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Aviation Memorabilia Newsletter Since 1995

Aviation Memorabilia Newsletter

Since 1995

Vesta's Corner
Vesta StevensonWhy not allow the NetLetter to be your platform and opportunity to relive your history while working for either TCA, AC, CPAir, CAIL, PWA, AirBC etal?

Share your experiences with us!



FLIGHT RIGHTS FOR PASSENGERS IN CANADA, SORT OF
Passenger groups fighting airlines for the right to spend delays in relative comfort (as opposed to confined to stuffy aluminum tubes) have won ... something ... in Canada.

Canada has launched a Flight Rights Canada program that offers passengers using Canadian-based airlines a degree of protection from ground-bound suffering with new guidelines that direct airlines to offer drinks and snacks to passengers who have been  boarded onto then-delayed aircraft. The rules are not legislation or regulation, but because Canadian airlines say they're on board with the plan, Canadian officials feel the guidelines will suffice. In the case that a delay exceeds 90 minutes, the airline will offer passengers the option of de-planing until that aircraft can depart. In the case that a flight is delayed by more than four hours, passengers will get vouchers for a free meal.

Due to caveats written into the rules, like "if it's safe, practical and timely to do so," it's not clear exactly how the guidelines will play out in practice and consumer groups have dismissed the measure as pre-election rhetoric with no stick to back it up.

Fossett's Decathlon Located Near Mammoth Lake WRECKAGE CONFIRMED AS FOSSETT'S DECATHLON

Authorities have confirmed that wreckage found in the Mammoth Lakes area of northeastern California is that of the Super Decathlon Steve Fossett was reported missing in just over a year ago. However, early reports of the circumstances of the crash may raise more questions than they answer about the end of a flight that sparked the largest air and ground search in recent memory.
"It was a head-on crash into the side of a mountain, into a rock," Madera County Sheriff John Anderson told a news conference, according to the San Francisco Chronicle.
"The plane disintegrated. We found the engine 300 feet from the fuselage". No body has been found. When Fossett took off from Barron Hilton's Minden, Nevada-area ranch, the weather was clear and Fossett was reportedly going on a local flight to check out dry lake beds for a planned land speed record bid.

Mammoth Lakes is a mountainous area east of Yosemite National Park. Anderson said the wreckage was found at about the 10,000-foot level and was about a quarter mile from where a hiker found Fossett's pilot certificates and clothing two days earlier.

Nancy-Bird WaltonQantas has honoured Australian pioneer aviatrix Nancy-Bird Walton at a ceremony to officially name the airline's first A380 aircraft after her.

The Chief Executive Officer of Qantas, Mr Geoff Dixon, said Nancy-Bird was one of the legends of Australia's aviation history, and the airline was proud to recognize her contribution to the industry.

Nancy-Bird began learning to fly in 1933, when she was just 17 years old, right here at Mascot. She was taught by the world's greatest aviator, Sir Charles Kingsford Smith, and graduated in 1935.
Air Canada News
Air Canada Bruins sign on with Air Canada Jetz.  The Boston Bruins have contracted with Air Canada Jetz for the upcoming 2008/2009 NHL hockey season, bringing the total number of sports teams in the Jetz roster to eight!
The Boston Bruins are the first US professional sports team to charter Jetz for the season.
Jetz also carries all the Canadian NHL teams - Vancouver, Calgary, Edmonton, Toronto, Montreal, Ottawa, plus Canada's only professional basketball team, the Toronto Raptors.
Air Canada announced  that beginning January 5, 2009, it will offer the only daily non-stop service linking Vancouver and Fort McMurray. In addition, Air Canada will restart its popular non-stop weekend flights between Kelowna and Toronto beginning in December during the upcoming winter ski season, onboard Air Canada's new 93-seat Embraer 190 aircraft.

Star Alliance news
Brazilian carrier TAM is expected to join the alliance next week.
The Star Alliance has had no presence in the region since the collapse and dismissal of Varig
Air Canada - our first 70 years

On August 10th, 1949, the Avro Canada C102 JetLiner had its maiden flight.

