The NetLetter
For Air Canada Retirees
(Part of the ACFamily Network)
November 4th, 2014 - Issue 1310
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First Issue published in October 1995!
(over 5,400 subscribers)
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NetLetter Past Issues
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Donation Information
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Send cheques payable to "ACFamily Network" to:
ACFamily Network
#800 - 15355 24th Ave, Suite 523
Surrey, BC V4A 2H9
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Sponsors
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Welcome to the NetLetter!
We welcome you to allow the NetLetter to be your platform, and opportunity, to relive your history while working for either TCA, AC, CPAir, CAIL, PWA, AirBC, Wardair, etal and share your experiences with us! 
Terry Baker and the NetLetter Team
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| Upcoming events - Compiled by Terry Baker |
C&SS - YUL Computer & System Services
Meet 1st Thursday of every month (including the summer) for lunch. All Pionairs are welcome to attend.
Casa Greque,
3855-A blvd. St. Jean D.D.O.
Time: 12 Noon
Contact: Monica or Bob Belding to reserve a place.
Tele: (514) 626-6709
Email: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
YUL Purchasing & Stores Retirees
First Tuesday of each month from 13:00 to 15:00 at 12 Bar/Grill, 625 32nd Ave, Lachine. For more information contact:
Frank Pedder (514) 634-5545 Email
This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
IFS Retiree Association
Come and join them the first Tuesday of each month to renew line friendships. We talk about old times, the good times; we chat and chat about our cherished flight experiences and we reminisce about the many friends we met that made our flying fun and memorable. So do come; we all want to see you!
Where: Brasserie La Résidence, 4705 Blvd St. Jean Pierrefonds
Time: 11:30
Contact: Anne Marie Maidich
mail: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
RACE (Retired AC Engineering) Lunch
First Thursday of the month, 12 noon, at La Porte Grecque, Boul des Sources North. Open to anyone interested. Note that this is a BYOB restaurant. Table d'hôte is $8.95.
For more information contact: Dick Hovey (514) 457-6028 Email: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
Former members of C.A.I.L. (YUL)
Meet the second Tuesday of every month (except July & August), 12 noon, for lunch at the; Casa Greque, 3855-A blvd. St. Jean D.D.O. All Pionairs are welcome to attend. For more information contact: Mae Wilson (514) 747-1767 Email: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
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 Star Alliance sees huge uptake of self-serve kiosks at new Heathrow terminal,
A large majority of passengers at the new London Heathrow Terminal 2 are already using the self-service kiosks to print boarding passes and baggage tags.
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| Air Canada News |
 All (retirees) stopped getting the " Daily" by email when Air Canada did the ACAeronet changeover in June/July. We, at the NetLetter, contacted HR and this is the response - We do apologize for the inconvenience. Air Canada updated the new ACAeronet portal which most likely affected your ability to receive emails from the Daily. Before, we could walk a retiree or employee through the process set their email to receive updates from the Daily however; that option is not available anymore and we are not advised yet as to how to perform that operation again. We would need to wait for an update on how to set your email to receive updates from the Daily. In the meantime, the Daily, and "Horizons", prior to the August issue, is still available online on the ACAeronet portal. In case that you have issues accessing the ACAeronet portal, you may contact Helpdesk at 1-866-274-5444. We at the NetLetter were advised that Horizons are now posted for July, Sep and Oct. If you look at last year, it was a joint issue for JULY/AUG and is the same this year. From the numbering system, July is 1042, Sept 1043 and Oct 1044. |
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| Reader Submitted Photos - Compiled by Terry Baker |
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 Reader Submitted Photos - The photos and information below have been submitted to us by our faithful readers.
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 Bill Norberg has sent us three pictures of Lockheed Lodestar CF-TCU. One is of the aircraft in front of the old Dorval Terminal and the other two were taken after it crash landed in St, Vital near Winnipeg due to a double engine feathering failure. The Captain on that flight was Art Anders. He was also the Captain of the Royal Flight in Oct. 1964 when we flew the Queen from Ottawa to London. We used that flight to introduce our new Air Canada livery as we were just on the verge of changing our name from Trans-Canada Air Lines to Air Canada. That flight arrived within seconds of the planned ETA.
Regards Bill Norberg
(CF-TCU was a model 18-08A fin #43 and was repaired. After completing 16,525 flying hours for TCA, it was sold to Pacific Petroleum Co on September 16th 1949 - eds)
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| TCA/Air Canada People Gallery - Compiled by Terry Baker |
 Below we have musings from the "Between Ourselves" and "Horizons" magazine, Air Canada publications from years gone by, as well as various in-house publications. The NetLetter has been fortunate enough to have our readers donate vintage Trans-Canada Air Lines and Air Canada publications from as far back as 1941 to share with you. These have been scanned and are being prepared for presenting in a special area of the ACFamily Network for archival and genealogy research.
1958 - Dec 16th - Antigua added to the system.
