Museum Newsletter

Spring 1988 CANADIAN MUSEUM OF FLIGHT AND TRANSPORTATION No. 34

CMFT NEWSLETTER

CANADIAN MUSEUM OF FLIGHT AND TRANSPORTATION No. 34 Spring 1988

CONTENTS

President’s Report………………….. 3. Notice of Annual Meeting……… 17 Editorial………… 4 Donations………… Vancouver Island Report… 4 New Members…… 18 News Briefs………………………… 5 The Challenge of the Sky ……… 20 Pioneer Profiles……… Dinner Form/Proxy……………….. 23

ALL PHOTOS S.SENARATNE/STAFF/CMFT COLLECTION UNLESS CREDITED OTHERWISE.

BOARD OF DIRECTORS

Anderson, lan Robinson, Jane Boyd, Robert Fraser, Doug Ryder, Alan Smith, David Gardham, Fred Gerow, Earl Smith, Joe Stevens, Frank Hamilton, Colin Stunden, Ron Hudak, Tony Humphrey, Phil Thompson, Bill Thompson, Wilma Jackson, G. Barry Olsen, Jerry Zalesky, Ed Zalesky, Rose

1987/88 EXECUTIVE OFFICERS

E.V. (Ed) Zalesky, 531-2465 David Smith, 270-4452 Rose Zalesky, 531-3744 President Vice-Pres Sec/Treas

COMMITTEE HEADS

Frank Stevens, 536-4570 Joe Smith, 590-6262 April Zalesky, 531-3744 Jerry Vernon, 420-6065 Sean Keating, 984-2070 Mark Zalesky, 531-2465 Jerry Olsen, 687-6805 Colin Hamilton, 536-5193 April Zalesky, 531-3744 Doug & Lisa Girling, 939-5344 Peter Knowles, 477-3684 Stoney Jackson. 478-7567 Flying Display/Buildings Special Events Research Recovery/Hauling Restoration Underwater Recoery Tour Guides PR/Newsletter Library Van, Island Van. Island

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The Canadian Museum of Flight and Transportation is a non-profit society dedicated to the preservation of aviation and transportation heritage. Charitable status allows for the issuance of tax-deductible receipts for donations of artifacts, goods and money. It is governed by a board of 20 Directors, elected annually in April.

Enquiries: 13527 Crescent Rd, Surrey, B.C. V4A 2W1

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Vancouver Island Members meet the last Wednesday of each month at 7:30 pm at the RCAF Association, 105 Wilson St., Victoria. Anyone interested is welcome to attend. Please call Peter Knowles for more information, at (604) 477-3684.

Newsletter Editor: April 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 in manuscripts which he believes will improve the material without altering the intended meaning.

NOTICE OF MEETING

Next meeting is the AGM, April 21, 1988, 8:00 pm, at the Elgin Centre, 144th St. & Crescent Rd. Members and guests welcome. Coffee & entertainment.

COVER PHOTO:

A flock of Grumman Goose in front of the BNP Airways hangar, c1948. See “Pioneer Profiles” for story. Photo: Inky Klett, CMFT collection.

PRESIDENT’S REPORT DEC 87 TO MARCH 88

You may have noticed that our Quarterly Newsletters are somewhat less than quarterly. It isn’t that there isn’t anything happening or that it is too much trouble; it is because there is a great deal happening and the resultant workload is so heavy on so few that it is difficult to find the time to produce a quality offering on schedule. Our apologies.

The major hurdle for the CMFT, from inception, has been the lack of a permanent home. In the official 11 years of our existence (unofficially it is closer to 16 years) it has been the number one priority. Efforts are ceaseless and time consuming. A number of options were explored and had to be abandoned over those years.

Nearly a year ago, the B.C. Ministry of Tourism, through its non-profit arm The Historic Transportation Centre (HTC), leased land and buildings at Cloverdale on which to display some of the various collections that belong to them. At about the same time, nearby property was optioned by Surrey as a homesite for the CMFT and other transportation oriented collections in the area, but nearly a year has passed without the necessary approval to operate on that land forthcoming from the administrators of the Agricultural Land Reserve.

CMFT is supportive of the HTC, and have loaned them two of our outstanding aircraft for exhibit, but there is simply not enough room on their leased premises to accomodate our collection, display, and administrative needs. Nor have we been absorbed by the HTC as many of our members believe.

While I would like to be able report that the land use has been approved, that the purchase of the property by Surrey has gone ahead, and that the CMFT has been assured a new home, this has not yet happened. CMFT’s lease on our present site expires in January 1990, making it impractical to initiate much needed improvements and to add buildings here. We would like to use as much of those two years as possible to make an orderly move to a new location. Members will be kept advised of homesite progress by newsletter, or hopefully through local newspapers.

In the meantime, it’s “business as usual.” A Ministry of Tourism “Job Trac” program ends this month. This grant allowed us to hire four computer/office clerks who are nearing the completion of the massive job of going through the library and collections records and catching up on the backlog that had accumulated. We had hoped to include the photo collection in this project, but it will have to wait.

The exhibit area is closed from mid-October to mid- May, but the office and gift shop remain open. We are constantly turning away visitors, and look forward to the time that indoor display space will allow us to open year- round.

The aircraft restoration program is temporarily “on hold.” Very little work is in progress, and no major programs are planned for this year, although the cleanup and assembly of the Lodestar, and a few other smaller projects will continue. We did not apply for any job creation projects for the shop this year. Mark, who has been on loan to the CMFT for more than 3 years has other things he must attend to this year, and without the continuity of full time staff people it is very difficult to carry out a volunteer aircraft restoration program. Are there any full time, qualified volunteers out there who are interested in devoting 6 months of their lives to a project that would accomplish useful work and provide an opportunity for the many volunteers who want to become casually involved in restoration programs? Please give us a call-we need you.

The Senior’s Wing has provided much needed support over the past two years, with the help of a now expired New Horizons grant from Health and Welfare Canada. New projects are now being planned.

A new acquisition since November is a Stinson 10. It is damaged, derelict, and missing some items including the engine and propeller, but well worth restoring to flying condition as a future project. Our thanks to August Pociwouschek for his generous donation of this aircraft, and for arranging low cost container transportation from Whitehorse to Surrey.

Donations of items for the library, photo and small artifacts collections continue to come in. While most are stored at present, they are the nucleus for important and changing displays planned for the future. Please keep them coming.

Heritage Week saw the CMFT out in force with a display at Robson Square in Vancouver, a sales counter/display at the Semiahmoo Mall in White Rock, and “me too” panels with Surrey Heritage Committee unmanned displays at three other Surrey shopping malls and the municipal hall.

CMFT was represented at the annual Pacific Aircraft Maintenance Engineer’s Symposium held this year at the Skyline Hotel in Richmond with an informational display and a sales booth.

The year’s School outreach program got off to a start with a visit to the LaRonde Elementary school by volunteer Bev Champniss who took a small collection of artifacts. What was intended to be a session with the kindergarten classes ended up with classes up to Grade 6 taking part.

The 7th Annual Open House in June will be bigger and better than ever, with plans well under way. This important event is our opportunity to involve the community and earns important revenue. Members are urged to help in any way they can to make it the usual huge success.

CMFT airplanes will be participants or on display at several area air shows and displays this year, while much needed revenue is being earned through the rental of artifacts to the motion picture and television industry. Watch for CMFT items decorating a bar in an upcoming segment of MacGyver, and some of those airplane pieces that flash by in commercials are ours.

A new meeting place for general meetings has been arranged. It is the Elgin Centre (formerly the Elgin Elementary School) on 144th Street at Crescent Road. The shop location served as an interim, but was pretty disruptive of shop projects, and somewhat less than the ideal for comfort. See inside cover for General Meetings schedule.

1988 is shaping up to be a good year for CMFT. If you’d like to become fully involved with the operation and policy making, put your name forward as a candidate for a seat on the Board or offer your services on one of the Board Committees. Annual general meeting and elections come up on April 21.

The CMFT continues to grow in stature, strength and size because of the hard work of the volunteers who are the backbone of the organization. We need your skills and your time, especially in office, P.R., fundraising, art, photoprocessing and computer related projects. Get involved. Its a good feeling to be a part of the great things that are happening, and there is no better way for young people to gain valuable experience. While our job is the preservation of the past, it’s up to all of us to make CMFT an outstanding part of the future.

FROM THE EDITOR

This winter has been an especially busy season for CMFT. As in years past, we have many people stopping in to ask when we will be opening, but this year the number of requests has been staggering. More and more people are finding out about us, both through word of mouth, and from several recent articles in aviation publications world-wide.

Visitors last season numbered over 30,000 including Open House. Remember, that number is only tallied from May through October. Just think how much that would increase if we were open 12 months of the year.

It is becoming increasingly evident that the public wants to see a permanent site for an aviation/transportation museum that is open year-round.

Why hasn’t the government recognized this? Why isn’t a greater effort being made towards establishing the allencompassing transportation museum complex that CMFT and other related groups have been lobbying for for over 10 years?

Through necessity, CMFT has become self-supporting over the years. It is a large, vicious circle. We need the funding to survive, and taking matters into our own hands we have always managed to generate enough operating funds through membership, donations, and gift shop sales. Consequently, we are not seen as being in need of funds after all, we are surviving, aren’t we? While the VSO and other similar organizations have been nursed along on an annual basis by all levels of government, CMFT has been consistently overlooked. Perhaps we need some degree of financial mismanagement, overspending, and poor public image to qualify for these funds? The VSO’s debt alone could more than comfortably get us operating on a permanent site.

The Province did take that first step towards a permanent hornesite in 1985, as reported in previous issues of this newsletter. Well intentioned as it was, the usual bureaucracy entered into the report in the form of grandiose ideas for buildings, sites, runways, etc. Bottom line – this will cost too much. As a taxpayer, I agree. But that has never been the intention of CMFT and the other groups. We have proven just how much we can do with very little; poverty often forces survival. Our view is that 10% of the bottom dollar estimate from the Provincial study would do just fine. Airplanes and other artifacts don’t care if the building wins any design awards. Nor does the true enthusiast visitors come to see the airplanes, not the buildings. The difficulty comes in convincing the government of this. Do they not see that long after any of them (or us) are dead and gone, a complex uch as this will still be there for the enjoyment of the public? We are not trying to build a monument to politicians, architects and planners-we are trying to build a lasting legacy of history: everyone’s history.

As stated in the President’s Report, we are still waiting for a decision on the Cloverdale site. We can only hope that a certain amount of sensibility will enter into the plans; only then can a complex such as this work to everyone’s benefit.

8TH ANNUAL SPRING DINNER

CMFT will be holding it’s 8th Annual Spring Dinnner on Friday, April 22, 1988. Our guest speaker is John Spronk, who will be presenting a very interesting slide show on topics including early Abbotsford Air Show and Abbotsford Airport, flying Hercules’ in the Artic and Africa, general aviation, and much more. Tickets are $10 each, dinner is the usual Chinese Food buffet. The bar opens at 6:00, dinner is at 7:00, and door prizes are drawn after the meal. Place: St. Paul’s Church Hall, 8251 St. Alban’s Road, Richmond. Tickets MUST be reserved in advance so we know how much food to order. Please fill out the reservation form on page 23, or phone April at 531-3744 to reserve. Tickets can also be purchased at the museum Gift Shop. Deadline for reservations is Apr. 18. See you there!

