Museum Newsletter NO 37

CANADIAN MUSEUM OF FLIGHT AND TRANSPORTATION SUMMER 1990 CF-BAT CF

CANADIAN MUSEUM OF FLIGHT AND TRANSPORTATION

13527 Crescent Road, Surrey, BC, V4A 2W1
(604)531-3744 (After June 16 535-1115)
FAX 531-4293 (After July 16 535-3292)

1990 BOARD OF DIRECTORS

Bethell, Michael Danyluk, Ken Rempel, Brian Robinson, Jane Emerslund, Bill Gardham, Fred Sanders, Laurie Stacey, Brian Stunden, Ron* Gatey, Michael Hudak, Tony Koehler, Hank MacLeod, Clyde Zalesky, Rose* Goguillot, Gogi Thompson, Al. Thompson, Capt. W.A*. Jackson, Barry Vernon, Jerry Zalesky, E. V. (Ed)*

Founding Members

The Canadian Museum of Flight and Transportation is governed by a 20 member board, of which 15 are elected annually in April. Members can serve as Directors for up to three consecutive terms, while Founding Directors are not so limited.

GENERAL MEETINGS

General Meetings are held quarterly. Commencing with the AGM in April, meetings will be held in conjunction with another event such as the Spring Dinner, Volunteer Appreciation Barbecue, Wings & Wheels wrapup party or Movie Night. Check the Schedule of Events for dates.

IS YOUR MEMBERSHIP VALID?

Check the Expiry Date listed on the top right hand corner of your address label. If it’s due, or overdue, please renew.

When renewing, include your address label, and make any corrections in your name or address.

COVER PHOTO

Gilbert Flying Service fleet with 65 hp Aeronca TAC CF-BTU, 90 hp Warner powered Aeronca LC CF-BAT, and Aeronca CA65 Chief CF-BTR. CMFT Collection, Al & Lloyd Michaud, #565

NEWSLETTER #37 SUMMER 1990

Editor: Rose Zalesky Contributions are welcomed as are comments and criticism. No payment can be made for manuscripts submitted for publication in the CMFT newsletter. The editor reserves the right to make any editorial changes manuscripts which he/she believes will improve the material without altering the intended meaning.

CONTENTS

2 Calendar of Events.. 3 Annual General Meeting/Spring Dinner. President’s Report. Adopt an Airplane Program.. 8 .9 Letters to the Editor.. Frustration (Gilbert Flying Service). 13 The Museum’s book on aviation pioneers …… 13 The Hamilton Biplane, by Jerry Vernon. 16 17 19 Wanna Swap for a Pair of Wings (gliders), by Ted Hill. Early Aviation in Central B.C. (Chapter 13 of Pioneers book). With the Handley Page Hampdens, by F. Rowley……. Newspaper Clippings Treasure.. Donor List…… 23 27 28 30 New Member List.. 34 A Tribute to Volunteers.

Job Opportunities/Volunteer Opportunities…34 Wanted, Dead or Alive. .35 .36 Hauling Needed…. 36) Typesetting Equipment for Sale. Book Reviews… .37 38

Arrowmania.

COMMITTEES 1990/91

EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE

Ed Zalesky President Vice President. . Jerry Vernon. Secretary-Treasurer …Rose Zalesky

OPERATING COMMITTEE

To be appointed

STANDING COMMITTEES

Vancouver Island Peter Knowles Michael Bethell Finance Volunteer Co-ordinator Public Relations Special Events Newsletter/Publicity. Research Computer Services Jerry Vernon Clyde MacLeod Displays & Grounds Flying Library Mark Zalesky Transportation Tour Guides Mike Gatey Colin Hamilton Jane Robinson . Jerry Olsen Meetings Entertainment Underwater Recovery Hampden Committee (ad Hoc). Fred Gardham Restoration Mark Zalesky

The Committees listed above are those which were active in 1989. Due to growth and changing needs, some restructuring of Committees and their mandates is likely.

If you have a skill which will help the Museum achieve its goals, please share your experience with us. If you have no prior experience, but would like to get involved in the operation of the Museum, and perhaps sit on the Board, a great way to get started is to serve on one of the Committees. Committee Heads or their stand ins traditionally attend Directors’ meetings, and make recommendations, but do not vote.

Many Committee seats are still vacant. Check over the list and phone or write if you’d like to help out on one or more of the Committees for the 90/91 year.

CALENDAR OF EVENTS 1990

• May 6 (Sunday) Yard Sale/Barbecue
• July 14 & 15 (Sat & Sun) “Wings & Wheels”
• July (date to be set) Outdoor Barbecue / General Meeting
• July 29 (Sunday) Thunderbird Car Club Car Meet
• Aug 13 thru 15 NASA Van (Travelling Exhibit) ⚫
• Sept 9 (Sunday) British & European Car meet
• Sept (date to be set) “Wings & Wheels” wrapup party
• October 18 Thursday) Annual Fall Dinner/General Meeting (location to be announced.)

Other events and any changes to the above schedule will be announced

ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING AND SPRING DINNER

The 13th Annual General Meeting of the Canadian Museum of Flight and Transportation was held April 19, 1990 at Yic’s Dining Lounge, 13639 104th Ave. and King George Highway. Surrey.

Responding to member’s wishes, the AGM was combined with the Annual Spring Dinner and Awards Night. The evening was a great success, and the same format (with slight improvements) will be used in the future.

A diligent phone committee contacted all paid up members, as well as many whose memberships had lapsed, to advise of the event. Another round of calls was made to advise that Kempinsky’s had gone into bankruptcy forcing a change of location. Apologies to those who somehow missed getting the second notice and ended up at the wrong location.

The event was to have been the first in many years where all five founding members were present, but founding member Ron Stunden was one of those who went to the wrong location.

Just under 100 members and guests were in attendance. The dinner was delicious, and the service great. The program included a short President’s Report (condensed from the report elsewhere in this newsletter), announcement of job openings at the Museum, a talk by guest Robert Ballantyne on the future of the Museum and how all of us as members can participate, and a Volunteer Awards Presentation. A list of recipients is included elsewhere in this newsletter.

The AGM commenced at 9:10 p.m. and highlighted a short talk by Michael Bethell of the Finance Committee suggesting restructuring of the Board and Committees to meet the dramatically changed financial needs of the Museum. Nomination Committee Chairman Phil Humphrey presented a recommended full slate of 15 members for election. There being no further nominations, a vote was held and the recommended slate (see list elsewhere this newsletter) was duly elected.

The Motion to create a Board of Governors was carried. This change enables those permanent directors who wish to take a less active role in the operations of the Museum to retain status and limited power, but relieves them of the more onerous duties of a Director. Special thanks to Doug Fraser, Gogi Goguillot and Ewan Rowntree for their work on this matter.

PRESIDENT’S REPORT by Ed Zalesky

“IT WAS A VERY GOOD YEAR” HOMESITE SAGA

1989 was the Museum’s thirteenth year. It should have been a landmark time in which the long. quest for a new homesite was to have finally ended, and we could get on with the fundraising and planning required to enable the move. We still have no lease, and the public and our own members are wondering how much longer we will have to operate under a cloud of uncertainty.

Yet another public hearing was held at the Surrey Municipal hall on April 11th, this time requesting permission to operate a landing strip in conjunction with Museum operations, and yet again wholehearted public support was indicated.

Yet another submission to the Environmental Land Use Committee has been made by Surrey, and yet more time passes waiting for a decision.

April, 1990. This is it, folks! The large field with the treed knoll is the new homesite for CMFT. Cloverdale is at the left of the photo, while the 176 Street overpass is in the foreground.

The land problems will be resolved in time, and today’s problems will look very small in the face of those yet to come to bring about the actual relocation. The Museum is on the threshold of profound change. Much as we would like to think that we simply move and get on with doing the things we always have, it is not that simple.

COMFORTABLE GROWTH

At the present site, buildings and facilities were built or patched together in response to growth. We simply called out the volunteers and got on with it. There was no money for classy structures and no opportunity to build them had there been the money. We operated from day to day on borrowed property and on borrowed time in the sincere and honest hope that our group would receive the recognition it deserved and that an alternate homesite would be made available.

That comfortable method of growth ended when Surrey expropriated the property in 1985 against the vigorous protests of the owners; and the future of the museum and of the owners took a dramatic downturn.

The present site has never been seen as a permanent location and efforts to find other accommodation never slacked over the more than thirteen years of our existence. Amongst the sites considered were Boundary Bay airport and Fort Langley airport, but in each case, the necessary support was simply not there. Our ideas were used to create a series of new organizations, each of which were provided with facilities and massive amounts of public funds. Each, in effect, drained such funding as might have been available to the CMFT, and each diluted the achievability of the proposed project.

NEW LOCATION NEGOTIATIONS

Surrey was the first to show good faith by acquiring the land south of Cloverdale for the purpose of relocating the Museum, but that has not proven to be a simple solution. Permission to use the less than 20 acres of property for needed activities is still not forthcoming, yet vast stretches of Richmond and Delta farmland have gone into housing during the period of negotiation, obviously with the consent of those very bodies who oppose the much more compatible uses proposed by the Museum.

With each passing year, the cost of buildings, services and relocation escalates while available funding declines. Unless we all stick together and put in much more effort collectively and individually than we have in the past, relocation could well be many years away.

VISIBILITY VITAL

“What can we as individuals do?”, you ask. Something that very few of you have been willing to do in the past. Write letters. Write lots of letters. To the local newspapers. To your MLA. To your MP. But don’t just think about it or talk about it. Do it! These letters need not be literary masterpieces, and they need only be one paragraph long, but they do absolutely no good at all unwritten or unmailed. A solid letter campaign could make a difference whether this organization lives and prospers, or withers and perhaps dies. MUSEUM FLIGHT & TRANSPORTATION 9-4:00 13527 Ph 531-37

Feb 1990. Rose Zalesky helps man the CMFT’s booth at the Pacific Aircraft Maintenance Engineer’s Symposium in Richmond.

BUSINESS AS USUAL

In the meantime, it’s business as usual at the Museum. Daily admissions during the 1989 mid- May to mid-October season were 9,814 compared with 10,127 in 1988, while Wings & Wheels, because of the rain, attracted only 2,483 visitors, while 7,006 souls came to visit Open House 88. The annual British and European Car Meet brought 1,125 visitors. These are honest counts, based on tickets sold, and do not include member visits, visits on museum business, library users or other legitimate callers. Serious consideration is being given to use a turnstile, which will reflect a much more realist count of the people who actually use the museum.

Opening day of May 12 is coming up fast, and much work remains to be done if the exhibits are to be ready. Please offer your help.

More and more guided tours are being hosted, but this market is not even scratched, and must wait to be developed until someone is found to take on the task.

We continue to welcome visitors from all over the world, many of whom have walked the mile and a half from the closest bus stop. Local residents are bringing their out of town visitors to the museum in greater numbers, and we had more school visits than ever before.

SELL THE MUSEUM?

We are, however, still the invisible Museum, and too few people know about us; and many of those who do think we are the B.C. Transportation Museum in Cloverdale. All that could change if we had an advertising budget, or if we had someone whose job was to promote the museum through innovative and inexpensive means, but we don’t, so its up to all of us to sell, sell, sell the merits of visiting the Museum or becoming a member, at every opportunity, to anyone who will listen. Besides, it’s a neat place, and visitors who come as a result of your efforts will not be disappointed.

FUNDING FOR SURVIVAL

The Gift Shop continues to carry out its function as a major source of revenue, with new items continually being added.

The Abbotsford International Air Show Society was good to us in 1989. A few volunteers worked very hard for a few days, but the Museum’s share of the profits from Abbotsford Air Show souvenir sales constituted the major single source of operational funds for the year.

100 new members were welcomed in 1989, including some lifetime members.

The library, jammed and cramped though it is, has had its share of users, and requests for information are on the increase.

Rentals of props to the movie industry provided a little welcome revenue in 1989.

DONATIONS CONTINUE

Donations, large and small, continue to come in, and include, besides cash, items for the permanent collection and library, office supplies, shop supplies and tools, and even some which are passed on in the hope that the Museum can trade or sell them for cash. Occasionally, a few items come in that have real significance or otherwise stand out as a record of our aviation history. These are carefully stowed away against the time that they can be shared with visitors to the Museum as exhibits. In the meantime, some printed material will be shared with members by reproducing it in newsletters. See list of donors elsewhere this newsletter.

Major donations for 1989 were a Volmer Sportsman amphibian homebuilt in flying condition from Norman Hoye and a damaged $58 helicopter from E.M. Helilogistics.

HAULING THEM IN

The Museum’s recovery team was busy last year. Bill Thompson- all by himself-hauled theg the Saunders ST27 from Sudbury Ontario to Vancouver. Two donated helicopter hulks were hauled in and more Hampden pieces were scraped off mountainsides and hauled home by Mike Gatey and his team. There are still several items to haul home from locations across Canada. See elsewhere for a list.

