We have welcomed 82 new subscribers so far in 2023.

We wish to thank everyone for the continuing support of our efforts.

Back issues of The NetLetter are available in both the original newsletter format and downloadable PDF format.

We invite you to visit our website at www.thenetletter.net/netletters to view our archives.

Restoration and posting of archive issues is an ongoing project. We hope to post every issue back to the beginning in 1995.

We always welcome feedback about Air Canada (including Jazz and Rouge) from our subscribers who wish to share current events, memories and photographs.

Particularly if you have stories to share from one of the legacy airlines: Trans-Canada Air Lines, Canadian Airlines, CP Air, Pacific Western, Maritime Central Airways, Eastern Provincial, Wardair, Nordair, Transair, Air BC, Time Air, Quebecair, Calm Air, NWT Air, Air Alliance, Air Nova, Air Ontario, Air Georgian and all other Canadian based airlines that once graced the Canadian skies.

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We will try to post your comments in the next issue but, if not, we will publish it as soon as we can.

Thanks!

Retired captain Tony Merry sent us these humorous acronyms -

As a former CP Air and Canadian airline pilot I always read the Netletter with much interest. I noticed in the recent edition a couple of tongue in cheek suggestions as to what 'BOAC' stood for.

Many years ago my wife and I were attending a concert where a stand-up comedian had a few others and rather clever suggestions for three airlines of the era!

• BOAC - 'Bring Over American Currency'.
• GARUDA - 'Good Airline Run Under Dutch Administration'.
• and last but not least,
• SABENA - 'Such A Bloody Experience Never Again'.

I enjoyed an unforgettable career, yours,

Captain  A. O. Tony Merry.

Keep up the good work.

From Jim McCall - AC Cargo PIK

This coming July 23 is the 80th anniversary of the first Canadian Government Trans-Atlantic Air Service (CGTAS) landing in Prestwick (PIK) from Montreal (YUL), having departed on July 22, 1943.

The enclosed photograph is not, to the best of my knowledge, one that may be in the company archive albeit we did use it at the 50th anniversary celebrations held in PIK and Scotland in 1993 on local publicity.

It was taken by a local PIK photographer and gifted to me for use at the time. Is there anything being done to commemorate this anniversary or is 80 just not one of the memorable '0' birthdays? It is just a thought because unfortunately there are only a very few left of the AC PIK crew and it would be nice for them to see something in the news about that anniversary. 

Sent on the off chance that we might generate another mention of PIK .... the first 'AC' TransAt destination, and although we never 'rub it in', that was a full 3 years before they found London! 

My very best regards,

Jim 

From Larry Milberry -

Here’ is CANAV’s Summer/Fall 2023 booklist. You’ll find some important new aviation titles great for summer reading or make the ideal gift for an aviation pal.

Thanks as usual and all the best ... Larry Milberry

The Canav library consists of several titles by various authors on the history (and remarkable pioneers) of Aviation in Canada 

Larry Milberry & Hugh A. Halliday.

Honours Canada’s WWI airmen & aircraft. Covers training, then the deadly skies overseas.

The famous scouts (Nieuport, Camel, D.VII, etc.) & 2-seaters and how they fared; then the amazing airmen. Many harrowing deeds dredged from combat reports, letters, diaries, etc.

The Elsie MacGill Northern Lights Award (the “Elsie”) is an annual award that honours outstanding women in aviation and aerospace in Canada.

Flight Operations award 2022 -

Kim Winsor is a third-generation pilot in the Winsor family from St. John’s, Newfoundland.

She began her aviation career nearly 30 years ago with Provincial Airlines, initially as a flight instructor before moving on to the airline’s passenger division flying the Metroliners and Saab 340's.

Before joining Air Canada in 2007 she also flew for CanJet Airlines in Halifax and Sunwing Airlines in Toronto; flying throughout North America and Europe.

Source: NorthernLightsAeroFoundation.com

Viva Aerobus Airbus A320 Cockpit 'Girl Power'

From the 'Just Planes' YouTube channel the video linked below has an all-female crew piloting an A320 from Cancun to Acapulco.

Air Canada Cargo recently completed its first equine transport, and it wasn’t just any horse.

This one was destined for a King, King Charles III, that is.

The Royal Canadian Mounted Police gifted the horse, named Noble, to the King ahead of his coronation ceremony. Air Canada Cargo made use of its new equine shipping expertise with its freighter aircraft to transport the mare from Canada to her new home in royal style.