VANCOUVER ISLAND REPORT MARCH 16/88

CMFT is alive and well and living in the Victoria area! It is just that our activities do not get into the papers! This is to notify you that the Annual General Meeting of the Van. Island Committee will be held at 19:45 on March 30, 1988, at the RCAF Association, 105 Wilson Street, Victoria. The prime purpose of this meeting is to elect a new slate of officers for the Vancouver Island Committee. We must also decide whether to continue meeting at this location or return to the officer’s mess at the Armouries. It was decided to hold a couple of meetings at the RCAFA because of the community of interest relating to our aviation oriented club. If Vancouver Island members wish to get in touch with this chapter, please contact Stoney Jackson at 478-7567, or Peter Knowles at 477-3684, or write through the CMFT office.

Items of note that occurred during the term of office of our present executive are: completion (except for shelving) of a “warm room” for artifact storage and small assembly activity at our storage shed; participation in Victoria Airshow; procurement of several display Falcon missiles for the Museum; change in status from Branch to Committee; loan of artifact to and cordial relations develped with the Comox Museum; additional lighting fixtures for our shed; sailplane trailer repainted (it was rebuilt winter ’85/86, and spent the summer of ’86 at the Transpo site in New Westminster); procurement of a large model of a Corsair, finished in colors representative of Grey’s (VC) aircraft; further progress on the Link Trainer restoration.

This list is an indication of the activity level of our few active (meeting attending) members. We are not losing ground, but we do not seem to be gaining with so few hands working at our projects. We do not have an airframe on our site (other than the Grunau Sailplane) as the Link, sailplane trailer, and display cases take up almost all the available floorspace in our 24 by 48 foot building, not located at the airport.

NEWS BRIEFS –

SENIORS WING-CMFT

The Senior’s Wing has remained active, but not on the massive scale called for during Expo 86. Plans are underway to complete the Stampe this summer, and to build a much needed aircraft hauling trailer to replace the one lost in a highway accident in 1985. Funding is being sought to purchase the materials and supplies needed for these projects.

The Senior’s Wing is a loose organization dedicated to supporting the Canadian Museum of Flight. Its members carry out specific projects which can be accomplished with minimal support from the CMFT. To join the Senior’s Wing, the only requirement is a desire to help and to have reached your 50th birthday. There are no dues but most members are also members of the CMFT. Younger people are encouraged to help out in Senior’s projects.

NASA AEROVAN DISPLAY

The National Aeronautical and Space Administration will be bringing their “Aerovan” research & development project to the CMFT for display this summer. After display at the Abbotsford Airshow, the Aerovan will come to CMFT for Aug. 16-18, 1988. This is a great informational display, self-contained in a motorhome-type vehicle. Come out and have a look! More info in next newsletter.

ABBOTSFORD INTERNATIONAL AIRSHOW

This year’s Abbotsford Airshow will be held August 12, 13 & 14, 1988. As always, CMFT will be bringing several aircraft for display as well as our Gift Shop sales booth. Volunteers are needed for all three days of the show, as well as for 2 days before for set up. Remember, these are long, hot, working days, but are the year’s best fund-raiser for CMFT. If you would like to help, please call Rose or April and put your name on the list.

CARETAKER NEEDED

We are still looking for a non-smoking, non-drinking, responsible single person or couple to live rent-free on site in a mobile home purchased for the purpose, in exchange for caretaker and watchman duties. The only cost is heat, power and telephone.

Duties can be combined with a day time job, since services are required only after 5 p.m. during the summer season. Winter hours are after 5 p.m. weekdays and Saturday, and all day Sunday. Other time off can be arranged as necessary.

Applicant must be alert, responsible, prepared to challenge trespassers, and occasionally assist with yard chores.

The Zalesky family have had all the caretaking responsibilities for more than 10 years and now want to set up housekeeping off premises. Call Rose at 531-2465 or 531- 3744.

VOLUNTEERS

Volunteers are the backbone of the CMFT, and every member in his or her own way is important. We have grown into a full fledged organization and the inevitable paperwork bureaucracy is building in relationship to our size. Still, it is necessary, if records are to be complete and accurate.

We have only to determine how to keep up with the workload. The CMFT has been fortunate in qualifying for several job creation grants, most of which are training oriented. These have been used to great advantage to update old records, and to carry out short term projects, but they are finite and each crew leaves without passing on knowledge and experience gained.

The CMFT is self-sufficient by circumstance, not by choice. This means that there is little funding for salaries, and that means that volunteers have to step in. All of the administration, and most of the office work is done by volunteers working on a full time basis. The bookkeeping. public relations, and restoration tasks are handled by people whose salaries are donated to the museum. A Girl Friday is the CMFT’s total payroll. All the other work, and there is lots, is accomplished by volunteers.

Thank you volunteers! You are very special people and are totally responsible for the growth and well-being of the CMFT. Volunteers put in a total of 16,512.33 hours during 1987 for CMFT. Pretty impressive!

As finances permit, expect volunteer appreciation dinners or other events, including the “volunteer airplane rides,” MUSEUM FLIGHT

CMFT volunteer Fred Gardham staffs a booth at the Robson Square Media Centre in February. Thanks to Fred and all the other volunteers who helped out.

HELP WANTED

This is still our most pressing need. Volunteers needed to help on a regular basis in the office. Tasks include working with the photo collection, library, general office, computer entry, gift shop sales clerk, tour guiding, and “tower guard”. See elsewhere in this newsletter for what a “tower guard” does.

SPECIAL COLLECTIONS

Response from members has been great, with new items coming in for our special collections, which include: LAPEL PINS, STICKERS, DECALS, EMBROIDERED CRESTS, AVIATION COVERALLS, AIRLINE SEAT POCKET AND CABIN ITEMS, BAGGAGE TAGS.

These items have little commercial value, but all still have a story to tell. The cabin items airline seat safety cards, head rest doilies, place settings, napkins, crockery or glassware, occupied signs, specially marked magazines- all are important when trying to re-create an airline interior exhibit. This is especially true of the many airlines no longer in existence, those which have been swallowed up by other airlines, had their names changed, or simply failed.

“Jello Airplane Wheel” #16 has come in from a collector to help complete our collection. Thanks go out to everyone who has sent us these items; please keep them coming!

AIRLINE UNIFORMS

We have pitifully few airline uniforms, yet we would like to have full crew sets, including ground crew outfits, for at least the major airlines. Share your nostalgia and clear out those closets – they will be going to a good home.

SHOP NEEDS

Aircraft strut/booster pump for landing gear oleos; plastic tag/sign engraving machine; portable boarding stairs; aircraft jacks; 1/2″ stencil cutter/punch.

DISPOSALS

COMPUGRAPHICS COMPUWRITER JR. PHOTO TYPESETTING MACHINE WITH COMPUTER OPERATED HARDWARE AND SOFTWARE. This reliable model was a standard in weekly newspaper production offices. The typesetter is used, but the computer interface and typesetting software portion (to fit an IBM compatible) has never been used since installed. There is absolutely nothing wrong with any of the equipment, but we are not using it as planned. It is complete with a processor, many extra fonts, and all manuals. This unit produces quality type setting and is suitable for production use, book publishing, small newspaper, etc. We have replaced it with a laser printer and a desktop publishing program, and simply do not have the space for it.

We paid $1,700 for the Compuwriter Jr., $1,800 for the Cybertext Microcomposer and $350 for the processor one year ago. Reasonable offers considered.

DISCOUNTS ON GIFT SHOP ITEMS

Members are reminded that your membership entitles you to receive a 10% discount off most items in the gift shop, as well as free admission to the museum. The gift shop is open year round. Winter hours are Monday through Saturday from 9-4:30. Summer Hours 9-4:30 daily. The museum displays are available for viewing from Mid-May to Mid-October, 9-4 daily, but closed during the winter.

SOLID GOLD DISCOUNT COUPON BOOK

We still have a few of these fat little books which are full of two-for- one or other discount coupons (including reduced admission to the CMFT). Discount coupons provide big savings on meals, lodging, attractions, travel. Take advantage of savings that can cover the purchase. price of $38 almost immediately. Pamper yourself a little. You’ve earned it! Coupons expire Dec. 88.

SEASON’S OPENING MAY 14

Planned opening is Saturday, May 14th. Come out and help us celebrate the beginning of another successful summer. On opening day only, member’s guests will be admitted free. (One guest per member please.) CANADIAN MUSEUM FLIGHT OPEN TODAY 9-4:30 Getting ready for opening day involves lots of planning and preparation. Here Rose paints a sign for placement on the road, making us easier to find. Remember-opening day this year is May 14. Bring a friend!

NEW MEETING PLACE

General meetings (refer to inside of front cover for schedule) have been held in the workshop for several years, as this was the only space available. It is now no longer practical as the shop has become a storage area in addition to its normal function, and there “just ain’t no more room.”

Members were canvassed as to a choice of new meeting places, and whether or not they wanted them combined as dinner meetings. Response was that dinner meetings were out, and a search for a meeting place has been successful.

Beginning Feb. 18th, all General and Directors meetings, and probably any other special meetings that may be called, will be held at the ELGIN CENTRE 144TH ST AND CRESCENT ROAD 8:00 P.M.

This is the old Elgin Elementary School on 144th, NOT the Elgin Hall on Crescent Road, and is ideal for meetings, as it is only a mile from the CMFT. Turn left at the first street (144) after turning onto Crescent Road from 99A (King George Highway.)

AERONCA CHIEF CF-HGN RECONDITIONING

Frank Stevens is spearheading a fundraising project to provide the funds for bringing our Aeronca Chief up to licenceable standard, with the aim of making it available to members for rent.

Frank has pledged $1,500 to the project, but to date very few donations have come in. Nobody wants to fly? Does anyone have any suggestions or funding ideas for the project? Call Frank at 536-4570 or leave a message at the CMFT at 531-3744 or 531-2465. PROGRAMS 1

VOLUNTEER RIDES DAY

As in years past, CMFT offers aircraft rides to members who have volunteered for the museum during the year. Last year was so busy that we did not get the chance to hold a rides day, so we will be holding last year’s rides this spring.

A date is tentatively scheduled for late May, so if you have volunteered for the museum during 1987 or early 1988, please give us a call to put your name on the list. We will be able to confirm a date at the beginning of May. Rides day is weather permitting, and your name must be on the list in advance so we can estimate times and the number of aircraft required.

SECURITY TOWER VOLUNTEERS WANTED

Beginning in 1987, visitors to the museum were no longer accompanied by guides. Honor system ropes guide visitors along a viewing pathway, and viewers can spend as much or as little time at each exhibit as they wish.

Provision is made for tour groups and those visitors who want a guided tour, but for the most part, museum staff do not spend all their days doing tours. But, not all visitors honor the system, and we are constantly having to escort the curious out of storage buildings and restricted areas.

