Vesta's Corner
Why not allow the NetLetter be your platform, and opportunity, to relive your history while working for either TCA, AC, CPAir, CAIL, PWA, AirBC etal. and share your experiences with us!Canadian immigration officials are trying to determine if a baby born to a Ugandan woman on an American airliner in Canadian airspace is a Canadian.
Sasha came into the world with the help of two doctors who were on the Northwest Airlines flight from Amsterdam to Boston while the flight was over Canada.
Nationality notwithstanding, the baby is said to be doing fine.
Ray Lindsay has sent us this follow up to the story in NetLetter nr 1050 -
The Black Guillemot - while native to the East Coasts of North
America and the North Atlantic as well as the Atlantic coasts of
Western Europe - has a very similar cousin - the Pigeon Guillemot - out here on the West Coast of North America and it ranges from
California to Alaska and right across into Siberia. But some Black
Guillemots are known to breed in Alaska as well.
The two birds are very similar with the Pigeon being slightly larger
than the Black and both have distinctive red feet and legs. So lets
hope that taking this bird back to Newfoundland hasn't confused it
any further! Did it have an accent? Maybe WestJet is just too eager to please for the bird's own good?
Meantime I'll check the colony of Pigeon Guillemots that nests on the cliff below our house in the Southern Gulf Islands of BC to see if any are missing and sending urgent messages from Newfoundland!
Ray Lindsay
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Air Canada - our first 70 years
1969 - enRoute in-flight magazine gets a brand new look and goes from 20 to 24 pages.
 The August 1969 issue of "Between Ourselves" has an article on the uniforms, and here we have these two photos. |
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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 April 1969  Here is a group gathered to wish "Curt" Johnson, District Sales Manager at Birmingham a happy retirement.Johnson was one of the first employees to be established with the company in Europe after WWII. Curt joined Trans-Canada Air Lines in its original Cockspur Street offices in London in May 1946. Issue dated June 1969 In the past few issues of the "Between Ourselves" we have found several stories of T.C.A. flights being asked to locate missing small aircraft - here is another one - The pilot of a Cherokee reported to Boston ATC that he was lost. The crew of a T.C.A Vanguard over Maine enroute from Moncton to YUL/YYZ was asked to hunt for the aircraft which was reported to be in their vicinity. Under the command of Capt. Al Shaw, the aircraft was located and escorted to a safe landing in Caribou, Me.  This picture of the front end crew.Under the heading "Pickets aid search" is a story about how the pickets at YYZ came down five days before the settlement between the company and IAM. The reason was humanitarian, the local police requested help to search for a missing child. The child was located, cold and tired, and the pickets went back up. The police thanked the picketers and stated they were good citizens and compassionate people. From issue dated August 1969 Some members of the London England chapter of the A.C.R.A. had the opportunity to visit the Filton division of the British Aircraft Corporation and viewed the prototype Concorde.  Here is the group, but no identifications unfortunately - (perhaps they all called in sick -eds)On a charter flight from Seattle Washington to Halifax, Nova Scotia, the crew found that the passengers were 83,000 fingerling rainbow trout. Now that's some fish story.  Here's the crew.  And here we have a photo of the first graduating class for Station & Cargo Services from the programmer school after six months of hard grind!Issue dated November 1970 The A.C.R.A presidents from the various stations met with the company to iron out problem's in the areas of communications and cooperation.  Here are the participants. Remember when the overseas region golf tourney was held in Ireland? Tournament winner was Tony Dunn of London with low gross. Competitors from London, London Airport, Prestwick, Glasgow, Toronto and Montreal. With guests from BOAC, PAA, ATC, Met Services and Irish Air Lines. Held at the Limerick Golf Club, with a wind up do at the Village in the grounds of Dunratty Castle.  Here we have this photo of the AC group. . |
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Bytes and Pieces
 ACFamily Network Photo GalleryAlthough we have had a quite extensive Photo Gallery operating on the ACFamily Network for many years now, I think many of you may not be aware of it. The Photo Gallery is administered by Tom Grant who has also posted over 800 of the photos there. We have photos of Pionairs Events, RAPCAN Events, Aircraft (including Air Canada, TCA, CPAir, etc), People and more.  Shown is a drawing of a DC-3A used with TCA between 1945 and 1963.Click on the image to visit the ACFamily Photo Gallery or visit this link. |
