Derek Brown was hurting so much after news of the mass murders of 22 Nova Scotians came out that he felt he had to take to the skies to honour those who had lost their lives.
He saw that fellow aviator Dimitri Neonakis had flown a heart-shaped flight path over the communities affected by the weekend's tragedy so Brown decided to do something in a similar vein.
The result is a route that transcribed NSStrong over Cobequid Bay.
“We all have to sort of try and show our support in our own way in this COVID climate,” Brown said on Thursday afternoon. “You just can't get out and show it the conventional way. So I was inspired by what Dmitri did and kind of wanted to give back to the community somewhat.”
Brown, 47, got his private pilot's licence in Debert in 1995, worked in the area and used to live in Truro, so he has a lot of friends in the area.
He also has a connection to Const. Heidi Stevenson, the RCMP member who was killed in the course of the murder spree.
“I didn't know her, personally, but I did go to high school with her husband (Dean),” the Cole Harbour native said. “I didn't know him that well, but I have some friends who are members of the RCMP force and they know her quite well, so we're all struggling.”
He said he had a splitting headache for days after the attaks and needed to get out and do something. Tracing the outline of the text in the sky seemed to cure the headache, he said.
“It was my first time doing something like that. There's an app on my iPad that I use for navigating, and you can actually just touch the screen and enter waypoints. I kind of traced the outline on a piece of paper and overlaid it and kind of estimated the dimensions of what size it needed to be to fit in the Cobequid Bay, there.”
He said his girlfriend texted him while he was flying to say it wasn't showing up clearly on radar, but he was determined to complete his memorial salute, so he did so and used his iPad to capture a screen grab of the flight plan image.
He never thought that when he put the picture on Facebook as his cover photo, it would go viral.
Brown worked as a machinist before joining the Air Force and did pilot training before moving on to aerial surveying and mapping as a civilian. He retired early to return to his home province.
He said the feedback to his flight aboard his two-seat Searey amphibious aircraft has been incredible.
“It's just kind of overwhelming to see all the messages and everybody saying thank you, in this climate, it's something positive, and a lot of people telling me they've lost friends or relatives and just a thanks, kind of thing.
“I hope it's made people feel a little bit better and able to cope with the situation.”
