A: The same thing he wanted for his 80th and 85th birthdays -- but didn't get.

When Captain Robert Bowker was nearing 80, his wife Hope suggested giving her husband an exotic trip on the ultimate aircraft of today: the Concorde. The Captain declined.

"I told her I was absolutely not interested in flying in a Concorde,'' he relates. "I said I preferred to fly in a Gipsy Moth.'' "Forget that -- too dangerous,'' Mrs. Bowker thought. Five years later she tried the Concorde approach again.

"Hope,'' the Captain admonished, "that's not real flying, I prefer to fly in a Gipsy Moth.'' When his 90th birthday approached this year, Mrs. Bowker naturally wanted to do something extra special, and thought "third time lucky, maybe'' on the Concorde concept.

"Hope,'' her husband said firmly, "I am not going to tell you this again. I prefer to fly in a Gipsy Moth.'' And so it was that, with the help of friends, Mrs. Bowker acquiesced and secretly arranged to grant her husband his wish.

The couple flew to Canada where, in a farmer's field 75 miles northwest of Toronto, the immaculately restored, bright red and yellow bi-plane was waiting -- along with its 80-year-old pilot-owner, Mr. McMan.

It was a glorious, warm, sunny day as Captain Bowker donned the leather helmet and goggles which would protect him from wind whipping around the open cockpit. His open necked, short-sleeved shirt, however, would be a reminder that it was he who pioneered the change in dress code for cockpit and cabin crews.

The half-hour flight spent zipping around the Canadian countryside was everything Captain Bowker dreamed it would be -- a real trip down memory lane, taking him back to the days when he first learned to fly.

Like all pilots who have spent their lives in the air, however, he maintains a calm reaction to the gift his wife says he really loved. "It was an experience and I'm glad I had it, but it was a bit bumpy and noisy, and I couldn't see out,'' is the ex-pilot's report.

Born near Hale, Cheshire, England in 1909, from age two Captain Bowker grew up in Canada. As a child, he and his pals frequently wandered down to nearby Camp Sarcee, to watch the soldiers training "until they took us into the movies for a nickel''. Later, he hung around the armoury less than a block from his home, listening to the veterans' tales. As a teenager, having already learned Morse code and signalling in the Boy Scouts, and with so much military influence under his belt, Robert Bowker joined the Calgary Highlanders, a territorial-style regiment, as a signaller.

"It took nearly an hour to dress me in my kilt,'' he remembers. "It came up to my armpits!'' Later, in a career that has included everything from being a mail boy in the Canadian Pacific Railway's land department to assistant night clerk in a Canadian Pacific hotel -- "probably the sleepiest they ever had!'' -- it was through his friendship with some airmen at High River Air Station, a forestry patrol station 40 miles south of Calgary, that young Bowker became an aviator.

"I received a letter from a Flight Lieutenant Walsh, asking me to meet him one Sunday afternoon,'' Captain Bowker says. "The first thing I told him was that I didn't want to join the Royal Canadian Air Force because I was having an exciting life in the hotel business.'' Forty-five minutes later, however, Robert Bowker agreed to join up, and as as Airman 2nd Class became a batman in the officers' quarters.

"My job was to do the housekeeping, and wait upon tables,'' he chuckles. "I was something less than the world's best housekeeper.'' Afternoons were spent at the airfield "learning about aeroplanes''.

"I remember my first flight well,'' Captain Bowker says. "We flew across the foothills and I was deathly sick.'' When the station closed, he was posted to Winnipeg, along with a promotion to Airman 1st class/carpenter/air rigger. Here the policy was to assign one airman to the pilots' flying course.

"I was the only single, healthy airman at the station, but when my commanding officer submitted my name it was rejected because I was below an acceptable rank, so he promptly promoted me to Leading Aircraftsman,'' Captain Bowker relates. "The next thing I knew I was posted to Camp Borden, 60 miles north of Toronto. I had only been in an aeroplane three times and was sick twice!'' Receiving his basic training in the little DeHavilland Gipsy Moth, a biplane with a fabric-covered metal frame and a top speed of 40 mph., Leading Aircraftsman Bowker was the first in his group to get his wings. It would be the first of many "firsts'' in a long and interesting career.

Promoted to Sgt. Pilot, the airman completed his first solo flight -- also in a Gipsy Moth -- on November 21, 1929; his first trans-atlantic flight as a commercial airline pilot in 1943, and on September 14, 1946 landed Trans-Canada Airlines' (later renamed Air Canada) first passenger flight at London's Heathrow Airport.

