Memory is a powerful thing; remembering can be either painful or soothing to the soul. On August 3, Captain Lloyd Waterer, a native to Nakusp, will be in the hearts and minds of friends, family and those who will take a moment of silence when the Snowbirds Demonstration Team complete a memorial flypast at roughly 11 a.m. in Waterer’s name.

Waterer passed away in 1972 when, upon completing a solo as part of the Snowbirds at CFB Trenton, he and the other soloist clipped wings, sending Waterer to the ground, killing him.

Waterer, born in 1947, was a stand-up, small-town man who grew up in Nakusp, attending school until grade 12 when he moved to Nelson for grade 13. Tad Kiyono, local to Nakusp and also close friend to Waterer, says Waterer was a confidence driven, co-ordinated quick-learner.

“He used to have a BSA bike and a Harley, and we’d go riding all over, just hanging out. Then I remember him saying he was going into the airforce as a pilot,” says Kiyono. The two’s parents were close, he added, saying he would always see Waterer at family functions and when Kiyono’s parents moved to Invermere, Waterer’s parents moved there as well and that’s when they really started to get to know one another. Waterer’s father, Floyd, used to own the bakery across from the current Arrow Lakes Theatre. “He applied and I remember him having to go to Calgary for a whole bunch of tests; going around the centrifuge and whatnot.”

When he joined the Airforce at age 19, Waterer went to boot camp in Victoria, B.C. in January of 1967 where he met one of his closest military companions, Chester Glendenning.

The two went through boot camp together and went to CFB Borden, Ontario to complete more pilot training. “We did our primary training there on the DHC-1 Chipmunk, and from there we went to Winnipeg for high-altitude training,” says Glendenning. “Then we went to basic training for the jets in Moosejaw, finished our training there and got our wings August 1, 1968.”

One reason Glendenning thinks he and Waterer hit it off so well was the fact they were both small-town boys thrown into the mix, though Glendenning admits Waterer was a perfectionist and everything came easy to him. “Our confidence level was so high, and Lloyd’s was at the top of the echelon. He became a captain in his second year and then became a solo. He was a driver. Everything he touched he mate it look easy and he did it very well ... he was just a natural pilot.”

The two were close enough that Waterer was Glendenning’s best man at his wedding. “We started out day one in this whole episode and we just stayed together all the way right through.”

Glendenning explained that Waterer was a worker who constantly volunteered for extra jobs. He became a basic training Tutor instructor before he tried out for the Snowbirds, doing flight plans duties with students. To get into the Snowbirds was a whole new challenge for the both of them.

“There was a competition where we tried out for it,” says Glendenning. “We were 23, 22 when we first tried out ... we wanted to hone our skills even more and that’s what it allowed us to do. All of the manoeuvres are taught during basic training, it’s just that we, through training and natural ability, were able to do them at a little higher echelon.”

The two were both part of the 1971/72 Snowbird team, the first years the Snowbird Demonstration Team were flying together.

While Glendenning didn’t talk of many stories of Waterer during their stint in the Snowbirds, Kiyono says he kept in constant touch with Waterer at the time, who would often fly back to Nakusp and Invermere to visit.

“The only time he almost got grounded was, I guess, my parents and his parents were having coffee and he phoned from Calgary and said, ‘I’ll be coming over in about 15 to 20 minutes,’ and I remember him telling me after he flew, looking for his house, and he knew he lived by the hospital but he couldn’t orient himself to where it was, so he came down the lake, turned around and came up a couple hundred feet up and came right over the hospital and scared the hell out of everybody, so he got reported by the doctor there,” says Kiyono, adding an afterthought of another time Waterer was almost grounded. “Another funny incident was, they set him up in a bet in Moosejaw at a dance or something. They bet him to bite a commanding officer’s wife on her [behind], and he said okay, walked across the floor, grabbed her and took a bite.”

The crash itself at CFB Trenton was fast, Glendenning explained. “It was only 5.6 seconds from the time they clipped wings until the aircraft hit the ground, and during that 5.6 seconds he was able to upright the aircraft, even through every time he went to reach for the ejection handle the airplane would roll inverted because one wing was mostly all gone. He had to have both hands to grab the ejection handle, so it rolled inverted so he didn’t eject. He up-righted it and he did that twice and then he did eject just as the aircraft hit the ground. Had he had more altitude ... but our shows were done at around 200 to 300 feet ... a little more altitude would’ve been good in that case, but it would’ve meant we weren’t on show-line, and like I say, he was a perfectionist.”

Both Glendenning and Kiyono were pallbearer’s at Waterer’s funeral which took place in Moosejaw, Sask. “The funeral was a military thing, except for me. I was the only civilian pallbearer. I sat beside Mike and Chester, and Mike was the one that clipped wings with him. I said to Chester, ‘What am I supposed to do?’ because they do that slow march, which he replied, ‘Just do what I do.’”

The crash was unexpected, but the risks were always there. “When we were in a nine-plane formation, you trust the guy like your left hand sort of thing. It’s just the way it works. Through your training and camaraderie. You just trust him so much he’s not going to run into you or you’re not going to run into him, but at times, accidents happen,” says Glendenning. “We all came up to the funeral for him and had a tear and a beer, and that’s just the way it is.”

Kiyono said at his last meeting with Waterer, he’d told Waterer to be careful, and Waterer replied, ‘We’ll fly like it can’t happen to us.”

“I was very fond of Lloyd, and it was a sad day, but he died doing what he loved, and that’s just the way it works sometimes,” says Glendenning.