a pilot again after a short flying career as a World War II airman. He got his chance recently with some left-seat time in a Cessna 172, along with an experienced flight instructor to ride along. Lemiski is a veteran of the British Commonwealth Air Training Plan, a massive effort among several nations to produce air force pilots and crews during the war. He had trained under the program in Canada, flying Fairchild Cornells, Harvards, Anson twins and Consolidated PBY seaplanes, according to Bruce Ritchie, who was Lemiski's copilot for the flight. Ritchie, chief flight instructor at Centennial Flight Centre near Edmonton, said Lemiski couldn't afford to continue flying after 1945, so he set aside airplanes and went on to live his life and raise a family.
This is a companion discussion topic for the original entry at https://www.avweb.com/news/wwii-pilot-flies-again-after-more-than-70-years