RESTORATIONS

Fred Gardham and Jerry Olsen, with the assistance of three apprentices provided under a Job Creation Grant and other occasional volunteers have done wonders with the Handley Page Hampden over 1989. The entire fuselage section is now on exhibit, rising like the Phoenix from its rubble “ashes”.

April, 1990. The Hampden tail boom arrives back at the Museum and is mated to the already completed fuselage. L to R: Mark Zalesky, Ray Brown, Fred Gardham and Jerry Olsen, with “Toby” in the foreground.

While the restoration of the Lodestar CF-TCY and Waco CF-CCW were also on the list of restorations for 1989, much less has been accomplished than was hoped for. Of necessity, these projects were restricted by the need to use available man (and woman) power for daily maintenance of the grounds and existing exhibits. Until more people are willing to volunteer their time for daily operational tasks, restorations will take an increasingly minor place in the workings of the Museum.

JOB CREATION GRANTS

Three job creation grants were received in 1989. In addition to the Section 25 UIC program which provided very welcome and productive labour for the Hampden, we also received a total of 125 work weeks plus some cash support for a Section 25 UIC program which provided assistance on restoration work on the Lodestar and Waco CF-CCW, as well as assistance with collections management chores in the office. This program ended in mid-April. The third program was a very successful Challenge summer student program which provided three tour guide/gift shop employees. A fourth position – for a groundskeeper, was filled for only a week and remained vacant the rest of the summer for lack of applicants.

Our application for Job Creation programs in 1990 have been denied, which will place a terrible strain on present staff.

The Museum’s Computer Room is a busy place. A huge backlog of work means lots of opportunity for volunteers to learn data antry.

SPECIAL EVENTS IN ’89

Wings & Wheels ’89 was well organized, with tremendous cooperation from other groups and the local business community. It could easily have set new attendance records if it had not effectively been rained out. Still, it was judged a great success, and the same formula will be used in 1990. It was the first year that an entry fee was charged ($1). Wings & Wheels is our best promotional opportunity.

The Annual British & European Car Meet in September saw more than 70 specialty cars on exhibit. This fun event draws in visitors who would not otherwise visit the Museum.

The Museum’s flying aircraft carried out their ambassadorial duties well in 1989, with visits to the Penticton Air Show, the Arlington Fly In, and the Abbotsford Air Show. They also took part in the Remembrance Day ceremonies, while Snoopy and the Red Baron did their usual exhausting performance at the Cloverdale parade to the delight of young and old.

MORE PROMOTION

The Museum received its fair share of publicity, with items and articles in local newspapers and in major aviation trade publications. Good publicity is out there, and it can be free. It’s up to all of us to try to think of tasteful publicity opportunities as a substitute for the advertising dollars we do not have.

The newsletter has grown bigger and better and is becoming a collector’s item. It could be bigger and better still, but only if offers of assistance come in for either direct involvement or sponsorship.

CREATING SPACE

Renovations on the three Atco portable buildings (connected into one 36 by 50 foot building) proceed as quickly as too few volunteers can manage. When complete, these will provide desperately needed storage space for artifacts, a place to operate the Museum’s two flight simulators (one is a museum piece), and a much needed meeting room.

The Senior’s Lounge has been the site of several meetings, but is pretty cramped as it must do double duty as the used magazine sale shop. Sadly, lack of salespeople means that this excellent source of revenue is barely tapped.

The grounds and outbuilding were spiffed up and better maintained in 1989, and as they are all-important to visitor enjoyment, will get more attention this year, if enough help is offered to make it happen.

VANCOUVER ISLAND COMMITTEE

The Vancouver Island Committee has, after nearly 10 years of holding regular meetings and carrying out projects, decided to take a less active role for the time being. Peter Knowles will continue on as custodian of the items held there, and to accept any new donations. We’ll miss the hard work and dedication of the members who made up that Committee.

CONGRATULATIONS, VOLUNTEERS

And finally, volunteers put in nearly 18,000 hours during the Museum’s fiscal year March 1 – Feb 29. Congratulations to all of us for a job well done!

ADOPT AN AIRPLANE

There are two categories in this program, which allows individuals or corporations to provide physical or financial support to help care for the aircraft and items on exhibit.

PHYSICAL CARE PROGRAM

Contributors choose an aircraft to “adopt” and contract to provide hands-on work to clean, wax, and make minor repairs on exhibits.

CONTRIBUTOR CATEGORY

A fund established to cover the purchase of the materials and supplies required to keep exhibit aircraft in good displayable condition. Tax deductible receipts issued.

An informational sign will be installed in a public area listing the adopted aircraft and their adopters, as well as a list of the aircraft slated for restoration with a list of sponsors.

Airplanes available for adoption include the following. Note that those marked with an * are eligible for adoption and/or restoration.

SEE LIST OF AIRPLANES NEXT PAGE…. AIRPLANES FOR ADOPTION

AIRCRAFT FOR RESTORATION INCLUDE

Aeronca 11AC* Avro CF-100 Beech Expeditor* Bell 47J Boeing 44B* Bowers Flybaby* Bowlus Bumblebee (future) Bristol Bolingbroke* Canadair T33* CCF Harv/gling Glider deHavilland Tiger Moth deHavilland Vampire Fairchild Cornell* Fairchild Husky* Fleet Finch Found Centennial* (loan) Grunau Baby II* Handley Page Hampden* Lockheed Lodestar* Noorduyn Norseman CF-BSC* Piasecki HUP3 Piasecki H21* Pou de Ciel (Flying Flea) Quickie Replica SE5a (WWI) Republic Seabee* Sikorsky $55* Sopwith F1* (occas display) Stampe* Stinson L1 Vigilant* Supermarine Stranraer* Volmer Sportsman Waco C-6 CF-CCW* Waco INF (later) Westland Lysander*

AUTOMOTIVE & GROUND SUPPORT

Ariel Leader Motorcycle Aermacchi Chimera Motorcycle 49 LaFrance Ladder (Fire) truck ’38 Mercury Mule ’53 Bullmoose Mule Auster AOP6 Avro Anson V Behnsen B8 Gyrocopter Bellanca Skyrocket Bergfalke Glider Blackburn Shark Boeing Stearman Bowers Flybaby Corcoran (Cinema) Glider Curtiss P40 (major restoration) deHavilland Gipsy Moth deHavilland Mosquito FB26 Fighter (static) Fairchild 71 Howard DGA (major restoration) Loving’s Love Homebuilt Piper J4 Cub Coupe Radioplane Saunders ST27 Schweitzer TG3 Glider Sikorsky S51 (major restoration) Sikorsky S58 (major restoration) Spezio Sport Tuholer Stinson 10 Thorpe T18 Taylor Monoplane

AUTOMOTIVE AND GROUND SUPPORT

’61 Edsel ’60 Plymouth ’27 Chev truck ’40 1.5 ton Ford truck ’40 International Mule Austin A40 ’60 White Refueller

If you’d like to help, fill out the enclosed slip and include with your donation. Pick an airplane to adopt (daily care) or designate your donation to the General Maintenance Fund, or choose an airplane you’d like to help restore. Tax deductible receipts issued for all amounts over $10. (Too much paperwork for lesser amounts).

RESTORATION FUND PROGRAM

This program is designed to build up a fund for each of the aircraft requiring restoration. Some of the airplanes are already on display (note aircraft listed above marked with an*), but may require restoration or may not be complete. Donors names will be included in a permanent sign at each aircraft. Tax Deductible Receipts are available.

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

Fleet Finch In Addition Thank you for printing the details about my father, A.D. Bell-Irving, and his aeroplane, BQB, in your Winter ’89 issue. Some further points come to mind.

Firstly, his final rank was Air Commander, not Wing Commander, and his given name was Duncan, not David. He always considered BQB to be a Fleet Finch, not a Fawn, and it was as a Finch that BQB was shown in the RCAF records before he bought it from War Assets. He did not fly the aeroplane home from Ontario but had it shipped by rail. He was so busily engaged in reestablishing himself as an insurance broker in Vancouver after the war ended that he couldn’t spare the time for ferrying. All his post war flying was on the West Coast.

As a souvenir of a bad crash in WWI my father had a large metal rod screwed onto his left thigh bone. This had such a deviating effect on the compass of BQB that he had to be sitting in its cockpit when the compass was swung. On one occasion he loaned the aircraft to a friend and neglected to brief him on this anomaly. On a hazy day the friend set course from Sea Island for Victoria but made his landfall at Nanaimo.

Finally, Duncan Bell-Irving’s OBE was awarded after WWII, not WWI, and it was on the Civil List, not the Military one. Evidently it was in recognition of his pioneering work in the Air Cadet and Flying Club movements. In connection with the latter activity I recall him hosting a visit to Vancouver by Amelia Earhart who delivered a lecture on aerial navigation at the old Strand theatre. As a teenager I was introduced to her. She was a gracious lady with a beauty the cameras did not capture, and her lecture was fascinating.

Good luck to your most interesting publication.

Gordon Bell-Irving

“Moon Planes”

Please find my application for membership together with appropriate draft herein.

While I did not have the opportunity to view the Westland Lysander that you have so meticulously restored at the Expo ’86 in Vancouver, I am not completely unfamiliar with this class of aircraft.

As you may know several of these were painted black and were called “Moon Planes” and were used during the war for pickups and drops on the continent at night prior to “D” Day. The “Lizzie” performed a multitude of functions.

After the war John Morgan of Winnipeg acquired three of these aircraft and equipped them for agricultural spraying, basing his headquarters at Edmonton and a sub-base at Lethbridge, Alberta. The aircraft were uniquely suited for weed spraying in wheat since the boom was mounted on the wheel pants with twin air driven pumps and thus was a substantial distance from the wing and the spray pattern did not become distorted by the wing tip vortices or the propeller vortacy.

The aircraft was able to make applications of 2,4- D in one quart of diesel oil per acre which gave it a very substantial acreage per load, more so than many other aircraft until the recent developments of specialized ships in this country.

Stuart W. Turner

Busy Supporter!

I have just received and read the January 28/90 Newsletter, and want to congratulate you on turning out such an interesting and informative communication. I have done enough of this type of thing (on a much smaller and less professional looking scale) to know what a lot of work is involved.

The plans for activities are very interesting, and I hope I can get some books together for the book sale.

I am sorry I can’t offer to do more than this, but I am already on the Board of the Downtown Eastside Women’s Centre on Cordova Street in Vancouver, executive Secretary for the United Church Women for Vancouver South, Richmond, Delta area, and am on the executive of three other groups which are also putting on yard sales, book sales, barbecues, etc., sol can’t manage anything more than token participation, much as I give my moral support and such financial help as I may be able.

I am working every afternoon, at a part-time job, which doesn’t leave a great deal of time over for adding any extra responsibilities.

In the meantime, very best wishes for all of you who are actively devoting yourselves to the Museum and its staggering work load. I am writing because I know even a little feedback from members helps the morale sometimes.

(Mrs.) Sheila Street

Sharks!

Just received the latest newsletter – great.

Your cover picture and Shark story were most interesting. Shark 514 was turned over to the RCAF on Aug. 2,1939. It went on strength of 6 B.R. Sqdn. on Aug. 26/89 and crashed Sept 5/1939 at Jericho Beach, the same day as Shark 515. Shark 516 crashed on Oct. 17, 1939.

There were 7 Sharks in the RCAF that were built by Blackburn in England and powered by the Armstrong-Siddley Tiger VI 760 HP engine. The Boeing-built Sharks were powered by the Pegasus about 900 H.P.

Of the 26 Sharks that the RCAF owned I flew 13 of them. I arrived in Prince Rupert 14 days after 518 crashed near Georgetown Mill. Actually the closest bay was called “Pearl Harbour” – created a bit of confusion. The crash occurred on Jan. 4, 1942. By the way the crash site is actually on the mainland. The only survivor of the Shark 518 crash was the Air Gunner, Sgt. Trev Collins. He later remustered as a pilot, served in the peace time RCAF and after retirement joined B.C. Hydro about 1964 in the Public Relations department. He and I often discussed our Shark experiences including his vivid description of the events leading up to the two Sharks’ midair encounter and his parachuting to ground he landed only a few hundred feet from the crash itself. Unfortunately he died of cancer about 10 years ago.

Your story about Bell-Irving and his Fleet seaplane “BQB” brings back memories. I had occasion to rent that aircraft through the Aero Club of B.C. back in 1946/47 while I was Operations Manager at B.C. Airlines. We would rent it for $20 per hour flying loggers, parts and freight etc. over to the Gulf Islands.

George Williamson (HQS 000002)

[Editor’s note: Take a good look at George’s licence number. The HQ signifies that it, like all early licenses, was issued out of Ottawa, while the “S” is for Sr. Commercial. The 000002 speaks for itself]

ADDRESS LOST

Over a year ago, Greg Scott West sent us an Inaugural day folder from the National Aviation Museum, and an offer of assistance. Sadly, by the time that it was discovered that the letter bore no return address the envelope, which might have had it, had been destroyed. We would like to hear from Mr. West or from anyone knowing his address.

