January 2023 CAHS e-Newsletter

CAHS Newsletter

Happy New Year to all!

We hope you had a wonderful holiday season and a happy start to the New Year! Hard to believe we’re already approaching the end of January. With February around the corner, I know I’ll be looking forward to National Aviation Day on the 23^rd, an opportunity to celebrate all that aviation has brought to Canada.

On February 23^rd each year, National Aviation Day recognizes the pioneers who opened the skies with the goal of connecting Canadians across the country and moving goods quickly and safely. As part of that recognition, we celebrate those individuals and organizations that have helped Canada accomplishment these goals on home soil and abroad.

The date February 23^rd honours Canada’s first powered flight of the Silver Dart, nearly 800m, done in Baddeck, Nova Scotia. To recognize this monumental milestone museums and organizations across the country celebrate National Aviation Day in different ways.

For instance, the Royal Aviation Museum of Western Canada will have open cockpit days and The Hangar Flight Museum will offer free admission. I would encourage visiting your local aviation museum to see if they have anything going on and to show your support for an industry that’s done so much for Canada and the world.

by Darrell Hillier

Gander was a bustling hub of aviation during the Second World War as thousands of bombers passed through on their way to Britain. In North Atlantic Crossroads, the challenges and hazards of transatlantic ferrying come alive. Tales of search and rescue, aircraft salvage, medevac missions, and VIP visits highlight the activities of the Ferry Command Gander unit, notably the work of its aircraft maintenance department, headed by the incomparable John Joseph “Joe” Gilmore. Postwar, the boom in commercial air travel transformed Gander, setting the airport on its way to becoming the crossroads of the North Atlantic.

This book can be purchased for $15 (plus $6 shipping in Canada)

by Danielle Metcalfe-Chenail

This book tells the story of Laurentian Air Services and its subsidiaries, Air Schefferville, Delay River Outfitters and more.

Drawing on interviews with Laurentian’s owners, pilots and ground crew, Danielle Metcalfe-Chenail explores this innovative company’s colorful 60-year history from its founding in Ottawa in 1936 with Waco biplanes through the 1990s when it operated twin-engine turboprops. This book is filled with lively flying anecdotes from the cockpits of world-famous bushplanes, including the de Havilland Beaver and Otter, the Douglas DC-3 and the Grumman Goose. From daring rescues and close calls, to the filming of Hollywood’s Captains of the Clouds, Laurentian’s pilots did it all.

Get your copy for only $20 (plus $20 shipping within Canada; we recommend buying multiple copies of Danielle's books at no extra cost for combined shipping, which would make the parcel shipping rate more worthwhile).

by Danielle Metcalfe-Chenail

Polar Winds uses the stories of pilots and others to explore the greater history of air travel in the North, from the Klondike Gold Rush through to the end of the twentieth century. It encompasses everything from exploration flights to the North Pole in airships to passenger travel in jet liners; flying school buses for residential schools to indigenous pilots performing mercy flights; and from the harrowing crashes to the routine supply runs that make up daily life in the North. Above all, it is a unique history told through the experiences of northerners on the ground and in the sky.

Get your copy for only $20 (plus $6 shipping within Canada).

by Danielle Metcalfe-Chenail

Come along on an aviation journey with Alis! This spunky female guide will take you through an ABC of planes featuring gorgeous cut-paper art.

An A to Z of planes past and present, this book has stunning cut-paper art and a cute-as-a-button guide named Alis. Named for Dr. Alis Kennedy, likely one of the first Indigenous women to obtain a commercial pilot licence in Canada, Alis will take you on an aviation tour from the Avro Arrow to the Zeppelin and everything in between.

Meticulously researched and uniquely crafted, this is a one-of-a-kind book that will delight aviation fans big and little

Get your copy for only $20 (plus $6 shipping within Canada).