The control tower was glassed in last Spring so that volunteers could view the entire site and control “strays.” Unfortunately, no volunteers turned up. It is imperative that the tower be manned this year. It’s easy and fun work, and you can bring a friend if you like. You’ll get a loud hailer, and maybe even a phone, and shifts can be kept short if enough people volunteer. Please phone Rose at 531-2465 or 531-3744.

WINTER ACTIVITIES

This winter has been a busy one for CMFT, far more so than in previous years. The 7th Annual Fall Dinner took place on Nov. 7/87, with 85 members and guests attending. The speaker was C.R. “Gogi” Goguillot, who gave an interesting talk and slide show on the history of homebuilts. Several hundred dollars were raised for the museum though the “Mystery Auction” and 50/50 draw, and we thank those who brought gifts to be auctioned. This year’s Spring Dinner is scheduled for Friday, Apr. 22/88-look for details elsewhere in this newsletter.

A video was produced for the Senior’s Wing, which tells of the Wing’s activities throughout Expo 86, including the Stampe restoration and the Gift Shop renovation. The video will be used for presentation purposes for displays and lectures, and can be borrowed by any member who is interested in viewing it – please call for more information.

CMFT played a large part in Heritage Week displays in Surrey, from Feb. 15-20/88. Volunteers worked frantically to ready a series of display “cubes” with photos and artifacts that were placed in several local shopping malls, including Evergreen Mall, Cloverdale Mall, and the Surrey Municipal Hall. A manned display was set up at the Robson Square Media Centre downtown, and a souvenir sales/artifacts display was conducted at Semiahmoo Centre in White Rock. The major artifact for that display was a beautiful 6′ model of a Stinson SR5, recently donated to the CMFT by member Maxse Taylor. Our thanks to all the members who manned both displays.

The Aircraft Maintenance Symposium, hosted by the Pacific AME Association, was held at the Skyline Hotel in Richmond from Feb. 25-27. The Symposium, as in year’s past, kindly donated exhibitor space to the CMFT, as well as including a write-up and a newsletter with the programs. We raised $400 from sales of pins and books, and would like to thank the PAMEA for their support.

The NASA Aerovan, which was set up at Abbotsford Air Show last year, will be coming to the CMFT site for the week following the airshow this year. Look for details else- where in the newsletter.

A few of the displays in which the CMFT will be taking part this coming season include an artifact/slide show at Rutherford Mall in Nanaimo on June 4; our own Open House, June 18 & 19; the Comox Air Show, Aug. 7, and of course the Abbotsford Air Show, Aug. 12-14.

Our recent aircraft acquisition this winter is a 1941 Stinson 10, donated by Augugst Pociwouschek during a move from Whitehorse. Four cars donated include Fred Gardham’s ’63 Dodge, a ’60 Plymouth and ’30 Dodge from John Clark, and Lin Moore’s ’53 Ford. Our appreciation goes out to these people, as well as the many who have donated other items over the winter. This is what keeps the museum growing, and a bigger and better collection means more exposure for CMFT.

HAMPDEN UPDATE

Though not reported in our last newsletter, member Jerry Olsen had taken the nose section of the HandleyPage Hampden down to his shop in Vancouver to begin its restoration.

A lot of work has been done on it, much of it involving the construction of parts to replace those which have deteriorated beyond repair. Where-ever possible, the original parts are used, and together with the new are shaping up to be a fine looking display.

If no problems are encountered, look for it on display at the museum this summer-remember, the rest will be the next project (one piece at a time.)

The 8ft. tall Hampden nose section at Jerry’s shop, November, 1987. Taking shape slowly but surely.

Ed Zalesky photo.

PEDAL AIRPLANE WINNER

The Nov. 30 draw for the natty cherry red child’s pedal airplane was won by D. Stevens of Delta. The winner has generously donated it back to the museum to be offered as a prize for another draw. It is on display at the CMFT with drawing to take place on the last day of Open House, June 19/88.

Tickets are $1. each for this beautifully crafted action toy, and all proceeds go towards restoration and display. If you can’t purchase tickets in person, just mail us a cheque with your name, address and the number of tickets wanted and we will mail them to you.

PIONEER PROFILES GEORGE WILLIAMSON

One of CMFT’s recent projects is Pioneer Profiles, a series of taped interviews with aviation pioneers. The project was started on a grant from Employment and Immigration Canada, and continued with the help of a 99’s Canadian Award in Aviation grant. These interviews are being transcribed from audio tape onto computer, for eventual publication into a book.

As a sampling of some of the varied and interesting stories on tape, below is a portion of the interview with George Williamson of Victoria, B.C. This particular inter. view was transcribed by volunteers Betty Parkinson and Rosemary Purdy in 1985. Interviewer is Lloyd Bungey.

Today’s date is July 10th, 1985 and we are talking to George Williamson. George, just tell me a little bit more about the Blackburn Shark. You were saying it wasn’t very interesting, not a very good aeroplane.

The Blackburn Shark was introduced in the Canadian Airforce in the mid to late 30’s with something like 6 aircraft, right from Blackburn. They were old numbers, airforce numbers around the 500, 501, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 and they had the old Armstrong Siddeley, 14 cylinder twin row engines in them-air starters. That’s another story. At the outbreak of the war-Canada’s need to get into the aircraft business they contracted Boeing Aircraft to build another 20 of these aircraft. These aircraft were constructed in the Boeing Shipyard on Georgia Street at the entrance to Stanley Park. They were fitted out with the Pegasus engine. It was equipped with the cartridge starter. That’s another story too.

Whatever, as the aircraft were built they were barged around to Sea Island-they were put on wheels and there they were put on floats and in most cases delivered back to Jericho Beach, the Air Force station in Jericho Beach, where one by one they were slowly being eliminated. They’d be taken on strength on say September 29th and they’d crash on October 2nd. Write offs, and this went on for several of them.

Many of them did survive and they were sent to places like Coal Harbour, Uclulet, Haliford Bay, one or two in each of these places. I think at the time of the Pearl Harbour bombing they were all collected and sent in to Prince Rupert as a single squadron and became…they were all under one squadron at that time and that was 7BR. The 1st PO was a Bob Morris. The other stations were manned with Stranraer aircraft and they were ferried out from the east and raffled around to the different squadrons. 6BR at Bella Bella was started about that time and all the other stations increased their strength of aircraft and this was the defence of the West Coast following Pearl Harbour.

During this time, of course, Boeing were rattling around, building the PBY aircraft and they built quite a number of the Amphib models and I think that was the PBY 5A and they also built a great number of the straight Cansos or Catalinas. The squadrons on the coast had some of both. My involvement on the coast was with the Stranraer when I first came out from service flying school, in October of 1941. At the end of the course Pearl Harbour was bombed and rather than going overseas to Ireland by Sunderland I was side-tracked to Prince Rupert and that was my introduction to the Shark.

The Shark had a single pilot position and the rear cockpit of the Shark, which would hold three or four people, had no dual controls. And, to look at the Shark in side view, you could see the pontoons point downwards when the aircraft was in level flight or when the aircraft was at rest on the water the aircraft would be at climbing attitude. This made it rather difficult to get airborne or land as it was prone to waterloops and so on. Whoever designed the floats either made the rear struts too short or the front struts too long.

The aircraft had no rear spreader bar but was designed to carry an 18 lb. torpedo which of course would drop between the floats or we would carry about a 1000 lbs. of bombs out under the wing. We were permitted to carry about half a dozen smoke bombs, the old 11 lb. smoke bombs and use them at random to test our skill as bomb aimers and what have you. So there were a few rocks with sea lions on them hammered with smoke bombs and the odd log as we were on patrol.

Blackburn shark on beaching gear, showing the wings folded for easier handling. c1942.

Public archives photo, CMFT collection.

We also had a forward firing machine gun supposed to be synchronized through the propeller. The only time I ever tried it I ended up with a white circle in front of my eyes. It turned out I was shooting the backside of my propeller and the propellers were wood laminate and they soon decommissioned the forward firing machine guns. In the rear cockpit was a Lewis gun mounted on a swing for the airgunner to play like he was looking for the Red Baron.

The Shark pretty well survived until towards the end of the war. There were a couple of them used in Pat Bay for target towing and when I came back to Pat Bay in March of 421 was assigned this aircraft, among others. This particular aircraft had a towing rig that could let out up to 6000 feet of cable with a drogue on it and wind it back in, whereas most target tow aircraft, the Lysanders and the Bolingbrokes had an electric towing mechanism that did not have the strength to bring in the drogue so they would have to release the drogue or; if all else failed, cut the cable. This mechanism we had on the Shark had what was like a truck transmission sticking out the side of the airplane with a little propeller on it and you could rotate the propeller so it would be at right angles to the forward flow spinning rapidly and by releasing the brake and at the same time engaging the clutch you could in fact wind the drogue right back in to 50, 75 feet behind the airplane. This enabled us, on completion of our target towing, to drop the drogue on the hanger roof, whereas all the other target towing around Pat Bay they had to use Mayne Island. There was a farm over there and they dropped their drogues there. I suppose I was rather anxious to get away from Sharks about this time as they were a son-of-a-gun to fly, and I think I mentioned earlier that the maximum speed on water was about 58 knots and the minimum flying speed was about 59 so the pilot had to overcome that deficit in order to get any air and it usually meant bouncing, lifting one wing and playing around with it. eventually getting it in the air.

What were they like once you did get them in the air?

In the air they were very very stable. The Pegasus 9 cylinder engine had 925 horsepower. It had a little more pep than the one with the Armstrong. The one with the Armstrong engine, all it had was valve springs popping up and down and oil consumption was unreal. Every time you put fuel in you practically put a new oil change in it. The other thing with the Armstrong engine, with the air etarter there was no compressor on the aircraft to keep your air pressure up so if you landed anywhere you were limited by how many starts you could have without finding the ground support and filling up the air lift reservoir in order to start with again. It was something like the old Mk.I Anson. They had enough air for about four landings in the brake system and the air was put in by a portable compressor from outside, whereas there were other aircraft that had air compressors and a little reservoir that were kept up with their own engine. Not so with the Shark.

Bristol Bolingbroke in target tug paint scheme at Sea Island, October, 1943,

CPA Archives photo, CMFT collection.

It was all that Canada had at the time pretty well, apart from the Stranraer. So what kind of job did it do, do you think?

Well it put on a good front and you know when you rattle out to sea looking for submarines with the thing, golly we never lost a Shark in actual patrol. There were a few lost through misadventure, one we spoke of earlier that you are familiar with the mid-air collision near Prince Rupert. That would be in December 1941. There were a couple blown up in Prince Rupert; one maintenance man inadvertently dropped a depth charge while he was servicing the aircraft sitting at the buoy and that removed the aircraft and himself. There was another one in training that landed in Prince Rupert and crashed, but oh, a few misadventures around you know. There were a lot of accidents but nobody else killed that I knew.

Boeing Totem flying boat being towed on ramp,

c1936. C.G. Renfrew photo, CMFT collection.