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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. Issue dated April 1984  CP Air purchased Eastern Provincial Airways and Air Maritime Limited adding (6) B-737-200 and (4) HS-748 aircraft to its fleet, all for ca$20 million.EPA was founded in 1949 and, in 1963, merged with Maritime Central Airlines which was formed in 1941. Issue dated September 1984  We have this photograph of Jet-prop aircraft at YVR in 1969.Non-stop service between YVR and YUL to be re-introduced Oct 28th. CP Air Holidays to introduce new services between Wiinipeg-Phoenix, Calgary-Las Vegas, Calgary and Edmonton -Mazatlan, Calgary-Puerto Vallarta, Vancouver-San Diego. Issue dated November 1984  Norseman, CF-BAW, one of 16 inherited during 1942.Issue dated January 1985 CP Air announced its intention to reinaugurate service between Canada and New Zealand in early November. CP Air previously served New Zealand from 1951 until 1969. The South Pacific was CP Air's first international route when it pioneered the service to Sydney on July 13th 1949. Issue dated February 1985 CP Air announced plans to inaugurate service between Canada and Singapore commencing April 1986, its first additional international destination since Milan in 1974. During 1984, CP Air ran their Travel Bonus Program. for frequent travelers.  Here we have a photo of some of the staff involved..  From the issue dated January 1985, we have this photo of the staff at Terrace B.C. |
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Reader's Feedback
Here we have the conclusion of the "Great Air Race" story we started in NetLetter nr 1050 They made their decision and put out a May Day call which was picked up by other race planes in the area as well as several airliners crossing the ocean. They gave their approximate position and were told it would be relayed. At this point, Bill began to prepare the aircraft for ditching in the ocean. He held open the door of the Bellanca Viking and threw out all loose objects. He recalls thinking: "clothing stays, all heavy maps and radios go" At this point a Danish C-54 got on the radio and told them to give the Simiutaq Beacon one more try. They did and it came in, but they knew that they were too low on fuel to make the beacon, then the additional 50 miles up the fjord to the airport. To make their chances of being rescued better, they headed in towards the shore, but by then they could see the ice flows packing up tightly and decided that it would be too dangerous to attempt a landing on the ice. They turned the aircraft 180 degrees and headed back out to sea. They became visual with the water when the altimeter read zero and estimated that they were at a height of 30 feet. Forward visibility was about 100 yards. Paul, who has had experience flying float planes, did the landing and the Bellanca Viking hit the water tail first, then the nose settled and they stopped in 60 feet. They threw the life raft out, opened it and walked across the wing and climbed into the raft. The fog surrounded them and they thought they might not be rescued for a couple of days. Several aircraft had reported their position to the airport at Narssarssuaq, Greenland and rescue aircraft were already under way. They had a Rescue 99 on board which kept sending out a distress signal and enabled the search planes to pinpoint their position. They eventually heard two aircraft fly overhead, but could not see them through the dense fog. One was a C-54 from the Danish Air Force base at Narssarssuaq and the other was an EC-121 from the American base at Sonderstrom. The Danish plane had to leave after locating their position to lead another aircraft, low on fuel, into the right fjord and towards the airport. Approximately four hours after they had ditched, a helicopter appeared over them and dropped a basket to retrieve them from the raft. They later said that the ride up in the basket to the helicopter was the worst experience of the trip. The water was about 20 degrees and you must jump into the basket submerged in the water and then ride up with the helicopter downwash chilling you all the way. The Greenlanders crowded round to see the two men who had been pulled from these waters and had survived. The next morning, another race plane was preparing to leave Greenland to continue on to Quebec City and the pilot offered his one remaining seat. Bill and Paul flipped a coin and Paul won.  The following day, reports came in that the Bellanca was still afloat and they were sending out a police boat to bring it in. Bill supervised its rescue and made sure it was safely stored away in a hangar before he left for Goose Bay on another race plane.For both of them the race ended with flights back to Toronto, but they're both back flying again and will remember for some time their experience in the "Great Air Race" Gordie Aitchison |
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This and That.