When I saw Elevate Aviation's announcement of its 2023 dates and locations for its annual tour promoting aviation to young people in Canada, it reminded me that the problem I have been researching for work - shortages in the aviation industry - is nowhere near solved yet. The aviation industry, in Canada and around the world, needs more people to become pilots, mechanics, and air traffic controllers, just to name a few categories that are experiencing significant shortages. The shortages across the industry will only get worse with time as more people retire and airlines expand their routes and fleets.

In summer 2022, Boeing published its latest Pilots and Technicians Outlook forecast: over the next 20 years, global aviation will need 602,000 additional pilots and 610,000 additional maintenance technicians. This is an increase over CAE's 2020 prediction that 260,000 new pilots will be needed globally (and 27,000 just in Canada alone) by 2030. Since the need for personnel is so great, there is a strong imperative to tap into groups of people who are under-represented in the aviation field and encourage more to not just consider - but actually pursue - a career in aviation. Pre-pandemic, in Canada, only 7% of pilots are women and only 3% are Indigenous. In the United States, only 3.4% of pilots are Black.

I wish to use this short note to encourage our readers to introduce the youth in your life (whether pre-teens, teenagers, or university/college age) to the world of aviation and the plethora of career opportunities. There are so many ways to introduce people to the excitement and romance of flight - whether through historical or modern-day examples. Take your sons, daughters, and grand-children to an aviation museum or an air show; take the time to view an aviation-themed movie together; or give the gift of an aviation history book or a beautiful aviation themed painting or print. Not only will you be making life-long memories of the time you spent together, but you may also be opening the door to an amazing aviation career your children or grandchildren may have never considered before, and you may be helping address the national aviation personnel shortage Canada is facing over the next couple of decades.

ANSWER 2: “Early in November, the Australian and New Zealand delegations arrived. If Riverdale and King expected their presence to make things easier, they were rapidly disillusioned. Within a few days, the representatives from the antipodes began complaining about receiving second-class treatment and being forced to wait in anterooms until the British and Canadians were ready to receive them. What’s more, they were now nursing serious reservations about the whole plan. For one thing, Canada wanted payment in a form that could be readily converted into U.S. dollars; Australian and New Zealander currency reserves were strictly limited. The Australians and New Zealanders declared that their participation in the plan depended upon three conditions: first, that Britain underwrite their monthly payments to Canada; second, that the contribution of aircrew candidates be recalculated on the basis of populations – in other words, 57 percent from Canada, 35 percent from Australia, and 8 percent from New Zealand; third, that Australia be allowed to train most of its aircrew recruits at home. The Australians and New Zealanders seemed to be in no mood for protracted negotiations on these points; they threatened to head home by the next available ship if their proposals were rejected."

Source:

Wings for Victory,

pg. 42 (Dunmore)

ANSWER 3: “In August 405 Squadron in 8 Group began its conversion to Lancaster 1s and IIIs, and Canadians in Bomber Command could take pride in the delivery of the first of what ultimately became 430 Canadian-built Lancaster Xs produced for the war effort. The aircraft, coded KB 700 but soon to become known by its nickname, The Ruhr Express, was flown to Britain in a well-organized public relations effort by Squadron Leader Reginal Lane, DSO, DFC. Both Lane and The Ruhr Express had many exciting wartime experiences still in store for them, but the aircraft, ceremonially presented to 405 Squadron at Gransden Lodge in October, was far from being combat ready. In fact, only thirteen more of the variant were completed before year’s end, and on average they required around 1000 man-hours of modifications to bring them up to operational standards once they arrived in England. This was because modifications developed in the United Kingdom could not be incorporated quickly into the production line at Victory Aircraft in Downsview, and changes in Canadian specifications played a delaying role as well. Thus, when The Ruhr Express bombed Berlin as part of 405 Squadron on 27/28 November 1943 on its first operational sortie, no other Lancaster Xs were used operationally until 419 Squadron became the first unit to convert to the type in March/April 1944.”

Source:

No Prouder Place,

pg. 264 (Bashow)