Aviation Memorabilia Newsletter

Issue dated August 1993

 

After Air Canada had wrapped up the delivery of its B-727's to Federal Express, they threw a small thank-you party outside Winnipeg's Hangar for Federal Express representative Dennis Wells.

 

An aircraft cake was specially baked for the occasion. "It looks so real it probably could fly," said Vern Barton, Chief B-727 pilot from Federal Express.

 

From left to right: Ron Elvidge, Larry Sirant, Ben Besner, Dana Wild, Leo LeClair, Mark Volk, Ross Watson, L. Salvain, Frank Pirella, Floyd Heppner, Dave Brooks, Ron Blundon, Dave Norris, Rob Sarauelt, Jeff Darby, Dennis Wells, Dennis Strum, Mike Maskell, Claude Racicot, Ed Yeats, Henry Mah, Bob Sideen and Bob Hatton.

Vancouver celebrated 1000 years of service.

Here are some of the celebrants from In-flight Service - 

From left to right: Hans Birsfelder, Purser; Flight Attendants Patricia Coirier, Rene Grether and Marty Frahm; Chris Dubeau, In-Flight Service Manager; Brian Elsey, Manager, Administration and Support; Mimi Gingras, Flight Attendant; Pursers Franco Cellura and Mick Baumgartner; Flight Attendants Seija Evans, Jerry Bialluch, Lynn McCoy and Martha Middleton; Al Klein, Purser and In-Flight Service Supervisors Linda Penn and Robin Fleming.

Here are some of the celebrants from Avionics -

From left to right: Harald Leukefeld, General Foreman, Line - Western; Fred Strick, Certified Avionics Technician; Richard Botham, Certified Aircraft Technician; Lodewijk Retel, Mechanic; Bob Brown, Foreman; Lennie Hewer, Certified Aircraft Technician; Stu Green, Certified Avionics Technician; Fred Donofrio, Certified Aircraft Technician and Jeff Punshon, Certified Aircraft Technician.

Here are some of the celebrants from Customer Sales & Service -

 

From left to right: John Brocklehurst, Passenger Service Manager; Customer Sales & Service Agents Ron Whitehurst, Carol Yap Chung, Gloria Hokazono, Lynda Carson and Art Wilson.

 

From: Charles Mackie, on January 31, 2003.

 

An early TCA incident.

I am somewhat hesitant to tell you this story as it happened over many years ago and I did not want to embarrass anyone who may have been associated with the incident but I do think it is part of the history of TCA.

This event took place in the summer of 1941, when I was a radio operator at St. Hubert airport. The occasion was to celebrate the arrival of the first Lockheed 18 Lodestar to Montreal.

In front of the tiny administration building they had laid out a red carpet. They had a brass band and the airport manager, a Mr. "Fizz" Champagne, was strutting around dressed in top hat and tails. There were also representatives from the newspapers there with their cameras etc.

The aircraft circled the field and did a normal landing and was taxiing into the area of the admin building, when the captain signaled his new first officer to retract the Fowler flaps, but by mistake he pulled up the wheels instead and set the aircraft on its belly right in front of the startled dignitaries.

Immediately the brass band was dismissed, the red carpet rolled up and all concerned where advised not to say a word about this incident, and to my knowledge it has remained a secret until this day, not a word in the newspapers etc.

They jacked up the aircraft and lowered the wheels and had the aircraft towed to the hangar where we had the radio room located. The put a large tarp over the whole aircraft and even had an RCAF guard posted with bayonet to keep anyone with prying eyes away.

Fortunately there was not too much damage to the aircraft. They had to change a couple of bent props and the aircraft departed St. Hubert very soon after the incident.

I repeat to my knowledge this incident has remained a secret but it was an early part of TCA in its growing days. Some may have heard of it but never wanted it published.

Charles Mackie