Apstein: What made Roy Halladay fly
From Stephanie Apstein at Sports Illustrated on July 15, 2019:
Twenty months after Roy Halladay’s plane went down, Roy Halladay’s plane goes up. Roy III—Roy the son, Roy the Hall of Fame pitcher—is dead. Roy Jr.—Roy the father, Roy the commercial pilot—is blinking into the sunlight on a small private airfield outside Denver.
He hoists himself into the cockpit and smooths his headset over his Blue Jays cap. He runs through his preflight checklist and taxis out to intersection Bravo.
“Tower,” he radios. “Chipmunk one-nine-five-six Delta is ready on one-two left.”
Roy III never flew in this plane, a two-seat, single-engine de Havilland Canada DHC-1 Chipmunk. Roy Jr. bought it in March 2018, six months after his son’s body was recovered from the wreckage of his own plane, an Icon A5.
He would have loved it, the father muses wistfully. He was always so good at flying tail-wheelers, which require more skill to land than nose-wheelers. Roy Jr.’s profession is also his passion: He also owns half a dozen antique small aircraft, which he rotates regularly. Every time he restores one, he sells it, then goes in search of a new project.
Read the full article here: https://www.si.com/mlb/2019/07/17/roy-halladay-death-philadelphia-phillies
Originally published: July 18, 2019. Last Updated: July 18, 2019.