Betty Draper has sent us this url about the oldest working flight attendant.

Betty Nash is now 80 years young and has been flying for 59 years. She is presently with American Airlines.

Additional info and videos at:

BoardingArea.com (from 2014), CNN.com & Huffingtonpost.com

Note: Additional information provided by Ken Pickford

“Bird’s Eye View” is a historical novel, the unforgettable story of an idealistic young Canadian woman who joins the air force in the Second World War and becomes an aerial photographic interpreter.

Click here for author Elinor Florence's web site

1967 – September 1st - DC-9 service introduced to Regina and Saskatoon.
2004 - April 6th - Air Canada moved its domestic and international operations to new Terminal 1  in Toronto.

COMMUNICAIR, is (was) a newsletter to inform and entertain the members of the In Flight Service Base at Montreal, which arrived on the scene in August 1979.

YVR ACRA Executive Committee at Nat Bailey Stadium on July 26th., 2014.

From the left: Luke Tuttle, Betty Shewchuk, Tiffany Smitz, Susan Lee and Wayne Albertson.

TCARA Winnipeg's newsletter "News Gram" was first issued April 1952.

In our photo we have editor Ed Winnik, standing, with Carol Malec, Bill Fisher and Cliff Dick. TCARA Vancouver's newsletter "Caravan" was first issued October 1952 by editor Henry Brown.

Inaugural DC-9 service to Miami August 1st 1966.

A brass band, majorettes, gorgeous beauty queens, civic and Company dignitaries greeted Air Canada's inaugural DC-9 flight on its arrival at Miami.

In our photo we have, front row from the left: Dan de Guerre, Area Manager, Public Relations, New York; Miss Miami; Miss Shower of Stars and Gordon Wilson, Regional Sales Manager, United States.

In descending order on the stairs we have: First Officer Mark Sanfacon, Captain P. C. Gale both of Montreal; Stewardess Lesley Davis, Toronto; Captain Ralph Leek, Montreal; Stewardesses Jo-Anne Ridler, Lynda Osborne and Pat Robinson of Toronto. 

First "Long-Body" DC-9 delivered.

The first extended DC-9 twin jet was delivered to the company March 7th 1967 and is shown in the photo at gate 1 at Montreal International Airport (YUL) following its flight from California.

Aircraft fin #707 CF-TLH is the first of 12 extended DC-9s on order for delivery during 1967 with a further 17 delivered during 1968.

From the "Horizons" magazine issue dated April 1980

On Saturday, April 2nd 1960 at 10:45, a Trans-Canada Air Lines Super Constellation, carrying the premiers of Canada's four Atlantic provinces and other dignitaries, took off from Shearwater Naval Air Base bound for Glasgow and London, England.

On that day, Captain Ralph Leek and First Officer K. Lyons guided TCA's flight across the Atlantic to create the first scheduled air service between the Atlantic Provinces and the United Kingdom, ably assisted by M.A.Loiaconi, engineer and Frank Coughlin, Navigator

From the "new Horizons" magazine (with permission) issued March 2004.

Since Air Canada filed for court protection under CCAA since April 2003, the Strategic Purchasing team has worked hard to renegotiate contracts and cut Air Canada's costs. Members of the team also spent countless hours in the Vendor Communication room to ensure the ongoing supply of goods and services that has enabled Air Canada to continue to operate smoothly.

Found in the “Canadi>n Contact" magazine issued August 1989

The Accessories Shop Task Force,

From left: Earl Cleven, sub-foreman (group leader), Trond Aareskjold, mechanic (hydraulics); Al Barton, mechanic (electrical); Laurie Taylor, shop technician; Ron Douglas, mechanic (pneumatics); Oddie Halseth, (Stores); Andy Burns, Engineering; Wendy Moon, Purchasing.

Unavailable for photo: Mike Graves, Production Planning; Alex Robinson, mechanic (C.S.D.'s) and Phil Doyle, supervisor, Accessory Shop

The Brake Shop Task Force

Back from left, Terry Mackay, consultant; Pasquale Borsa, Maintenance Administration; Al Watson, Wheel & Brake Shop; Dan Hink, Engineering (group leader); and John Seckel, Ground Support Engineering.

Front, Jim Ternan, Component Cleaning, Len Ammerlaan, Production Planning; Wendy Moon, Purchasing, and Reg Hogg, Wheel & Brake Shop.

