Vickers Viscount CF-THS
Air Canada Pionairs from the Manitoba-Saskatchewan district celebrated this year's anniversaries for Air Canada (80th) and the Pionairs (40th) by visiting the Royal Aviation Museum of Western Canada in Winnipeg.
When they sent us images from visit for posting on the district Pionairs's Photo Gallery, Vickers Viscount registration CF-THS (Fin # 637) caught my interest.
Originally delivered in early 1958, CF-THS had a rather routine career within the Air Canada fleet. Its story gets interesting concerning its retirement, storage, acquisition by the museum and restoration. 
Retired in the early eighties, it was tentatively sold to Zaire Aero Services but when the sale fell through it was flown to the RCAF base at Gimli for storage in 1982. In late 1983, it was acquired by the museum but needed considerable work to be airworthy enough to make one last short flight.
Click Here for the complete story "Shutting Down History", The Last Flight of Viscount CF-THS by Captain Jim Griffith.
Click Here for its profile at the Royal Aviation Museum web site.
Captain Griffith subscribes to the NetLetter so I asked him if he had any further comments to add to this article. He responded with the following:
"Flying Viscounts out of the Winnipeg base in the late 60’s and early 70’s was more fun than work. Most of the pilots and F/A’s were junior and while management tried to rein us in ... it didn’t work. Nobody took the old school regime very seriously. It was like belonging to a western Canada flying club with all the associated fun and frivolity."