This was two weeks after the De Havilland Comet and five years ahead of the Boeing B707 prototype.

The Jetliner could have entered service 12 years ahead of the similar sized DC-9.

The project started in 1946 for Trans-Canada Air Lines. The design was higher than what TCA required. The planned Rolls Royce engines were not available for civil use, so another power plant was selected and four engines would be installed.

The switch from two to four engines attracted a growing list of differences between Avro and TCA, some of which Avro considered outrageous.

In the spring of 1949, President Gordon McGregor made it clear the airline had no more interest in being the first North American airline to introduce jet aircraft for the travelling public.

Avro JetlinerHowever, Howard Huges was greatly impressed by the Jetliner. The prototype flew for the last time Nov 23rd 1956, shortly afterwards the order was issued to scrap the aircraft, only the nose being saved and is now in the National Aviation Museum YOW.
TCA/AC People Gallery

Over the past months we have been publishing photographs from earlier "Horizons", should any prompt a memory seeing one of them, feel free to send us that memory.

SeminarAndy St-Laurent sends us this message - I'm attaching a photo that was taken in 1960, this seminar took place at the Alpine Inn hotel in St Adele. I've included the names of all the persons in the pictures.

Andy St-Laurent 87491   Retired FSD-YUL







Hanger 2Jan Balledux sends us this photograph taken, he believes, in Hangar 2 at YUL in Feb. 1963 of the gang working on a Vanguard. He is in the last row second from the right.

Also, somewhere, Jan remembers Erik Keskel, Morris Senecal, Vorstenbos, Rudy Gerhard Burk the inspector are in the group.(We are asking for some identities here - eds)

We have received a memory from Gordon Gilmour which we will serialize and hope you enjoy it -

ALIAS MR. SMITH

One evening in the late 1970s after the day's work was over, I was disturbed at home by a phone call from Geneva. Calls at home while off duty were not infrequent for lots of reasons but this one was unusual and it started off a sequence of events which had a touch of mystery about them. The call was from a small Charter Company in Geneva with whom we had never had contact before and of whom we had never heard.

The caller stated that they had just been contracted to fly an executive jet to Prestwick in order to pick up a Mr. Smith who was arriving as a passenger the following morning on our flight from Halifax, Nova Scotia. The jet would be leaving Geneva within a few minutes, arriving at Prestwick in two hours time and we were being requested to handle the aircraft arrival and the subsequent departure in the morning. This is not uncommon practice in the business and involves arranging Customs and Immigration clearance, fuelling, crew accommodation and transport, food supplies etc. all in the interests of a smooth and speedy operation. The small jet duly arrived with a crew of two pilots and a stewardess, the aircraft was fuelled and bedded down for the night and the crew dispatched to a local hotel.
(More next time -)

Ron JeffriesIn NetLetter nr 1036 we indicated two pictures of LHR retirees, one of Stan Gregory, which appeared, but we missed the one for Ron Jeffries.
(Sorry Ron - eds)


Bytes and Pieces

Alan RustIdentity Theft!

There is a growing concern regarding Identity Theft in Canada and elsewhere and there is some good information available from Public Safety Canada regarding this. Rather than copying the info here, below is a link to their web site.


I personally use the Internet for all kinds of credit card transactions and have had no problems. Some things to look out for though are;
  • Go to them directly, don't follow a link in an email as there are a lot of "Phishing" email scams trying to entice you to reveal your passwords and posing as bank sites or PayPal email. In other words, if you get an email from your bank, don't follow the link in the email asking you for any information. If you go to the site, go directly from your browser.
  • Make sure that when you're giving sensitive information that the site is secure, this means they have a Certificate and the site URL (web address) will start with https:// (rather than the usual http://) and your browser should show a lock symbol on it.
  • Off the internet, if someone approached you and asked you for your name, the name of your bank, your bank account number, your address and phone number, and a sample of your signature would you give it to them? Most likely not... but if you are at a flea market or garage sale you may offer a cheque to someone you don't know at all, and guess what information is on your cheque? All of the above...