Accompanied by an equine attendant, this magnificent animal flew in a specifically designed, state-of-the-art stall used by Air Canada Cargo to provide the best level of animal welfare and groom safety possible.

Source: www.Aviacionline.com

Air Canada is developing a new Boeing 787, 777 business class.

The airline’s flagship international Signature Class is headed for an upgrade.

Air Canada is preparing a second-generation business class for its Boeing 787 and 777 jets, with the Star Alliance member mindful of refits to the current fleet as well as adding the suites to as-yet-undelivered aircraft.

“We’re working on the future of our wide-body product, because we're going to have to start retrofitting aircraft (soon),” Mark Nasr, Air Canada’s Executive Vice President Marketing and Digital, tells Executive Traveller.

“We took delivery of our first 787s nearly 10 years ago, so in the not-too-distant future they’ll be due for heavy maintenance and a retrofit…so that provides us the opportunity, whether it's on those aircraft or potentially at some point on new wide-bodies, to introduce a new long-haul product as well.”

Source: www.executivetraveller.com

Found in 'Horizons' magazine

Issue dated December 1976

Madcap caper - Toronto to Copenhagen race.

Leave it to Mike Hildred, Public Relations Manager, London, England to come up with a novel way of celebrating the company's tenth anniversary of service between Denmark and Canada.

He herded five Danish press representatives and a photographer "with such a bushy moustache that he looked like a Viking with his helmet pulled down a bit low, on the Great Toronto-Copenhagen Race.

The question had been what to do to mark the anniversary. The answer was to stage a race from the top of Toronto's CN Tower to a check-in point at the downtown Sheraton Centre hotel, race to the airport, climb aboard the same aircraft on which the party had arrived from Copenhagen the previous day, deplane at the Danish city and continue the race to the top of the wooden replica of the Eiffel Tower 100 feet inside the gates of the Copenhagen Zoo. Marks were given for ingenuity in completing all stages of the race and subtracted as minutes from the total elapsed time.

Charts were drawn up, rules established and the odd difficulty thrown ln. One obstacle facing the contestants was that they could not put their feet on the ground between the zoo gates and the Eiffel Tower.

Captain Buck Korol and Second Officer Bill Donaldson on flight 843/28 October 1976 brought the contestants from Copenhagen.

In the photo below we have the participants and organizers of the race are shown at Copenhagen's replica of the Eiffel Tower.

Standing from the left are: Flight Attendant France Pelletier; the Mayor's chauffeur, Jens Christian Hansen; 'Mugge' Hansen on stilts with Birthe Dhryberg standing in front of him; Henrik Ringsted; Flight Attendant Kirsten Rasmussen; Arne Dyhreberg, Zoo Director; Egon Weidekamp, Mayor of Copenhagen; Flight Attendant Linda Chartier; Joergen Kjaersgaard and Erik Bjerg Christensen, Copenhagen Tourist Association.

Front row, from the left, are: Sales Representative, John Hansen; Poul Erik Larsen, Manager, Scandinavia; Dave Blomquist, Airport Customer Service Manager; John Joergensen, Otto Ludwig and Bjoern Anderson.

Keeping Joergen Kjaersgaard's feet off the ground enroute to the tower are, from the left, Flight Attendants Kirsten Rasmussen, Linda Chartier and France Pelletier. 

Issue dated January 1977 

London pushes cargo

Cargo Sales Representative Brun Fillmore, second from right, and Central Region Cargo Support Manager Bob Philips, right, outline the company's cargo product features to Gord Bennett, left, and Gord Brand of Listowel Transport Lines.

Staged in cooperation with London Cartage, Listowel Transport and Great Lakes Airlines, the presentation by Brun and Bob attracted more that 100 key accounts located in the London, Ontario area.

Precious cargo

A 1903 Autocar arrives in Cleveland via company DC-8 cargo aircraft after participating in the 1976 London-Brighton Auto Run, Britain's prestigious antique car run for pre-1904 vintage cars only.

The two-cylinder, ten horsepower vehicle, which belongs to the Crawford Auto Aviation Museum in Cleveland, was driven in the race by museum director, Kenneth B. Gooding.

Watching the arrival of the car are, from the left: Kathy Louie, Crawford Museum; Bob Loomis, Import Manager, Blaser & Mericle, Inc., import-export agents and John McGilvray,  Cargo Sales Representative. 

