Kelly Rudneski, the son of Shirley Rudneski of Virden, reflects on the fact that he has seen the beginning and the end of a specific aircraft, important to his career. From apprenticing 30 years ago on the Dehaviland-built Dash 8 aircraft C-GGTO, MSN (serial number) 005, to just recently overseeing it’s dismantling, he feels like he has just laid to rest an old friend.
This story first surfaced in the Cairns Post, a town near Queensland, Australia and Rudneski sent a copy of it to his mother in Virden.
He stated in an interview, “Of all Transport Category aircraft built in the world the Dash 8 has always been my most comfortable and favorite aircraft to work on.”
Rudneski has been licensed to release to service the twin-engine Dash 8 aircraft for 30 years (first rated in early 1988). He is rated to inspect the entire fleet -100/200/300 & 400 models.
“The Dash 8 (to me) is like my baby and when I came across MSN 005 in January 2015 during a repossession, I was kind of set back.”
The small plane had been refurbished and inspected for re-certification shortly before a vicious hail storm hit the Queensland area in 2016. The Dash 8 was badly damaged in the storm and Rudneski ended up signing the plane’s death certificate in his work assessing damage for a leasing company.
“When I found her damaged by a hail storm which wrote her off I was devastated. The fact that I was the engineer to put her to bed long before she was due was like watching my father die of cancer long before he should have been put to rest. There were a few tears.”
The plane was torn down, cut up for parts and “made into beer tins” says Rudneski.
Fascinating career
Born in 1966 Kelly Rudneski got his start in life in Virden, attending school here, and leaving Virden officially as an18-year-old. He credits his father for involving him in aviation as a 14-year-old.
“My father decided he wanted to fly, so he got his private pilot license and bought a taildrager aircraft called a Stinson 108-2 in 1980.”
By the time Kelly was16-years-old he had his private pilot’s license. He then pursued his commercial pilot license which he obtained at the ripe old age of 19. In the mean time, he attended Confederation College in Thunder Bay in 1984 – 1986, graduating with an Aircraft Maintenance Engineering Degree.
“I found flying rather boring so leaned more toward the engineering side of the Aviation Industry,” he said. Rudneski’s engineering career initially took him to Toronto, where he worked at a small airport in 1986, apprenticing with City Express Airlines at the Toronto Island Airport.
“The DHC8 MSN 005 was the first Dash 8 aircraft I laid tools on as an apprentice.” MSN 005's official birth date was June 1984.
He would next work in the Timmins area and then in Montreal.
His career took him far away from Canada. In the late ‘80s, seeing an advertisement for work in the United Arab Emirates, Rudneski applied. He landed the job and in the fall of 1988 he started working in UAE.
Rudneski later became an Australian when he met and married an Australia girl and moved to that continent.
Certifying planes as either safe or unfit to fly is his work which he describes, “to put it as simple as possible, I chase airplanes around the world for leasing companies.”
Seeing a favourite aircraft from birth through its untimely demise has caused Rudneski to reflect on his satisfying career in aviation engineering – a career that has taken him around the world.
“Enjoy your career. Love what you do, and when you have a bad day, just think of all the good days to counteract the bad ones.”
