Pilot Dave McElroy has never had the pleasure of welcoming a single Hope Air patient onboard his homebuilt RV-6 aircraft. But hundreds of them have flown alongside him, just the same.
McElroy is the co-founder of Hope Air’s Give Hope Wings fundraiser and the driving force behind five flying missions – and four more that have built upon his legacy. A total of $1.8 million has been raised since 2017 as a consequence.
From the time he was seven years old and clapped eyes on his first light plane, McElroy was hooked on flying. Alongside a successful career in the lumber business, he’s maintained a love of flight for 59 years and flown over 5,200 hours.
When he retired in 2013, McElroy was looking for his next big adventure, and his path in combining aviation and fundraising impact ultimately led him to Hope Air.
First, he flew a single-engine Piper Comanche around the world in 2014. Then, he lead an expedition of six aircraft around Alaska in 2016.
After that, together with Russ Airey, a fellow pilot he’d met on the Alaskan flight, McElroy began planning his next adventure, this one around South America.
“Russ signed up for the South American circumnavigation,” recalled McElroy. “We said it wasn’t just going to be a pleasure trip: Let’s do some good. I started to think about a charity and somebody mentioned Hope Air. I had been out of the country and wasn’t familiar with them. I picked up the phone one morning and explained that I was thinking of flying around South America for a charity. Would Hope Air be interested?”
A week later, then-Hope Air CEO Doug Keller-Hobson and one of his staff members met McElroy in Vancouver. That September 2016 dinner was the catalyst that launched Give Hope Wings.
Throughout 2017, McElroy and Airey fundraised for their flight with the help of a dedicated Give Hope Wings website. Two aircraft – McElroy’s and Airey’s – would fly the route from British Columbia around South America.
“We were joined by Harold Fast from Saskatchewan and Bob Vance from Victoria,” so there were four of us in it from the start,” said McElroy.
The South American mission took place in January and February of 2018 and raised $520,000 for Hope Air. McElroy stayed in touch. At a presentation at the Abbotsford Flying Club, he met an aspiring pilot who told him she’d donate $50,000 to Hope Air if she could join another charity flight.
“So, that was the beginning of our Alaska flight in 2019,” recounted McElroy. “We decided to see if we could get our act together and do another one. Mission 2 was in 2019, a two-week trip that raised $250,000 to fund 1,000 flights for Hope Air.”
Talk of a cross-Canada expedition began percolating in 2019, but the trip was postponed due to the Covid-19 pandemic. A shortened Sault Ste. Marie, Ont., to Saguenay, Que., mission was planned instead, bringing in $125,000 despite being plagued by bad weather.
In August 2021, Mission 4 saw 15 aircraft lift off from Boundary Bay, B.C., to Churchill, Manitoba. “Social media and the pilot networks brought us all together,” explained McElroy. “It was a 10-day mission, very successful, and raised over a quarter million. It was a wonderful trip; we made some new friends.”
Finally, McElroy and his fellow pilots accomplished their goal of a coast-to-coast flight across Canada in June 2022. Mission 5 took place over three weeks and traversed the country from Victoria to Halifax. “We set a very ambitious target for that, and brought in $600,000,” said McElroy.
“If we set our sights on a goal and then work to achieve it, we are capable of amazing things. You know, the first mission involved four ordinary Canadian businessmen who were capable of doing extraordinary things. Who could have imagined that?”
