Aviation Memorabilia Newsletter

Air Canada - our first 70 years

1971 - June 24th - The third B-747 CF-TOC was delivered to YUL.

1972 - Sep   8th - Agreement reached with Mr. Maxwell M. Ward for the purchase of one third of the outstanding common shares of Wardair Canada Ltd.

1988 - March 27th - Air Alliance  began serving Ottawa, Quebec City, Montreal and Bagottville.

Star Alliance News

United Airlines is making the search for exact change a thing of the past.

With United's new EasyPurchase, customers will be able to use credit and debit cards for onboard purchases beginning March 23 BMI rolls out Chauffeur Drive on key business routes.

Complimentary Chauffeur Drive for selected Business Class fares is available on BMI routes from London Heathrow. Six routes now offer the service, with a seventh, Kiev to follow later this month when the new route commences. Customers traveling on selected Business Class fares to Cairo, Tel Aviv and Beirut can now take advantage of this service, following the launch of Chauffeur Drive on routes to Moscow and Saudi Arabia last month. The Chauffeur Drive service enables Business Class customers traveling on fully-flexible fares to experience BMI service beyond the flight for more convenient and hassle-free travel.

(Should you be lucky enough to get upgraded whilst plussing on BMI, they will be more than happy to direct you to the nearest taxi stand or bus service - eds)

TCA/AC People Gallery

Over the past months we have been publishing various photographs from earlier "Horizons", should any photos prompt a memory in seeing one of them, feel free to send us your comments and thoughts.

Musings from "Between Ourselves"

Issue dated June 1971
The first ever non stop DC-8 charter London to Victoria was a family affair for the Hannan family. S/O Reid Hannan Jr is greeted by his father Reid senior, a Passenger Agent in Victoria and his son Wayne a Station Attendant in Victoria.


Here we have this photo.













These six young ladies are off to Paris to represent the company at the Paris Air Show During the show they acted as receptionists and hostesses.










Not often does an Air Canada DC-8 hold up vehicular traffic in the centre of London, England.

Here we have this photo of a young 11 year old who requested the model when the new CTO was renovated and his request was granted.
(We have no idea who the ladies are so don't ask - eds)




Winnipeg's Assiniboine Hotel was the scene for a farewell party to honor a group of employees who were retiring after collectively serving for 273 years. .




Due to a critical office space situation at Zurich airport, the company was forced to spare no expense to look for alternate accommodations.

Mechanics Marcel Jotterand and Kurt Schwarz were the envy of the other airline mechanics. Take a look.  









We have this photo of the Miami staff who celebrated the recently re-decorated facilities at the airport.





Issue dated July 1971

25 years ago, July 1st, service to Chicago was inaugurated with CF-TEC DC-3 equipment.

Here we have this photo of the original eight stewardesses assigned for the inauguration.









On June 3rd, the inaugural B-747 service from LHR to YYZ was handled by this bevy of Passenger Agents, happy now that their early morning shift us over.






The last scheduled overhaul for the Viscount fleet was fin #642 CF-THX recently and was rolled out of hangar nr 1 in Winnipeg bringing to a close Air Canada's Viscount fleet overhaul program. Since 1956 a total of 408 overhauls have been performed.

These endeavors resulted in a progressive extension of the overhaul interval from 1,000 flying hours to 5,000 flying hours. Here we have this photo but no identities.

Pionairs 2009 National Golf Tournament

The Pionairs 2009 Golf Tournament is being held on June 1 - 3, 2009 in Victoria, BC. All information can be found at:
www.pionairs.org

Early Bird Special
If you register and pay before March 15, 2009 you can save $20 per person off the full price!

Bytes and Pieces

Saved from the Brink
I've come across another great article by the Vintage Wings site at www.vintagewings.ca. Saved from the Brink is a story with photographs about a collection that of rare photos that were nearly lost.

In the early 1940s, Alfred Booth was hired to remove litter from a vacant house in Vancouver, British Columbia. Amongst the newspapers, broken furniture and detritus of other people's lives he found a wooden box containing approximately 1,000 photographic negatives. Unwilling to trash this box of time as instructed to do, Alfred took the box home and gave them to his fourteen year old son Dudley in 1946. Over the ensuing decades, this remarkable collection of historic images from the early 20th century endured because Dudley Booth understood that they were a valuable record. They were the life's work of a man called Cyril R. Littlebury. Born in England in 1898, Cyril moved with his family - first to New Zealand and then eventually to settle in Calgary, Alberta

Please click on the photo or follow this link for the full story.

Canadi>n/CPAir/PWA, Wardair, etc. Events & People

Over the past months we have been publishing various photographs from earlier in-house magazines, should any photos prompt a memory in seeing one of them, feel free to send us your comments and thoughts.

Perusing the "INFO Canadi>n" magazine

Issue dated February 11th, 1988

Canadian Airlines International were named the official airline for the 15th Winter Olympics held in Calgary. The flame was carried from Inuvik-Fort St. John via Whitehorse.


We have several photos. Brad Potentier with Olympic torch.

















Three Edmonton based flight attendants on the Whitehorse-St. John leg of the flame flight.








Ray Brazeau of Yellowknife and Kenn Smith of YYC were torch bearers in Yellowknife. It was -26c that day. .
(But they had the flame to keep them warm - eds)
















Issue dated March 3rd 1988
New service awards launched in April recognizing service anniversaries every five years from 5 thru 45.

Issue dated March 31st 1988
Frankfurt-am-Main, West Germany became the airlines 20th international destination on April 4th when DC-10-30 operating flight 46 from YVR.

