Aviation Memorabilia Newsletter

Found in 'Horizons' magazine

Issue dated November 2002

The many faces of Marketing.

1 - Chantal Pépin, 2 - Lucie Tiel, 3 - Lina Pomponio, 4 - Claire Bouchard-Nestor, 5 - Kristi Lowe, 6 - Laurie Lincoln, 7 - Marie-Claude Desgagnés, 8 - Doreen Riley, 9 - Louise Lass, 10 - Eric Lauzon, 11 - Anna Kobajlo, 12 - Charles McKee, 13 - David Bloomstone, 14 - Brian Masters, 15 - Lynn Haroon, 16 - Karla Schoenfeld, 17 - Denis Vandal, 18 - Gabriella Lechner, 19 - Marie-France Roy, 20 - Hugette Parent, 21 - Carmine Maurizio, 22 - David Anderson, 23 - Ian Sutherland, 24 - Hana Ryska, 25 - Nivine Morcos, 26 - Kathy De Laurentis, 27 - Pierre Bourbonnière, 28 - Steve Grovesteen.

Missing from the photo: 

Lysanne Rich-Hamelin, Richard Kaercher, Josée Leduc and Philippe Pouliot.

Issue dated April 2003

The Boeing Stearman

One of most widely recognized biplanes in North America, the Stearman served as the basic trainer for U.S. pilots during the Second World War.

In 1936, Stearman delivered the first model PT13's to the U.S. Army Air Corps. More than 8,500 Stearmans were eventually produced. During the war almost all American pilots undertook basic training on the PT13 or PT17.

After the war, some 2,000 were converted for agricultural spraying. Today, hundreds are in private hands. The Stearman was flown by Canadian Airways and Trans-Canada Air Lines. Typical flying speed was 150 km/h to 170 km/h.

Issue dated July 2003

'Unserviceable' parts salvaged; saves millions.

By Rick Sloboda, Communications Specialist, Technical Services.

A team in Technical Services has found diamonds among the dross by finding a way to repair damaged aircraft parts that even the manufacturers had given up on.

The determined group of employees from Engineering Support and Component Maintenance has gone on to save Air Canada Technical services around $4 million in just one year by coming up with creative solutions to repair damaged units, instead of purchasing expensive new parts.

The story started about a year ago, after a survey found over $3.5 million in unserviceable parts.

"These had been declared scrap because there was no repair for them written up in the manuals," said Project Leader Raymond Latande. "We estimated that developing in-house repairs could potentially salvage half the parts."

"Each team member brings a damaged part to weekly meetings, and the team brainstorms to find the best solution," Raymond explained. "The Team Leader assigns action items to each member to finalize the repair and the justifications for it, and their findings are presented to the group the following week."

Most repairs are then approved within Air Canada Technical Services by a Designated Engineer, acting for Transport Canada.

In this photo, holding $100,000 worth of scrap parts are, left to right: Salvatore Russo, Jérôme Légaré, Ray Rouleau, Richard Krauss, Ernest Bernardi, Michel Zamuner, Jean-François Richard, Calvin Vanden Bos, Aleksandra Jankovic, Steve Marandola and Raimo Kivinen.

Issue dated September 2003

PMO: A guiding light in project management

Successfully completing a project and delivering expected results takes time, effort and discipline, and it often requires special skills and resources.

One particular department within Air Canada brings professional project management expertise to manage and support critical corporate and branch projects. That's the Program Management Office, better known as the PMO.

This team photo has, front left to right: Kirsi Ulmonen, Sam Pellegrino, Sandra Boyle, Kara Gill, Nancy Rockbrune.

Back row,  left to right: Lucy Franco, Line Robinson, Carole Charbonneau, Denis Chalifoux, Vicki Benoit, Lise Lefaive, Pauline Nghiem, Claire Thermidor, Luc Desautels.

Videoconferencing (bottom left): are Lynda Zavitz (left) and Sandra Dick in Vancouver.

From Vis-a-Vis
An Air Canada Customer Sales & Service Employee Publication.

Issue dated June 1996

As we go into the new uniform, it's appropriate to publish this picture when our agents donned some vintage outfits to celebrate a piece of Air Canada history.

Gleanings from the on the pwareunion.com website.

Posted May 14, 2022.

From the desk of Deanna Wiebe, Chair of Aviation, Associate Professor and Flight Instructor: Bissett School of Business, Calgary, Alberta.

Mount Royal University Award.

Not sure if you're all aware of the PWA award at Mount Royal University Aviation so I'll share what I know.