The Final Journey.

Perhaps celebrated more for its last flight than for its first, the ex–Canadian Pacific Airlines Douglas DC-6B 'Empress of Suva' completed one of its most challenging landings on December 4, 2010, to alight for the last time at a modest dirt airstrip cut across two small agricultural holdings north of Pretoria, South Africa.

Acquired in an effort to turn CPA from a bush operator into an ocean-crossing airline, the DC-6B, delivered in 1957, served its purpose for a modest four years before the jet age arrived.

In 1961 the still almost new airliner was sold to Sweden’s Transair, and for many years lost the aristocratic Empress name applied to many of Canadian Pacific’s aircraft.

The airplane passed through a number of owners, including a Norwegian airline, Braathens, and then Greenland Air, with which it served remote Cold War radar installations within the Arctic Circle.

Following a route taken by many weary old airliners, the DC-6B eventually wound up in Africa flying UN relief missions in Mozambique. Its last commercial operator retired the Empress from the Democratic Republic of Congo to South Africa, and then generously donated it to the South African Airways Museum Society. Unloved, it fell to dereliction at its temporary home at Swartkop air force base. Seemingly a target for the scrap man, the DC-6B was spotted by vintage military vehicle collectors and business partners Witold Walus and Willie Muntingh.

Walus and Muntingh hired engineer Mike Mayers and brought the DC-6B back to life over a two-year period, and in December 2010 obtained a ferry permit to make one last flight to their business premises, Walmannstal, near Pretoria, South Africa, where the 'Empress of Suva' is now safely parked, proudly serving as a gate guardian. 

Editors' Note: 'Empress of Suva' CF-CZV c/n 45329 fin# 444 was delivered to CPA on August 15, 1957 and sold to Transair, Sweden on November 9, 1961 registered SE-BDG.

See our 'Featured Video' just below for more on its final flight.

Issue dated April 1984 'extra'

Now a Halifax hub, national identity - 'Together we're better!'

CP Air's 'Together We're Better' courtship with Eastern Provincial Airways became a marriage on April 16, 1984 when it was announced that CP is purchasing EPA and its Air Maritime affiliate.

Continued from 'CP Air, Canadi>n People Gallery' our video has been posted on YouTube by 'Mr de Beer' of the last flight of the former 'Empress of Suva'.

From the collection of Pierre Gillard, Magazine #14 Musée de l'aérospatiale du Québec.

Our member Édouard Painchaud photographed, on July 3, 1986 in Saint-Jean-sur-Richelieu (CYJN), this Douglas C-54G Skymaster (military version of the DC-4) from Conifair, Aviation, a specialized company in forest spraying for spruce budworm control.

Registered C-GBNV and carrying the identification code 18, this four-engine aircraft was built as a C-54G-5-DO from the Douglas factory in Santa Monica, California in 1945 (construction number 35988) and is delivered to the USAAF, on July 20 of that year with military serial 45-0535. Subsequently, it was modified to the VC-54G version, which meant that it was now assigned to VIP passenger transport.

In June 1971, it was withdrawn from service and stored at the Davis Monthan base in Arizona, then sold in November 1975 to Dross Metal, which registered it as N3303F. On April 22, 1976, with the same registration, it was acquired by Aero Union, which used it as a water bomber with the code 18 from its base in Chico, California. On May 8, 1981, it was stripped of American registration and became C-GBAW in Canada, where he flew for Conifair.

Editors' Note: Originally registered as N3303F. Delivered to Conifair Aviation May 27, 1982 left fleet for Buffalo Airways on March 22, 1995 and stored at Red Deer during June 2011 were it was photographed by Pierre Gillard on May 18, 2020.

Source:Planelogger.com

Boeing provided an optional kit for the 200 series that allowed for safe operations on gravel runways. The kit comprised a protective plate that extended behind the nose wheel that prevented gravel spray from damaging the underside of the fuselage or entering the engines, and vortex dissipators mounted in front of the two engines that used engine bleed to, again, prevent ingestion of gravel from the runway surface.

The decision to retire the B-737-200 was made in view of the escalating costs of operating the old, inefficient engines and the growing scarcity of spare parts.

The routes previously operated by Canadian North's B-737-200 are now operated by a fleet of ATR turboprops that, with their high wing-mounted engines, aren't affected by gravel runways in the same way.

