Aviation Memorabilia Newsletter

THE KICK-OFF MEETING of the TCA-BOAC Prizes for Prospects campaign in the Toronto area was chaired by District Commercial Manager E. J. May, shown with representatives of other departments.

From the left, are: J. C. Campbell, A. J. Currie, E. B. Patton, H. L. Kennedy, P. A. Forbes, W.M. Stainton, Jock Warnock (BOAC), E. J. May, R. G. Woodword, R. Sellors, N. Magner, W. D. Patterson, and C. K. Day. Early returns indicate a heavy interest by employees of all departments.

THIRTEEN OF THE 25 MEN in the Company who celebrated 25 years of Service in TCA are shown with President G. R. McGregor following a dinner-dance at Montreal's Mount Royal Hotel October 10.

From the left, back row, are: W. W. Fowler, Moncton; Captain G. B. Lothian,  Montreal; J. L. Scott,  Dorval; R. J. Bulger, Dorval; J.D. Leigh, Dorval; A. K. Hunt,  Dorval; W. S. Harvey, Montreal; seated: B. M. Saunders,  Dorval; C. M. Adams,  Montreal; F. T. Wood,  Montreal; President G.R. McGregor, Montreal; R. D. Williamson,  Montreal; K. C. Baudru,  M. B. Barclay,  Dorval. Each man shown above was presented with a miniature of the distinctively designed pin shown in the background.

Here we have a trio of the groomers at YYZ who work under tight constraints.

Left to right: John Cameron, Marco Ricci, Alex Young. (the scan distorted John's face, sorry!)

During the year the Manila staff celebrated in Wild West style. Canadian Airlines in Manila recently held an awards night to recognize our top producing travel agents. A Stampede theme was chosen by the staff, who dressed up for the occasion in full cowboy and cowgirl attire.

Pictured at the event are (standing, left to right): Jappy Villonco, Cargo Manager; Cheryll Odulio, Sales Rep; Maritte Encarnacion, CTO Supervisor; Anggie Tagura, Res Agent; Graham Perkins, Country Manager; Jep Arenas, Sales Secretary; Felix Mabanta, President, Trave (our GSA); Sheila Mendiola, CTO Agent; Sol Aberlardo, CTO Agent; Sunshine Mirabueno, CTO Agent; Malau Dulay, Sales Rep; Babylyn delos Reyes, GSA Accounting; (Sitting, left to right): Joel Aquino, Sr. Sales Rep; Shason Napoles, GSA Accounting; Len Rivera, Sales Manager; Liezl Magtibay, Res Agent; Bochie del Rosaria, Administrative Assistant; Ana Abela, Res Agent; Cion Romero, Cashier; Chris Geronimo, Sr. Airport Customer Service Agent; Jhoana Buque, Res Agent; Raymond Hicarte, Cargo Ops Agent; and Rocky Catignas, Airport Customer Service Agent

Brian Johannesson (ex-Winnipeg, ex-Montreal, now living in Kitchener) has sent us several photos, here are three of them -

CF-BAU Norseman
The pilot standing on the float is Wally Carrlon. He had married my mother's sister and they lived in Lac du Bonnet. He died in bed of a heart attack in 1947 during a particularly strenuous season, flying too much during daylight hours and spending the nights loading the aircraft in preparation for the next day's flights. I don't know who took the picture or where it was taken, it was in my aunt's pictures after she passed away in 1984.

Halifax Restoration 1998

 Canadian Airlines pilot Karl Kjarsgaard is a man with a mission. The B767 pilot has devoted much of his spare time in an ongoing effort to rescue an important piece of Canadian aviation history. His quest is to provide Canada with an original Handley-Page Halifax bomber

.

At the RCAF Memorial Museum in Trenton, ON., workers are slowly piecing together a Halifax from the wreckage of two aircraft recovered at sites in Norway and Belgium. Check out this web site for more information. www.ipmslondon.ca

Update (from the article from 1998 above) 

This plane is now completely restored and can be viewed at the National Air Force Museum of Canada at: www.airforcemuseum.ca

Halifax (restored)

See the picture. taken by Dave Brook, which shows the temporary sheet metal patch put on the leading edge. After a tow to de-icing, and a power run, A6-EDE left for Dubai at 1500. You can see the green patch on the leading edge. I don't envy fixing that over the last few days. I am sure it will still be out of mainline service after reaching Dubai for "permanent" repairs to be done. A very costly accident and the CLS Catering insurance company is going to be on the hook for a big bill when all of it is tallied up I'm sure.  Keep up the good work with the NetLetter.

