Home built Spitfire!
(Submitted by: David Bellamy )
This video is about a man who built (by himself) the plane he loved, a Spitfire. The creation is beautiful to look at, on the ground and flying in the air. In addition, he fitted it with an Allison engine (the Spitfire had the Rolls-Royce Merlin). But nonetheless this one looks splendid, like the real McCoy. A work of love by this man. Enjoy the account given by the builder, and the plane. The video is 6:00 minutes long.
Bob DeFord of Prescott, Arizona, dreamed of owning a Spitfire. He couldn’t afford one. He built his own, a home-built Spitfire, built to 1:1 scale and powered by an Allison V-12 engine. Oshkosh 2015.
(I like the part where Bob talks about fabricating a rear view mirror from a kitchen utensil)
Airbus A319 - Fin 264 - Cool Paint Job
Terry compiles the NetLetter content and then sends it to me to be formatted for the web. I look forward to the seeing the Reader Feedback and Submitted Photos. We all particularly enjoy it when we are able to bring back a fond memory for someone.
For this issue, Sylvia Kellner’s submitted photos of the plaque of Fin # 264 and the accompanying letter sent to all Air Canada employees for our 60th anniversary in 1997 tweaked some memories for me.
I remember thinking that the A319 painted in TCA colours was the coolest livery I had ever seen on one of our aircraft. I was so impressed that I wrote to the company photographer, Brian Losito, requesting a copy of the photograph used for the plaque. I still have both the plaque and the photograph (scanned copy included here). 
I even remember that for one of my many trips to Montreal I specifically listed on a flight it was assigned to (through Toronto) just to have a ride on it.
I was surprised to realize that it has been almost twenty years since the Airbus A319 fleet has entered service. It has certainly been a versatile fleet during its career. Current fleet counts differ between the Air Canada site and Planespotters.net. The transfer of aircraft from the mainline to the rouge fleet is still in process..
It looks like a total of 48 aircraft had been delivered with 38 still in service in AC mainline, rouge and Jetz configuration.
As far as I can see, Fin # 264 is still with the mainline fleet in TCA colours.
Do you have any specific aircraft that brings back a memory for you? Let us know and we’ll try to track it down for you.
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Ken Starnes has sent us a group of photos of the Aircraft Maintenance Retirement Party held at the Royal St. Lawrence Yacht Club in Dorval in 1983 which appeared in NetLetter nr 1338 etc, here are some more – |
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Balance of the photos sent to Jack Stephens by Don Heron. Others are in NetLetter nr 1339 and 1340. |
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George K. Heron is shown performing a Loran (Long range air navigation) receiver test in the return ferry service shop at Dorval in 1944. This particular photo is on page 235 of "National Treasure, History of Trans Canada Airlines" by Peter Piggott, but did not identify George and listed the date as, erroneously, 1945. |
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Sylvia Kellner sends us this information and photos. My husband John H. Kellner worked for Air Canada at Cleveland, Ohio this is a picture I found when I was going through some of his stuff so it’s still in the package. The special memento celebrated the company's 60th anniversary. |
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Found in the “Canadi>n Contact” magazine issued May 1989.
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