In 1949, as a check pilot (checking out other pilots) on the Bermuda-Nassau-Jamaica-Trinidad route, Captain Bowker convinced Trans-Canada Airlines to post him to Bermuda -- the first airline to post a pilot overseas, and the the first of their pilots to be thus stationed.

When he retired in 1968 after 30 years, Captain Bowker had completed 25,209.47 flying hours -- the first Air Canada pilot to exceed 25,000.

He also pioneered the cooler, more comfortable uniforms worn on warm routes today: lightweight fabrics, short-sleeved shirts, and clip-on ties. Over the course of his long career, Captain Bowker experienced at first hand the fascinating evolution of aviation, learning to fly ever more sophisticated aircraft as the years rolled by, but as his first solo aircraft, the Gipsy Moth naturally holds a very special place in his affections.

When he rolled into Montreal's Dorval Airport after his last flight from Zurich with Air Canada, in addition to the 50 or so colleagues who greeted him, there was an old friend: the company's first aircraft, a Lockheed 10A, which Captain Bowker had flown in back 1938.

After flying such aircraft as Vedettes, Lancasters, Avros, DeHavillands and North Stars, and finally DC-8s, today's computerised machines hold no fascination for the man who once had just three instruments to work with.

"While computers can do things the pilot can't, they have taken the skill out of flying because they lock on to systems on the ground,'' he says.

As for long-distance flights, Captain Bowker says "there is nothing more boring'', and he remembers when it took 26 hours to fly from Toronto to London (with stops along the way, of course).

Naturally, the aviator has a wealth of memories and anecdotes stored in his head, and a wonderfully wry way of relating them.

He describes, for example, buying his way out of the Royal Canadian Air Force for Can $28 as "the smartest thing I ever did in my life'', and notes that, during his days with American Airlines, it took precisely 12 1 minutes for the male crew to walk from their hotel to the one where the female crew were housed.

He sums up his years in Bermuda as Trans-Canada Airlines'/Air Canada's check pilot as "playing golf for six days and flying on the seventh'', and laughs when he recalls the long letter written by the Company's PR department to an Admiral, the lone passenger on a trans-Atlantic, mail-only route, repeatedly referring to the "preferred service'' he had received.

"I wondered what `preferred service' he got,'' the Captain muses."We only had a thermos, so he probably had a cup of coffee stirred with a screwdriver.

The `first class meal' was a Spam sandwich thrown onto the aircraft in Gander, and the rest room was a bucket at the back of the airplane!'' While he never had an engine quit on him in all his years of flying, the retired pilot remembers the stewardess's cool reaction on a flight when, with just ten minutes of fuel left in one tank, the switch transferring to the second tank failed over water.

"We're probably going to crash land in ten minutes,'' the Captain advised her, as his crew struggled (successfully, it turned out) to correct the problem. "Okay,'' she said casually.

When he was flying DC-3s with American Airlines, instrument flying was "a new thing'', and because the aircraft was not pressurised, pilots were not to exceed 10,000 ft. due to the lack of oxygen. Once, the Captain took it to the limit and asked the stewardess how the passengers were doing.

"They're all asleep!'' she advised.

Then there was the route which became known as "Bowker's Airline,'' so-called because the Captain only flew between Bermuda and the Caribbean while stationed here.

A retired pilot he might be, but Captain Bowker is still pursuing his ten-year-old plan to establish a Bermuda airline providing three regular flights per day between the Island and White Plains, New York using a British Aerospace 146.

"Battling the Government is like battling fog,'' he says of the protracted business.

Meanwhile, the genial retiree continues to enjoy life, and the splendid views from the attractive terraced gardens of his Harbour Road home, all of which he created himself.

Take-off: Captain Robert Bowker (above) gives the thumbs-up as he prepares to celebrate his 90th birthday with a ride in a DeHavilland Gipsy Moth -- the first aircraft he ever learned to fly. The adventure was a special gift from his wife Hope. (Below left) Captain Bowker gets a few last minute adjustments to his vintage outfit before taking off from a farmer's field north of Toronto (below right) with pilot Captain McMan at the controls of the Gipsy Moth.

(Bottom right) Pilots McMan and Bowker are all smiles following their joyous flight over the Canadian countryside.