LAIDMAN RECEIVES ‘HOPE’

The ninth annual Pacific Aircraft Maintenance Engineers Symposium was held at the Delta River Inn in Richmond. The highlight of the awards banquet is the presentation of the Robert Hope “Pursuit of Excellence” Award given in honour of Robert (Bob) Hope killed while working on an aircraft.

This year’s recipient started his career in aviation at Brisbane Aviation school at Vancouver’s Airport in 1937 and graduated with top marks. He then joined Starrett Airways and Transportation Ltd. in Hudson, Ontario as an AME learner and pilot. He was a fly-them-and-fix-them-when-you- can, work-25-hours-a-day employee.

Canadian Pacific Airlines swallowed up Starrett and our recipient found himself working in Yellowknife still as a pilot-engineer but now only having to work from dusk to dawn in the summer and 20 hours a day in the winter.

In 1944 he resigned from CP to start his own flying company in the Northwest Territories and high Arctic. Here he got to be everything from baggage boy to president. After a year he traded in his mukluks and moved to the warmer climate of Vernon where he and a partner started L & M Air Services.

Typically this little airline did everything: Charter, flying school and scheduled service. Our recipient also did everything from sweep the hanger, to maintain the Beech 18 and Stinson, to fly them and collect the money when there was some to be collected.

In 1950 he joined Central B.C. Airways later to become Pacific Western Airlines and even later Canadian International Ltd. There he worked as Chief Pilot and later Operations Manager. In 1963 he became President and Director of PWA.

Even as president he took pleasure every day in going to the hanger to see how the maintenance was going. President or not he always had grease under his fingernails and loved working on projects.

In 1970 he retired from PWA but continued to pleasure fly and turn wrenches on a multitude of projects of fixed and rotor wing. In 1978 he came out of retirement to join Air West Airlines as General Manager and then President. In 1979 Jim Pattison Industries took over Air West and so in 1980 our recipient retired once more to take up aviation consulting for three years. But in 1984 he became the maintenance coordinator for the Pacific Flying Club and started his own company, “Airtech Aero Engines and Services Ltd.” There he and his crew provide maintenance to the club’s aircraft as well as others. He is the holder of Transport Canada’s Aircraft Maintenance Engineers licence No. VRM 52. One of the few two digit licences still signing out aircraft.

He was a member of the Air Transport Association of Canada, and a director of the Vancouver Board of Trade and the B.C. Aviation Council. He is a member of the 1/4 Century Club (he could qualify for the 1/2 century club of we had one) and was chairman of the Centennial Abbotsford Air Show.

In 1967 he was awarded the “Robert S. Day” trophy. He was also awarded a certificate of merit and medal by the Canadian Confederation Centennial committee. A tribute of his love of aviation can be found in that he has two sons in the industry. One, a captain with Canadian Airlines and the other a learner AME working with his father. The recipient of the Robert Hope “Pursuit of Excellence” Award was Richard “Dick the Chief Laidman.

R.C.A.F. WOMEN’S REUNION PERMANENT FORCE from 1951

To be held at the U.B.C. in Vancouver, B.C., Friday June 8, through Sunday June 10, 1990

Events include barbecue, city bus tour, banquet, memorial service, closing brunch and socializing.

For information write RCAF Women’s Reunion, 1475 East 43rd Avenue, Vancouver, B.C. V5P 1M3

OBITUARIES

JOHN HATCH

Museum member John Hatch passed away several months ago. John began his aviation career as an apprentice mechanic in 1934 in Ontario. He joined Queen Charlotte Airlines in 1946 where he served in various capacities until 1952, when he left to operate the “Pony Express”-mail trucking service.

R. E. BISHOP

R. E. Bishop, the designer of the de Havilland Mosquito which played a vital part in WWII passed away in 1989 at age 86.

Early design work was on the Moth series, DH51, DH42, and DH53. The DH98 Mosquito, which first saw service in 1941, is recognized as one of the great designs of all time, and held speed and performance records for years.

During his 43 year tenure with de Havilland Mr. Bishop also worked on the design team of the world’s first jetliner-the Comet – and his imprint was clearly seen on all new de Havilland aircraft, military and civil, until his retirement in 1964.

MARK MASER

Member Mark Maser was killed in a motor vehicle accident on the Squamish Highway in April. Mark was a long time member of the Museum, and was active both with the Vancouver Island Committee and at the Museum when he could fit in the time. Mark loved airplanes and aviation, and we are honoured that his family has requested that donations to the Museum be made in lieu of flowers.

A special thank you to Edith Hilton, the B.C. Ambulance Service Op #256, Lions Bay Ambulance Station, Marilyn McClenahan and D. Wrightman for their donations in his memory.

Spring, 1990. Members of the Seniors Wing Book project meet with a representative of “New Horizons in the Senior’s Lounge to discuss possibility of funding.

AVIATION PIONEER BOOK AN OFFER YOU CAN’T REFUSE

Your Seniors Wing Committee is sponsoring the forthcoming volume on B.C. aviation history. and makes this special pre-publication offer:

Send $11.50 (includes postage and handling) and you will receive:

• a) A copy of the book and an Income Tax Deductible receipt for a $5.00 donation.
• b) Your name will be inscribed in the book in the Donor’s Index.

Post publication price $11.50 (includes postage and handling).

Make your cheque payable to the Canadian Museum of Flight and Transportation, and mark it for “Book Account”

BOOK TITLE/COVER CONTEST

The search for an appropriate title for the Museum’s book on aviation pioneers still continues. Jim Ervin’s suggestion is “BY THE SEAT OF THEIR PANTS”. Arnold Feast suggested “FAR AS HUMAN EYE CAN SEEK – B.C.’s Aviation Pioneers”. The only other suggestion received of late is “HANGAR FLYING” or “HANGAR FLYING BY THE PIONEERS” by George Williamson.

Please keep the suggestions coming. Discussions with a publisher as to title indicate that the name should “say it all”, especially in the case of special interest subjects. But we must take care that a dry title doesn’t suggest a dry book. Imagination and perhaps a bit of pizzazz sells merchandise, so if a title that is both descriptive and imaginative should do the best job of selling it.

How about a cover painting? The book photos are black and white, but we need a colour cover. There are several well known and many not so well known aviation artists living in BC. If you know any, persuade them to submit a painting or drawing suitable for a cover as well as for a poster to promote the book and which could perhaps be sold separately to provide a little revenue. The subject is bush pilots. Inspiration for the painting can be gleaned from the many photos that have been chosen for inclusion in the book.

FRUSTRATION?

The following excerpts are from a series of letters between Frank Gibert and the Department of Transport and the Department of National Defence, passed on to us by Frank Gilbert’s grand daughter, Mrs. Joan Jordan, and must surely stand as a monument to bureaucratic runaround.

May 20/41 to R. Carter Guest, Inspector of Civi Aviation, Vancouver, BC:

We beg to report a minor accident to our aircraft CF-BTR. which happened as follows;-

At 15:45 hrs May 13/41 a Lysander aircraft No. 428 piloted by Flying Officer L.W. Brooks of Patricia Bay B.C. was taxying at a speed estimated between 20 and 30 mph on that strip of pavement that runs E-W- immediately in front of the Administration Building and was travelling in an Easterly direction.

When about at a point between the gas pits and the Kiosk he lost control of his machine and it took a turn to the right and struck my Aeronca Chief CF-BTR in the rear.

The impact crumpled the right half of the elevator, tore a hole in the rudder two feet square and a hole in the fuselage two and one half feet square just ahead of where the horizontal stabilizer is attached, also on the right side. There was no damage done to the structural members of the rudder or fuselage.

Repairs effected are a new right half elevator, rudder completely recovered, wooden formers in fuselage repaired and a patch applied. The repairs being done by Mr. Hugh Thomas.

Trusting this report is satisfactory.

May 26/41 to the Commanding Officer, R.C.A.F, Patricia Bay B.C.

You have no doubt received a report of the minor accident that took place between the Lysander aircraft No. 428 and our aircraft Aeronca CF-BTR on May 13th last.

To enclose a copy of our letter to the district inspector which indicates that FIO, L.W. Brooks and his Lysander is held in fault, also Investigator Mr. Chapman’s report will uphold this contention. We are therefore submitting our

claim for cost of damages and replacement part, and also for loss of service based on the average flying time for the period April 1st to May 13th, as follows:-

Repair bill (Brisbane Aviation Co.) $70.00, Right elevator frame $20.00, Loss of service $130.00, Total claim $220.00

The claim for loss of service we have figured on a reasonable basis as follows:-

Hours flown April 1st to May 13th 112. Daily average 2 hrs. 30 min. Airplane out of service 8 days equals 20 hours, and our charges are $8.00 per hour solo. total $160.00. From this sum we have deducted $1.00 per hour for the gas and oil we did not use and depreciation through wear on engine of 50 cents per hour.

We respectfully submit the above for your earnest consideration.

July 30/41, To the Commanding Officer, R.C.A.F., Patricia Bay B.C.

We beg to remind you that our claim for $220.00 to cover damages to our aircraft has not yet been paid. Please refer to our letter of May 26/41 for particulars. It is our understanding that a full investigation has been made.

We would appreciate a reply acknowledging receipt of this letter.

Aug. 6/41 from W.E. Poupore, Flight Lieutenant, for Commanding Officer, R.C.A.F. Station, Patricia Bay, B.C.

Hereby acknowledged receipt of your letter of July 30th, 1941.

We wish to inform you that a report of the damages sustained by your aircraft, Aeronca CF-BTR when in collision with Lysander 428 was forwarded to Western Air Command Headquarters on July 4th and you will no doubt receive a communication regarding your claim in the very near future.

Aug.30/41, to Western Air Command Headquarters, Victoria B.C.

We are in receipt of a letter from FIL W.E. Poupore of the Patricia Bay R.C.AF Station to the effect that a report of the investigation into the accident that damaged our Aeronca Aircraft CF-BTR when the Lysander 428 groundlooped into it on May 13th last.

We tried our best to be reasonable in our claims and no doubt this has been found to be so. When may we expect a settlement? We would like to have this matter closed as we have paid the bill for repairs some time ago.

Trusting we will hear from you in the near future.

Sept. 29/41, to Western Air Command, Victoria, B.C.

On August 30th we wrote to you relative to our claim for damages sustained to our aircraft CF-BTR by one of you Lysander Aircraft.

We regret to say that we have not even received an acknowledgement of the above mentioned letter.

When may we expect a settlement of our claim for $220.00? It is almost five months since the accident took place.

Trusting to have an early reply to this letter.

Oct.2/41, from J. Maylon, Wing Commander, for R.G.A. Vallance, Air Officer Commanding, Western Air Command, Victoria, B.C.

The delay in replying to your letter of August 30th with reference to your claim for damages sustained to aircraft CF-BTR, is regretted.

The matter of the amount of payment, however, must be decided at Ottawa and it will be for the repair bill of $70.00 and for the right for the right elevator frame of $20.00. As soon as these documents have been received, everything possible will be done to hasten payment of your account.

Oct. 7/41, to Air Officer Commanding, Western Air Command, Victoria, B.C.

Enclosed detailed account of the repairs performed to our aircraft CF- BTR shown in detail and receipted.

The right elevator frame was one that we had on hand from another aircraft so we cannot show receipts for that, the sum of $20.00 most certainly would not buy a new one, indeed it was most lucky that we had it immediately available or the aircraft would have been grounded much longer.

I had been given the impression that your department took cere of the entire matter and was not necessary for it to go to Ottawa or I would not have delayed pressing for a settlement so long.

Your help in rushing this matter to a close will be most appreciated.

Oct. 13/41, from E.H. Johnson F/Lt, Accountant Officer for Commanding Officer, R.C.A.F. Station, Patricia Bay, B.C.

Re: Claim for damages to Aeronca Aircraft CT-BTR

Kindly forward to this station copies of receipts for repairs made to the marginally noted aircraft, at your earliest convenience.

Oct. 23/41, F/Lt E.N. Johnson, R.C.A.F. Station, Patricia Bay, B.C.

In answer to your request of October 13th I am enclosing two copies of the labour and material supplied in repairing the damage done to our aircraft CF-BTR last May 13th.

The amount shown of $70.00 is receipted as shown, also note that the elevator frame was supplied by us for which we claim $20.00 as replacement value. We could not possibly get a new frame for that price.

Please do not overlook our claim for loss of service in the sum of $130.00. A full report by your investigator has been made to your department.

Trusting to have an early settlement.

Nov.11/41, from E.H. Geron F/Lt, Accountant Officer, for Commanding Officer R.C.A.F. Station, Patricia Bay, B.C.

Re: Claim for damages to Aeronca Aircraft CT-BTR

Further to our letter 11-3, 13th October last, will you kindly forward to this station copies of receipts for repairs made to the marginally noted aircraft, and oblige.

Nov.21/41, Commanding Officer, R.C.A.F. Station, Patricia Bay, B.C.

On October 23rd we forwarded to your office, at the request of F/Lt E.H. Johnson, two copies of receipts for repairs done to our Aircraft CF-BTR.

We are now in receipt of another letter from another accountant officer from your station asking for more receipts.

We have to date sent three copies to the Western Air Command, five copies to your station, and three copies were given to the investigating officer. The repair station will not supply any more copies unless we pay for stenography.