Public Safety Canada Just click on the image to view more information regarding Identity Theft or click on this link.


Canadi>n/CPAir/PWA, Wardair, etc. Events & People
YXY ReunionYour co-pilot had the privilege of being invited to the "Meet & Greet" party on Friday Sept 26th, for the "YXY 2008 Reunion" organized by Marlie and Phil Kelsey, Pat Besier and Brian Walsh.

This was the second such reunion, the first being five years ago.

This diverse group of approximately 50 people consisted of GM,s Managers, pilots, flight attendants, maintenance and ramp personnel, reservations and general clerical staff who, at one time in their careers, worked or passed through Yellowknife or Whitehorse.

The atmosphere of the group was quite electric as people who had not met since the last reunion, or even longer, greeted, hugged and bussed each other, and caught up with past memories.

On Saturday a full day had been arranged to include a 4 hour cruise and golf, followed by a dinner and dance in the evening. Those who survived the evening had a farewell breakfast on the Sunday morning. Many voiced the thought "Why did we wait so long?" We hope to include some pictures later, meantime, check the web site http://cedarcoast.ca/yxycp and see what you missed.

Extracted from the www.pwareunion.com web site -
QUICKET - Self Serve Kiosks. Calgary-Edmonton Airbus.- G. Hickey

During the 80's the ongoing popularity of the Airbus service was resulting in lengthy line-ups each day creating the need to find a solution. The Company looked at various options, one of which was to study how self service might help.

American Airlines had been pioneering the development of Self Serve ticketing in the U.S. and following a series of meetings with them and with their major supplier, NCR we decided that the technology they were using and their approach was not suitable for the Airbus product and so we elected to design our own system from scratch

The software component was designed in conjunction with Air Canada computer services to PWA specifications and in order for it work with the AC Reservac System Development took some months throughout 1986 and was not without it's challenges and not all were technical. Labour Relations issues, Transport Canada security issues and accounting issues, particularly the credit card industry requirement for signature authorization.

All were addressed and all were firsts in the industry in Canada.
The physical kiosk design came from a local Calgary design company.
The Quicket name and graphic design came from our Advertising Agency and two kiosks were installed in each of the Calgary and Edmonton Municipal Airbus counter areas.

Credit Card driven, passengers made their choices through a keypad and could choose either window or aisle and smoking or non smoking and were issued with a printed ticket/boarding pass Branded as "Quicket" the service was launched successfully and while the uptake was quite slow, as expected, (with the exception of Japanese business men who took to it readily) the expectation was that the usage would grow in similar fashion to the experience the banking industry first saw when they introduced ATM's.

Sadly, we would not find out as the subsequent purchase and merger with Canadian Pacific Airlines in 1987 meant the kiosks, designed to work with the AC system now could not function with the CP System.

It is testament to PWA thinking of the time however, that airports not just in Canada, utilize similar technologies extensively in order to assist passenger processing today, however, the first development and live trial of this type of technology by any airline in Canada was by Pacific Western Airlines.

Here are a few pictures from yesteryear that should bring back some memories.

Sent in by Viv Rivers -
Wardair A310The Wardair ex A310 in CAF colours was having an engine run-up when it suddenly rolled forward 600 ft into the chemical storage building behind CP's YVR hangar and imbedded itself in the structure. White is fire chemical.




CP DC-10DC-10 in National tail colours. Aircraft went to National on lease after construction instead of directly to CP Air






DC-10 Aborted take offDC-10 with slides deployed was the result when take-off at YVR was aborted and aircraft left the runway and came to rest in soft ground.
(If anyone has any information of these incidents, we would like to hear it- eds)

Readers Feedback
Member FeedbackIn NetLetter nr 1036 we had this picture showing a Viscount asking for identification. We received this email from Brian Burrage.

MCA at Goose Bay
It shows Viscount Model 805 C/N 258 CF-MCJ of Maritime Central Airways with one of their Curtiss C-46 Commandos in the background. They operated this Viscount from June 59 until April 62.

