Halifax Electric Flyers Association

Blue skies Frank! It is with a heavy heart I write a bit of a tribute to friend Frank X MacDonald who passed away at his home in Antigonish earlier this week. I’ve known Frank for quite a while and met him through our mutual hobby of flying model airplanes. Frank was well known and respected in the modeling community. He was also an avid kayaker and photographer and posted many photos and videos of his kayak adventures on his face book page. Similarly he also did a lot of bicycling and lately had posted videos and accounts of his adventures with that , often bicycling 50-60 kilometers on any trip. Frank used to drive to Stellarton on dark winter nights where we met at the community college gym there to fly indoor model airplanes during the winter months. Many of the Northumberland RC Modelers club members were Frank’s friends and he will be missed in that group. We modelers hold an annual father’s day weekend fly-in at the Margaree airport ever June and that was the last time I saw Frank in person, having breakfast with him on several mornings at the Dancing Goat near the airport. Many attendees of that event from the Maritimes and further knew Frank from that event. Frank often commented and teased me about my photos on Face book, I will miss that friendly banter! Here are two photos of Frank with his model Mosquito, a British WW2 fighter/bomber. My son Jon had the same model and I made these images at a winter model meet in New Minas in 2011. The two had much fun that day.

Frank was an inspiration to those of us who were dabbling in aerial photography in the early days. This was a time long before the Drone era ( which made things so simple as to be something any fool could do).
Well, back in the mid to late 2000's we were using fixed wing models for aerial photography and Frank was one of the foremost in applying the technique. He introduced me to the Panasonic LX3 which was a light year better than other airborne cameras of that era.
His videos of night flying with lighted models impressed the model aerial photographers around the world https://www.rcgroups.com/forums/showthr ... ghtStryker
It may seem a bit simplistic now compared with what can be done now.
Frank visited Shannon Park on a regular basis and always had some new development to present.
He is a big loss to our modelling fraternity.

So sad to hear of Frank's passing Al, and I appreciate you letting us know.
He sure did enjoy this hobby and was so accomplished at his photography hobby as well.
He contributed several photos to weatherman Kalin M. at CTV and they were shown on the 6pm daily telecast.
I watched with interest for his regular contributions.

My condolences to his family members, he will indeed be missed.

an adventurer extraordinaire - land, sea, and air, summer and winter.
will miss his regular posts of kayaking, biking, and the sights he saw.
S

Here is a link to Frank's obituary
https://macisaacs.ca/tribute/details/40 ... fSGcGJDo6A

Thanks for posting his obit, Andrew, I had been looking for it. One of the finest obits I've read, as he was indeed a gentle man; his loss reminds one of the saying "the good, they die young". I only hope he and Steve are now "hanging out".