By Tara de Ryk
March 15, 2010

DAVIDSON-MacGyver, that late '80s action hero who could get himself out of near death experiences with the aid of mundane household items, has nothing on Davidson's Charles Deaver.

Let's see Angus MacGyver build a snowplane out of items from the local hardware store and salvage lot.

This is what Deaver did this past year when he built a single seat snowplane.

The frame for the front ski is off an old snowmobile, the bottom of which was fashioned from a salvaged piece of highway sign. Old puck board from Kenaston's rink is used for the other two skis. The frame is made from conduit pipe that is sheathed by 28-guage aluminum. The seat, handlebars and fuel tank are off an old Ski-Doo.

"My friend Mike Shymko was nice enough to give me some carpet for the inside to cut down on noise and offer a bit of insulation," Deaver says.

Although the body of the plane is from salvaged and common materials, when it comes to its power plant, Deaver didn't mess around.

Power is provided by a 65 Hp Continental aircraft engine.

"I was lucky to find that in Coronach," he says.

He also put a good aircraft propeller on the snowplane.

He has no idea how fast it will go, but guesses that on a level field the snowplane would surely go 65 miles per hour.

Speed isn't what motivates Deaver to try and build new things.

He is inspired by the challenge of designing machinery and improving mechanics to achieve maximum efficiency.

Three years ago he bought a snowplane that was made in 1980 and then went about restoring it.

"It was in fair shape for sitting around all those years," he says.

He re-powered it with a bigger engine, upgrading to a Continental 0300 aircraft engine. He redid the rear suspension and lightened it by 200 pounds and ran a piece of exhaust pipe through the cab to provide some much-appreciated heat.

"It goes good now. If you have a nice level lake, it should go like a darn."

He comes by his interest in snowplanes quite naturally. His father Lloyd and uncle Earl, who lived and farmed about 25 miles east of Davidson, built a snowplane in 1935.

They used the engine out of their Model A Ford to power their plane. It worked well, but was a bit underpowered when it came to making it up the Arm River hill.

After the war, in 1945, Earl bought an airplane engine and put that in the snowplane. After that the Arm River hill no longer posed a problem, but the powerful engine shook the snowplane to pieces after a few years. Earl built another snowplane and used it for decades up until about 1973.

For the Deavers, the snowplane was a practical mode of transportation.

There were no roads back in the '30s and '40s and in the winter, people used horse and sleigh to get to town. It was a long trip by sleigh trail. The snowplane clipped along pretty good, Deaver says.

The snowplanes are an extension of Deaver's love for flying.

He started flying planes in 1971. He sprayed crops for 25 years and in the late '70s was importing planes into Canada from the U.S.

He retired from farming three or four years ago and says he's busier than ever, travelling the province with his band Three for the Show.

The pace doesn't leave him much time for flying, he says.

Still, he's managed time to restore one snowplane and build another from the ground up. As for future projects, Deaver, not entirely avoiding the question, carefully says he does have something in the works.

Perhaps people should keep their ears tuned for the sound of another aircraft engine in the hills near Horseshoe Lake.