Kind regards,
Brian Burrage

(Brian is the website co-founder of www.vickersviscount.net) We at www.vickersviscount.net invite all you Canadian Viscount lovers to tour the Virtual Museum and check out all those TCA/Air Canada classics.

Sincerely, Jack Stephens

Goldendragon posted a correction  to a statement in NetLetter nr 1036 Lamar Durrett succeeds Hollis Harris I believe the year was 1996. (Actually, we published the correct info in NetLetter nr 1035 - eds)

In NetLetter nr 1033, Under TCA/AC People gallery: "Musings from Horizons: Aug.1995":

Dave Welham makes this observation -
Re AC884/21Jun at TLV: "...only Canadian carrier to land in Israel".
This is perfectly correct for that day or that year, but it might give the impression that AC was the only Cdn carrier to ever land in that nation, which of course is not true.  I think somewhere I have a certain orange timetable showing an earlier Canadian airline that, I believe, pioneered that route for Canada and offered a regular scheduled service for several years.

Your avid reader,
Dave Welham, Pionair, Toronto.

(In checking the book "Canadian Pacific Air Lines It's History and Aircraft" by D.M.Bain,  CPAL operated YYZ-ROM-Tel Aviv DC-8-63 service from April 2nd 1971 and suspended in 1976. - eds)

Emirates 380 ModelIn NetLetter nr 1032, we mentioned that a model of an A380 was erected at LHR, we received this information and photograph from Dennis Kennedy - With reference to the article that a model of an A380 in Emirates colours was being built at Heathrow (LHR), I happened to be in LHR this summer (July) and snapped a photo as we drove buy. I have attached it for your info.

Regards  Dennis

In NetLetter nr 1033 -
The part titled 'BYTES AND PIECES", TIME TO SAY GOODBYE VINTAGE SLIDESHOW with soundtrack by ANDREA BOCELLI, was amazing says Liz McGeough of Kelowna, B.C.
who sent us these comments -

The slideshow showing all the old airlines, crews and Andrea Bocelli singing in the background, literally choked me up.

It brought back feelings of how the airlines truly were a family for many years. There was joy and excitement (along with hard
work) to be associated with the air industry. At the end of the slideshow, I had tears in my eyes, as I felt proud to have been a part of the airlines.

I originally started Dec. 1965 with Canadian Airlines in the old airport,in Richmond. I then went to the Sales Dept. on Hornby St. until June 1973.  I then left and went travelling for a few months to Israel and Europe. It was a wonderful adventure and I remember being so excited at Athens airport when I saw the "Orange Bird" (CP Air). 

I returned to the airlines in Feb. 1974 and worked as an Agent in Payload until Feb. 2001, when I took early retirement. During that period there were all the changes, PWA buying Canadian Pacific, then they bought Wardair and then Air Canada bought us. I saw many changes during this period and was happy to retire with Air Canada.

Thank you to all the people who made my experience in the airline industry, one that I will never forget.  I cherish all the good memories over the years.

Vesta, I wish to thank you for keeping this newsletter going.

Liz McGeough
Kelowna, B.C.

Gord Girvan has dug into the depths of his memory to send us this - The references to MCA by Don Palmer in NetLetter 1032 twigged more memories for me; with the part about Resolution Island in particular.

One look at the picture Don included tells the tale. Can you imagine anyone flying over that island and dropping something out of the aircraft window and missing the island below?

Well I have the dubious distinction of having done just that.

The scenario was a DC-3 flight from Frobisher Bay to Goose Bay with Capt Doug Stults at the controls. I was along for the ride. Doug had a friend who worked at a weather station on the island and he had wrapped a bottle of booze very carefully for a 'free drop' and I was the designated 'dropee'. The plan was for me to stand by one of the removable hatches at the rear of the aircraft and when Doug put his hand down once, I was to open the hatch. When he put his hand down the 2nd time I was to throw the bottle out.

We were about 500 feet off the deck I think and I saw him put his hand down, so I opened the hatch and put it on the floor. Doug put his hand down the 2nd time and I belted the bottle into space.