1959 - May 1st - Vienna, Austria service between Montreal and Vienna.
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 William (Bill) Norberg - July 18th, 1914 - October 8, 2014
John Rodger has sent us this photo. Sadly John advised us that Bill Norberg had passed away on October 8th, 2014 at Markdall, Ontario.
The photo was taken during the 40th anniversary with TCA/AC. From the right we have Jack McDougall, Bill Norberg and J.T.Bone together with their wives.
We, at the NetLetter, asked John for a location and date, here is his response - I would think the photo was taken in Montreal. From other photos in Jack's collection they usually held them at the Sheraton Hotel down town YUL. I have a Horizons 1976 from Jack's collection where he is celebrating his 35th Aniv. That makes the photo of them sometime in 1981 at that time Jack was VP Maintenance then Jan 83 he became VP Engineering & Maintenance. Jack retired Jan 1985. I checked the master data base and Bill retired May 1st 1983. The dates that I figured out looks like they both were hired in YWG in 1941. In Jack's collection he was hired in YWG Nov 7th 1941.
John.
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Issue dated - November 1950
Some items gleaned from the "Between Ourselves" magazines.
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 Ever since pictures of TCA's mobile power plant test stand were released and began appearing in the media, readers were trying to come up with a name for the unit.
Out at Dorval maintenance base where it was in use, it was officially known as "Oscar II". Imaginative editors named it "swoose", "Plar" and "pluck". "Swoose" was the name for a bird half swan and half goose, and the creation appears to be half car and half truck hence the two names "Plar" and "Pluck".
It was chained down as an engine to run full tilt to make sure it is in perfect condition before installing into a TCA aircraft. "Oscar II" was the younger brother to the "Oscar I" a discarded Lancaster airframe, with clipped wings, used as a test stand for TCA's Merlin power plant run-ups. "Oscar II"'s main advantage over its predecessor is its mobility.
(Anyone have a story about this unit? - eds)
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Issue dated - May 1979
Some items gleaned from the "Horizons" magazines.
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On April 30th, the company made an order for 6 long range Lockheed L1011-500 aircraft. Up until this date, this was the largest dollar investment - 300 million - the first part of a 3.5 billion order.
 The second annual meeting of the Pionairs took place in Miami during May 1979. A new slate of officers were elected for the Association.
They are pictured from the left: Dave Baxter, secretary; John McFarland, treasurer; Joe Latimer, president; Frank Millman, first vice president; and Murray Law, second vice president.
Outgoing executives, responsible for getting the Pionairs off the ground were Martin Betts, president; Bill Spratt, first vice president; Denny Brendon, second vice president; Scott Bradell, treasurer and Dave Clark, secretary. District Directors were named: Phil Willis - YYJ; ? Hooper, YYC; Beth Furguson, YWG; Nancy Walchuk, Toronto; Ken Taman, YOW; Evelyn Desjardins, Montreal; Bill Holmes, YHZ; Clint Morgan, TPA; Dick Bradbur, London, Eng.
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| Alan's Space - by Alan Rust |
 A Remembrance Day Video with exclusive war footage from WWI, WWII, and Afghanistan used for ceremonies and high school assemblies during Veterans Week in Canada, 2010. A tribute to all Canadian soldiers. Also for the 65th Anniversary of VE Day.
Features actual film footage and photos from Vimy Ridge, Passchendaele, Dieppe, Ortona, Normandy, Arnhem, Holton, Holland, Belgium, Netherlands, Korea and Afghanistan.
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| REMEMBRANCE DAY VIDEO 2014 - Exclusive WW2 Footage in HD |
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Canadi>n/CP Air/PWA, Wardair, etc. People & Events
- Compiled by Terry Baker
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 News and articles from days gone by gleaned from various publications from C.A.I.L. and its "ancestry" of contributing airlines. Betty Draper has sent some information regarding this subject from the Leader-Post dated January 10th., 1944. We have edited the article - The Regina board of trade have supported the application by Canadian Pacific Airlines to have its service extended from North Battleford and Vermilion Alta to Edmonton which had been turned down by the board of transportation. In supporting the application, the Regina board of trade was of the opinion that even though T.C.A. runs from Winnipeg to Edmonton via Regina. Lethbridge and Calgary, the proposed C.P.A. extension does not duplicate T.C.A. and is considered a local service. |
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Issue dated - May 1989
Items from the "Info Canadi>n" magazine -
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 It was not often that a base was turned over to a Canadi>n partner, but such an event took place in Cranbrook. Stuart Lang, president and CEO of Crestbrook Forest Industries, described as a good friend and favorite passenger of the Cranbrook staff, arranged for a reception and dinner to honor Canadian employees who have worked in Cranbrook in the 20 years and one day that the airline served the community.