Issue dated April 7th 1988
Service between North Bay and Toronto commenced April 3rd.
Also effective Apr 3rd service to Pittsburg. May 1st service to Winnipeg and Dryden. Timmins will be added in November.

Service between Mirabel and Fort Lauderdale to be discontinued May 1st.  

Issue dated April 14th 1988

First revenue flight for the recently delivered B-767ER will be Vancouver - Los Angeles on April 17th. The B-767 will operate this segment until April 23rd until the B-737 is available after maintenance.

Brian Dunn, who issues YYZNEWS sent us this photo -

This photo was taken on February 12th 2009 at YYZ and I tried to show what night time looked like from my vantage point.







Hilton Whittaker sends us this information from the "CP Air NEWS" magazine  issue dated July 1984 -- Memories the way it was in '84.

Here we have another set of photos contributed by John Anderton - Avro York of Pacific Western Airlines CF-HIP at YZF in 1956.












John also sends this web site for more information on this aircraft.
http://1000aircraftphotos.com

And here are some photos of airports where Canadian Pacific Airlines operated.

Uranium City C.T.O. 1955/6












Hay River in 1955/6









Cranbrook, BC in 1955/6









Prince George BC in 1956














Jon Salerolevich, Base Engineer at
Yellowknife in1955












Loraine Gore sent us this message to pass along - This attachment has nothing to do with the A.C. Family, nor did any of us fly the Stratocruiser, but it was a nostalgia trip for me, remembering when all passengers acted and dressed like First Class' persons.
I flew as a Stewardess/ In-Charge Flight Attendant for A.C. for over 38 years, (in the days when we were all nurses), hence my fascination  with what the Stratocruiser had to offer.

Enjoy the Netletter. Thank you all very much.

Loraine Gore.

New Mainliner Stratocruiser
http://www.ovi.ch/b377/brochures/united/

Reading the Car 3 article in "Bytes and Pieces" by Alan in NetLetter nr 1058 prompted this memory from Bill Norberg - The video of a Cat 111 landing was fascinating to watch. It again brought back many memories for me about flight path control systems in TCA and Air Canada.

In  the mid 1940's TCA included  as part of the specification for our North Star fleet, an autopilot system including a flight path control; system capable of bringing the aircraft down to 25 feet above the runway. It was based on using an I.LS landing system.

It was delivered with the fleet in 1948 but was not activated for several years. We had to verify the aircraft wiring systems and carry out a series of modifications to the Flight Path Computers.

I was responsible for these systems at that time and spent many flight hours with Capt. Ron Baker and FO Jack Grisdale testing the systems and determining the proper autopilot and computer settings.This was in 1950/51 before the systems were placed into operation.

Use by the flight crew was at their discretion to gradually introduce the concept.

In 1973  I was on the delivery flight of our first L-1011 to YUL. After circling PVM  we made a auto approach to Dorval complete with auto landing and roll  out.

What a thrill for me after my experiences of the early 1950's We lived and operated through some fascinating times!

Best regards Bill Norberg

Terry's travel tips

The worlds shortest scheduled flight is between Westray and Papa Westray in the Orkney Islands UK and is operated by Loganair a Scottish regional airline. The air time is just 2 minutes.

Ryanair is considering charging passengers £1 ($1.43) to use onboard lavatories, CEO Michael O'Leary told the BBC.
(Restaurants and fast food outlets at Stanstead airport are probably outraged as they assume passengers will not be purchasing drinks prior to boarding, thus a loss of revenue - eds)

Aureen and Jack Morath were the social directors of the UK Pionairs, following the story of their Far East travels by Aureen and Jack Morath in NetLetters nr 1054 and 1055, we learn that Aureen and Jack are off again, and here is the preliminary - Yes our plans for a cruise has changed in that we started off with about 20 ideas and whittled it down to three or four.

Our first choice then was a cruise up the Amazon but when we phoned up it was sold out.  It only happens on one day a year, so maybe next year or the year after! 

Our second choice was the South Pacific, but it sailed from Sydney in the middle of the Easter period and that would have been dodgy on standby getting to there.

We use tickets if possible to Bangkok on Thai which is a very good deal.  Our third choice was a cruise from Sydney to Singapore in March, so we have booked that and there should be no problem on standby London to Bangkok and Bangkok to Sydney.

From Singapore we will take the train to Kuala Lumpur - six hours - for £12 one way First Class!  And we get 50% off being over 60.  I bet British Rail don't give them 50% off! 

We will stay two nights in Kuala Lumpur and then take the train First Class sleeper  to the Thai border and then from there to Bangkok still by train. Should be interesting.  Haven't spent two nights on a train before.

After a couple of nights in Bangkok we fly back to London. Should be interesting.

Smilies

In keeping with the naming of their fleet with female names, Virgin Atlantic's newly delivered Airbus A340-300 has been named "Maiden Tokyo".



(We have not heard of any reaction from Airbus - eds)

Virgin America has come up with these names from their Airbus fleet
"let there be flight"
"dark horse"
"tubular belle"
"red, white and blue"
"unicorn chaser"
"superfly"
"chic mobile"
"mach daddy"


In the "INFO Canadi>n" magazine March 1988 and under the banner "Amsterdam's Schiphol airport" is a report that there has been opened a special departure lounge for cattle. Pre-flight drinks and food are served to Europe's increasing number of jet-setting cattle.
Schiphol also has an animal hotel where they can rest up overnight to sleep off jet lag.

10,000 Dutch cattle pass through the airport each year destined to the Middle East.