Will you please refer to our letter of Oct. 23rd, file No.11-3? Enclosed is our own copy of receipt.

Trusting to hear from you soon.

Mar. 5/42, from C.M.A. Strathy S/Ldr, for S.L. deCarteret, Deputy Minister (Air)

Re: Accident at Sea Island Airport, B.C., on May 13th, 1941

This Department is advised that on May 13th, 1941, one of your Company’s Aircraft was involved in an accident at Sea Island Airport, B.C., for which you have claimed the sum of $220.00. This matter has now been fully investigated, and submitted to legal officers whose duty it is to advise me regarding the legal liability of the Crown.

I am advised by such legal officers that it has not been established that any officer or servant of the Crown was negligent while acting within the scope of his duties or employment.

Having regard to this advice, upon which I am bound to act, you will appreciate that the Crown cannot admit your claim or any legal liability therefor.

Consequently, I regret to inform you that this Department will have to recommend to higher authority that the Crown defend any action that may be brought against it by you, arising out of this accident.

THE HAMILTON BIPLANE

by Jerry Vernon

The British Columbia Aviation School

In 1984, I was asked to pick up some photos and artifacts for CMFT from Mrs. Margery Morton, a very tiny 90-year old lady living in a Burnaby old folks’ home. As a young woman, Mrs. Morton and her girl friend had been given flights in the Hamilton Biplane, a locally-built “Curtisstype” tractor aircraft operated by the British Columbia Aviation School. In addition to the rare personal photos, she also donated a number of Royal Flying Corps shots from Deseronto and Camp Borden, as well as the RFC lapel pin worn by her late brother, Herbert Tunn, who served as a ground crewman in Ontario.

In 1915, about a dozen young Lower Mainland. men wanted to learn to fly, so they could join the war. A group of prominent local businessmen, including H. O. Bell-Irving Sr., obtained an FAI charter from Paris, and formed the first of several organizations known as the Aero Club of B.C.

The prospective pilots put up $200 each, and Billy Stark’s Curtiss Pusher was purchased for $2500. Billy Stark hired on as Instructor, at $25/week, and the operation was in business. Training began near Minoru Park race track on Lulu Island, and Later the Curtiss was converted to a hydroplane. Soon the aircraft hit a log and sank, rendering it somewhat the worse for wear.

August 1916, probably Coquitlam, BC. Edna Rayner beside the Curtiss. CMFT collection, Mrs. M. Morton collection 120

September 1916. Coquitlam, B.C. Members of the B.C. Aviation School in front of the Curtiss tandem. L to R:N. B. Robbins, Gerry Hodgson, Charles Raynor, G. McRae, Arthur Allardyce, Phillip H. Smith, unknown, Cy Perkins, Robert Main, J.B. Crawford, Chad Chadwick; all graduates of the school. CMFT collection, Mrs. M. Morton collection 120.

At the end of the year, the Aero Club was reorganized, emerging as the British Columbia Aviation School, with the addition of several more prominent local figures as Directors. Thomas F. Hamilton, of the Hamilton Aero Manufacturing Company, Seattle, was approached to provide four aircraft. For what appears to be import duty reasons, it was decided to build the aircraft in Canada, and a small factory was set up South of False Creek, near 4th and Main. Some of the money was raised through a local parade and tag day. By this time the students had been enrolled in the 158th Battalion, Canadian Expeditionary Force. Every morning, they reported to the Cambie St. Armouries for duty, then travelled over to the factory to build their aircraft.

The Hamilton Biplane was first constructed as a single-seater, powered by a 60/70 hp Maxi- motor, but was later rebuilt with a second cockpit, longer wings, and the 75 hp Curtiss O salvaged from the ill-fated Curtiss Pusher. The trainer was completed in the Spring of 1916, test flown at Minoru Park, and then instruction moved to a field near Pitt Meadows, where Margery Tunn’s girlfriend’s father was employed with the Royal Engineers. Two instructors were brought up from the U.S. and, on August 27th, 1916, the two young women were given flips with Instructor N.B. Robbins. They sat squeezed into the front cockpit with student pilot Gerry Hodgson, who lost his leg in RNAS service, and who returned to Vancouver to become a prominent local lawyer.

The Hamilton Biplane was destroyed in a crash at Pitt Meadows later in 1916, while being flown by Charles Raynor. Several of the students won their wings elsewhere, before going overseas. One of the more prominent of the initial BCAS students was Murton Seymour, who was later involved in setting up the Canadian Flying Clubs Association and the British Commonwealth Air Training Plan.

Thomas Hamilton returned to the U.S., where he joined the Aircraft Department of Matthews Bros. Manufacturing, a well-known wooden propeller maker, which he took over in 1919 as the Hamilton Aero Manufacturing Co., to form the wellknown Hamilton Standard Propellor Corp. He also founded the Hamilton Metalplane Co. in 1927.

WANNA SWAP FOR A SET OF WINGS?

by Ted Hill

If you are no younger than twenty-five, you must remember the craze for collecting cigarette cards those colourful vignettes the tobacco companies used to pack with their coffin nails. If you smoked enough, and managed to escape cancer and emphysema long enough, you could end up exchanging these premium cards for any thing from a fancy ashtray to a grand piano.

You will remember the cards showed pretty pictures of vintage cars, or dogs, or flowers or aircraft. One thoughtful relative of mine recently sent me from Australia a complete set of these cards, mounted in a special album, which show the development of aircraft from Stringfellow’s flying model to “Sputnik 1”. Now, these things are rare real collector’s items and I was happy to add this lot to my library.

Today, there seems to be no interest in collecting such things. I suspect that boys today are more likely to be swapping girls’ telephone numbers, or stock-market tips. But when I was a boy. cigarette cards were BIG BUSINESS.

In the early 1930’s, the Macdonald Tobacco Company whimsically announced they were prepared to give a D.H. “Moth to any group which would bring them umpteen thousand packs of their cigarette cards. The figure was so outlandishly high- naturally enough – that there were no takers. But at any rate, shares of the tobacco company continued very healthy indeed.

At that time, I was happily ensconced as president of the McGill University Gliding Club. The parent club had already owned a “Moth”, CF- CDA, but this craft had met a tragic end. Sadly, she crashed in September, 1932, killing one of my favourite instructors, Blaise Leboeuf, and his pupil. I believe the Aeroplane Club died a natural death, following this accident.

Well, ours was a club of gliding enthusiasts, but we were certainly intrigued by the possibility of getting our hands on another “Moth”. So we set up a scheme to collect the appropriate cigarette cards on a big scale. The major domo of the Arts Building at the university, Mr. Harry Frimsdale, offered to take on the task of accepting and storing the cards for us. It was a big job, but he stuck to it loyally for quite a few years.

After a year or so of this effort, we reviewed our progress. It was already clear that no “Moth” was In the cards for us. Although a respectable number of packs of the cards had been collected, the number called for was that by the time we reached it, the “Moth” would be obsolete, and we would all be much too old to fly.

It was suggested that we and the tobacco company both lower our sights, and I approached them with the suggestion that they accept a much smaller number of cards, and swap them for a sailplane.

I hadn’t enough sense to preserve many news clippings from those days, but I do have one dated Feb. 18/36 in which it was announced that the Macdonald Company and our club had struck a deal, and they had specifically promised us a sailplane in exchange for a number of card packs which seemed within our means. Now we redoubled our collecting efforts, and the walls of the Arts Building began to bulge. Something had to give!

Up until that time, our club had been operating with a single aircraft. This was a “Zogling” primary, which we had built from scratch in the Engineering Building at the University in 1933. It gave yeoman service, training a considerable number of aspiring “birdmen”, all without significant injury, despite a number of pranks (for one of which I blush to admit – Yours Truly was responsible). But in January 1937, it was rather thoroughly demolished in another crash. By this time, it had performed over 1000 flights, and so far as I am aware, it was written off after this misadventure.

Unfortunately, I have not kept a record of the dates of our later developments, but I believe it was in July or August of that year that the tobacco company finally “came across”. They had graciously consulted us about the type of aircraft we wanted, and one fine day, they delivered to us a glorious, glistening, graceful intermediate sailplane a Slingsby “Falcon”- from England. We hadn’t been able to afford a two-seater, but here was a brand-new single-seater, as large as life and twice as lovely!

During half-time of a rugby game at Molson Stadium, the “Falcon” was towed on to the field, and a little group gathered for the handing-over ceremony. There was a charming lady, the representative of the tobacco company, ready to make the presentation. There was Principal Douglas of the university, ready to accept the craft on our behalf. There was Harry Grimsdale, who had laboured so hard and long to gather the cigarette cards for us. I was due to join them, to accept the sailplane on behalf of the club, BUT I was outside the gates, and with no ticket to get in. I had some very anxious moments, while I searched for a way to get into the Stadium, but finally climbed over a chain-link fence.

That aircraft, with her racy, swept-back wings, looked impressively beautiful. She had been worth all the effort and then some!

The ceremony was mercifully brief. There was a happy shaking of hands, all round, and then a group of willing helpers joined me to shove the craft off the field, safe from the charging footballers.

Now the club found itself in the embarrassing position of owning an intermediate sailplane, but no primary trainer. Also, we didn’t have a single member qualified at that time to fly the “Falcon”. Eventually, she was test-flown by a visitor from Germany, Wolf von Wersdorff and she performed beautifully.

To my everlasting regret, I had to leave the McGill club at that time, due to the pressure of medical studies, and I have little knowledge of later fortunes. Before long, a public-spirited benefactor, Mr. Norman Holland, came to the club’s rescue by donating a new primary trainer – a Dagling. Some members of the club eventually qualified, and flew the “Falcon” over several years, mostly, I believe, at St. Hubert Airport. In the Fail of 1939, it was flown briefly at St. Sauveur, in the Laurentians. Then. under the spur of the War, the club members began to disperse. One-Paul Laricheliere – became a “Spitfire” pilot, and in Aug. 1940 lost his life over the Channel, but not before chalking up six confirmed victories (one “Ju 87” and five fighters). Several others graduated as engineers, and joined the National Research Council at Ottawa. 1 believe these men worked out an agreement with the Gatineau Gliding Club for the “Falcon” to be seconded to them, and that it operated in the Gatineau district for some time.

But the R.C.A.F. claimed me, and I lost my contacts in the gliding fraternity for many years. I do not know the “Falcon”s eventual fate. Perhaps some reader who knows the facts will be good enough to enlighten us.

EARLY AVIATION IN CENTRAL BRITISH COLUMBIA

The following is an excerpt from Chapter 13 of our unpublished and as yet unnamed book dealing with the development of early aviation in British Columbia.

SUPPORTING THE MINING INDUSTRY

While major population centres were the centres of barnstorming activity and held the greatest potential for passenger traffic, it was in the more remote areas of the Canadian hinterland that the aeroplane became an indispensable form of transport.

In the 1920s, Imperial Oil ordered two Junkers F- 13 monoplanes which were operated in northern Alberta in 1921 and 1922. One of these machines, G-CADP, “Vic”, was sold to the Railway Employee’s Investment and Industrial Association of Hazleton B.C. and was used to carry hunting and prospecting parties into remote lakes. As the operational costs were excessive, the aircraft was pulled onto the banks of the Skeena river the next year, and lay derelict for six years.

In 1928, the Junkers was purchased by R.F. Corless of Prince George and used to fly supplies to a goldmine in the area. This illegal use of an unlicensed aircraft was noticed by Western Canada Airways, which was just starting to expand their network into central B.C., and a letter of protest was sent to the Controller of Civil Aviation.

“We are operating at the present time at 6 Miles Lake, 12 miles from Prince George,” wrote Leigh Brintnell in June 1929, “and, while there, noted that the old Junkers F. 13, which Imperial Oil used to have, has been reconditioned and is now flying again.[1] Do not wish to make this an official complaint but would like to submit these suggestions to you so that you can take care of them if you deem it advisable.

“The machine has no official licence and I believe its former licence was G-CADP. The pilot flying it is an old time German war pilot and has no licence either. We have kept our engineers from examining this machine officially as we did not wish to be implicated in any way in the event of a crash. Unofficially we feel that this machine is very unsafe to fly, as half an aileron pulled away in the air the day before I arrived.”

The aircraft was subsequently seized by the RCMP, inspected and, indeed, found to be unairworthy. It was left beached on the shore of Stuart Lake where it was picked apart by local vandals. It was a sad and ignominious ending for a plane that had flown a notable albeit brief career and which was the first Canadian registered aircraft to fly, in 1922, throughout northern and central B.C.

