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Vesta's Corner
Pink planes at Liverpool UK - A new Liverpool based carrier plans to introduce a service designed specifically to appeal to women. Fly Pink hopes to launch this service from Liverpool to Paris later this year using Fokker 100 equipment and will offer passengers complimentary pink champagne and free manicures in the departure lounge plus complimentary gourmet cuisine on board.
This week's postcard sent to me by one of the NetLetter readers - February 2005
2005-06-12 Chateau du Haut Koenigsbourg Altitude 757m Albert Sorignet Take care
Note: for our new readers, I have been collecting postcards from our travelling NetLetter "family" for many years. If you are away and have a minute, I'd be delighted to get one from you as well. You can obtain my address by sending an email to
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Star Alliance News
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With the arrival of its latest B777-229ER, Austrian Airlines has broken its tradition of naming their aircraft after Austrian cities, regions and foreign destinations. OE-LPD was christened "Spirit of Austria" at a recent naming ceremony.|
Air Canada News
Vancouver Service Improved - new non-stop seasonal services from Vancouver to Ixtapa and Los Cabos in Mexico will also be introduced. Previously annouunced new routes this winter include new non-stop service from Vancouver to Sydney Australia with new Boeing 777 aircraft. Details of the Vancouver improvements include a) on December 1st Jazz will launch seasonal flights to Yellowknife with 50-seat CRJ aircraft, complementing daily flights from Edmonton and Calgary. b) on December 14th the new Vancouver-Sydney 777 service will begin. c) new seasonal Vancouver to Los Cabos and Ixtapa flights will be offered weekly starting December 21st and 22nd respectively using 120-seat A319 aircraft. This winter, Air Canada will continue its daily non-stop service to Sacramento launched this past summer and Vancouver-Tokyo service will increase to a total of nine flights each week. Edmonton Service Improved -from Edmonton Air Canada continues to offer the only daily non-stop flights to London-LHR, up from three flights per week laast winter. This winter the airline will increase daily flights from Edmonton to Ottawa, Winnipeg, Fort McMurray and Vancouver. (Source www.yyznews.com ) |
Air Canada has introduced paperless boarding passes for customers who check in using a PDA or cell phone. The service allows the option of receiving an electronic boarding pass in the form of an SMS text message that the customer shows to airport security screening personnel and Air Canada gate agents in lieu of a paper boarding pass. The mobile service currently is available for boarding domestic Canada flights and those to international (non-US) destinations, including connecting flights, from 60 airports across Canada served by Air Canada and Jazz.|
Our 70 Years
1965
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Readers Feedback
Gretchen (Aird) (founder of Canadian Maple Wings Association).sends us this article -
Subject: Emailing: 70 years later, rare plane returns to Boeing Field Hello. I am sending along the write-up in the Seattle Post-Intelligencer regarding recent celebrations, for your interest, if you haven't already been sent this! A wonderful piece of coverage, I think, compared to what the Vancouver Sun gave us!
Cheers.
 Pictured is Captain Gerry Norberg, a pilot with Air Canada, refuels a vintage 1937 Lockheed L10A at Boeing Filed on Thursday. (Gilbert W. Arias / P-I)One of Air Canada's original Electras re-enacts that first run
By JAMES WALLACE
P-I AEROSPACE REPORTER The all-metal monoplane, with its distinctive twin tail, is probably best known as the kind that Amelia Earhart was flying when she disappeared in July 1937 on her attempted around-the-world flight.
On Sept. 1 that year, just a couple of months after Earhart and navigator Fred Noonan went missing over the Pacific, another Lockheed L-10 Electra landed at Boeing Field. It carried two passengers in wicker seats, and mail from Vancouver, B.C. The flight was the first by fledging Trans-Canada Air Lines.
TCA would later become Air Canada, and on Thursday, one of its original L-10A Electra's, the only one still flying in the world, once again landed at Boeing Field to re-enact that first flight from Vancouver 70 years ago.
This time, the nine-seat Electra carried seven passengers plus pilot Jim Mason and co-pilot Gerry Norberg.
The nine Air Canada employees won a contest to be on the anniversary flight from Vancouver.
When he's not flying the Electra as a volunteer, Mason is captain of four-engine Airbus A340s for Air Canada.
Norberg flies Air Canada's newest jetliner, Boeing's 777.
The Electra returned to Vancouver with its passengers Thursday evening.
Earlier in the day, Mason, Norberg and their seven passengers, one of who is also a 777 pilot for Air Canada, toured Boeing's Everett plant where the 777, 767, 747 and now the 787 are assembled.
Boeing and Air Canada have a long history. The first president of Trans-Canada Air Lines was Philip Johnson, a top Boeing executive who left the company in 1933 to go to Canada to help establish the carrier. He later returned to Boeing as its president.
Many of the airline's early technical people came from Boeing.
Two years ago, Air Canada helped Boeing regain its swagger against Airbus when the airline ordered 777s and 787s rather than more widebody jets from Airbus.
The Boeing jets eventually will replace the airline's long-haul Airbus jets such as the A340.
During a quick lunch at the Museum of Flight before heading to Everett, Mason and Norberg talked about what it's like to fly the plane that was named after a star in the Pleiades cluster and was the pride of Lockheed Aircraft Corp.