Towards the end of their life they were used, those that were left were put on wheels and put on the mini aircraft carriers that were being built in Vancouver, and they were used as ground handling training vehicles. They would start them and they’d run them around, run them up and down the elevator and so on. The Shark’s wings folded you see, and it was just a very simple matter to pull a plug on the leading edge of the wing and release the mechanism and the wing would fold back against the hull for storage. So the aircraft was used right to the end as training for these crews that were eager to get to TBM or Avenger aircraft and when they were finished with them they pushed them overboard and dumped them, gave them the “Deep 6” somewhere in the gulf here, Gulf of Georgia, I believe.

Let’s backtrack a bit. First of all when and where were you born and how did you get your interest in aviation?

I was born in Victoria, 1921, in the early days of aviation around Victoria. We’d see the old open cockpit flying boat-Boeing, I think it was, coming into the Harbour. My grandmother lived very close by there and often on a Saturday I’d go down and watch Eddy Hubbard come in. load up his passengers. Seems to me they were in a cabin at the back and this was a pusher aircraft. I don’t know how long those aircraft lasted but he never seemed to go much above 50 feet when he was flying above the water. On one occasion he had taken off and was flying out past the old St. George Hospital and the engine appeared to stop. I think someone had reported that he had not stowed his rope properly and the rope had snaked back and got hung up in the propeller and it ground to a halt. So he ended up crashing into the side of a house – removed part of the bay window on a house on Rupert and Heyward. The story also grew that he stepped out of the airplane and the people were having breakfast and he excused himself and asked them if he could use the phone, but that’s unconfirmed.

Most of the flying around Victoria was done out of the old Landsdowne Field and I can remember riding out on the bicycle and you’d see somebody pushing an airplane out of the hangar and you’d wait and wait and wait, because obviously they were going to go flying but in many cases they just pushed it out to sweep or do some work on the aircraft. I’ve waited at that airport for days and never seen an aircraft take off.

I have an uncle that worked for an electrical company in Victoria and he was often called out there to work on the mags of these old aircraft. I remember there was an airplane crash near the corner of Cedar Hill Road and Cedar Hill X Road, close to an old barn. That would be about, oh gosh, 1928, somewhere in that era. I’ve since heard that it may have been old Carter Guest flying that airplane that crashed. That I’m not sure of.

Some time in the early 30’s there was a move to relocate the airport over at Gordon Head and, of course, I was born in Gordon Head and had relatives there and I spent a lot of time in Gordon Head. So I would do the same thing up there-look over the fence, but I never saw an airplane take off from Gordon Head.

There was this little club by the old newspaper, the Times, that encouraged interest in aviation. I think it cost 25 cents a month but one of the things they encouraged was model building and I remember carving away on an old piece of balsa wood and I think it was a Sopwith Camel that I built. It was the only successful airplane model that I completed, but interest pretty well waned.

I would occasionally see the airplanes at the end house, as it was called, the Bucket of Blood, the beer parlour down in Esquimalt. That was the waiting room for the various aircraft that flew to Vancouver, I think it was Western Airways and Ginger Coote and so on.

When I was delivering newspapers in Esquimalt, often in the morning I would see somebody working on an airplane, trying to get the engine going, winding up the old inertia starter. I don’t know what models they were. There could have been a Curtis Robin or they could have been anything, but they were old aircraft including a Dragon Rapide or the DeHavilland Rapide I should say. and one time I saw an Airforce Vickers Vancouver, I think it was, or a Vedette anchored in the bay there.

My next introduction to aircraft was after I joined the Air Force and started flying as a passenger at Service Flying in Calgary and came out to Vancouver and took my training there on No. 8 elementary on Tiger Moths, back to Calgary for service and then returned to Pat Bay and that’s when we got involved with Stranraers.

De Havilland Rapide of Canadian Airways at Vancouver Air port. Mid-late 1930’s.

C.G. Renfrew photo, CMFT collection.

The Elementary Flying School in Vancouver, was that part of the British Commonwealth Air Training Plan?

That’s right, and the aircraft in those days often had the name on the side, this aircraft sponsored by the Powell River Company, or this one sponsored by the Community of Sechelt or whatever the sponsoring unit that bought and paid for the aircraft were, actually written on the side of the aircraft so you could say, “Well gee, I’m training in an aircraft from my home town,” if you did in fact come from there.

I’m just curious about the training you received at the Elementary Flying School and also in your letter you mentioned about Gordie Peter’s father with the flight office. Maybe you could touch on that.

The flying in Elementary was my first introduction to a small aircraft. Here I am sitting in, I guess it was the front cockpit. Maybe it was the back. You know it’s been such a long time, but whatever, the Instructor I had was not very talkative. He didn’t tell me what he was going to do and suddenly we’d be into a turn or whatever and I’d be so darn nervous I wanted to quit. I was absolutely beside myself and I just couldn’t get this thing straight in my mind. I went to the C.O., the Chief Flying Instructor, and told him that I wanted to get out of this flying business entirely. He said, “Well, I’ll tell you what. The weekend’s coming up, why don’t you take an extra day.” On the Friday he said “Your home’s in Victoria, why don’t you come back and see me on Monday.” So off I went to Victoria and I remember going to a dance down at the old Crystal Garden.

In those days, as cadets (if you will, LAC’s – Leading Aircraftsmen in Training as a pilot or potential aircrew) we wore a white flash on the front of our wedge hat. Well this beautiful girl that said “What is that white flash mean? Does that mean you’re an officer?,” because the officer cadets at Gordon Head Army Camp wore a similar flash. I said “No, that means I’m a pilot.” “Oh, it must be great to be a pilot.” Well, before the weekend was over I was the W.W.I ace. I had talked myself into this flying business, went back to Vancouver, went in to see the Flying Instructor and he assigned me a different instructor, and from then on there was no looking back. I believe I was one of the first to solo in that group, even though I’d been a day or two behind.

Soloing was an interesting thing. The Instructor was to have me up for a couple of hours. After about half an hour or so, we came back in and parked in front of the hangar which is still in Vancouver. He said “I’ve just got to go into the office and check and see how much time we’ve got. You just stay where you are and he walked in, checked in with Gordie Peter’s dad, who was the dispatcher at that time, and came back out. But unbeknown to me he had about 30 feet of red ribbon fastened to a great big paper clamp and he clipped it on to the rudder of the aircraft, and this was to warn everybody else that this joker was solo, and he just clipped it on the back and, of course, I was unaware of it. He walked up to the front, leaned over the front cockpit and fastened up the shoulder harness so that it wouldn’t get in the way of the control and stepped back and he said, “Look, I’ve got some business to do. Why don’t you just take the airplane up for a couple of circuits.” He said, “and don’t be too long because you’re going to hold up Gordie Peter’s father,” who wanted to go home. This was towards the end of the day, and I said “You mean, all by myself?” and he said “Well, there’s no one else in the airplane. Off you go.” With that, full of nervousness, off I went and did two circuits.

A line of Tiger Moths in front of the hangars at #8EFTS, Vancouver, c1943.

Maxse Taylor photo, CMFT collection.

Later on I had what they called, oh it was a check ride, I’ve just forgotten what stage of the flying, but it was more or less like your graduation from the Elementary Flying and afterwards I went up and flew that airplane around, sort of free, I was ready to take on the world and I rolled that airplane so many times! When I brought it in they had to re-rig the thing and it was because I favoured the rolls to the right. If you did a roll to the right it was better to do one to the left and then to the right, then to the left and so on. But whatever, the Tiger Moth was a good old airplane. I had no more flying in it at that stage of the game.

One of the few DeHavilland Tiger Moths on floats, this one at the CMFT site, summer 1987.

After the war, when they were being sold surplus, I flew one or two around Vancouver airport. They were operated by the Aero Club. I also rented one, one time over in Nanaimo from a fellow by the name of McCracken and also had occasion to fly a Tiger Moth on floats a number of times. It was one that was built by Hugh Thomas and it was the only Tiger Moth lever flew with a self starter and it was rather nice to fly on floats, but it was strange to go into a logging camp, pick up a logger and all his equipment and tie them on the lower struts on the wing next to the struts and fly home.

Hugh Thomas later traded that aircraft to someone up at Carcross for an old Fairchild 71, or 72 I’m not sure which. But it was later rebuilt and operated by B.C. Airlines, that is the Fairchild was. So I don’t know whatever happened to that old Moth. It was flying up around Carcross.

Do you remember the registration of it?

I think it was ‘CHU-I have it in my log book.

Well I can check on the aircraft and see if we have anything in the museum on it. What was Vancouver like at the time you were there?

When I was there first it was fine in Vancouver. The airport was a single asphalt landing east west, just a short runway. It stopped just west of the control tower, that is the old control tower that burned down in 1949. The east end stopped short of the road that cut across, oh about to where the Innotech Hangar is in Vancouer now and there was a line of poplar trees along there and a power line with lights on it that you had to come over and drop down to land on the grass, getting wet.

I remember one fellow by the name of Kelly in our course. He came in and he dropped a little hard in his Tiger Moth and he bounced, and of course, when he bounced his right foot was heavier than his left and he ended up pointing a little further to the right and then on one of his bounces he bounced over the fence and he ended up in a farmer’s field and it was full of grain that had been stacked or piled up, you know the sheaves piled up, but he was rather embarrassed. We thought it was great- his first solo and he walked away from it. In those days we had to buy everybody Cokes, so rounds on the house.

In Vancouver, you know it’s funny when you think back. Transportation wise, we used to go out in an old green bus from Marpole out to the airport. The airport changed. I went back to Vancouver in 1942 with a Norseman on wheels and as I was approaching they said you are I cleared to land on Runway 7, and I thought 7, my gosh they’ve got seven runways there now! Back when I was flying we didn’t go by numbers and we didn’t even refer to them by the magnetic headings, you know minus the zero, and this was my first introduction to magnetic headings. 7-25 was the old runway; they later had 2-20 and 11-29 and evidences of those runways are still there with bits of concrete here and there. Part of the north side of the airport is hidden in behind the freight sheds. Up there you can still see some of the taxi lights right up beside the road, the old Miller road.

The airport changed. I can remember, even after the war, the airport had a very small little terminal, the old Vancouver terminal. As a matter of fact I may even have a picture of the old terminal around – I’ve got pictures of most of the terminals across the country, Winnipeg. Toronto, Malton – Malton is just a little itty-bitty thing. I’ll give them to you before you go, but I think there was United, Canadian Airways or CPA and Trans Canada Airlines were the only three aircraft or aircraft companies. United, I think, had one flight a day with an old DC-3. Trans Canada were operating the Hudson and/or a Lodestar model, the 1408s or 1808s, and CPA were operating, originally the Electra, the Lockheed 10 and then the Lodestar. CPA lost that Lodestar about 1942-it crashed on Mount Cheam. Yes that would be ’42 and it was found in ’43, I guess in the summertime. Oh, lots of stories about that. A fellow by the name of Holland, Bill Holland and he had Ernie Kubachek as co-pilot.