Unavailable, Gules Lakatos, NDT; Mickey McGuire and Brian Olson, Wheel & Brake Shop

On November 30th, two aircraft, Fin #701 and #702, which were acquired new by Nordair in 1968/9, were also sold to Polaris. They were going to French airlines TAT and Air Inter.

Something different! An engine change in Prince Rupert.

On April 3rd, aircraft Fin# 746 required the no. 2 engine to be replaced as it had stalled out during a power check. The flight was under the command of Captain Ralph Howey with First Officer Dave Boyd. Here we have this photo of the crew involved with the change -

From left: Ernie Roger, avionics technician; Dave Russell, Aircraft mechanic; Kirk Barnes, aircraft mechanic (on the engine); Terry Holmes, aircraft mechanic; Ken Atkins, air engineer; Dennis Andrews, aircraft mechanic (back); Vince Fukuyama, maintenance specialist; Herb Pond, airport services manager, Prince Rupert; Dave Boyd, First officer; and Ralph Howey, Captain.

Ken Pickford explains the reason CP operated 3 DC-10-10's aircraft with Americican registrations-

I can add further details re Wayne's reference to the 3 United Airlines DC-10s operated by CP from 1983 to 1987 (Fins 334/336/337). 

United had just been awarded nonstop traffic rights between Seattle and Hong Kong but had no aircraft in their huge fleet then with enough range to operate the route. So they made a deal with CP Air to lease 3 of CP's long-range DC-10-30s temporarily and replace them with 3 of United's shorter-range domestic model DC-10-10s. The 3 UA DC-10s were mainly used on CP transcon domestic routes as well as some shorter transatlantic routes such as Toronto-Amsterdam. If memory correct they were also used on Toronto-Lima, Peru. Longer international routes required the range of the DC-10-30.

The 3 CP DC-10-30s that went to UA during those 3 or 4 years were C-GCPF/G/H They operated with Canadian registration while with UA and the UA DC-10-10s kept their US registrations while with CP. By 1987 United had acquired some long range 747-200s and the DC-10-30s were returned to CP and the UA DC-10-10s being operated by CP went back to UA.

Interestingly, that Seattle-Hong Kong route (later dropped) was only United's second longhaul international route after Seattle-Tokyo which had started a year or so earlier. Their early-model 747-100s were adequate for that route but lacked the range for SEA-HKG. Until those two routes started, United's only other international routes had been Seattle-Vancouver (their first international route in 1934) and Chicago-Toronto which started around 1967. UA added many more international routes in 1986 when they acquired Pan Am's entire transpacific route network when Pan Am was in desperate financial shape and was selling off their most valuable assets..

I recall hearing that many CP flight attendants didn't like working on those 3 UA DC-10-10s as, like most other early domestic model DC-10s, they had the galley on the lower deck (using what would normally be part of the cargo/baggage compartment). One or two flight attendants had to work down there and everything had to be sent up to the passenger deck on elevators, so the meal service procedures on those aircraft were quite different than on CP's own DC-10-30s which had the galleys on the main deck.

Ken also sent us these comments referring to NetLetter nr 1342 –

1. The last name of the CP sales manager for Scandinavia mentioned in the caption of the travel trade show photo should read "Timmermann" (not "Tianmermann").

2. Re the story of the parked Viscount struck by the Super Constellation at New York in 1958, it was the two flight attendants who were aboard the aircraft, not the pilots. At least one of the flight attendants had minor injuries incurred while escaping the aircraft. There's a photo somewhere, probably in an old Netletter, from the TCA newsletter, showing one or possibly both of the flight attendants appearing at a media event shortly after the incident, with a bandage or two on one of the flight attendants.

Female curiosity paid off for stewardesses Jeanine Bedard, left, and Karin Foch when then Viscount they were preparing for passengers was rammed on the tarmac at Idlewild Airport, New York, by another aircraft, out of control. The girls, who escaped without injury, received 15 letters of congratulations from 10th grade students of a French school in Montreal. The letters were written as a homework assignment in English.

Click here for the official accident report.

Related excerpts: The second one includes the names of the two "stewardesses" as they were of course known at the time.
One member of the five-man Constellation crew received minor injuries and a Trans-Canada stewardess fell and was injured slightly while running from the aircraft. 

