Peter Gutowski CWHM Corsair pilot

[D Fisher]

PETER GUTOWSKI, 72: AVIATOR
Air Canada skipper moonlighted as chief pilot of warplane museum


Globe & Mail May 9, 2008 - F.F. Langen

TORONTO -- Peter Gutowski was a pilot all his adult life. He flew everything from a Boeing 747 jumbo jet to a Corsair, a powerful single-engine fighter from the Second World War. Although too young to have flown against the Axis, he performed in hundreds of air shows as chief pilot for the Canadian Warplane Heritage Museum in Hamilton.

Indeed, his life was shaped by the war. Born in Poland in 1935, his father was an army officer who managed to escape the massacre of the Polish officer corps by the Soviets in the Katyn Forest in 1940.

Peter, along with his brother Marek and his mother Sophie, left their family home and spent the war in Krakow. His father made his way to Britain, where he joined remnants of Polish forces. Four years later, he landed in Normandy with the 1st Polish Armoured Division just after D-Day. By the time Germany surrendered in May of 1945, he was a lieutenant-colonel commanding the 2nd Polish Armoured Regiment.

With the war in Europe over, Peter, Marek and their mother Sophie made their way first to Czechoslovakia, then Hungary, before finally meeting up with Col. Gutowski in Germany.

The family moved first to England, then to Canada in 1948. Col. Gutowski, a cavalry officer who won a silver medal in the 1936 Olympics, had been invited to train the Canadian army equestrian team. After that was disbanded, he spent many years instructing at the Caledon Riding and Hunt Club near Toronto. He also trained the Canadian Olympic team from 1948 to 1955.

Apart from his father, there was another war hero in Peter Gutowski's life. His uncle Zbyszek Gutowski, who still lives in Montreal, was a fighter pilot in the Royal Air Force during the war. He was captured and sent to Stalag Luft III, a prisoner of war camp that became famous in March, 1944, for the Great Escape, a bid to flee by dozens of prisoners. Although he never escaped, Uncle Zbyszek's tales of flying likely convinced young Peter Gutowski to take up aviation. Even as a small boy, he was in love with the notion of flight; he filled his school notebooks with doodles of aircraft.

Peter Gutowski spent his teenaged years on the outskirts of Toronto. He graduated from a high school in suburban Richmond Hill and then worked as an installer for Bell Canada. For a time, he shared an apartment with a young German immigrant whose father had been a pilot in the Luftwaffe. The two men became lifelong friends.

While working for Bell, Mr. Gutowski put himself through flight training at Toronto Island Airport. He got his private licence at 19 and started accumulating hours and qualifications required for a commercial licence. His first job in aviation was as a co-pilot with Trans-Canada Airlines, as Air Canada was then called, when he was 21.

"It was October of 1957 [and] we were in the last class to train on the DC-3," said Jack Desmarais, a fellow pilot at Air Canada. "And he finished on the 747-400 in 1995."

At TCA, he was so devoted to his job that when he proposed to his wife, Peggy, in 1960, she remembered him warning that flying was very important in his life.

"He told me 'You'll always come second to my flying,' " she laughed. "All that really meant was that if there was a phone call during dinner that had to do with flying, we would have to wait until he came back."

In 1967, the year he turned 31, Mr. Gutowski was promoted to captain. Although his regular job was as a senior pilot for Air Canada, he loved flying so much that he decided to join the volunteers at the Warplane Heritage Museum. The group restores and flies such famous Second World War aircraft as the Lancaster bomber, the Mitchell B-25 and the Spitfire.

George Stewart, one of the first members of the group, remembers when Mr. Gutowski approached the other pilots. "He was immaculately dressed in clean white running shoes, a leather jacket and gloves. He came up and said he'd like to fly the Chipmunk [a small trainer] and said he'd be pleased to pay for its operating costs."