Brian Dunn/Editor YYZNEWS.

Viv McLean sends us this request -
I would like to know if Austin Airways could be included in your logos down the left side of the NetLetter. My husband was a employee for years from Canso, DC3, Twin Otters and a favourite the Beaver. Some of the best pilots you can imagine flew with Austin then all went with bigger airlines. When I fly anywhere I always hope the pilot is a ex bush pilot who went onto bigger planes.  Just a thought.

Viv Mc Lean

(We visited www.wikipedia.org for this short history of Austin Airways - eds)

It was Canada's oldest airline and started service in 1934. The home base was Timmins and it operated many duties in addition to passenger and freight services. Over the years, scheduled services served over 40 cities, including some destinations in the United States. In 1973 it merged with White River Air Services but continued to operate as Austin Airways. In June 1987 it merged with Air Ontario Ltd (formerly Great Lakes Airlines (Canada), formed in 1958) to form Air Ontario Inc. In turn Air Ontario became part of Air Canada Jazz in 2001.

(Their logo has been added as well)

Ken Pickford sends us this correction referring to NetLetter nr 1145 -
Another minor correction to a photo caption in Issue #1145. The aircraft identified as a Pacific Western DC-4 is actually a DC-6. It's definitely not a DC-4 due to the rectangular passenger windows (DC-4 had round windows). I think it's a standard DC-6, not a DC-6B (PWA operated both) as the DC-6B had a longer fuselage forward of the wing.

Regards and Merry Christmas, Ken

Ref NetLetter #1142 John Rodger sends this -
I noticed the write up about the flying boat and reference to Canadian Pacific's Comet.

After we found out that Air Canada had sent all the artifacts and memorabilia to The Canadian Aviation Museum in Ottawa in 2003. Keith Kelly, Bob Levasseur and myself had a meeting at the Vendome Building In Montreal with the Air Canada management about the collection.

They had some articles left that were not taken by the museum. To our surprise we found numerous large aircraft models. Wardair, Pacific Western & Canadian most had no wings attached. We were escorted to another room and when we opened the door we got quite a surprise. Sitting in front of us was a large model of Canadian Pacific's Comet in very good shape. Bob Levasseur who is a retiree of Canadian said he didn't know the history of it. He went home (he had a book about CPA history) and contacted Keith & I later about it. Seems CPA had ordered Comets but never used them. During delivery one had crashed on the way to Vancouver loaded with spare parts and the other ones was never delivered. Heard lots of stories about it and I'm sure one of your readers will be able to tell the full story.

We were asked if we could find some place to put all the models or they would be destroyed. We asked them to give us some time. It didn't take long, we knew about the Canadian Aviation Heritage Center in Ste-Anne-de-Bellevue on the Old MacDonald Campus Farm. Most were damaged and without the wings. A few weeks later the management at the Vendome called to tell us they had found the wings for the models. Keith and I went down and loaded his van again and delivered them to a very happy group of volunteers at the CAHC. They accepted them with open arms, repaired them and today they, including the Comet are on display at the Heritage Center. Their web site is www.cahc-ccpa.com  if you would like to see what they do.

Regards  John Rodger

(John took the time to take and send us these photos of the models - eds.)

Terry Baker

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Those of us who have traveled in Economy Class in various airlines have considered the experience similar to being transported like cattle well how about this story from "Horizons" issued August 1972 under the heading -

Crete calf charter steals airport show -
The DC-8 cargo aircraft unofficially stole the show when it landed at the Greek island's main airport during ceremonies marking inauguration of the airport. Accustomed to disembarking tourists of all nationalities, guests and local dignitaries seemed more interested in Air Canada's arrival and hurried over to watch the 286 "Canadians" being unloaded. The double-deck stalls in the freighter were unloaded by U.S. airmen of the Heraklion air base, supervised by Athens Sales Manager lanni Souvaliotis. The Toronto-based crew of Captain Gus Crocker, First Officer Dan Parker and Second Officer Howie Jacobs flew the Crete cattle charter.