A year earlier the rugged all-metal German machine powered by a 175 h.p. engine made a number of trail blazing exploratory flights in company with its sister ship G-CADQ “Rene”, into northern Alberta and the Northwest Territories. Imperial Oil’s air operations were aimed at swift supply and liaison with their oil interests in the MacKenzie River valley. On March 24, 1921 both machines departed their Peace River Crossing base en route to Fort Norman. The ski-equipped machines struggled in the deep dry snow. On March 28 while landing at Fort Simpson disaster struck Rene. On touchdown the skis it a frozen snow drift and the propeller and one ski were shattered. Vic landed safely but then developed engine trouble. The crews doggedly transferred Vic’s propeller and a ski to Rene checked her for airworthiness and prepared to depart for Fort Norman, their final destination. On takeoff the deep snow again trapped them, the machine struck a frozen drift that smashed the propeller and a ski. The whole operation was stranded, the crews seemingly fated to enjoy the spartan comforts of a Hudson Bay post until spring break-up.

The crews declined to accept their fate lying down and doggedly set to work. They enlisted the aid of Walter Johnson, the post’s skilled carpenter cum cabinetmaker and he, with the assistance of air mechanic Bill Hill, commenced handcrafting two propellers from oak sleigh boards. They based their measurements on numerous tin templates. They then laminated the wood pieces together with a glue made from the hide and hoofs of a moose, and then clamped tightly. There was insufficient oak to complete the second propeller so the resourceful duo used alternate laminates of birch and oak. Meanwhile the rest of the crew toiled in the sub zero temperatures repairing the skis, the wing of Rene, and top-overhauled Vic’s motor.

On April 15th Vic took triumphantly to the air; her home-made prop performing flawlessly. On April 20th it was Rene’s turn and she soared away on a brief air test. Back on the frozen river, a delighted pilot Gorman reported no vibration and normal revs. They prepared to leave on the 24th, Rene to depart first. Nearing takeoff speed the skis broke through the snow crust and the tail section suffered serious damage. The machine was hauled to high ground to await later repairs. Rene’s mechanic was detailed to stay at Fort Simpson until parts could be shipped north. With pilot Fullerton at the controls Vic lifted off carrying Gorman, Hill and Imperial Oil employee Waddell and made a direct six hour flight to the base at Peace River Crossing. Later, repaired and float equipped, Rene joined Vic in further hazardous flights down north both surmounting further misadventures until Rene struck a submerged log on Aug. 21 and capsized. Both aircraft have long vanished from the scene but their famed home-made propellers live on at the National Aeronautical Museum in Ottawa.

Radiator from Junkers F13 CF-ALX, sister ship of CF-AMX in which Pady Burke was lost in 1929 in the Liard River area of Northern B.C. Earl Gerow photo. CMFT collection.

The work that had led Western Canada Airways into the Prince George area in 1929 was a photographic survey of the surrounding region. The base, which they established at the time, was not supervised from the Vancouver station, which handled the Pacific coast section, but from Edmonton. The 1930 amalgamation of Western Canada Airways with several other air transport companies owned by James A. Richardson created Canadian Airways, whose goal was to build a trans continental system of air transport.

In the 1930s, Canadian Airways established a base in the Burns Lake area, serving the considerable mining activity which was taking place in that area.

“It was in 1930, when Walter Gilbert and Frank Taylor flew into Burns Lake in a Boeing Flying Boat, to pick up an injured mining engineer, says Earl Gerow, who apprenticed with Canadian Airways as an aircraft mechanic. “The next year, Stan McMillan and Fred Little came in with the Canadian Airways Junkers long range aircraft, which was designed for photographic work. I was picked up as an apprentice mechanic to help out during the summer. Then, in 1932, Billy Wells and Bill Hoffner came to Burns Lake with a Fokker Super Universal. I was again taken on. My main job at the time was weighing out loads, refuelling the airplane, and assisting with the maintenance.

“A mining group came in to Burns Lake and caused quite a furor over a big gold mine. We were flying to Takla Landing and refuelling, then going in through McConnell Lake. These people had heard the legend about 1896 and 98 gold rush in the area and that people had gone in there and made fortunes. Unfortunately, after two years they went broke. They didn’t seem to know how to mine gold, or were, maybe, mining the public on stock.

Junkers W34 CF-ABK. CMFT collection, Wayne Cromie Collection 202.

“The biggest part of our work in 1932 and 33 was taking mining supplies into two mining ventures in the area. It was a case of loading, fuelling, and taking off, go into Takla Landing, refuel, take off and take the stuff on into the mining area. The reason for stopping at Takla Landing was we could carry a heavier payload by stopping at Takla Landing. They stocked the fuel in there by scow in the summer.

“When the weather was bad between Takla Landing and the mine site, we often made four and five trips a day between Burns Lake and Takla Landing, and stockpiled there. Eventually, when the weather cleared we would move the stockpile into the minesite.

“We were using the Fokker Super Universal that summer. Later on, in the fall before the ice set in, we had such a backlog that Stan McMillan was transferred in with the Junkers 34, which would carry a 1500 pound load on floats, rather than the 800 pounds on floats of the Super Universal. If the weather was good we could go straight through in the 34 without landing at Takla Landing.

“Beside this flying, we flew charter flights for prospectors and fur buyers. In the spring, after the ice went out, they used to fly around and pick up all the fur from the outposts Germanson Lake, Takla Lake, and Bear Lake wherever there was a post with factors buying fur.

“At Takla Lake there were two trading posts, an independent post and the Hudson Bay. We gathered up the Hudson Bay fur and took it to Prince George for them, because they didn’t sell it to the local fur buyers. They brought it down to Vancouver to their own sale. We covered the interior up as far as Telegraph Creek, and Stan McMillan was based at Carcross where he served the Yukon and the northern part of British Columbia, and we were kept reasonably busy.”

During 1934 the Canadian Airways network underwent substantial reorganization as it was losing money and appeared unlikely to obtain the hoped for Trans-Canada airmail contract. As an economy measure, it withdrew from the Prince George area, which was serviced from Burns Lake. This brought other operators into the district to service the mining ventures in the region.

November 1932. Junkers W34 on change over from skis to floats at the Canadian Airways Base at Burns Lake, BC. CMFT collection, Earl Gerow collection 413.

“United Air Transport were called in to take over from Canadian Airways, who were disbanding the base,” relates Earl Gerow. “McConachie and Gil McLaren came in with two Fokker Universals and one mechanic. I started right in with them. We maintained the two airplanes until the spring break-up when McConachie went back to Edmonton with his two airplanes to do the service work and put them on floats for the summer. During the spring and summer, he went direct to Takla Landing and they scowed all the mining goods into Takla Landing. They could take

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Along with other “stragglers we were some days late arriving there. This was partially due to the heavy snow encountered all the way from the Great Lakes to the Foothills of the Rockies. Even by prairie standards, the winter had been a severe one, and on reaching Calgary, the Canadian Pacific train was one and a half days late on its normal schedule.

Some of us had travelled from Summerside, on Prince Edward Island, where in the foulest of weather, our General Reconnaissance Course had been successfully completed. There, it had been so cold that we had been told not to touch any metallic parts of the aircraft with our bare fingers.

On our arrival, we were met by the Unit’s Adjutant, a dour man, who was displeased by our lateness, and very unimpressed by our exaggerated tales of the prairie weather. He suspected, quite rightly, that we had spent some days in Montreal, on our way.

Ground School, along with our first long seatrips in Avro Ansons occupied our time during the first few weeks. During that initial period, “crewing-up” took place. In retrospect, I often wonder what strange, human alchemy stimulated our choices as with whom we should fly. and, maybe, die! Had a psychological study been made of this merging of characters into aircrews, much of interest may have resulted. Some strange conglomerates were found in the aircraft!

Meanwhile, the pilots had been learning about their “new” planes, in which no orthodox dual instruction was possible, as the Hampdens were essentially “tandem” affairs. Pilots Notes were read; they familiarized themselves with their instrument panels, the knobs, switches and warning lights; they listened to what words of warning were given to them and then they were away. on their first solo flights in their old, temperamental aircraft.

Apart from the Fairey Battles, which we had met at Bombing and Gunnery School, the Hampdens were the most uninspiring craft that we could have the misfortune to know. Some of them were obviously old, worn-out rejects from Bomber Command. True, they had, marginally, a better reputation than their in-line engined cousins, the Herefords, and the previous Beauforts used at the unit. One of these stood in the hangar at Pat Bay, unflown, during our entire stay. Whilst we had doubts that our old Hampdens would fly successfully on one engine, nobody had such optimism about the Bristol Beaufort!

By the spring of 1943, we were ready to fly as complete crews. On take off, the navigator sat behind the pilot and his sheet of armour-plating. When the Hampden was successfully airborne. the navigator swung himself through the narrow space under the pilot’s seat, and into his plexiglass “office”, in the nose of the aircraft. From this position, there was a most intimate view of adjacent shipping, and of course, the sea!

To enable the pilot to fly very low, he was first assisted by his navigator, who lay on the floor of his office” and watched the whitecaps on the waves. When these were really racing by, when the colour of the fishes’ eyes could be seen, then word was given, and the pilot went no lower. Several of our Hampdens returned to base with the tips of their propellers bent…….

Interesting material has been read in the “Museum Newsletter” about the “stabilized yaw” syndrome, a most unattractive trait of the Hampden’s character! To the non-technical the “yaw was an uncontrolled side-slip encountered when turning to port. A turn to starboard, from memory, did not evoke this tendency though here, it’s a navigator speaking, not the pilot, who would have more knowledge on the matter. I recall the expression “a locking of the rudders”. Could the force of this have over-ridden the effect of the aileron.? Again, maybe a former Hampden pilot could enlarge on this topic.

Most of the pilots, including our own, took their aircraft to a safe height and demonstrated to us the effects of the “stabilized yaw” and their own abilities in making the necessary corrective measures to stop it. It was obvious to us that this tendency was present, when the Hampden was used as a night bomber. It occurred to us that the decision to use this aircraft for torpedo bombing work at such low altitudes, over the water, was a most lamentable one.

The Hampden’s armament consisted of three Vickers gas-operated guns – one for each of the gunners, and one for the navigator. The pilot had a forward-firing 303 Browning, the barrel of which was situated a mere few inches from the head of the navigator, as he worked at his chart table.

There were three positions from which the navigator could fire his gun. These were to port, starboard and dead ahead. Both the gun and the magazine had to be man-handled from one position to another. This operation could easily result in its gas plug becoming displaced, and until this was rectified, single shots only could be fired!

To some extent, the elevation of the rear-upper gun was influenced by a ramp. Thus the shooting off of the tail unit was avoided. On at least one of the Hampdens, though, this ramp had become worn, and following one of our gunnery exercises a few bullet holes were found to have been neatly put through our starboard fin!

Not every thing at Pat Bay was doom and gloom though. On fine days the Pacific Ocean appeared blue and clear to an appreciable depth, whilst brown seals besported themselves on the off-shore rocks of Vancouver Island.

Occasionally, we were involved in navigational exercises over the sea, where no navigational aids were used except the most natural ones, and the sliding scale found on the lid of our Dalton Computers. Of course, at such low levels as we worked, the wind was identical enough to the surface wind on the sea. So it was from the water that we calculated our wind direction and its speed.

The wind’s direction was found relative to the direction of the wind-lanes on the surface of the ocean; its speed was clearly shown to us by the presence of “white-caps” on the surface. So, on a day when no wind-lanes could be seen, when there were no “white-caps”, it could be assumed that the wind was “light and variable”, less than five knots in strength, a wind that could be forgotten. On days when the wind was appreciable, the drift was observed by natural means. We watched the degree to which the Hampden was apt to “crab” over the “white caps” or any offshore rock, and applied it mentally to our proposed track, thus giving the Co. (T) true course to steer. The vector triangle was constructed mentally, track angle, T.A.S. (true air speed) along with estimated drift resulted in the G.S. (ground speed) being known. At this point the computer’s sliding scale was used to calculate the time it was going to take on the legs of the journey.

This work, of course, was special to our operational flying very low over the sea. It worked very well, though, and was a pleasant change from the celestial mathematics used in astro navigation, and naively lacked the sophistry of the Gee Box and H2S equipment, carried on the night bombers.

Natural simplicity found its way into the hangars, too. The Pegasus radial engines were old and unreliable. Often an exercise had to be aborted because of engine failure, and the Hampden would limp home.

The offending cylinder was located by the mechanic spitting systematically on each one, in turn, until the cold one was located! I’m sure that Fred Gardham would have frowned on this procedure, when he was an engineer with Boeing. This hardly technical approach to the Hampden’s problems was widely employed!

On 2nd April, 1943, we “lost” ourselves, when a sudden and vicious squall blew up, when we were on our way to the gunnery range. Dense cloud wrapped itself round our Hampden, and the pilot was concerned about the near- presence of the drogue-towing “tug” air craft. He flew well away from the range. What happened next should have taken place a day earlier – on the occasion of All Fools!

We endeavoured to find ourselves, when gaps in the dirty white clouds appeared. It was then discovered that we had not brought a map of the local area. Who expects to be lost on a gunnery exercise, anyway? Eventually, a very dilapidated topographical of the locality was discovered. It had previously been used to wrap the “flying rations” the ubiquitous doughnuts! The remaining jam and the sugar had to be scraped from it, but it was of no avail. We were well and truly “lost”.

We had with us a ground-staff armourer, who had the great wish to fly. He wasn’t bargaining for this chaos, and being of religious bent, he knelt on the floor of the Hampden and prayed. It was the first and only time I have seen a man at prayer in any R.A.F (or R.C.A.F) aircraft! I shall always remember him!