This isn't quite the end of gravel kit-equipped B-737-200's in the North. Air Inuit continues to operate four, charter airline Nolinor operates six, mining company Glencore Canada has two and Montreal St. Hubert-based Chrono Aviation has three; but their days are numbered.

The final scheduled flight of Canadian North's Boeing 737-200, the 'Spirit of Yellowknife', was greeted with a water-cannon salute at the airline's Yellowknife base.

Editors' Note: This aircraft was originally delivered to Dome Petroleum in April 1980. It was purchased by Pacific Western Airlines in June 1984, absorbed into the Canadian Airlines fleet in April 1987 and then Air Canada in April 2001. 

It was sold to Canadian North in November 2001. It has always carried its original registration - C-GDPA.

The honour of piloting this memorable flight was given to Captain Dawn Macfarlane, the first female Inuk jet captain, who credits her father, Captain Cecil Hansen, for inspiring her to pursue a career in aviation.

Captain Hansen was the first Inuk jet captain and, in 1980, he took delivery of this very B-737 when it was new from Boeing in Seattle on behalf of Dome Petroleum, its first owner.

A very proud Captain Hansen was on board the 737 when his daughter piloted the aircraft on ts final flight for Canadian North.

Source: CanadianAviation.com

CP Air B-747-200 (C-FCRE)

Of the numerous aircraft preserved around the world the vast majority are stored (and restored) and various museums. Some have been turned into restaurants or hotels, some are used for training purposes and some are submerged for the final resting places.

A rather unusual preservation story seems to be for one of the original four CP Air Boeing 747-200's. 

Registration C-FCRE was delivered to CP in December 1974 and named 'Empress of Italy' (later renamed 'Empress of Australia').

It was part of the exchange with Pakistan International Airlines for DC-10's in December 1985 (the registration was then transferred to the DC-10, fin # 911, which sported employee signatures on the fuselage).

It served PIA (registration, AP-BCL) for just over 20 years until 2006 when it was acquired by Orange Air of Sierra Leone. It was then acquired by Grandmax Group Ltd (briefly leased to Orient Thai Airlines) and stored at Rayong U-Tapao International Airport until broken up in December 2014.

Photo by Dean Morley @ www.flickr.com

However, it was re-assembled in January 2021 and is now on display at a Street Food Plaza in Pattaya! It may be worth the trip just to sit at one of those tables and enjoy a bowl of noodle soup with the massive aircraft in the background. 

Click the photo below to view a series of photos of the re-assembly and transport by freelance photojournalist, Dirk Grothe. Used by permission (and our thanks).

N899TH preserved at Pattaya, Thailand,
displayed at a Street Food Plaza.

Terry Baker, co-founder of the NetLetter scours the internet for aviation related Trivia and Travel Tips for you, our readers, to peruse.

Destination Sunset. 

The Famous CIA/Iran Contra Plane rests in the heart of Selina Manuel Antonia, Nicaragua.

"She has gone from the Cold War to Sunsets and Cocktails in paradise..." A. Templeton.

El Aviön, the world famous, must-see and be seen restaurant and bar in Manuel Antonio, has a colourful and fascinating history.

The Fairchild C-123 cargo plane has been converted into a pub and a two level bar and restaurant has been built in, around and above the plane.

Everyone agrees, El Aviön has the best views in all of Manuel Antonio! Join our sunset crew - where the cargo cult meets the cocktail crowd. Enjoy informal dining, an extensive menu, a great bar scene and views of our most spectacular sunsets into the Blue Pacific Ocean below.

El Aviön is renowned for our seafood dishes like Coconut Shrimp, Seafood Curry, Yellow Fin Tuna Steaks, Fried Calamari and many more. Our Chef creates fresh fish specials with a unique local flavor every day. 

Selina Manuel Antonia, Costa Rica.
(506) 2777-3378 This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Editors' Note: History of El Avión - Our Famous CIA Iran/Contra Cargo Plane

The Fairchild C-123 was a part of one of the biggest scandals in the 1980’s.

The Reagan Administration set up a bizarre network of arms sales to Iran...

The story will continue in  NetLetter #1512.

Source: ElAvion.net

Our cartoon, by D. Fallwell in Terrace is from the "Blue Skies" magazine issued July 1979 with the caption 'CP Air to have many types of economy fares!.'

Posted on the Facebook by Dan Thibault –

Any truth to the rumor that WestJet pilots were asking for the same thing in their contract as Federal Government employees? The option to work from home.