Our squadron, when I moved back to Pat Bay from Prince Rupert, we had a fellow by the name of Howard McDonald in our squadron, “Black Mac” he was referred to and he had been an early pilot around B.C., a commercial pilot-flown for Canadian Airways, from out of Fort St. James. He’d flown out of the North. Originally he’d come from Revelstoke. He’d been flying in the East for Canadian Airways after the formation of that company, or the amalgamation of all the little companies, and he’d been on ferry of the Atlantic. I don’t know how many ferry trips he’d made, but I know he made one with the Lockheed Hudson, following which he joined the airforce and was flying Digbys on the east coast. He also flew Bolingbrokes. He ended up on our squadron, but that man was a fountain of information about British Columbia, and he had a library of books on ancient history, if you will, on British Columbia. But no matter what you wanted to know about the Province you could ask Howard and he would tell you, and he’s the man that told me how to steal gas, if you will, from all the difference places in B.C. when I went on my photo mission in 1942. I probably learned more about British Columbia from Howard McDonald than any other single source. I later had the pleasure of working with him. He got out of the airforce about 1944 and was flying for Tom Hamilton with the Malibu Club and later, about 1948, I was working very closely with Malibu. It’s a long story that.

What exactly was the Malibu Club?

Well, the Malibu Club was Tom Hamilton, being a yachting enthusiast from California, had discovered, as he thought, Princess Louise Inlet off Jervis Inlet. He just thought he would like to share this beautiful location with other people so he arranged to buy the point of land right at the entrance to the inlet, plus many other acres in there. He developed this lodge at a great expense. He had local Indians carving Totem Poles for him and so on, and it was to be an exclusive resort for all his (I was going to say his high-priced friends) but the wealthy people from Hollywood. They would come up and enjoy this scenery and whatever, so he bought this Grumman Goose from the airforce it was the old airforce No. 942. 1003 was the serial number. They started the numbering at 1001, so it was the third Grumman Goose ever built. We’d had it in our squadron-I’ve flown it at Pat Bay and in the squadron at Vancouver, but whatever, he had this flying back and forth to Malibu and in 1948 I went on their staff.

This 1948 business with – I had been flying for B.C. Airlines from 1945 to 1948 and I wasn’t very happy with the small aircraft. And the B.C. Electric had arranged with Powell River Company to use one of their Grumman Goose and it was to be used by B.C. Electric Northern Construction and Powell River Company. But Powell River were not in a position to charge for the use of the aircraft so we got around that whole business by my going on staff at Malibu. The aircraft was operated by Malibu on a management contract basis. So Howard McDonald now became my boss and again I continued to note his knowledge of the province.

He was a misunderstood person in many ways. He flew -if I may just talk about Howard for a minute. He flew until 1951 and Bloedell, Stuart & Welsh decided to buy their own airplane and Howard went on their staff flying their aircraft. They bought ‘IOL, a Goose which is still operated by McMillan. It was a couple of years later that McMillan merged with Bloedell, and subsequently merged with Powell River Company down the line-it gets lost in the corporate mergers.

But whatever, Howard flew for the McMillan Bloedell organization until 1955 when he had a medical problem and he left the flying and went into the mining business which had been sort of a hobby.

The last I heard from Howard, or heard of him, I was returning by air one day from up the Chilko country and I observed one of the ferry boats circling near Horseshoe Bay. The morning paper the next day mentioned that a boat had been found adrift with no one in it and they suspected that the occupant had been an H.A. McDonald from Revelstoke, but they were just guessing at it. So I phoned the police and was able to confirm the identification. He apparently had gone out with his little car, a little Volkswagon or something, rented the boat to go fishing and had fallen overboard. But part of his medical problem was epileptic seizures and the boat was found with the motor lifted out of the water, the fishing line wrapped all around the prop. But his cigarettes, and everything was still in the boat so it wasn’t a planned suicide or anything. It was just assumed that he fell overboard, but whatever the checkered career he had, I owe most of my knowledge of B.C. to him.

What happened to the Malibu Club?

The Malibu Club operated, I suppose you’d say unsuccessfully. The concept was there but the clientele wasn’t. People would come up from Vancouver, they could go both ways by air if they wished. They could go by the old Fairmile, ex-Fairmile Navy boats that had been converted. They could go one way by boat, one way by air and all they charged them was $15.00 per trip.

The way it was operated was not very efficient. They would send a crew in about three days before the season opened and expect them to dust the place out and have everything operational for the first of the season. They usually started about the 15th June, and they would close up about mid-September, so to try and make it in three months with this investment and the place costing several million dollars to build.

The lodge was unreal. It had a penthouse, it had different lodges, the Navajo House and this house and they were all done on Indian names-not necessarily local B.C. Indians. I mean he used a lot of the Arizona Indian names and so on; and a lot of the Arizona type of decor, the fancy blankets and so on.

But I’ve seen people up there there would be a staff of 80 and there might only be 6 guests. And everywhere people went, they were followed by Hamilton with a cameraman or a camerawoman taking pictures and people would say “Gee I wish I could get a copy of that.” Well they could get a copy but it would be $6 or whatever.

In order to get a liquor license he got around all the rules by building a golf course up at Malibu. Now if you can appreciate building a golf course on the side of Indian Arm you’ve got the picture. I think some of the holes were only 100 feet, 150 feet long but he had a 9 hole golf course, so therefore the club house was able to get a liquor license.

He had the very best of boats, he had Chris Craft cruisers and speed boats and what have you but no attention to them. I mean, once the lodge was closed down in September everybody left and the caretaker had no authority to do anything about putting the boats ashore or whatever. One time I think he had 2 or 3 Fairmiles anchored at the head of the inlet, a storm came up and one or more of them sank. They may still be down there, I don’t know. But no, it was not operated properly. When Hamilton’s wife was up she ran it with a woman’s touch and it was very nice. People enjoyed it but when Tom Hamilton was there, no way.

But he’d have guests like Conrad Hilton and Ann Miller they seemed to be holding hands or whatever. I always remember Ann Miller when she put on an impromptu dance her legs seemed to go all the way up you know, she was a beautiful dancer.

People like Barbara Stanwyck and Robert Taylor would come up there. They were so disgusted with it. I was up there one night they asked me “Could you fly us out of here in the morning?” and I said, “Sure” so they arranged to leave in the morning. Hamilton was disappointed they were cutting their trip short, but he would phone ahead to have photographers standing by at Vancouver taking pictures of them getting out of the airplane so he could use this as advertising. So when we took off in the morning they said, “Is there anywhere else we can go?” and I said “Sure.” So I took them to Victoria and dropped them off at the Empress Hotel and then flew back to Vancouver. Hamilton was pretty upset about that.

But the thing went down, it went under and was unoccupied for a year or two. Much of the furnishings were sold off-Powell River Co. bought quite a few of the totem poles, and some of their furniture and used it at their corporate lodge, at Rainbow Lodge. And then the place was sold to a non-denominational group called Young Life and as far as I know it is still used by them as a summer camp, a non-denominational summer camp, and I visited once since and there was just a, oh gosh I would estimate several hundred young people there enjoying the facilities. So it’s still functional.

Who financed this?

It was financed by Tom Hamilton, he is the man that you read about-the Hamilton Standard Aircraft Propeller. Most of the propeller aircraft in the world were operated behind Hamilton Standard Propellers. He was also a director of United Aircraft, I think it was called, and kept his hand in. Of course he has since died.

So their use of an aircraft was a transportation means? Strictly as transportation.

How did they manage to do this without a commercial license?

They had a license, it was the second one issued in 1945. Charter license #2/45.

But they only used it on their own charter works?

No, they chartered for anybody, McMillan Bloedell, or McMillans, and Bloedells, B.C. Electric, Northern Construction, anybody that needed an airplane could charter from them. And it was the outset of this where Mr. Bloedell didn’t feel he wanted to take second place to anyone else. So he bought his own airplane and that’s when Howard went to fly for him and the first airplane they bought as I mentioned earlier was ‘IOL which was an ex- Imperial Oil Ltd. aircraft, the registration denotes that. Because Bloedell was an American, they couldn’t register the aircraft except under a Canadian company or a company under which 65% of the directors were Canadian, so they formed West Coast Transport Company and 65% of the directors were Canadian. West Coast Transport Co. continued to operate and when McMillan and Bloedell merged it still was West Coast Transport and to this day it is the operating arm of McMillan Bloedell with the turbo prop jet or Goose or whatever they’re still operating. So they were quite legal to operate in this manner.

When I went to them, actually employed by B.C. Electric, I was flying primarily for B.C. Electric Northern in Powell River. Northern Construction Company had a contract to build a dam at Shalalth on the Bridge River and I was up there two and three times a week sometimes a couple of times a day all through 48, 49 well, right on to the sixties.

The service we were getting, employed by Malibu, was not what the companies wanted, because more often than not I was off flying the Malibu aircraft when in fact the other aircraft was sitting idle. And, I think it was in 1948 or perhaps 1949, I was so busy that I’d be flying up to Malibu at 7 o’clock at night, staying overnight and bringing a load back at 6:30 in the morning to Vancouver, it was a 40-45 minute run. The other airplane would be sitting there waiting for me and I would take off at 8 o’clock with the other airplane to go up to Bridge River, spend the day, come back in at 5 o’clock, 5:30 at night, get in the Malibu plane go up and spend the night at Malibu. One time for 13 days I didn’t even leave the airport.

A flight of Grumman Goose over Auckland, New Zealand, c1980.

Inky Klett photo, CMFT collection.

It had to come to an end, so the three companies – B.C. Electric, Northern and Powell decided that they would buy Malibu out. So they bought, erroneously, the assets not the shares in the company and the Air Transport Board wouldn’t let them transfer the license. All they basically bought was the aircraft and the spare parts. It was poor legal council that ended up in this method. So here we ended up we had the Malibu name but no charter. We continued as BNP Airways, named with the initials of three companies. We operated for several years without a charter. We applied for it but oh, there were problems. Everybody in Vancouver was afraid of the wealth behind BNP Airways. They were afraid we would blanket the coast with aircraft and put them all out of business, but that was never the intention.

Eventually we got a charter with restrictions. We were restricted to a certain size airplane which specifically spelt out the Grumman Goose and we were limited to 2 aircraft. So the Malibu charter actually ended up in BNP Airways hands and Malibu ceased to function as a either a resort or an aircraft company.

And the Malibu name was Malibu SeaAero. The one name was to denote both the seaplane or the boat method of getting to Malibu and the aircraft.

But going back a piece, during the years of operation of Malibu, there was a spare room at the airport and they would send out a case of milk or a couple of sacks of potatoes or whatever the freight was required up at Malibu and it would get stored in this room to go up on the next flight. But Hamilton would not authorize a flight until he had paying passengers and I’ve seen that room so full of stuff that they were crying for up there and no flights. So then we would get a flight, we’d start loading it up with baggage.