Jack, our “skipper” then took control. Seeing a runway, through a gap in the still dense and low clouds, he spiralled through the murk and landed. We taxied to the control tower, where we were surprised to see the “Star-spangled Banner, wet and half-heartedly fluttering from a mast on the building. We had landed, not in Canada, but in the good old U.S. of A.!

American hospitality, like the Canadian, was, as usual, at a very high level. Jack notified base that we were not at the bottom of the sea, and we were told to wait there until the next morning. I don’t recall much of the night in Bellingham, though I do remember that we mislaid our New Zealand gunner, Alan, who was something of a lothario! We did not receive any reprimand for our careless conduct there was no “rocket”. This seemed strange.

Whilst British Columbia is remembered as being a beautiful province, it was, at that time, “dry” too! Whilst this ruling did not apply to Air Force Stations, the bad weather had caused liquor supplies to be delayed. Both the Sergeants’ and the Officers’ Messes at Patricia Bay had become “dry”, too! Tempers were running short. America, though, was awash with alcohol!

The next day, one Hampden, carrying a mechanic to “look” at our aircraft, and two Avro Ansons along with Mess Secretaries and their “carriers” came to the airfield.

The mechanic checked our antiquated Hampden that bore a strange name “The Block Cock”. This might have been the humour of Bomber Command. The Americans watched somewhat bemusedly. The Mess Secretaries and their “carriers” went to downtown Bellingham and made extensive purchases, which were loaded into the Ansons. Some unusually long runs were observed during those take-offs from Bellingham, U.S.A.

Nothing more was heard of our exploit. As the armourer was heard to say, “God moves in a mysterious way”. We did not argue with him!

Hampdens were lost during our course. One disappeared during a long navigational exercise over the Pacific, and one crashed into a hangar on the station. Both were fatal accidents, the latter causing a very spectacular fire.

The ferry that eventually took us from Victoria to Vancouver was escorted at deck level by several Hampdens, from our recent “home” No. 32 O.T.U. Patricia Bay!

On returning to the United Kingdom, none of us ever flew operationally on Hampdens. There was talk of doing a further course, but it never transpired. Most of the torpedo-bomber potential was sent to Transport Command.

Jack, our “skipper” and myself were seconded to the British Overseas Airways Corporation (today’s British Airways). Following such luck, we were both inclined to believe, not in gremlins, but in fairies. That was, until our “demob” came along!

(Editor’s note: Mr. Rowley now resides in Northamptonshire, England)

1933, Vancouver area, “Batman” Cecil MacKenzie. Caption reads “Many successful flights”. CMFT collection, Mrs. M. Morton collection 259.

NEWSPAPER CLIPPINGS A TREASURE

The Museum is always pleased to receive old aviation clippings, but it is sad that many cannot be used as the collector did not include the name of the publication or the date.

Occasionally, clippings arrive made up into scrapbooks, and while these seldom include source information, at least they are usually chronologically arranged.

The following items have been gleaned from a feature page entitled “Aviation Advances in B.C.” of The Vancouver Sun, April 21, 1934, and passed on to us by Mrs. Joan Jordan. Mrs. Jordan is the grand daughter of Frank Gilbert, who operated one of the earliest commercial flying schools at Vancouver Airport.

FRANK GILBERT HAS FLYING SCHOOL

Frank Gilbert, operating his own flying school at the Sea Island Airport, is one of Vancouver’s best known pilots and has trained many local aviators.

Editor’s note: In 1939, Lloyd Michaud joined the firm as a partner and it was incorporated as Gilbert’s Flying Service Ltd.

In 1942, Mr. Gilbert sold his interest to Lloyd and Al Michaud. The business was closed down until 1945 because of wartime restrictions, after which it was re-named Vancouver’s U-Fly Ltd. Later, changing times necessitated another name change – to West Coast Air Services – and finally it was absorbed by Air BC.

“AERO TECH” “OFFICIAL” SCHOOL

April 21, 1934

The first school of aeronautics in Western Canada to obtain official recognition, Vancouver Aero Tech, Granville Street and Sixth Avenue, is an all-Canadian firm offering courses specially designed to train aviators for Canadian conditions.

A staff of seven instructors, each a specialist, give a thorough training in air engineering, aerial navigation and aerodynamics. The school issues its own textbooks, which contain all necessary data for Canadian air engineers’ licenses.

The system of instruction used is the latest development in the field of education.

FLIPPINGS FROM VR FLYING CLUB

April 21, 1934

George Jakes, just in from Vernon for a few days, tells of fine work by a couple of Vernon youngsters in constructing their own plane, a Corbin.

The boys, Eldon Seymour and Jim Duddle, assisted by E. Buffem, an expert welder, have the machine nearly completed. They only started it five months ago and have worked on it in their spare time. They have won favourable comment from aviation experts who have viewed their work.

AIR SERVICE TO BRIDGE RIVER

April 21, 1934

Establishment of an air service to the Bridge River gold mining district is announced by Major D.R. MacLaren, assistant general manager Canadian Airways Ltd.

The service will commence Tuesday, leaving Vancouver at 5:15 p.m., returning from Bridge River Wednesday morning at 8 a.m. A second trip will be flown each Friday from Vancouver at the same hour, returning Saturday morning.

This new service will give a connection at Bridge River with the P.G.E. train from Quesnel. The morning plane will reach Vancouver in time to make connections with the plane for Victoria. As conditions warrant the service will be made more frequent.

A new Fairchild “71” plane has been brought in for the new flotation landing gear. It carries six passengers and pilot.

Canadian Airways Ltd. made the first commercial flights into the Bridge River district back in 1928. The company’s planes were the first to land on Seton and Gun Lakes.

RADIO PLANE FOR VANCOUVER

April 21, 1934

Pacific Airways Ltd. will shortly have in service the first radio- equipped airplane in British Columbia, a Junkers all-metal monoplane for charter work between Vancouver and the gold mining districts of the interior.

Similar equipment is to be installed in the Bridge River and Cariboo Airways Fairchild plane which will operate in the Cariboo country.

Ground stations have been established at the Marpole hangars of the company, and at Shalalth on Seton Lake, from which points the pilots will be able to receive weather reports and instructions while in flight. Call letters of the Vancouver station are VXT and those for Shalalth are VXS.

WORLD TOUR IN 57 DAYS

April 21, 1934

Around the world by air in 57 days is now possible to the tourist who wishes to travel by air. This new service has been recently instituted by Thomas Cook & Sons. The only link not made by air is the crossing of the Pacific Ocean.

The trip includes 24 night stopovers, with seven days spent in Hong Kong due to steamer sailing dates. Actual time in transit is only 38 days, of which 13 are spent in the air, average speed for the journey being 100 miles per hour.

Starting at Seattle, the tour runs to San Francisco, Los Angeles, Dallas, Atlanta and Miami on United States air lines. From Miami it runs by air to Port au Prince, Haiti; San Juan, Puerto Rico; Port of Spain, Trinidad, and to Belem, Fortaleza and Pernambuco, Brazil. Passengers are there transferred to the Graf Zeppelin for the flight to Seville, Spain.

The traveller continues by plane to Marseilles, Naples, Athens, Baghdad, Calcutta and Saigon. Steamer connection is made there for Hong Kong, connecting with the Pacific liner to Vancouver.

DONATIONS

The Museum gratefully acknowledges the receipt of the following donations of goods and cash received since publication of our last newsletter, and covering the period October 26, 1989 through April 11, 1990. (TR 3242 to 3513)

LARGE ARTIFACTS

Air Cadet Squadron #746 E. M. Hell-Logistics Ltd

SMALL ARTIFACTS

Peter Daniell

Robert E. Taylor Mrs. Donna Henry Ronald M. Krywiak Edwin P. Pleasants

A. E. Seller Mr. Laurie Wallace Nahanni Helicopters Ltd Air BC Ltd Mr. John Barnes Mr. John A. Buis Mrs. Ruth Brusatore Mr. David B. Smith Mr. Jim Ervin Charlie A. Ness Mr. Reginald Witt Linton A. Moore Mr. Victor Mahoney Port Hardy Museum & Archives

BOOKS, MAGAZINES, LOG BOOKS

Air Cadet Squadron #746 Capt. W. A. Thompson Ed Burns, Chicago Mrs. Donna Henry Stanton & MacDougall Ltd Mr. John A. Buis Ingvar (Inky) and Norah Klett Mrs. Anne Grealis Kenneth I. Swartz Mr. lan F. Morrison The Wright Stuff Mr. Walt Bailey Mr. Allan (Bruce) Duncan Ronald M. Krywiak Mr. Nick Cline Mr. John William Bradford Mr. John A. Buis Flight Line/Olde Hide House Sunflower University Press Mr. C. J. Larry Bell Hancock House Publishers Ltd Mr. John Barnes Mr. Arthur Claxton Corben Courier W. Bert Hampton Mr. Herb Tripp General Dynamics Bert W. Hampton Frank R. Stevens

Comox Airforce Museum Mr. Reginald Witt Linton A. Moore Canadian Airlines Archives Basil Watson Mr. and Mrs. J. Atkinson Beverly Champniss Transport Canada Mr. Dean Lundstrom Werner Faust Ms. Jenna Sorensen Harry R. Moyle Mr. Jack Meadows

PHOTOS, PICTURES, MEMORABILIA

Charles Russell Avemco Beautyway Ed Burns Mrs. Peggy Husband Mrs. Donna Henry Mr. K. Q. (Bud) Law Mrs. Anne B. Seidelmann Capt. W. A. Thompson Mr. Norman A. J. Leak Mr. lan F. Morrison Mr. Walt Bailey Mr. R. A. M. Crawford Mr. Wes Veale Mr. Ivan C. S. McArthur Mr. Nick Cline Fred Gardham Jane Robinson Mr. John A. Buis Don Thomas Michael J. Gatey Mr. Harry B. Adams Mr. Jack Meadows National Aviation Museum Mr. John Barnes Tony Swain Mr. P. E. Lawrence Mr. Doug Kinsley Mr. George Fawkes Mr. Reginald Witt Canadian Airlines Archives Mr. George R. Twells National Film Board B. C. M. A. Brian Rempel Ingwald T. (Ingle) Wikene Ray Brown Mrs. June Tucker Mr. Allan Earle Mr. Kenneth E. Danyluk Mr. Earl L. Somerville

UNIFORMS, MEDALS, CRESTS

Peter Daniell Mrs. Anne B. Seidelmann Gary D. Crawford Ingvar (Inky) and Norah Klett Mr. Robert Allan King Colin J. Hamilton A. E. Seller The Squadron Canadian Airlines Archives

TOOLS, EQUIP, FURNITURE, FIXTURES

Susan Rowntree Don Thomas Mrs. Mary Swain Ronald M. Krywiak Bert W. Hampton Linton A. Moore Mr. Ross K. Anderson William (Bill) Davies Pacific Avionics & Instruments Basil Watson Brain Weeks

CASH

Michael Gatey Randolf F. Pilford James Niven Alvin M. Hayward Ingvar (Inky) and Norah Klett Mr. John F. Gilmore Mr. John W. McQueen Mr. Bill Heather Norman C. Helmer Dave H. Ruemke D. F. Jackman Roderick J. Fraser Robert B. Cameron Ms. Johanna Postlethwaite Dr. A. G. Moffoot Jim Horswill Joseph Tiffin Leigh Begg

Mr. James O. Camden Elmer Fossheim A. J. Carter George F. Williamson Ronald M. Krywiak Mr. John F. Gilmore Mr. Lawrie L Paxton Mr. Gerald E. (Ed) Anderson William R. Spencer Gary A. Moonie Fred Gardham Mr. Allan Earle Fred W. Coulter Jerry E. Vernon James H. Kenney International Aviation Terminals Inc Micheal J. Krywiak Donald N. Watson Mr. Joe A. A. Lalonde Jeffrey Kenneth Logan George F. Williamson Ingwald T. Wikene Michael J. Gatey Ed Wilks Ross S. Mackenzie Walter B. Coates Gary D. Crawford G. Barry Jackson ESW Ex-Servicewomen’s Ass’n Ken V. Irlam W. J. Argue George R. Nunn Mr. Stephen Morrison lan J. Wilson Stuart W. Turner Matthew Pirozek Arnold M. Feast Dave Mills James A. Schuman John N. Reid David Conn Hunter McQuarrie William Hughes George F. Williamson Fred Gardham Aggressive Tube Bending Kenneth O. Macgowan Ralph Nutter Bill Emerslund Mackie Moving

NEW MEMBERS

A warm welcome to the following new members who have joined the CMFT or have agreed to provide information under the Museum’s Exchange Membership program since the publication of newsletter number 36 October 17, 1989. (#1754-#1789)

