True Patriot Love - August 23, 2026


The Airshow That Inspired Dan Dempsey to Fly ✈️#shorts


Episode Stats


Length

1 minute

Words per minute

204.66

Word count

328

Sentence count

18


Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
00:00:00.000 Before we get to your military career and the snowbirds, as a kid growing up, when did you get the bug to become a pilot?
00:00:09.140 When did that first enter your mindset, Dan, that that's what you want to do?
00:00:13.820 Well, really early in life, actually, like I think many kids would say about watching the snowbirds now.
00:00:19.200 In my case, it was way back on the 6th of June, 1959, National Air Force Day and RCS station Rockliffe, Ontario.
00:00:27.340 My dad was a military policeman in the RCF.
00:00:29.560 He was on duty that day.
00:00:31.320 And so there I was down at the air show, and that was the first public show of the RCF Golden Hawks
00:00:36.500 and one of the early shows of the RCF Red Knight as well.
00:00:39.400 And I just remember being mesmerized by these beautiful gold airplanes and then offset by the Red Knight.
00:00:46.740 And then, you know, so I became a big fan as a young kid of flying and air shows and so on and so forth.
00:00:51.800 And so, you know, fast forward five years later to our safe station, Lincoln Park in Calgary, where we're based at the time.
00:00:59.320 And my dad took me out to McCall Field, where the Golden Hawks were flying out of.
00:01:04.460 And lo and behold, you know, they taxi right in front of me.
00:01:07.600 And the pilot at the back, Gold 7, Bill Grip, who I later found out, waved to me.
00:01:13.120 And, you know, there he was now.
00:01:14.980 I'm 11 years old.
00:01:16.460 And boy, that was it.
00:01:17.760 I was hooked.
00:01:18.800 So everything I did from that point forward was to try and put myself in a position, you know, educationally and so on and so forth, where I could join the Air Force and maybe someday be lucky enough to fly in an aerobatic team.
00:01:31.520 So that's how it all started for me.
00:01:33.100 And it's not an uncommon story, I have to tell you.