I recall one lady that went up, she came up from Portland, I won’t mention her name but she had 11 bags, suitcases, and she would hole up in the penthouse. Most of the suitcases contained booze and they were all heavy. So she ended up with all this stuff and when we got this stuff loaded, I had to climb in through the pilot’s window. The bow was loaded; the aircraft was overloaded like you wouldn’t believe. I taxed it out to the button of runway 11 and as I turned around out there I noticed this black mark on the ground and I thought, gee that’s funny, so I opened the window and hopped out-with difficulty- and looked, my tailwheel was flat, it was shattered. So I radioed back and they sent the mechanic out and he jacked the airplane up and put a new tailwheel on it and I then lined up and took off. Well when I landed at Malibu, I thought the airplane was going straight to the bottom. The green water came over the bow. But whatever, we didn’t do that again.

But when I got back to Vancouver I found out that we had no spare tailwheel so I made up a homemade tailwheel out of an old block of wood laminated with a steel core, got an old Seabee tire, cut the side out of it, nailed it on and we used that to move the airplane around the hangar. And I would take off in the morning with a serviceable tailwheel and come back and land and if there was time they would switch the tailwheel to the other airplane so I could fly it. If there wasn’t time I would take the airplane with the wooden wheel and taxi around down the seaplane ramp and take off on the water. It was almost a month before we were able to get a replacement tail wheel for that aircraft.

So this in a sense was the start of corporate flying in Vancouver between Malibu and BNP Airways?

Canadian Pacific Airlines Barkley-Grow on floats in the arctic.

Doug Ireland photo, CMFT collection.

Yes, you might say so. You see, flying right after the war commercially, the only charter aircraft available were Canadian Pacific Airlines and when Bill Sylvester applied for his charter which was in September of 1945, Grant McConachie stood up in the courthouse in Vancouver and made the statement “The Canadian Pacific Airlines had enough aircraft, on hand, to take care of all the present and future flying needs of the charter business in British Columbia.” And at that time they had a Norseman on floats, they had 2 Barkley-Grows on floats, one on wheels and they had a couple of DeHavilland Rapides. I think that’s about the size of the smaller aircraft not counting their mainline aircraft. But to make a statement like that in 1945, you know, that was something else.

Well, at that time the only charter you could get out of Vancover was a little old Waco operated by Spilsbury and Hepburn and they were a radio company. Their office was on Cardero Street just below Georgia. A logging camp would phone in and say they had a problem with their radio, could they send somebody up and could they send them on Thursday morning. And oh, by the way, if you’re coming up, do you mind bringing up such and such a part or such and such a person? Well they’d send a radio or maybe the radio man with the pilot.

I remember Rupert Spilsbury was, I think, a cousin of Jim Spilsbury. He would do some of the flying. But, they’d get up to the camp and find that maybe the radio operator had just turned the radio off. But he’d used the radio to call out in the first place. “Oh, what do you know, we’ve got it fixed. Well, how much do I owe you?” So they’d pay for the radio call. But it was sort of a “chisel charter”, not “chisel charter,” “gyppo charter.” And that was an old Waco, ‘AWK was the registration that was pretty well the way it was operated in 1945 early ’46, and then somewhere in there Jim Spilsbury started Queen Charlotte Airlines.

CF-BBO, a Waco ZOC-6, operated by B.C. Airlines, Victoria, C1944.

George Williamson photo, CMFT collection.

I remember his first Norseman was ‘EJB I think it was. He also had a couple of old Stranraers.

But in ’45 I was operating ‘BBO, an old Waco, for Bill Sylvester. Our main base of operation was Victoria and was flying out of the View Royal base. As a matter of fact, I’ve got a picture of the ad we had in the newspaper. Our page 16 main business was flying passengers on Saturdays and Sundays hopping them around Victoria. I had one charter, gee I remember that first charter.

This was with the airplane that had an 18 pound payload with me sitting in it and a full load of gas. Any rate, we had this charter to take some supplies up to Buttles Lake for George Straithe. George Straithe had arranged with some old miner, I think it was, up there to build a lodge on a mining claim in the park. Well, my brother brought all the freight out in the truck and on the way out he stopped at the scales and weighed the truck. And after we loaded the airplane, he weighed the truck going back. It seems to me we were going to charge by the pound. It turned out there were 1800 pounds in that load. We loaded that airplane up and it was tied to the dock and I’m sure if we’d let the ropes go before I started the engine it would have gone under. I fired the thing up, warmed it up at the dock and Bill Sylvester stood there, released the ropes and off I went. Well I was still on the water when I went by the submarine nets at the entrance to the harbour. I finally got it into the air, staggered into the air, and I couldn’t climb. I was just above the stall, and I had to fly all around the waterfront past Oak Bay, past Cordova Bay, past Sydney, and by the time I got to Nanaimo I was about 1500 feet, milking it up, you know and of course I’m burning off a little fuel. When I got to Buttles Lake I got worrying about how I am going to manage this so I came in from the North and it was glassy calm. I touched down way back and then kept it on, I felt that I could keep it on the step. And I went right down into the bay around the corner and ran it up onto a log so that the log was under the spreader bar. It stayed afloat and there was snow on the ground up there. We unloaded the freight and I left, but I’ll tell you that airplane flew a lot better without the load in it.

I used to bring the airplane back to Vancouver once a week, to have it signed out. In those days every 50 hours or once a week I think was the minimum. About that time we were operating the flying school in Vancouver, Bill McLeod was our instructor, And we were all promoting rides over the fence. I recall t.is one Saturday….

You see, to go back a pace, during the war there was no civilian flying. All the flying in Vancouver was military and/or the airlines and after the war they permitted flying at Vancouver Airport in September south of the airport towards Steveston, and you had to stay west of about number 6 Road. It was a restricted little area that you were allowed to fly. In November they opened up flying so you could fly North of the Fraser River and you were permitted to fly over the city. And this one Saturday I had a passenger up in the little old Luscombe which was on wheels -BPA, an ex-Foggin aircraft-and I’m up over the city 5000 feet flying around enjoying the view, of course I’ve seen it many times in the service. Windy, windy day after a week of heavy rain. Throttle back to glide back to the airport and when I’m down some around 1500 feet I opened up the throttle to clear the engine and keep it warm so to speak and the engine never moved off the idle, it continued to idle. I moved the throttle forward and back- nothing. Just juggedy, juggedy, jugg, just idling away there, no power. Lots of fuel. What had happened was the carburetor control rod had fallen off, or the Bowden control, or whatever it is, had come disconnected at the carburetor. Well of course the mental lag was there by the time I realized I really had no place to land. All the fields on Sea Island, on the north side of the airport now you know, west of where the Cora Brown is all through there, they were all covered with water. And by this time I’m past the river. I glanced underneath me and behind and there was the Point Grey Golf Course. So I kicked around, swung back and I misjudged the wind. And by the time I swung back in to land on what was in those days number 3 fairway I was too far back, so I stretched it, and Istalled just coming over the trees and dropped down and broke one wheel strut and bent up the wing struts on that side. My first reaction was, “Oh my, I shouldn’t be flying with the dual control in” because I didn’t have an instructor’s rating. So I took the co-pilot dual out, it had a little safety pin, and tossed it into the bush, went out to the club house and phoned over to B.C. Airlines and they in turn phoned the Department of Transport. And the whole Department of Transport came out to investigate this. It was the first accident they’d had since before the war or back in ’41, Carter Guest, Norm Terry, and Cliff Upson the whole works stood around. Well, we nappened to have some spare parts in Victoria and we sent them over on the midnight boat, put the airplane together and the next afternoon- I think we had to reserve a time from the pro at the gulf club – Bill McLeod flew it in back over to the airport. So that was the first accident after the war that they had investigated out in the Western Division in Vancouver.

Luscombe CF-BPA, operated by B.C. Airlines, Victoria, c1942

Jim McRae photo, CMFT collection.

George Williamson’s interview will be printed complete in our upcoming “Pioneer Profiles” book. For those of you who can’t wait, the rest of the interview can be read at the museum library – please call for an appointment.

ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING/ELECTIONS

Set aside April 21 (third Thursday) to attend the Annual General Meeting; to be held in the Elgin Centre (see page 7), and use your vote.

The Canadian Museum of Flight and Transportation is YOUR museum. It exists because of support and input from its members. You do have a say in how it is operated, through votes at general meetings and by electing members who you feel will do the best job for the museum to the Board of Directors.

If you have served on the Board of another non-profit organization or a business, and feel that you have skills or knowledge to offer, please put your name forward as a candidate.

If you would like to get involved at Board level, but don’t know how to begin, phone in and offer your services as a member of one of the several standing committees. Committees work with the Board on specific projects, and provide advice and direction to the Board. Committee heads attend Director’s meetings, enter into discussions and lobby, but do not have a vote. Service on one of the Committees provides knowledge of the CMFT’s structure and operation, and is a practical step towards a Directorship. It is not a mandatory requirement for election to the Board, but it does allow the Board to get on with the business of governing instead of spending time bringing newcomers up to date on events and factors affecting decision making.

Ours is a working board. Each member must carry his share of responsibility and be prepared to dedicate time to conscientiously and knowledgeably govern the CMFT. You don’t need a lot of experience, but you do have to care a lot. An informational package briefly outlining board member’s responsibilities and a short history of the CMFT is available to anyone seeking nomination.

Each successive year offers more challenges, and brings us closer to our goal of self-sufficiency. The urgent problem of the lack of a permanent home may soon be solved. It is a dynamic time for the CMFT. We have enjoyed a measure of success, which has been won by hard work. We have a long way yet to go before we can achieve the level of maturity and self-sufficiency needed to make the CMFT a world class entity. Get involved and help make it happen!

15 members are elected annually to the Board. A member may serve on the Board for three consecutive years, after which a minimum of a one-year lapse must occur. Meetings are held once a month (third Thursday) except during August or for other good reason, and Directors are expected to attend all Directors meetings.

Phone Rose at 531-2465 or 531-3744 to find out how to place your name on the nomination list or to offer to serve on one of the Committees below:

Flying Vancouver Island Library Finance Display/Buildings Research Special Events Recovery/Hauling Underwater Recovery P.R./Newsletter Restoration Tour Guides

DONATIONS

LIST OF DONORS SINCE NEWSLETTER 33 (2208-2351)

LARGE ARTIFACTS

Mansell I. Barron, John Clark, Linton A. Moore, Vic Weins, Ed and Rose Zalesky.