Canadian Military Engineers R. M. Tucker Brian Stacey Larry Niven Gary D. Crawford Laila Bird Leonard G. Olson Friends of the Canadian Warplane Heritage Bruce Manley The Squadron at North Weald Barry Rowe Tracey Harberd F. S. Prest Tom Held K. C. Anderson Royal Netherlands Aeronautical Ass’n K. É. Bjorge H. W. MacAdams Ewan Rowntree General Dynamics British Aircraft Preservation Council National Library of Canada Surrey Chamber of Commerce Roger Harris Stewart W. Turner Canadian Flight (COPA) Control Column Ronald G. Wells James A. W. Schuman Jack Meadows David R. Conn Michael Evans Brian Rempel Michael Bethell Al Thompson Wedel-Williams Memorial Foundation

MEMBER RENEWALS

The following members have renewed their memberships since the publication of newsletter number 36 October 17, 1989. (RN2578-RN2871)

Colin Hamilton lan F. Morrison Florence Lalonde W. & M. Strell Ken & Myra Danyluk Ron J. Manning Dr. A. Prothero Peter Knowles Rosalie Pierce Nick & Eileen Kapty Alvin Haynard Col. Harvey S. Browne Harold Olson Eleanor Spence Brian Weeks Herbert B. Hough Eric Huffey Harry Stephens Ken Neville-Smith E. Rozen John F. Gilmore Lock Madill Ingwald T. Wikene J. S. Foster J. G. Buckham L. G. Bradford C. Rennie Alan Evans A. Wegmuller R. J. Fraser D. Harris D. Elgar John W. McQueen R. Cameron Terry Elgood J. Postlethwaite Clifford Anderson Dr. A. G. Moffoot Susan Rowntree Jas Horswill L. Knibbs Robert Petite Joseph Tiffen M. Bowes W. Stone C. G. Charter G. Klatt Leigh Begg James R. Carnwath Aero Club of Canada Aero Space Museum Wingspan Publishing J. R. Cooper N. C. Helmer J. P. Leslie D. H. Ruemke James O. Camden lan Marshall Mr. Elmer Fossheim Mr. Fred E. Meilicke Mr. Marvin R. Lang Mr. John A. G. King Mr. Donald Olson Bruce Duncan Roy Fast A. J. Carter Mike Gatey William R. Spencer Frank W. Coulter Steven Skolovy Fred Skolovy Alex K. Lewoniuk L. Tallis C. S. (Bud) Hallock John Metnick Jason Besse Adam J. Besse Bob Grisenthwaite Harold T. Schoultz Keith Olson Fred Gardham J. Olsen Michel Ferland J. Ernie Jensen Bud Neyedli Paul & Evelyn Meyer C. Douglas Forster Gordon Dann Jeff Logan Tom Palmer Prior Family ESW Ex-Servicewomen’s Ass’n of BC Bill Emerslund Jerry Vernon M. Orphan Page 31

J. Hatch S. D. Remington E. Wilks L. G. Shurben E. Gerow John R. Sherrett Ross S. Mackenzie Doug A. Fraser Norman F. Bishop Brian Birch Peter Power R. Frankish Ron Stunden Evan K. Pelletier William F. Watling M. Buckingham Don McVicar V. J. Janderson M. Smith K. E. Stunden B. Hawley Ron Hunt G. Ballentine W. B. Coates Don Souter A. Fraser Western Canada Aviation Museum T. Temple J. S. Foster D. Bowers M. I. Barron K. V. Irlan James C. Stevens Garry A. Vincent F. E. Meilicke Brent Wallace W. J. Argue B. Bricklebank Western Flyer Bob A. Heakes J. A. Connell F. Val Hinch G. Nunn S. R. Mouncey Basil Cooke Stephen Morrison Thomas D. White J. M. Magwood 408 Squadron Museum The 99 News Page 32 Abbotsford Airshow Society Aeronca E3 Club Aeroplane Monthly Air Canada Historical Services Airforce Officer’s Ass’n Air Gunners Ass’n of BC Air Power Museum Aircrew Ass’n G. Vancouver Branch Alberta Aviation Museum Ass’n Atlantic Canada Aviation Museum Atlin Historical Society Australia War Memorial BC Aviation Council BC Forest Museum BC Museums Ass’n BC Soaring Society Base Borden Military Museum Boeing Company Bomber Command Ass’n Canadian Aviation News Canadian Forestry Ass’n Canadian Harvard Aircraft Ass’n. Canadian Railway Historical Ass’n Canadian War Museum Walt Lannon Canada’s Aviation Hall of Fame Canadian Warplane Heritage. Cansteam Ass’n Castle Air Museum Foundation Inc BC Aviation Museum Comox Airforce Museum Corvus Publishing Wings Corben Courier Cub Club Delta Museum Archives Fairchild Club Flypast Key Publishing Ltd Handley Page Ass’n Heritage West Magazine Transportation Museum of BC Hyack Festival Ass’n Imperial War Museum International Vintage Aircraft International Military Vehicle Club Intrepid Sea Air Space Museum Museum Kentucky Aviation Historical Langley Centennial Museum Mosquito Aircraft Museum Motat Society of New Zealand Inc Museum of Flight

Museum of Northern BC Nanton Lancaster Society National Library of Canada Naval Helicopter Ass’n North Shore Museum & Archives Northern Lights College Northern Aviation Museum Society Ohio History of Flight Owls Head Transport Museum OX-5 Aviation Pioneers Pacific AME Ass’n Pacific Progress Transport Canada Planes of Fame Port Moody Heritage Society Prince of Wales Northern Heritage Centre Quarter Century in Aviation RCAF Ass’n RAF Museum Society of Friends RCAF Officers Ass’n RAF Museum Royal New Zealand Airforce Museum Seaflite Oceanographic Stampe Club Strathallan Aircraft Collection The International Pietenpol Ass’n News The Soaring Society of America US Army Aviation Museum Vancouver Maritime Museum Vancouver Soaring Ass’n Vancouver Transportation Club Vintage Car Club Vintage Sailplane Ass’n Waco Club Washington Pilots Ass’n West Coast Railway Ass’n Western Development Museum Western Warbird News WW II Glider Pilot Ass’n M. Dewberry B. Law A. J. Moul Barry Jackson lan J. Wilson Gogi Goguillot Wayne & Melissa Manning Norman Leak Ken Knudsen John L. Lingham Frank Stevens Kenneth Aubin W. A. Stunden H.A. Olson Maxse Tayler M. Pirozek W. A. MacDonald Peter Skehor D. Mills W. Chapman L. McEwan A. Feast G. McLaren R. Wylie Robert & Elizabeth Leonard Dr. H. J. Pickup Comox Airforce Museum George F. Williamson Edwin L. Harris Bill Hosford John N. Reid Theodore D. Brown W. Hughes S. G. Jackson R. W. MacKenzie E. B. Tryon V. L. Sims K. O. MacGowan R. D. Nutter J. H. Smith H. D. McTaggart A. F. Threlfall Sean Keating Yvon Chasse Ed Foster Kenneth G. Wallace Tony Hudak Ron Krwyiak Cal Hough Norm Hoge Linton A. Moore W. K. & M. Rutledge Colin Walker family Page 33

A TRIBUTE TO OUR VOLUNTEERS

Volunteers are everything. They are the Museum, and will continue to play a major role- now, during the move to the new facility and after the Museum is reestablished at the new site.

Do not withdraw your services now because you think things are going well and you are not needed. You are badly needed if we are to survive.

A special thank you to each and every one of you who has committed time, money, services, or ideas. As in every organization, some people contribute more than others. A selection committee was given the job of choosing 30 people from the many who helped out to be especially honored. They decided to include only those people who gave of time and not always when it was convenient to do so.

We have been remiss in honoring our volunteers in recent years in this special way, so the following list includes a few people who are no longer with us; having gone on to other things or passed away.

Limiting the list of recipients for a plaque to only 30 people was very difficult. Some very deserving people might have been missed, and if so, we apologize. Nominations for the award are accepted year round. Drop us a note, so that person can be included in next year’s list.

Fred Gardham is the recipient of the 1989 “Volunteer of the Year” award. He has passed his 75th birthday, yet puts in 40 hour weeks on the Hampden restoration, and would do more if he could. Without this very special man, the Hampden project would not be where it is today.

Volunteers who have been issued an Appreciation Plaque (in no particular order):

• Fred Gardham
• Mark Zalesky
• Bev Champniss
• Frank Coulter
• Mike Gatey
• Jane Robinson
• Hank Koehler
• Colin Hamilton
• Ingy Wikene
• Jerry Vernon
• Jerry Olsen
• Bill & Wilma Thompson
• Doug & Lisa Girling
• Ken & Myra Danyluk
• Peter DeVries
• Peter Knowles
• Bruce Jubb
• Tom Palmer
• Dave Ruemke
• Gary Moonie
• Gerry Van Humbeck
• Joe Shewala
• Tony & Mark Hudak
• John Clark
• Bob Lalonde
• John de Visser
• Archie Fraser
• Joe Smith
• Brian Weeks
• lan Anderson
• Kandy Besse
• Gogi Goguillot
• David Jensen
• Tony Boni
• Robert Ballantyne

Feb 1990. We do need a home.

JOB OPPORTUNITIES

• GIFT SHOP MANAGER: 3 to 4 hours daily, 5 days per week year round. Includes weekends. Volunteer or paid.
• VOLUNTEER COORDINATOR: 2 to 3 hours daily, 5 days per week, including weekends, year round. Volunteer or paid
• TOUR GUIDE/TOUR CO-ORDINATOR: 5 hrs day, 4 to 5 days per week, May 1 to October 15 $6.50 hr
• SALES CLERK/COMPUTER OPERATOR: 15 to 30 hrs week May 1 to October 15 $6.50 hr. Potential for full time work.
• GROUNDSKEEPER: May 1 to October 15. By hour or on contract
• EXHIBITS MAINTENANCE: Maintenance, repair and improvement of exhibits. 4 hrs daily, year round. Potential for advancement and full time for enthusiastic and dedicated person.

Submit resume and salary expectations for all jobs. Please do not phone.

VOLUNTEER OPPORTUNITIES

Any of the above jobs can be carried out by volunteers, and thus help conserve our meager resources. If you can spare enough time to take on any of the above tasks, please let us hear from you.

Other jobs that are volunteer oriented include:

• Office Assistants
• Gift Shop Clerk
• Aircraft Grooming
• Grounds And Yard
• Magazine Collection Management
• Tour Guides
• Security
• Ticket Takers
• Janitor
• Data Entry
• Word Processing
• Artifacts Collection
• Building Maintenance
• Equipment Maintenance
• Special Events
• Telephoning
• and Probably 200 Other Jobs

HELP, HELP, HELP!

The Museum places a heavy reliance on volunteers and on small cash donations to carry on daily operations. Over the past few years, Job Creation grants have enabled us to build a comprehensive computerized system for cataloging artifacts and photographs, and have provided assistance with restorations of aircraft and other specific projects, and are gratefully acknowledged.

Students funded under the “Challenge” program have acted as tour guides and cashiers and have been of invaluable assistance, but no assistance is forthcoming in 1990 under any of the Job Creation programs.

The Museum has never been eligible for traditional operating grants.

Paid staff consists of a full time restorer, a full time accessions clerk/Girl Friday, a full time Clerk/Gift Shop attendant, and a part time bookkeeper, but revenues from all sources are presently sufficient to fund only one of those positions. The others are either seconded from or guaranteed by an increasingly reluctant single donor.

The Acting Executive Director is a full time volunteer, as is the Curator/Go-Fer, while the paid restorer volunteers an average of 40 additional hours weekly for general maintenance and exhibit tasks. Part time volunteers include a cataloger for the historic photo collection, another for the current photos collection, and two general maintenance/ carpenters. Recent part time volunteers include a darkroom technician, and a video producer/video collection manager. Other volunteers come and go on an irregular basis to carry out short term projects as time permits.

It doesn’t take much imagination to see that unless we get more volunteers or the funds to hire summer staff, we will be hard pressed to serve the nearly 20,000 visitors who arrive during the mid-May through mid-October season, and still find time to answer the phone. Normal museum functions will of necessity be drastically curtailed or suspended during this time.

Can you help?

WANTED DEAD OR ALIVE

In addition to the golfcourse type mower the Museum operates, we need a never ending supply of power mowers and weed eaters to do small areas and hard to reach places. There is an awful lot of grass to cut, which results in heavy wear and tear, and they are sometimes badly treated by willing but unskilled operators and require constant maintenance and overhaul.

Drop off you old gas or electric mowers and engines, complete or parts only, working or not.

Last year’s “Spring Cleanup Week” was a bonanza. A pass along daily travel routes picking up discarded mowers left by the side of the road yielded a couple of great mowers that got us by in 1989. If you have some of your own, of see any discarded one, pick them up and bring them in. Or, phone and tell us where they are. We’ll also need someone with a pickup or station wagon to pick the latter up.

Lastly, if you are a “whiz” at keeping balky mowers running, we’d love to have you on board, and of course, we also need operators.

HAULING NEEDED

While most of the major items acquired over many years have finally been hauled home, there are still a few items that need a ride, including:

A set of Norseman floats from Timmins, Ontario, a small truckload of H21 helicopter parts from Kapuskasing, and some radio gear and interior furnishings from Hamilton, Ontario.

