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As the large family and many friends of Stan Deluce gathered this week to pay final respects, a Harvard AT-6 made a slow, tributary pass over the London, Ont., cemetery.

It was a fitting salute. More than 50 years earlier, Mr. Deluce had been trained on precisely such an aircraft, prior to his Second World War service as a flight officer in Squadron 126 in the Royal Canadian Air Force.

And fitting because it was with airplanes that he put and left an indelible entrepreneurial stamp on an industry and on Canada.

A genuine aviation pioneer, he acquired a sole, single-engine Stinson in 1951 and, over the next several decades, built a substantial family-owned empire that at one time employed all of his nine children.

A friend had apparently arranged for the Harvard flyover, but there was a second funereal tribute that was accidental. As the long cortege made its way from the church to the cemetery, it had to stop for a CPR freight train.

Mr. Deluce's father, John, had been a CPR engineer based in Chapleau, a small community in northern Ontario. And Mr. Deluce himself had worked in a similar capacity for the same railroad, before and for many years after his war service, formally retiring only in 1976.

“It was,” said his second eldest son, Robert, now chairman of Porter Airlines, “as if it were saying goodbye to him.”

Mr. Deluce underwent hip surgery about a month ago at Victoria Hospital in London, and never recovered.

Born and raised in Chapleau, he joined the RCAF and trained as a pilot at Camp Borden. He was shipped overseas to join the war effort but, a few days out of St. John's, the boat was summoned back to port. As a result, he spent the better part of his war years flying patrol reconnaissance over Eastern seaboard coastal waters.

He returned to Chapleau after the war, married Angela Spadoni in 1947, and bought his first plane, a Fleet Canuck, in 1949.

But it was with the Stinson, purchased for about $20,000, that he began to realize the potential of aviation – recognizing that the then largely undeveloped North could not only provide him with income, but simultaneously fulfill three of his greatest passions, flying, hunting and fishing.

Indeed, when he and Angela, who had a sharp business mind, started White River Air Services, it mainly ran seasonal charter flights for trappers, prospectors, hunters and loggers into the Northern Ontario bush.

Steadily, the operation grew, both organically and by acquisition. Mr. Deluce took over Sault Airways, Kapuskasing Air Service, Air Manitoba, Air Ontario and was involved in the startup of NorOntair.

A major milestone was the purchase of rival Austin Airways, in 1974, which had serviced hamlets on Hudson and James Bays and in the Northwest Territories since 1934. With that, he assumed virtual monopoly control of several lucrative contracts from federal Crown corporations and agencies, including Canada Post, Health and Welfare, and Northern and Indian Affairs.

He didn't stop there. By 1978, he had added Ontario Central Airlines and Superior Airways of Thunder Bay, establishing a huge warehouse-hangar at Pickle Lake. That made the family dominant in both northwestern and northeastern Ontario. Then he bought 50 per cent of Delplax Holdings Ltd., a London-based firm that controlled 100 per cent of Air Ontario and C&C Yachts Ltd. As his fleet expanded, Mr. Deluce also began leasing aircraft all over the world – from Tunisia to Greenland, from Nepal to Réunion, off the coast of Madagascar.

By the early 1980s, Austin Air owned nine Hawker Siddeley 748s, worth at least $3-million each. The family finally cracked the Southern Ontario market with the 1981 purchase of Great Lakes Airlines of London.

On one occasion, Mr. Deluce flew then CPR chief Norris Crump to a northern fishing camp. Mr. Deluce's aircraft seemed to be coming and going all the time.

“Deluce,” barked Mr. Crump, “I think you've got more planes than CP Air.”

Later, Mr. Deluce partnered with Billy Diamond and others to create Air Creebec, serving the Quebec north.

Then, in 1987, he sold 75 per cent of Air Ontario to Air Can-ada, cashing in a number of equity chips.

There was never, Mr. Deluce once explained to an inter-viewer, any grand, master plan. “It seemed to just come naturally. When you see opportunities you take them, but I never really had ambitions past doing things in Northern Ontario. I guess we grew because of the boys [among nine children, seven were sons, all of whom acquired commercial pilot licenses] coming into the business. Other than that, I probably never would have bothered, because after a certain point you're just adding headaches.”