SMALL ARTIFACTS

Aerospace Museum of Calgary, Mrs. E.K. Ansley (Estate of F.B. Ansley), T.J. Begin Ed Bray, Bernie Bricklebank, Don Campbell, Larry S. Colby, Frank W. Coulter, W. James M. Duthie, D.G. Elgar, Terry Elgood, Elmer Fossheim, Fred Gregg, Edgar C. Grose, Sean Keating. Ronald M. Krywiak, Victor Mahoney, Bill McGarrigle, Marshall Noble, North Coast Air Services Ltd., Frank Stevens, Lloyd Ward, Frank S. Warwick, Ingwald Wikene, Rose Zalesky,

BOOKS/MAGAZINES/LOGBOOKS

Keith Armstrong, Ad Astra Books, Mr. E.R. Baker, Mansell I. Barron, Ed Beauregard, Del Bowors, Roy Briscoe, CFB Moose Jaw, Laurence Card, W. James M. Duthie, Archie Fraser, Earl R. Gerow, Fred Gregg, David Jensen, Terry Keene, Ingvar Klett, Joseph Lalonde”, Eric and Ann Marrison, W.F (Bill) McGarrigle, Arthur W. McLeod, lan F. Morrison, O.S. Peabody, Dr. A.J.S. Prothero, Ken I. Swartz, Rose Zalesky, Basil Watson, PHOTOS/PICTURES/TAPES/ MEMORABILIA Air Canada, Aviation Art Museum. Dorothy Begg, Roy Briscoe, Ed Burns, R.A. Fane, Alan Gray”, Earl R. Gerow, Fred Gregg, Nigel E. Hannaford”, Sean Keating, Jeff Lee, Cecil Long, Bill McGarrigle, Garry Moonie”, Linton Moore, Mrs. L.C. Mosher, Thomas W. Palmer, A.J. Shortt, Henry E. Stevenson, Lloyd Ward, Ingwald Wikene, Ken I. Swartz, Swissair, Gerald W. Patterson, Marian Takac, Joseph H. Smith, Clyde Smith, Rose Zalesky.

UNIFORMS/MEDALS/CRESTS

A.V. Imports, American Institute for Conservation of Historic and Artistic Works”, D.G. Elgar, Alan Gray”, Fred Gregg, C.G. Gulland, Glen Irwin, Mrs. L.C. Mosher”, Ken 1. Swartz.

TOOLS/EQUIPMENT/FURNITURE/FIXTURES

Bernie Bricklebank, Business Aircraft Corp., John Clark, Wayne Cromie, Fred Gregg. Doug and Lisa Girling. Industrial Formulators of Canada Ltd., Terry Keene, Lear Chemical Research Corp., Graham E. Lee, Pete Loiselle Estate, W.F. (Bill) McGarrigle, Ralph Morden, Marshall

Noble, Basil Watson, Lloyd Ward, Alan Ryder, Frank Stevens, Trade Paper Converters, Jerry E. Vernon.

MODELS

Graham E. Lee.

The following is a list of donors who still have documentation out standing from the last newsletter:

Bob Abello, American Institute for Conservation, Frank F. Apel, B.C. Pioneers of America, Doug Battrum, Boundary Bay Flying Club, Brian Burke, Gordon Croucher, Ernie Dahl, Alan Earle, Bruce Emerson, Jim Fedoruk, Ed Foster, P. Harrison, J.W. Haslett, Frank Hewlett, Cal Hough, Glen Joneson, Ferdinand Joosten, Al Keifer, Bill Kellett, Ron Krywiak, W.D. Lee, T. Lippold, M & B Maquettes, Alex McPhee, National Aviation Museum, Doris Ndaba, Newton Book Store, Bud Neyedli, Joe Owens, Ed Long- Okanagan Helicopters.

Notice

RETURN OF DOCUMENTATION REQUESTED The donors listed above whose names are followed with a have NOT yet returned the forms needed to complete the gifting of the item donated.

A stamped, self-addressed envelope is always included with the acknowledgement letter, as it is very important that the documents be returned to us.

If you have not already done so, please sign and return the paperwork sent to you.

NEW MEMBERS

Peter Hamm, Langley, BC; Nigel Page, Vancouver, BC David, Doreen, Erin, and lain Simpson, Langley, BC; John and Joyce Tarvin, Burnaby, BC; Hiroki Fujimori, Nagano, Japan; Wilf Bunz, Delta, BC; Mrs. Beulah Coles, Victoria, BC; Dr. A.G. Moffoot, Sidney, BC; Dennis Osborne, New Westminster, BC; Allan Frazer, Richmond, BC; Jason M. Besse, Burnaby, BC: Adam J. Besse, Burnaby, BC; Jo F. Coffey, Vancouver, BC, Donald Olson, Vancouver, BC; Douglas R.R. Field, Vancouver, BC; Kenneth G. Wallace, Vancouver, BC, Air Force Officers Association, Surrey, BC; Bonnie E. Dickie, Winnipeg, MB; Mike Guidinger, Langley, BC; Langley Centennial Museum, Fort Langley, BC; Gary Vincent, Surrey, BC; Iris F. Johnson, Fort MacMurray, AB; Mansell Barron, Kamloops, BC; Capt. Douglas Anderson, Inglewood, ON: Joe Chesney, Fort Langley, BC; Sydney Band, Surrey, BC, Alan Robertson, White Rock, BC: J.A. and Patty Clark, Vancouver, BC; Jim, Mary and Wanda Miller, Kamloops, BC.(1583)

HOLLYWOOD NORTH

CMFT is becoming more well known to movie and television crews as a source of aviation items for use in shows, Rental fees for aircraft and artifacts present a good fund-raising opportunity for the museum, as well as providing some exposure for the cause.

Recently, we provided items for Disney’s Earth Star Voyager, the TV show MacGyver, a Sunrype Top Sun” ad and more.

Keep your eyes open the next time you see some aircraft or memorabilia on TV or in an ad, it could be part of the collection! To CANADIAN Museum THANK MACGYVER

ADOPT AN AIRPLANE

The “Adopt an Airplane” program is coming along well, with donations coming in regularly, but more are always needed. This is your chance to sponsor your very own airplane. The program works in two ways, financially and physically.

First, you can pick an aircraft from our collection to sponsor; money collected is placed into a fund and will be used only to maintain the airplane in display condition. If enough money is raised, the CMFT may hire a full time or part time maintenance person to ensure that the airplanes are always at their best.

Or, if you are a handy-type person with some time to spare, you can “adopt” an aircraft to be maintained by you; washing, polishing, etc. This type of “adoption” requires a regular monthly committment of time.

If you would like any further information about this program, please call or write the museum. We will be happy to send you a form listing the aircraft needing sponsors. Remember, all donations over $5 are eligible for tax-deductible receipts.

1927 CHEVY TRUCK

One of the recent winter restorations involves one of our transportation items, a Mairs Transport 1927 Chevrolet Capitol 1-ton truck. This appealing little truck was getting some “spiffing up in preparation for display this season. If anyone has any information on this model, please get in touch.

NEWSLETTER ADVERTISING

You will notice more advertising in each issue of the newsletter. While this does take up some space, it is important to help offset the cost of publishing the $5 per year newsletter fee for members covers the postage and not much else. We welcome ads of all types, they don’t have to be aviation oriented. If you want some reasonably priced advertising for your business, or know of someone who might, please keep us in mind. Ad rates are as follows-Business card size: $10, Quarter page: $20, Half page: $40, Full page: $75. Prices include typesetting if required.

THE CHALLENGE OF THE SKY

This article is taken from the ROYAL BANK OF CANADA MONTHLY LETTER, VOL. 59, NO.6, JUNE, 1978

The 75th anniversary of the Wright brothers’ historic flight comes later this year. These days we tend to take our ability to fly for granted. Here is a review of how this astonishing faculty was developed, and of what it means to the human spirit today….

The date was November 21, 1783; the place, the Bois de Boulogne in Paris. An excited crowd looked on as two French aristocrats, Jean-Francois Pilatre de Rozier and the Marquis d’Arlandes, climbed into a tub-like circular “gallery” suspended below a huge linen bag inflated with hot air from a fire of straw. A natural historian by profession, Pilatre de Rozier was the hero of the hour. Word had spread through the throng of his response when King Louis XVI offered to supply two condemned prisoners to risk the perils of being hoisted aloft by the Montgolfier brothers’ amazing new invention. According to the gossip that buzzed about, the historian had exclaimed: “Shall vile criminals have the honour of first rising in the sky? I myself shall go!”

At approximately 2 p.m. the mooring lines holding the balloon to the ground were cast off and it began to ascend very slowly. The spectators held their breath as the two men fed the fire in a brazier in the gallery with handfuls of damp straw and the surface of the balloon was set alight in several places by the sparks. But they had come prepared; they rushed around the gallery with wet sponges snuffing out the fires on the lines. This danger past, the balloon rose smoothly, soaring above the Invalides and the Ecole Militaire.

The two “aeronauts” came safely to earth more than 20 minutes later beyond the Boulevards, several miles from their starting-point. With that long leap over the roof tops of Paris, one of the oldest and boldest dreams of mankind was realized. Since the infancy of civilization, human beings had gazed at the sky and wished for what seemed to be impossible to break the invisible bonds that held them to the earth and so transform themselves into aeriel creatures. And now the impossible had been done.

From that day on, people would never cease to attempt to fly higher, farther, faster and in greater numbers. Within a fortnight, another Frenchman, the physicist J.A.C. Charles, rose to a height of two miles in a balloon filled with hydrogen gas produced by pouring sulphuric acid on iron filings. Charles experienced violent pains in the ears and jaw from depressurization, and was so shaken by the experience that he publicly vowed never to fly again.

But nothing could stop the impetus to take to the air. In January, 1785, the English Channel was successfully crossed by balloon from Dover to a woods near Calais – though not before the two aeronauts aboard had saved themselves from coming down in the water by throwing out all the unneccessary weight in the carrying car, inclding most of the clothing they wore.

In June of that year the gallant Pilatre de Rozier became history’s first fatal casualty of the quest for improved ways to fly when his experimental combination hot air and hydrogen balloon burst into flames at 3,000 feet in an attempt to cross the Channel from France to England. Two other familiar types in aviation also made their appearance: the first aerial hijacker, who jumped with sword drawn into the car beside a well-known French balloonist and demanded to be taken along (he was overpowered by the ground crew,) and the first stunt flyer, who flew sitting astride a horse.

As in later times, progressive minds pondered the possibilities of flight. The statesman and writer Horace Walpole speculated that the balloon would replace the sailing ships, turning Britain’s seaports into deserted villages. Come what may, Walpole was enthusiastic. “How posterity will laugh at us, one way or the other!” he wrote to his friend Sir Horace Mann in 1785. “If half a dozen break their necks, and Balloonism is exploded, we shall be called fools for having imagined it could be brought to use; if it should be turned to account, we shall be ridiculed for having doubted.”

Among the first to tap the practical potential of balloons were military men. The French Army was quick to press them into service for reconnaissance purposes. The battle of Fleurus in 1794 was said to have been won by virtue of information on enemy movements gained by balloon. As early as 1849 the Austrians used small unmanned balloons to bomb Venice. Balloons were employed extensively for artillery observation by the Union Army in the American Civil War.

In 1863 the idea of an airliner, with all modern conveniences, was broached by a Paris photographer named Nadar. He launched a giant balloon carrying a two-storey cabin which contained a refreshment room, lavatory, etc. On its second flight his craft took 17 hours to carry nine passengers on 400-mile trip to Hanover. It was a rough passage. The wind so jostled the airship that none of the passengers escaped being bruised and several were seriously hurt.

Nadar was well aware of the weakness of the balloon as a medium of mass transportation. Although it could be navigated to some extent, it would be at the mercy of the winds as long as there was no force to drive it along. His efforts to finance the development of powered balloons failed. Many methods of propelling balloons had previously been suggested, including rowing them with harnessed flocks of birds. One French government experiment in 1872 employing eight labourers to power a propeller actually succeeded in driving a balloon against a strong wind.