Apparently Doug factored in the fact that the hatch was sometimes a bit difficult to remove and he didn't realize that I had removed it so quickly, so he considered his 2nd 'hand down' to be his 1st.

Needless to say the bottle undershot the intended target and dropped into the water, and his friend was unable to retrieve it. It was a 'dry' night at the weather station.

End of story.
Gord Girvan
This and That

Frank Pedder sends us this information - First flight of the Avro Arrow on March 25th 1958 - An excellent film of a piece of  Canada's aviation history.

Sound track and picture of Jan Zurakowski, CF-100 and F-86 chase planes, and even a brief glimpse of a TCA Super Connie in the background, seen during the landing.. 

Guaranteed to bring tears to the eyes of real airmen! Don't forget to turn up the sound. Good views of the undeveloped area around Malton in 1958.

Avro VideoProduced by AVRO CANADA for the first flight of the fantastic CF-105 Arrow interceptor on March 25, 1958; this film is a nostalgic look on the incredible lead Canada had in aircraft design and production in the post-war years. The Arrow was so advanced that its performance figures and concept were at least 20 to 25 years ahead of all the other countries that were producing such aircraft. Even today, close to 50 years after the Arrow first flew, Canada's front-line fighter, the CF-18 Hornet, can't match the performance of the Mk.I Arrow in top speed (Mach 2.0). There was a Mk.II model with the Canadian Iroquois engines that would have exceeded Mach 2.5, and a high-altitude Mk.III that was predicted to reach Mach 3.0! What an aircraft! Too bad it was cancelled in 1959, because it would have kept the Arrow flying high all the way up to the early 1990's before being replaced by another design. Maybe this was the stuff of dreams, but it actually was done here in Canada in 1958!!!

For video, click on image or visit this link.

We received this story from Ray Wall in YVR.

Airline Stewardesses
StewardessesBefore 1930 only men served on airplane crews. Ellen Church, a nurse and student pilot, convinced United Airlines that having females on board would help ticket sales... but not for the reason you'd think: "don't you think it would be good psychology to have women up in the air?" she asked the directors, "how is a man going to say he is afraid to fly when a woman is working on the plane".

United agreed and told her to hire seven women.

The women had to be under 5'4" and 115 lbs,age 25 or less,single and registered nurses. Their wage:$125 a month for each 100 hours in the air. On top of serving passengers, the first stewardesses also had to help the crew clean the plane, load the baggage, gas the plane and push it from the hangar.

B747 StampHere is a stamp issued to celebrate 100 years in aviation, includes military & civil.
Terry's Travel Tips

Terry BakerTravelling interline? - have a look at www.nonrev.net and check their forum, they may have the answer for you.

Travelling with a ZED ticket?
Jim Pearce sends this information - A site that indicates space available chances in colour.  WWW.FLYZED.COM

Login info;
User ID: ACA
Password: 014

Cheers Jim P.

Subject: ICE - 'In Case of Emergency'

Apparently this is a standard procedure all paramedics follow at the scene of an accident when they come across your cell phone.

ICE - 'In Case of Emergency'
Most of us carry our mobile phones with names & numbers stored in its memory but nobody, other than ourselves, knows which of these numbers belong to our closest family or friends.

If we were to be involved in an accident or were taken ill, the people attending us would have our mobile phone but wouldn't know whom to call. Yes, there are hundreds of numbers stored but which one is the contact person in case of an emergency? Hence this 'ICE' (In Case of Emergency) Campaign

The concept of 'ICE' is catching on quickly. It is a method of contact during emergency situations. All you need to do is store the number of a contact person or persons who should be contacted during emergency under the name 'ICE' ( In Case Of Emergency).

In an emergency situation, Emergency Service personnel and hospital Staff would be able to quickly contact the right person by simply dialing the number you have stored as 'ICE.' For more than one contact name simply enter ICE1, ICE2 and ICE3 etc. A great idea that will make a difference!

Let's spread the concept of ICE by storing an ICE number in our Mobile phones today! It really could save your life, or put a loved one's mind at rest. ICE will speak for you when you are not able to.
Smilies
Smiley Found in the national newspapers

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