By 1988, the Deluce empire included several family-held companies: Deluce Holdings, which had 25 per cent of Air Ontario and Air Alliance; De-luce Investments, which held voting control of Canada 3000, then a new charter service, Aviation Maintenance, Springer Aerospace, Air Manitoba and the Nunasi-Northland airline; White River Holdings; and the Deluce Group Inc., which owned five construction companies.

On major business decisions, the family preferred unanimi-ty, although only a simple ma-jority was needed in a vote. The family spurned several investment opportunities because various members opposed them.

Family ownership arguably gave the Deluces a competitive advantage. Stan and his two eldest sons, William and Robert, ran the company, “so decisions could be made quickly,” Mr. Deluce once recalled. “Often our competitors, who had the licences for certain northern runs, weren't giving very good service. We went in ourselves, and we were so competitive that they had to upgrade their service.” The result, Mr. Deluce insisted, was better air service for residents in remote communities.

“Dad was a great mentor,” William said. “He allowed us to be involved and he allowed us to make mistakes. As each of us worked our way toward our licenses, he monitored our progress.”

“I remember at an early age flying with my father, and that would be the case for most of my brothers and sisters,” Robert once said. “Well before we took any formal training, most of us would have had enough flying experience to enable most of us to get our licences.”

In fact, all seven sons earned their first pilot license at the age of 16.

In his funeral eulogy, William said that Stan had been “an encouraging father with an entrepreneurial spirit, who led by example. He valued not only education and hard work, but he and Mom taught us the importance of family.”

In an interview, Robert said that his father, in business, operated on the “tough but fair” principle. “He always stressed the importance of being fair in your dealings.”

In turn, Mr. Deluce regarded his children as his greatest career achievement. “My sons, they're workers, diggers,” he once said. “They know how to work hard, and that's some-thing not enough people in this country know how to do. I've never really encouraged them to get into the business, yet each of them has.”

“Stan was a man of few words who said what he meant and meant what he said,” William said in the eulogy. “It was a sad day for our Dad when he had to hang up his wings in his 70s, because he truly was a pilot's pilot with that ageless, boyish love of flying. I am certain that along with my brothers, my special memories of sharing a cockpit with him will stay with me forever.”

“I was very fond of Stan,” said Pierre Jeanniot, who as senior vice-president of Air Canada orchestrated the takeover of Air Ontario. “He was a great pioneer.”

Indeed, a particular source of pride and peer recognition for him was his induction into Canada's Aviation Hall of Fame in 2007. Mr. Deluce also served on the Civil Aviation Tribunal, was a director for the Air Transport Association of Canada, and was cited as Outstanding Aviation Pioneer of 1993 by the Rusty Blakey Heritage Avi-ation Group.

A northerner to his marrow, he never lost his passion for hunting and fishing, especially in the company of children, grandchildren and friends. They all had standing invitations to join him on Manitoulin Island, where he spent the last 18 summers relaxing on his trawler, The Tookanee, and teaching his grandchildren the finer points of salmon fishing. He wintered in Stuart, Fla. There, expressing his naturally competitive, take-no-prisoners attitude, he played bridge and cribbage, often at $1-a-hand stakes.

According to William, he had “no hesitation in lording it over the loser, whether he was playing his 10-year-old grandchild or his sister-in-law, Ruth Spadoni. The winnings were hung on a wallpeg as a reminder for all to hone their skills.”

In his later years, said William, “we all noticed a change in Dad. He mellowed and, al-though he hated to be thought of as sentimental, he slowed down enough to spend more time with Mom, his children, grandchildren and extended family and friends.”

“How will our Dad be remembered by the world at large?” William asked at the funeral. “Someone said and I quote, ‘Canada is short of true legends; Stan was one of them.'”

Stanley Deluce

Stanley Matthew Deluce was born on July 20, 1923; he died on Jan. 27, 2010. He was predeceased by Angela, his wife of 59 years, and his grandchildren Sarah Jane and Matthew Joseph. He leaves children William (Ann), Robert (Catherine), Terrence (Holly), Marie Marshall, Joseph (Lisa), Jim (Sharon), Gwendolyn (Randall Pineault), Bruce (Flora), Bernard (Karen), and 30 grandchildren.