Aviation Memorabilia Newsletter

Mary Ellen Harrison has a collection of cuttings from her career.

Most of my pics were just a collection of people and crews I worked with, nothing specific.

I flew North Stars and DC-3’s when I started with TCA in the 50’s. At that time, the crew was a Captain, First Officer and one Stewardess. 

I was based in Winnipeg then, so we flew with the same crews a lot. Lots of good memories.

The North Star configuration was 64 passengers with a route of Winnipeg, Toronto and Montreal, with a layover in Montreal where we stayed  at the Mount Royal hotel.

The DC-3, if I remember correctly, was a 7 hour 'milk run' between Winnipeg and Calgary stops in Brandon, Regina, Swift Current, Saskatoon, Edmonton and, finally, Calgary.

In the photo below, Art Hollinsworth was a check pilot and was often on my flights, and it was interesting when his son 'Armie', came along as the First Officer and they were on a flight together. Probably happens more frequently in years since.

Editors' note:
We located the original article in the "Between Ourselves" issued May 1956, with the following caption:

For the first time in the history of our Company, a father and son recently flew a scheduled flight together, from Toronto to Windsor. The father, Captain Art Hollinsworth, left, a Toronto check pilot with 16 years' TCA experience, was at the controls, while his son Armand was in the "right seat" as First Officer. Armand, previously with the RCAF, is a recent TCA first officer graduate. His father has been flying for some 28 years and is a "many million miler.".

This photo is of Sylvain Taillefer. I think he was a ramp controller, but I can’t remember whether he was Winnipeg or Toronto. I’m inclined to think Toronto.

Editors' note:
We located this article in “Between Ourselves" issue April 1958. In the original article, the picture was taken in Montreal and the ramp controller is unidentified.

Father and son represent a quarter century of TCA service.

A quarter century of service with TCA is represented here by Captain Ken Harling and his father Herb Harling of Toronto District Sales. Ken had recently achieved his captaincy and has been with the airline for seven years while his dad joined in 1938. 

Editors' note:
Article located in "Between Ourselves" issued July 1997.

Viewing the video of CF-TCC in NetLetter #1447, brought back this memory by one of our proofreaders, Bob Sheppard -

I had a ride in CF-TCC out to Vancouver Island, over Vancouver and back to YVR.

I enjoyed it thoroughly and didn’t really notice the noise. It was parked beside our chair shop in Winnipeg for a long time while two of our talented finishers did the first refurbishment of the cabin. Very experienced sewers and upholsterers, Joe Bommersbach and Ozzie Belaire.

Editors' note:
We came across this article in the "Horizons" magazine issue dated November 1995.

The Vancouver Recognition committee designed a unique method to recognize Vancouver-based employees who have demonstrated excellence through their performance or personal achievements as Air Canada employees. Nominated by peers, 70 employees were given one-hour scenic tours in Air Canada's historic L10A aircraft, CF-TCC, in which one lucky recipient of the trip was Bob Sheppard.

Here is the photo which accompanied the article.

Employees embraced the time period theme and Casablanca clichés were the order of the day, including 40's fashion by Reservation Agents: Anne-Marie Cathcart, Kirstin Park together with Mimi Reppen-Jeffers, Crew Support Centre Coordinator.

Adam Clark shares this memory.

If you don’t ask you don’t get.

This is a tale about transpacific travel in the 1970's. I am a dual national Canadian/Kiwi with a need to visit relatives/buddies etc.

It was late 1976 or 1977 and Pan Am had deployed the new Boeing 747SP on nonstop service between San Francisco (SFO) and Auckland (AKL) which was excellent for me since it avoided the risk of deplanement at Honolulu (HNL), Papeete (PPT) or Pago Pago (PPG), places where Pan Am otherwise stopped en route to New Zealand.

The 747SP was a shortened version of the B747-100 for longer range, but in fact barely had enough range to reach AKL in the North Island and very marginal for the South Island alternate of Christchurch (CHC). Only 45 of them were ever built.

Armed with my ID90 ticket I arrived at Los Angeles (LAX) via L-1011 from Montreal (YUL) and Toronto (YYZ), expecting to locally purchase a domestic ticket to SFO on PSA Airlines.

In those days Pan Am and Air Canada shared a LAX terminal. I noticed a new Pan Am 747SP parked adjacent to our incoming flight. Aware that Pan Am only had a few B747SP's delivered and was not authorised to fly domestically, I wondered if the ship was about to ferry. I stopped at the Pan Am counter and showed my ID90 ticket for that night’s flight ex SFO and asked where the 747SP on the ramp was destined.

When told it was being ferried to SFO for my flight to AKL I asked whether I might board. I explained the fare was identical whether departing from LAX or SFO. Answer was “Hell, yes” and was told to see the gate agent and I would be boarded. When I replied that there was no gate agent present he gave me the 4 digit code to punch in the gate door. So I simply boarded with carry-on to the surprise of the deadheading cabin crew as the only “customer”. Later that night aboard that 747SP, I was seated in the last row adjacent the Captain’s spouse. Shortly before descent the captain welcomed us to NZ recommending we turn our minds back some years in to prepare for what awaited. The captain’s spouse laughed and told me it was his last flight and they were relocating to New Zealand. 

Adam Clark

Editor's note by Bob Sheppard:

I recall a similar situation occurred in Vancouver where on our last night shift, a fellow employee wanted to fly to Toronto. There was a B-747-400 scheduled on a ferry flight to Toronto and he was allowed to fly there using his employee pass. He picked a row and slept soundly. Having a 747-400 to yourself must have been quite the experience.