"This plane is more hands and feet," Mason explained. "Most of the time spent training on jets like the 777 you are learning the systems and how you interact with the systems to fly the plane. In a plane like this, you spend all your time training in actually manipulating the controls."
The Electra was the first all-metal, twin-engine plane designed by Lockheed. One of the young engineers who helped with wind-tunnel work on the design at the University of Michigan was a student assistant, Clarence "Kelly" Johnson. He would later lead Lockheed's famed Skunk Works and is considered the father of advanced aircraft such as the speedy SR-71 Blackbird spy plane, one of which is on display in the Museum of Flight.
It was Johnson who suggested the single tail on the Electra be changed to the now-classic double tail.
Lockheed produced several models of the Electra. The one Earhart flew was the L-10E.
The L-10A that made Thursday's flight was one of five bought new from Lockheed by Trans-Canada Air Lines. The plane, with the registration number CF-TCC, was sold in 1939 to the Canadian government, which turned it over to the Royal Canadian Air Force for the war effort. It was later sold by the government and had a number of owners. In 1975, the plane was parked at a Texas air show when a retired Air Canada employee recognized the shadow of the registration letters through the paint work. Air Canada later rebought the plane for $75,000.
In the winter, the Electra is displayed at the Western Canada Aviation Museum in Winnipeg, Manitoba.
"In the summer, we become gypsies and fly it all over the place," Mason said.
The Electra does not have an oxygen system, so it usually flies no higher than 10,000 feet. Its cruising speed is about 160 mph.
Mason is the third-most-senior pilot with Air Canada. This is his 36th year flying for the airline, and he will retire in May. He said he would have stayed longer if it had meant he could fly Boeing's Dreamliner. But Air Canada won't start taking its 787s until 2010.
Even though Air Canada 787 pilots won't be paid as much as the pilots who fly the bigger 777, Mason said he would have liked the opportunity to fly the newest Boeing jet because of the cutting-edge technology.
But flying the low-tech Electra -- which has an ax in the cabin in case of a crash landing - has been special, Mason said.
On Wednesday, when the plane was in Vancouver, Mason took three special guests for a ride -- two of the first Trans-Canada Air Lines flight attendants, who flew in the airline's Electra's, and one of the airline's fiirst pilots, who flew the same plane, CF-TCC, in the 1930s.
Mason said his eyes teared when he turned around in his seat at one point and looked at the three passengers, all of who are now in their early 90s.
"They were some of the founders of this airline," he said.
Source Seattle Post-Intelligencer
Pictured:
 Angus Jackson sported a 1959 hat. Herb Russell one of TCA's first pilots. Irene Candy, Stewardess flew with TCA in the 1930's.
24 retirees and 2 pilots on hand to celebrate the 70th.
 Advertisers in London, England are creating advertisements the size of three soccer fields, to be seen by plane passengers coming in to land.(Perhaps Air Canada in LHR has beaten them to it - this is the cargo facility in 1999 - eds)
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TCA/AC Events & People Gallery
The information being gleaned from various "Between Ourselves" magazines have been kindly donated by Len Krueller to whom we are greatly indebted for making available this vast amount of historical data.
 From the "Between Ourselves" edition October 1944 - TCA Air Express Service - YVR -Loading shipments at YVR for a rush across the Rockies. l to r George Isherwood of CNR, Henry Roper TCA Cargo and Harvey Boale General Agent TCA.
Dubbed the "TCA Aerotickeers" in the Traffic Dept of Ottawa
left to right - Joanne McKay, Edit Foster, Fran Johnston and Nora Quinn.
and this from Moncton -
A PLUS'S DILEMMA When they hand out the medals- As really they must- Among those who get them Should be a poor "Plus." He has known elation, Disappointment and fuss, For these are the pitfalls That befalls a poor "Plus." You rush to the Airport, Your heart full of hope. There's a GO-SHO, " We're sorry, Go home, you poor dope." So back the next morning, This time it's a cinch; The Dispatcher then tells you, "The weather, it stinks." This flatters your ego- You think with this pass You're now second fiddle To ten gallons of gas! Yet there's one consolation- The average can't last- You're right, "Bud," it doesn't, Your vacation's now past! by Austie MacMahon
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Canadi>n/CPAir/PWA, etc. Events & People
From the "Contact" magazine Nov 10th., 1989 loaned by Bill Wood -
 Allan Anderson, Manager Mtce Control at Vancouver.  Vern Pirang and Dave Ahyong, Vancouver Instrument shop St. John's chug-a-lug, Farm tractor serves as a tow tractor and forklift operated by Clayton Hodge. Clayton arrived from YHZ to supervise the establishment of the base at St. John's on November 29th., 1988. Richard Ryder on a B-737 transit check, tells us "On some nights it is impossible to lower the airstairs because of the winds off the Atlantic." Debbie Bastow, senior secretary at the St. John's terminal.(We would welcome any work-related memories from former CPAir, CAIL, retirees that we could share with our readers - eds)
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Terry's Travel Tips
A new tourist attraction in Barbados - The Concorde experience, Barbados' latest visitor attraction officially opened recently. The facility offers the rare opportunity to experience being one of the privileged few that traveled on the luxury Concorde.
The 30 year old aircraft G-BOAC c/n 212 is hangared at the Grantly Adams International Airport. |