Within a few years, he was the chief pilot. The others respected his skill. His training as a commercial pilot meant he insisted the pilots flying the old warplanes be prepared for any eventualities and avoid taking chances that might endanger their lives.

"He believed in showing off the airplane, not the pilot. In his Corsair, he would fly low and fast over the field but never do aerobatics," Mr. Stewart said. "His concern for safety probably saved a lot of our lives."

In more than three decades of flying, Canadian Warplane Heritage has lost only one pilot, Alan Ness - one of the founders of the group - who crashed a Fairey Firefly at the Canadian National Exhibition Air show in 1977. Peter Gutowski was in the air at the time in a B-25.

"We saw the plane go in and for five minutes, I didn't know whether or not it was Peter," said Peggy Gutowski. "We were discussing just last month how, over the years, 32 of his friends had died in air shows."

His family travelled to many shows, and his wife went up with him in more than one of his "war birds," as the pilots call their vintage aircraft. The air shows were usually in Hamilton or Toronto but could be as far afield as Texas or the Rickenbacker Airfield in Columbus, Ohio.

Mr. Gutowski's mainstay at the air shows was the Chance Vought Corsair, a carrier-launched fighter capable of speeds in excess of 700 kilometres an hour. Although U.S.-built, it was also used extensively by the Royal Navy. One of them was flown by Canadian lieutenant Robert Hampton Gray in the closing days of the war. He was posthumously awarded the Victoria Cross for an heroic attack on a Japanese destroyer, and the museum chose to name its Corsair after him. Although a favourite with the crowds, it was sold several years ago to an American collector for about $1-million.

After 38 years at Air Canada, Mr. Gutowski was forced to retire at 60. He immediately landed a job flying a Cessna Citation, a small jet, for Roblin Enterprises. "Peter was so keen to fly. As soon as you called him, he'd answer, 'Where am I going?' If you needed him, he was always available," said Micheline Bocock, the dispatcher whose husband owned Roblin Enterprises.

Mr. Gutowski flew corporate jets all over North America for 11 years. One of the principal customers was Magna, the maker of auto parts based in Aurora, Ont.

He retired after he was diagnosed with cancer, but continued to fly for the Warplane Heritage Museum, and took to the skies last fall while his disease was in remission.

In 53 years of flying, he logged 30,000 hours in the air. That's 1,250 days - nearly 3½ years. In that time, he flew eight different types of aircraft for TCA and Air Canada: Douglas DC-3; Viscount; Vanguard; DC-8; DC-9; Boeing 727; 767 and two types of 747. At air shows, he flew the Chipmunk, Tiger Moth, Anson, Harvard, Corsair, B-25 and Invader.

All this without an accident, although he did experience what pilots call "incidents."

"He had some emergencies - who hasn't? Even when he had problems, he always managed to get it down," Mr. Desmarais said. "Pilots like him come along two or three times in a generation. He was a natural. You either have it or you don't, and he had it."

Peter Gutowski was born Nov. 17, 1935, in Leszno, Poland. He died of cancer at home in Toronto on March 31, 2008. He was 72. He is survived by wife Peggy and daughter Michele.

[mustangpilot]

Wow, I just got an email from Peter a couple of months ago asking how the Corsair was doing. He was a great instructor. He gave me a Corsair check out over the phone. A very nice guy. Very sad to hear of his passing.

[PbyCat-Guy]

Happy flying, and smooth skies sir! RIP.

[Greg87]

Very nice article about Peter. About 9 years ago he was the first pilot at CWH to take me up for a flight in a museum aircraft. We went up for some circuits in the Chipmunk. After that flight I decided that some day I would get my pilots license (which I eventually did), which is impressive because until then I had been somewhat afraid of flying! He was a great man, and will always be remembered by many around the museum. It was always a pleasure to hear his stories, and anyone that ever knew him will continue to tell these stories for many years I'm sure. I hope that some day I can be even half as respected of a pilot as he was. RIP Pete, Thanks for the memories