In March 2009, it will be 90 years since the first Canada-U.S. air mail service. In the "Between Ourselves" issue dated April 1969, is an article to commemorate the 50th anniversary tells of a flight from Vancouver to Seattle which was re enacted by the Boeing Company. The aircraft used was a replica of a Boeing B & W 1A following the exact route made 50 years prior.  We have this photo.The coming year will be a special one for KLM. On October 7th, 2009, it will have been 90 years since KLM was first founded. This makes KLM the oldest airline in the world still operating under its original name. It out lasted the Second World War and survived 40 years on the bottom of the Pacific but a heavy snowfall has felled the last remaining Handley Page Hampden bomber. Volunteers at the Canadian Museum of Flight in Langley, British Columbia, are appealing for help to put the little-known but historically significant aircraft back together again after snow broke the left wing off the twin-engine bomber. Like many small museums, the facility has to store some of its collection outside and that's not normally a problem in the usually temperate coastal area of B.C.  But this year the area has been slammed with half a dozen snowstorms and, while museum volunteers did their best to clear the snow, an especially big dump on Dec. 26 was too much for the Hampden.Quarter Century in Aviation Club The Quarter Century in Aviation Club meets on the 3rd Tuesday in the following months: October, November, January, February, March and April. The Quarter Century in Aviation CLub  The next meeting of the club is on Tuesday, January 20, 2009.The club includes airline employees from all areas of aviation meeting as friends to share their experiences and memories. If you wish to join the club, you must have 25 years in aviation (any airline, any job) and the membership fees are $15/year. Guests are welcome, so you are not required to join the first time you attend. When: January 20, 2009, Social - 17:00 hours, Dinner - 18:00 hours Dinner: Chicken and Schnitzel buffet dinner is served and the cost is $19 per person. Where: The Austrian Vancouver Club, 5851 Westminster Highway, Richmond.B.C. Guest Speaker: Fred Carey See: www.acfamily.org/quarter for more information. |
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Terry's Travel Tips
 On January 1st 1970 pass privileges were extended in the area of dependants. No fuel surcharge on travel within Canada and between Canada and the U.S.(source - Air Canada web page 3rd Jan 2009) Munich Airport is reported to have dog lovers in mind. For a fee, travelers can have their favorite pooch - usually Alsatians - housed in separate kennels at the airport so that, when their owners return, they are brought to the arrivals area to greet their masters. At Halifax (YHZ) FlyGlobSpan airline plan flights to Glasgow commencing May 2009. Airport Improvement Fees: Many airports in Canada and around the world have implemented Airport Improvement Fees (AIFs). Some airports collect these fees at the airport at time of departure, others are collected at the time of ticketing and are reflected in the additional charges portion in your fare. Canadian airports that include the AIF on your ticket are as follows: (All amounts in ca$) Baie-Comeau, QC (YBC) $10 Bathurst, NB (ZBF) $40 Calgary, AB (YYC) $20 Castlegar, BC (YCG) $7 Charlottetown, PE (YYG) $15 Comox, BC (YQQ) $5 Cranbrook, BC (YXC) $10 Deer Lake, NL (YDF) $15 Edmonton, AB (YEG) $15 Fort McMurray, AB (YMM) $10 Fort St. John, BC (YXJ) $12 Fredericton, NB (YFC) $15 Gander, NL (YQX) $20 Goose Bay, NL (YYR) $12 Grande Prairie, AB (YQU) $20 Halifax, NS (YHZ) $10 due to increase to $15.00 eff Mar 1/09 Hamilton, ON (YHM) $15 Kamloops, BC (YKA) $10 Kelowna, BC (YLW) $10 Lethbridge, AB (YQL) $10 London, ON (YXU) $15 Moncton, NB (YQM) $15 Montreal, QC (YUL) $20 Moosonee, ON (YMO) $7 Ottawa, ON (YOW) $15 Prince George, BC (YXS) $15 Quebec, QC (YQB) $15 Regina, SK (YQR) $15 Rouyn-Noranda, QC (YUY) $10 Saint John, NB (YSJ) $15 Sarnia, ON (YZR) $15 Saskatoon, SK (YXE) $10 Sault Ste Marie, ON (YAM) $10 Smithers, BC (YYD) $15 Stephenville, NL (YJT) $15 St. John's, NL (YYT) $15 Sydney, NS (YQY) $25 Thompson, MB (YTH) $10 Timmins, ON (YTS) $10 Toronto, ON (YYZ) $20 Originating passengers $8 Connecting passengers Val d'Or, QC (YVO) $10 Vancouver, BC (YVR) $5 Travel within BC/Yukon $15 Outside of BC Victoria, BC (YYJ) $10 Waterloo, ON (YKF) $15 Windsor, ON (YQG) $10 Winnipeg, MB (YWG) $20 |