Experiments with steam, clockwork, electric and gasoline motors, as well as with cigar-shaped body designs, led to the successful development of the rigid- bodied dirigible by Count Ferdinand von Zeppelin of the German Army in 1897. In 1910 Zeppelin balloons were used to inaugurate the first regularly-sechduled passenger air service; it carried almost 40,000 people before it was suspended at the outbreak of World War I. The Germans then used the Zeppelin to introduce a new horror of war: the bombing of civillians in cities. In the 1920s the the 775-foot Graf Zeppelin was the vehicle for the first transatlantic air service, flying passengers between Germany and North and South America. Another world war was looming when the age of dirigible travel came to a sudden finish. On May 6, 1937, the huge, luxurious German airship Hindenburg collapsed in flames at the end of its 37th transatlantic crossing at Lakehurst, New Jersey, with the loss of 36 lives.

Ballooning thus played a long and significant part in the archivement of human flight-a part often belittled by historians. Some writers, indeed, have suggested that it impeded the development of heavier-than- air aviation in that it discouraged the search for alternative ways to fly. On the other hand, it can be said that ballooning actually stimulated interest in working towards a more efficient form of aerial tran sportation. Certainly it established the intellectual framework necessary to progress in aviation simply by demonstrating the fundamental fact that it was possible for man to fly..

It is difficult for a modern person to appreciate the extent of this psychological break-through. For many centuries people had been staking their lives on the belief that, given the right conditions, they could fly like birds on artificial wings. By comparing the physiques of birds and humans in the latter part of the 17th century, G.A. Borelli of Italy showed scientifically that man could not fly under his own power.

In 1670 Borelli constructed an artificial bird which for the next 200 years would be a subject of study and modification. Out of this research it was discovered that the propulsion for a bird’s flight comes from the outer section of the wing, which twists in the air. From this came the concept of the twisted aerial screw, or propeller. In 1796 Sir George Cayley constructed a miniature model flying machine which rose in the air by means of two counter-rotating propeller. He estimated that if the area of the propellers could be increased to 200 square feet, the device could lift a man.

Cayley is a case in point of the stimulus the development of heavier-than-air aviation received from ballooning. He was only ten years old when the first balloon flights piqued his imagination as to the different ways in which man might fly. He grew into a country gentleman with a wide range of scientific interests. He studied the flying properties of kites and birds, concentrating on the resistance encountered by a body moving through the air. This, he recognised, would have to be overcome by a combination of wings and engines in any non-balloon flying machine.

Through experiments with model wings, Cayley also came to realize that stability and control would be crucial to the success of aviation. In 1804 he built a model glider which has been called the world’s first true airplane. In 1849 he launched a full-sized glider which carried a ten- year-old boy off the ground for several yards in the first documented heavier-than-air human flight.

Cayley’s aerodynamic theories were improved upon by Alphonse Penaud of France, who in 1871 constructed a two-propeller vertical flying model powered by a twisted rubber band which he called a helicoptere. Soon to become a popular toy, it worked on the same principle as the big machines that bear its name today. Penaud next built a horizontal model with wings called “aeroplanes” which resembled the modern aircraft in almost every detail. Having made great strides in aerodynamics with these models, he was ready to go on to building a fullsized manned flying boat.

His proposal for this machine included several of the key technical features that would enable aircraft to fly in the next century, including a forward propeller, a tail plane, central controls, and retractable landing gear. He set out to raise financial backing for what might well have become the world’s first practical airplane, but could find no one willing to take the risk. Heart-broken, he committed suicide in 1880. He was 30 years old.

In the meantime other, more affluent inventors were working on the problems of powered aviation. A disciple of Cayle’s, William S. Henson, designed a prototype of an “aerial steam carriage” to carry “letters, goods and passengers from place to place,” but it never flew. As long as steam engines were employed for power, no aircraft could lift itself with a man in it. The last of several attempts to fly a man with steam power ended in the Potomac River near Washington, D.C., when S.P. Langley’s promising “aerodrome” broke into pieces as it was being launched on December 8, 1903.

On that same date, some 250 miles to the south, two young men were camped among the windswept sand dunes of the Outer Banks of North Carolina. They were brothers who ran a bicycle repair shop in Dayton, Ohio – Orville and Wilbur Wright. When they were boys their father had given them a 50-cent toy-one of Penaud’s rubber-band-powered helicopter models. They had been “afflicted with the belief that flight is possible to man,” as Orville put it, ever since.

Drawing largely on the aerodynamic findings of Otto Lilienthal, the German aviation pioneer who made more than 2,000 glider flights before he crashed to his death in 1896, the Wright brothers began to experiment with gliders in 1900. It was then that they came to a spot on the dunes named Kitty Hawk, which appealed to them because of its soft sand, which minimized the danger from crashes, and absence of obstacles such as trees. There they made a number of glider flights to check out the conclusions drawn from experiments with various wing configurations in a wind tunnel they had constructed back in Dayton. As a result of this work they devised a uniquely efficient and stable set of wings which could be flexed at the ends to maintain balance in flight.

They had also built their own light-weight gasoline engine after having failed to interest several automobile engine manufactures in supplying one for them. It was to drive a propeller of their own design, twisted so as to transform 66 per cent of the engine’s 13 horsepower into forward thrust. On the day that Langley’s aerodrome falled, they were busy fitting together the pieces of their flying machine which they had pre-shipped from Dayton. Six days later they were ready to try it out.

Wilbur had won the right to drive the machine by the toss of a coin. It charged down the wooden launching rail, rose momentarily, then collapsed in the sand. Wilbur was unhurt, but the plane was damaged. It took another three days to repair it. Then it was Orville’s turn .

On December 17, 1903, he laid himself flat on the lower wing of the craft while his brother started the engine. What happened next is perhaps best captured in his own words:

“After running the motor a few minutes to heat it up I released the wire that held the machine to the track and the machine started forward into the wind. Wilbur ran at the side of the machine holding the wing to balance it on the track. Unlike the start on the 14th made in a calm the machine facing a 27-mile wind started very slowly….Wilbur was able to stay with it until it lifted from the track after a 40-foot run. One of the life-saving men snapped a camera for us taking a picture just as it reached the end of track and the machine had risen to a height of about two feet… The course of the flight up and down was extremely erratic, partly due to irregularities in the air, partly due to inexperience in handling this machine. A sudden dart when a little over 120 feet from the point at which it rose in the air ended the flight….This flight lasted only 12 seconds but it was nevertheless the first time in history in which a machine carrying a man had raised itself by its own power into the air in full flight, had sailed forward without a reduction of speed, and had finally landed at a point as high as that from which it had started.”

A great event in science is like the opening of the floodgates of a dam. From then on the stream of endeavour moves inestimably faster. Within two years of that flight of less than a minute a few feet off the ground, the Wright brothers had stayed high in the air for more than half an hour and covered 24 miles. By late 1909 Henry Farman had gone nearly 140 miles in four hours, and Louis Bleriot had flown across the English Channel in a single wing surface monoplane.

The next few years brought a steady succession of flying exploits and technical advances. Pressed by the terrible imperatives of warfare, aviation took a great leap forward in World War I. in 1919 the first all-metal cantilevered-wing passenger aircraft designed by Germany’s Otto Junkers, went into service with the airline, Lufthansa. That same year Alcock and Brown flew the Atlantic Ocean non-stop.

In 1930 a young Royal Air Force officer named Frank Whittle patented the turbo-jet engine. With this, all the basic ingredients became available for trans-oceanic flight as we know it today. Still, it would take the work of thousands of unsung aviation technologists over many years before people could constantly fly in vast numbers at speeds and over distances undreamt-of in the early days of aviation. Who 50 years ago could seriously have predicted that it would one day become a matter of daily routine to fly between London and New York in 3 1/2 hours?

The only word for it is incredible. But then the whole story of man’s conquest of the sky may be described by the same word. By showing that people are capable of achieving the seemingly impossible, it raises the question: If man can fly, what can he not do? To the Montgolfiers, the Cayleys, the Wrights and all the rest, we owe the knowledge that no challenge is insurmountable if human ingenuity and will are fully engaged.

YARD HELP NEEDED

Lots of help is needed starting NOW! to help get the yard in top shape for our May 14 opening. This includes lawn mowing, weedeating, brush removal, etc. If you have some time to help, please give us a call. Volunteers are needed throughout the week as well as on weekends.

WORLD AEROBATIC CHAMPIONSHIPS ’88

If you are interested in Competition Aerobatics, the World Aerobatic Championships are being held this year in Red Deer, Alberta, July 31 through August 13. This is a great chance to see precision flying by pilots from around the world. For further information, please contact WAC 88, 4811-48th Ave., Red Deer, AB T4N 3T2. Phone: (403) 342-2032.

EX-SERVICE WOMEN’S REUNION

The 32nd Annyal Ex-Service Women’s Reunion will be held in Mission, B.C. on Saturday, April 23/88. For more information, please write c/o Royal Canadian Legion Branch 57,32965 Lougheed Hwy., Mission, B.C. V2V 1B4.

MODEL COLLECTION

CMFT is seeking airplane models of all kinds, in all the scales, either built up, unfinished, incomplete or still in the box. Models will be playing a large part in future exhibits.

TOUR GUIDES WANTED

Most visitors now view the exhibits on a self-guided basis, but we still need tour guides for bus tours, school visits, and other groups. Tour guides provide the first and greatest impression on our visitors. They are our good will ambassadors. We are preparing a “Guide for Tour Guides” so that consistency and accuracy can be maintained.

MEMBERSHIP RENEWALS

Please check your address label, the date on the upper right hand corner is the date your membership expires. Send in your $20 annual renewal today. CMFT needs your support. Thanks to all of you who have already renewed your memberships.

MOVING?

If you’ve moved, or plan to soon, please send us a change of address. If your newsletter comes back to us as moved, you will receive no further newsletters as we have no way of tracing you. Please keep us in mind for any future moves – we like to keep in touch with our members.

We Repeat.

you can be a part of the effort to insure that our priceless relics are preserved and properly cared for through future generations if you include in your will a bequest to the Canadian Museum of Flight and Transportation. You may bequeath cash, securities and real or personal property to the permanent Endowment Fund where the income from your memorial will continue helping to support the museum. Or you may choose a special purpose such as constructing buildings, acquiring important relics, the reference library, or renovation or restoration of an exhibit.

You will find that a living trust will secure your wishes while providing income for you or your designate for the rest of your lives.

Think of the Canadian Museum of Flight and Transportation as you look to the future.

Policy

Every letter, newsletter or other communication throughout the year contains a return envelope or other form of solicitation. We urge you to use these forms to recruit new members and to make memorial, tribute, anniversary or other additional contributions. Remember, in order to help build and maintain the Museum, and to acquire outstanding exhibits, we will remind you of the need for funds in every mailing.

ABOVE: A view of part of the CMFT site, summer 1987, showing the Bristol Bolingbroke, DeHavilland Vampire, and the SESA WWI fighter replica. Remember, there are 38 aircraft on display throughout the summer at the museum, come out and take a look!

S. Senaratne photo.