After leaving the runway the aircraft crossed a taxi-way and two perimeter strips, and entered a position on the terminal parking area where it collided with a Trans-Canada Air Lines Viscount, CF-TGL. The Viscount was standing at Gate 5 and was to have boarded its passengers for a scheduled departure within a few minutes of the accident.

Stewardesses J. Bedard and K. Foch on board the Viscount, alerted by the cries of persons on the ramp and the noise of the approaching Constellation, departed their aircraft as rapidly as possible. The Constellation crew left their aircraft by jumping from the main cabin door which was approximately four feet above ground level. Fire-fighting personnel had already arrived at the scene and were directing a coverage of foam toward this exit at the time. Both aircraft were virtually destroyed by fire.

Regards, Ken

Brian Burrage co-founder, historian and photo archivist at www.vickersviscount.net has sent us this photo of the aftermath of the incident at JFK. What is interesting is that the rear of the Viscount cabin has been hacked into, presumably by the fire service guys. I assume they were not sure if anyone else was still on board.

Norman Hogwood, after reading the story of the Lancaster recovery in "Alan's Space" NetLetter nr 1342, sent us this story -

That was an astonishing feat. I can imagine they had some very anxious moments during the tow, especially as they towed using the main gears with, presumably, no braking assistance from the cockpit and even if there was some sort of help from that quarter, the tow would have very “interesting”.

It immediately reminded me of an incident I investigated involving the towing of a Bristol Freighter (B170) at one of our regional airports. The B170 had diverted to this airport because its home base was weathered in. It parked on the domestic ramp awaiting a clearance which proved to be a long time coming and when it did, the crew decided they needed a fuel uplift as the home base still needed an alternate.

The uplift created a problem. The only fuel available at the ramp was AVTUR and the B170 used AVGAS. The only AVGAS pump on the airport was at the aero club but this led to another problem. The pump was almost up against the club hangar and the only way to get the B170 near enough to it was to drag it backwards. The crew discussed this with our staff and between them tied a very thick rope around the tail wheel and attached the other end round the tractor tow hitch.

The second officer would position himself standing with his head out of the B170 emergency hatch in the roof and give instructions to the captain about braking. Of course, this required some very precise braking coordination by the crew and our man on the tractor.

Unfortunately, they failed miserably! The tractor stopped but the communication time lag between three participants saw the B170 roll back into the tractor seriously damaging one of the horizontal stabilisers as it destroyed the tractors steering wheel a second or so after our man jumped for his life!

A very costly incident that could have been avoided if someone had just called the local fuel depot and requested the uplift delivery from a tanker.

Cheers. Norm

"dblaflyer" refers to NetLetter nr 1343 and the uniforms in "Reader submitted photos", these are the comments -

Thanks for the Netletter always read it with interest. I, however,  would like to bring to your attention a small mistake about the date of introduction of our mini dress .The one shown is the turquoise one it came in 3 colours white with either turquoise, or red trim. the other one was red with white trim and graduating class of 16 may 1969 which I was part of were the first to wear it, we didn’t even have name tags they where not ready yet when we came out of training to join the line!

It took about 2 years before we got pants and a sash to wear with the dress. In order to hide our panties when WE stretched our arms up to reach the overhead rack. In 1969 we still helped our customers put their coats away In the overhead racks which were open not compartments like today. Male Pax preferred the view inside the cabin at the time and aisle seats where more popular than window seats.!

(Here we have this photo from "Between Ourselves" issue May 1969. Displaying the various outfits which made up the new Stewardess wardrobe are, from the left: Britta Noack, Eleanor Domville, Lis Mollevang, Gail Wallace and Carla Denike. They were shown posing on the carousel at Winnipeg International Airport - eds)

Departing or visiting the city of Toronto?

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The new NOK80 ($9.60) tax is paid by all passengers departing from Norwegian airports.

Here is an affordable trip to take your fancy as a retiree -

Etihad Airways "The Residence" comes with a living room, bedroom and private en-suite shower, 32 inch flat screen TV , a Savoy trained butler and meals from a dedicated chef on board with 120 possible combinations of meals to choose from and served on bone china together with Bollinger and other high end drinks in crystal glasses.

Including New York-Dubai-New York all for a measly US$75,000 pp.
(We, at the NetLetter, could not find any interline rate! - eds)