There is a trophy with names of recipients going back to 1975. The P.W.A. Pilots' Aviation Foundation Scholarship will continue for many years to come, as funding for the student scholarship has been secured by the creation of the scholarship bursary endowments.

There is enough money for 3 or 4 students to receive the award every year, for approximately $4000 each. The amount varies a few hundred or so depending on the year and the state of the fund, but it's in that ballpark. This is a significant award for our students!

Posted April 15, 2022.

From the desk of Neil Burton -

The Company Logo and the Trumpeter Swan.

Did you realize Central BC Airways, then perhaps P.W.A., had a trumpeter swan emblem prior to the mustache?

In reading 'Wings over the West' by John Condit, page 168, when a streamlined emblem was being brought up, in the boardroom after Russ Baker’s death, Mrs. Russ (Madge) Baker was very upset about a new emblem.

Might these cap badges also have the Swan logo?  Would anyone have the trumpeter swan hat emblem that could be photographed and added to the P.W.A Reunion site?

From the "InfoCanadi>n" magazine.

Two B-737's fitted for Pope's one-day visit.

From 'Info Canadi>n' magazine issue dated September, 1987 and edited by the 'NetLetter' staff to give an insight to what is involved with a Pope's visit - one of which is due later this year.

A Canadian Airlines charter flight carried Pope John Paul II and his 80-person entourage from Edmonton to Fort Simpson, N.W.T. on Sunday, September 20, 1987, fulfilling a promise he made to northern native residents of Canada three years ago.

For his 1984 tour, Pacific Western Airlines had been contracted to provide a back-up aircraft for the Air Canada B-727 scheduled to carry the pontiff. When their jet experienced last minute mechanical problems, Pacific Western Airlines took over the charter. Poor weather conditions caused the flight to overfly Fort Simpson but the Pope promised the disappointed crowds that he would return.

This year, (1987) Canadian Airlines won the honour of providing both the primary and the back-up aircraft for the September papal visit.

Because the Pope's schedules are so precise and are usually within two or three minutes of plan, both B-737's were fully crewed, catered and ready for any eventuality. The back-up aircraft operated half an hour behind the primary aircraft. Four flight attendants were on the primary aircraft with a fifth assigned to the back-up jet. In addition a mechanic and three other company personnel accompanied the Pope's charter.

Preparations for this special flight had been underway for weeks, and the two B-737's to be used were divided into three cabin areas.

The Pope and a few of his closest advisors and technical staff occupied the first three or four rows of the aircraft, this forward cabin was separated from the rear cabin by a regular cabin divider.

The centre cabin was reserved for the 40-member Vatican entourage, with a curtain separating them from the rear cabin containing the media. Special fine china, silverware and crystal was rented for use in the forward cabin only, while the rest of the passengers enjoyed First Class catering.

Tales from the ACFF web site. 

Alex’s Story

One of my amusing memories of the airport was the nights 'MJ' and I handled the Canada 3000 flight – Toronto-Belfast-Lamezia.

Travel agents sold the flight to passengers without advising them that it made 2 stops (Northern Ireland and Italy).

When we announced boarding in English and Italian the response was predictable; a stream of confused Italian passengers approached the counter wondering where this “Belifaste” place was and passengers heading to Belfast were equally bewildered with “Lamezia”.

What started out – with confused looks and “Where the (bleep)” – ended with smiles and laughter as everyone finally understood what the flight routing was. When the boarding began we usually called out the sequence numbers in Italian and Belfast bound passengers sometimes asked if this was a special security code.

To write about it might not seem so funny, but to be there as we dispatched that flight was quite a different story as passengers performed like the cast of a Fellini film….Alex

Margaret Bonham has sent us this photo -

This photo was taken in 1987 at Edmonton Airport I am on the left, Margaret Bonham, the lady to my right was, I believe, one of the first stewardesses for TCA.

I do not recall the name of the pilots, but they were assigned to flying the aircraft across Canada as part of the 50th Anniversary Celebrations.

Please see additional information with regards to the Junkers aircraft story in NetLetter #1487. I just thought I would let you know of some more detailed information about this aircraft.

The Junkers JU-52

This aircraft had only one engine, compared to the majority built with three engines. In Germany, most Junkers 52 aircraft were built with three engines – one on each wing and one in the nose.

A few experimental aircraft were built with one engine in the nose of the aircraft. However, most of these aircraft on the production line with one engine were eventually completed with three engines. 

My favourite model