Please advise us of anyone you know who may be coming out this way and has room for any of this material, or pass on information as to possible back hauls by commercial operators. We’re looking to bring the material out at the lowest possible cost.

ABBOTSFORD AIRSHOW PROGRAMS, POSTERS

The Museum’s collection of Abbotsford Airshow Programs is missing the 1961 1962 1963 1964 1966 1976 issues. Does anyone out there have any of these issues to donate to our collection in the library?

We are also looking for Abbotsford Air Show Posters. We have only a few of the later ones, and would like to complete our collection.

COMPUGRAPHIC TYPESETTERS

Two typesetting machines available. One is a Compugraphics Jr which includes an unused computer-assisted “Cybertext” program and board ready to install into your IBM compatible. Cost of the computer program and the board alone was nearly $2,000, while the Compugraphics Jr cost $1,750 used. Price for the lot $1,200.

The second is a Compugraphics (an improved version of the Jr.), complete with the Cybertext computer program and IBM compatible computer to provide computerized editing coupled to the typesetter. This one has seen its share of work at a community newspaper, but was working when replaced by very expensive newer equipment, and is priced at $1,500.

Call Rose at 531-3744 for more information.

MUSEUM BOOK STORE/GIFT SHOP

Members enjoy a 10% discount on most items in the Museum’s Gift Shop/Book store. Stop by and choose from children’s toys, airplane models, tee shirts, jewelry, kites, lapel pins, wall hanging, Aviation fine art prints, posters, post cards, video tapes, patches, decals, hats, spoons, and much more.

FREE ADMISSION

Members enjoy free admission, as do members of other aviation museums who are themselves members of the Museum. Bring your out of town visitors and friends, (sorry, free admission does not extend to guests), and promote the museum whenever and wherever you can. The Museum depends on admissions and the profits generated at the Gift Shop/Book Store for all its operating revenues.

C1916. Edna Rayner (?) is thrilled by the marvels of the Curtiss aeroplane of the B.C. Aviation School, probably at Pitt Meadows, B.C. CMFT collection, Mrs. M. Morton collection 120.8

BOOK REVIEWS

The museum earns the bulk of its operating revenues through the operation of an on-site gift shop/book store. Hundreds of volumes are stocked, including many that are out of print. Refer to the accompanying catalog for a list (as at Oct. 10/89) of books on hand. Buy now for Christmas giving, and support the museum. Remember that members are entitled to a 10% discount on the purchase of most items in the gift shop, including most books. Remember to ask for it.

THE LONG AND THE SHORT AND THE TALL

An Ordinary Airman’s War
by Robert Collins, Hard cover, 134 pages $17.95
Available from the Museum bookstore

The Long and the Short and the Tall is an open-hearted account of what it was like for a prairie farm boy to move into wartime air force life. It is not a book about heroes; they were the glittering minority of WWII. Rather it is a memoir of growing up in uniform. Like thousands of others who served far from the glory of the battlefield, Collins’ experience was the war of the ordinary airman.

Passages from his diary that have withstood the test of time pass on a feel for what it was like to be away from home, in a setting without privacy, and with rigid rules; an experience that forever changed the lives of those who were there.

He takes us through the euphoria that accompanied war’s end, and touches on the what it was like to be a part of the occupational forces in post war Germany. He manages to convey a feeling for that emotional time that few have captured.

The Long and the Short and the Tall is easy and enjoyable reading. For those who were in the R.C.A.F. it will bring back many memories, and for those who have not, the book will bring a new appreciation and understanding of military life in wartime.

TRYING THEIR WINGS

BC Gliding from the 20s to the 80s
by Lloyd M. Bungey
hard cover, 141 pages, 35 photos, paperback, price $12
Available from the Museum bookstore

Lloyd Bungey, an Australian who spent some time in Canada, is a researcher, author, and glider instructor. In 1985, Lloyd worked for the CMFT under a Canada Manpower and Immigration Job Creation grant, supervising the recording of the CMFT’s “Pioneer Profiles” oral history collection of taped interviews with aviation pioneers. Some of the material in this book is garnered from those interviews. Research also included newspaper clippings, club newsletters, and correspondence between his subjects and himself.

He has captured the essence of gliding in B.C. from its crude and inexpensive beginnings in the Okanagan Valley in 1915 through the introduction of airoraft tows to replace. winch tows, to the vastly more sophisticated sport it has now become. He touches on the people and groups who shaped the sport and struggled with difficult terrain to help develop consistent training for its participants.

Tales of bureacratic bungling, lighthearted anecdotes, and the accidents and incidents that were a part of the history of the sport are including for enjoyable reading.

Appendices include a complete register of gliders registered in B.C. since 1947 when glider registration was introduced.

THE AIRCRAFT MUSEUMS AND COLLEC TIONS OF NORTH AMERICA

R. Ogden, pub The Aviation Hobby Shop, England, 223 pages, 96 photos, soft cover
Available from the CMFT bookstore at $22.95

A comprehensive listing arranged by country province/state. An index of aircraft at the end of the Canada and U.S.A. sections refers directs the reader to the museum which displays them.

Years in the writing, this comprehensive work is a must for aviation museum buffs.

WINGS OF HISTORY

Louis and Judene Divone, Pub Oakton Press, USA, 300 pages, 175 photos, soft cover
Available from the CMFT bookstore at $27.95

The authors have not only listed the aircraft on exhibit at the 142 museums and collections in 26 western and eastern European countries, but have provided an account of thier own impressions along with stories and historical information on the collections visited. Liberally sprinkled with photographs, this volume provides an armchair tour, and will remain on your shelf as a valuable source of information on the preserved aircraft in Europe.

A fat index lists 3,250 old and historic aircraft, with their locations, English translations and the nationalities of the popular names of aircraft, a translation table of aviation terms, Manufacturer’s acronyms, and much more.

TRAINING FOR VICTORY

The British Commonwealth Air Training Plan in the West
Peter C. Conrad,102 pages
Published by Prairie Books
On sale at the CMFT Bookstore

The agreement to carry out the British Commonwealth Air Training Plan was signed on December 17, 1939. Over the next five years, more than 131,000 air crew were trained for the allied cause, and western Canada was to become host to approximately half the schools of this masssve national effort.

ARROWMANIA

It never lets up. The mistique that has developed around Canada’s aborted foray into the high tech fighter field lingers on year after year, and causes heated and fervent discussion any time the subject is mentioned.

The political issues at the time that resulted in the cancellation of the Avro Arrow program, and whether or not Canada could have afforded to carry on with the program in any event have come cloudy over time, but one unalterable fact cannot be denied. Canadians feel cheated. They feel that the Arrow should have been given a chance. That it was not produced at the time is not the issue; it is the death of the airplane through the systematic destruction of the aircraft themselves and all the documentation covering design, engineering and production that is the “crime”.

For the many “Arrow” buffs, we stock a few line drawings, a couple of books, several 8″x10″ color photos, prints of Bob Bradford’s famous painting which was featured on a Canadian postage stamp, and photocopies of the Avro Newsmagazine, Special First Flight [of the Arrow] Issue, Vol 4, No 4., dated April 2, 1958 from which the following article has been taken:

EACH MOVE EXPERIMENTAL ON ARROW’S FIRST FLIGHT

by Jim McLean, Editor, Avro Newsmagazine, April 2, 1958.

The first flight of the Arrow on Tuesday, March 25th, triggered Phase I of the big delta’s flight test prograrn. It lasted 35 minutes, and was in the nature of a familiarlization flight during which Chief Experimental Pilot Jan Zurakowski “got the feel” of the aircraft by putting it through some elementary manoevers.

This is normal procedure for any pilot taking over the controls of an unfamiliar airplane. No two types of airplanes “feel” exactly the same or respond to control movements in precisely the same way. Flying characteristics, idiosyncrasies and limitations of proven airplanes have been established, and can be introduced to a pilot, new to the type, in pre-flight briefings. Shop talk among flying people can help fill in where instruction manuals may not be too explicit. Even so, familiarization flights on proven types are as normal as ham and eggs.

With an untried and unproven airplane, familiarization flights demand a master’s touch. There is no room in the cockpit for inexperience or brashness. Wind tunnels, test rigs, electronic simulators and engineering opinion notwithstanding, once a new type of airplane is in the air for the first time, the flight becomes a voyage of discovery for the test pilot-every movement of the controls becomes an experiment. In one sense it can compare to learning how to fly all over again. There is no bible of experience for the type from which the pilot can draw. He will be, in fact, the first author of a new bible.

Such then were the circumstances which governed Zurakowski as he lifted the first Arrow from Runway 32 last Tuesday. His mission was to become familiar with, and obtain a pilot’s assessment of Canada’s first supersonic interceptor.

To do this, he took off, climbed to 5,000 ft., levelled off and raised the undercarriage.

He continued to 10,000 ft., with the chase planes watching each move, he made some gentle turns and let-downs, first with the gear up, then with it down in order to get the feel of the Arrow on approach to landing. During this time, mechanisms were checked and instrument readings noted. He then let down, approached the runway and landed.

The very significant first flight signalled the start of a detailed development program which will culminate in the most effective defensive weapon system in the history of Canada.

This, in brief, is the background of the first flight of the Arrow I in its airworthiness and equipment-functioning flight test program.

It doesn’t even begin to touch on the strain and effort and, in many instances, selfless dedication by Avro personnel which made the first flight a successful historical episode in the introduction of Supersonic Flight in Canada. As the man says. “That’s another story”.

Editor’s Note. There are other stories in this special issue, some technical and some of a public relations nature.

COCKPIT: COCK PIT?

The term originated in the ancient and continuing sport of cockfighting. In this, two fighting cocks are placed in a depression, or “cockpit”, in the center of an arena. The floor of the pit is usually below the floor level of the arena and a low fence surrounds the pit and projects a foot or so above the floor of the arena.

Because of a general physical similarity, the sporting term was applied to small boats in which the crew and passengers sit in a sunken area below deck level and are protected from water flowing on the deck by a low fencelike barrier, or coaming.

When airplanes came on the scene early in this century and evolved to the point of having what we now call fuselages, the well-established nautical term “cockpit” was applied to openings in the top of the fuselage where the pilot, passengers, or other crew members sat.

As the airplane evolved into the modern closed-cabin configuration, the aeronautical sense of the word “cockpit” took on a different meaning and is now used to identify the pilots’ station regardless of form or location.

Towns and cities vied for the honor of hosting a school. Despite occasional friction between the townsfolk and their temporary guests, people pulled together in a time of need.

This factual, well researched account is illustrated with over 60 photos and includes many quotations. It will stir memories, and will provide a better appreciation of the huge and well organized training system that was one of Canada’s major contributions to the war effort.

MORE BOOKS

New books on aviation are proliferating at an astonishing rate, and we cannot hope to review even a small percentage of them, even if we could afford to buy them. If you see a book you’d like to own, please send us the title, author, and publisher. We’ll try to locate it for you.

“FIVE PACK” BOOKS A BARGAIN

Canadian author Don McVicar operates “Ad Astra Books” publishing house. The “Five Pack” offer is an opportunity to read four of Don’s books, plus one of another author. The usual selection is:

• NORTH ATLANTIC CAT-continues the author’s account of ferrying aircraft from North America during World War II for RAF Ferry Command. In North Atlantic Cat the author takes the reader on flights between Bermuda and Scotland during the terrible winter of 1942/43 and the Polar flight between the UK and Canada’s West Coast in a Handley Page bomber. The crews of the RAF Ferry Command were the true pioneers of long range over-ocean flying.
• A CHANGE OF WINGS-chronicles the winding down of the trans-Atlantic ferrying operations. Behind the scenes views with the newly constituted British West Indian Airways and then a dramatic change of scene to the Canadian Northlands. Adventure marks this autobiographical work.
• MOSQUITO RACER – After WWII, McVicar set up an commercial operation ferrying aircraft all over the world. The author takes us through the excitement of racing a deHavilland Mosquito in the 1948 Bendix race.
• MORE THAN A PILOT- Don McVicar gives a vivid account of the post-war period in Canadian and American aviation circles. War surplus aircraft abounded, to be bought and sold for a song: returning aircrew vied with each other and with governments for a slice of the action, but many of their enterprises went to the wall. Some, like the author’s own World-Wide Aviation company, survived by the ingenuity of its founders.
• I KEPT NO DIARY – by Air Commodore F.R. ‘Rod’ banks: – The author was the leading engine and fuel expert behind the Schneider trophy and the land speed records of Seagrave and John Cobb. In the Second World War he was Director-General of engine production under Lord Beaverbrook.’ Airlife Publishing, U.K.

“DISTINGUISHED READING CROSS”

Reading any five of DON MACVICAR’S books qualifies the reader to receive a “DISTINGUISHED READING CROSS”. Write Ad Astra Books, Box 2087, Dorval, PQ, H9S 3K7.

All of Don’s books are in stock at the Museum’s bookstore.

Junkers F13 CF-AMX at Atlin, B.C., 1930. People in photo unknown. CMFT collection, Brian Burke collection 291