In the photo are, from left are:(back) Bruce Mailer, Calgary; Wendy Rankin, Cranbrook; Rick Ragon, Smithers; Peter Petruic, Calgary; Kym Camarta, Regina; Bill Sims, Vancouver; Dan Spragins, Vancouver; Jim Dobel, Cranbrook; Pat Desa, Cranbrook; (front) Rusty Schmidt, Vancouver; Rene Lussier, Kelowna; Linda Plested, Calgary; Ian Martin, Vancouver and Mary Martln, Vancouver.
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 Presentation Plus, was a two day program facilitated by flight attendants who have volunteered to lead and to help flight attendants sharpen their skills. Participating in the first Presentation Plus class in Vancouver were from left, Pauline Bottrill, Suzanne Brickell, Elizabeth Angst, flight attendants, Renzo Pederzani, passenger service director, and Huguette Helou, flight attendant.
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Issue dated - April 1987
Items from the "FLASH INFO" magazine -
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New signage was erected on April 26th for the new corporate image "Canadi>n Airlines International" at airports and offices in the system.
The new in-flight magazine titles "Canadi>n" debuted May 1st replacing the publications "Empress" and "Skyword". A Time Air Dash-8 was the first commuter aircraft with the new livery which departed April 28th. Calm Air and Norcanair planned for at least one aircraft painted in the new livery by July 1st. New timetables in the new corporate image were issued during the last week of April.
Issue dated May 7th 1987 -
May 2nd saw the Brazil inaugural flight CP 476 fin 912 "Empress of Lisbon" from Toronto to Rio and then Sao Paulo. Command of the flight was shared by Captains Bob Weatherly, Al Clark, Ron Watson and Second Officer Bob Anderson. A specially minted commemorative coin was presented to each passenger in the First and Royal Canadian Business Class both north and southbound.
(Does any reader have one of these coins they can scan for us to share? - eds)
Extra issue dated April 1987 -
Canadian Airlines International and Air Canada announced a joint venture to integrate the reservations systems of both companies.
Pegasus and Reservec formed a single reservations company effective July 1st.
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| Reader's Feedback - Compiled by Terry Baker |
Every week we ask our readers for their stories or feedback on what they have read here in previous issues. Below is the feedback we have received recently.
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 Ken Pickford picked up this error in NetLetter nr 1308 - Re the item on the 1977 Vancouver-Seattle flight commemorating the 40th anniversary of TCA's first flight, the year on the photo of the L10A Electra should read 1937, not 1939. Regards, Ken (We have this corrected photo - eds).
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The continuation of the "Miracle at Deer Lake" story sent in by
Mayday pilot: I'm calling Mayday, I repeat, does anybody hear me?
FSS: Mayday, this Deer Lake radio can you say again your position? Where are you?
Mayday: I don't know. I'm just outside Corner Brook -that's all I know. I don't know how to fly it, I got it up, and I don't know what to bloody well do.
FSS: Mayday, this Deer Lake radio. Are you in cloud or are you below cloud? Over.
Mayday: Can you tell what to do with this radio? She's coming in too loud. I repeat, tell me what to do with the radio, she's coming in too loud. Can anyone help me? This is a Mayday I repeat this is a Mayday. I can't get the bloody thing down. I'm going to crash it. Listen, I don't know a lot of things like you, but it's all I can do to keep this bloody wheel forward, takes all my strength to keep her forward.
(They continue to discuss how to reduce speed and work the flaps and trim. A transport Canada airport firefighter has arrived and has been arranging to get pilot into the FSS office to talk directly to Mayday. FSS meanwhile alerts the air traffic control center at Gander).
FSS: Mayday, Deer Lake. Try to keep the aircraft over the lake and we
will try and get somebody to help you bring it down. Over.
Mayday: Have you people got me in sight now?
Pilot: Yea, you are directly over the Deer Lake airport there now. Stay over the lake, which is straight ahead of you. The big lake.
Mayday: Well, you know, I don't know too much about those planes with those gauges flopping all the time. Do you think I should try to land it?
Pilot: You're going to have to land, and I'll tell you what to do. You
shouldn't have too much problem. How much flying have you done?
Mayday: (Laughs) None whatsoever...(unintelligible).
Pilot: Anybody aboard with you?
Mayday: No. thank God. One stupid fool aboard this thing is enough
(There is more discussion on how to land the plane. Mayday is still
having trouble keeping the Cessna 185 from climbing. He doesn't know how to adjust the trim. The Pilot has Mayday experimenting with the trim wheel).
Pilot: Keep your airspeed on 80 or 85. Don't let it go under 80 miles
an hour.
Mayday: Yea. I'm getting the hang of this now. Yea, that's what that
wheel was for. I found out.
Pilot: I've got a call out to get a helicopter out to keep an eye on
you in case you have trouble in landing as well as the boats. How are you making out me son?
Mayday: (Exhilarated) Got her made sir. I wish I had a shotgun. Shoot
the birds that I've seen. I'm soaking wet too. I fell overboard trying to
get into this bloody thing.
Pilot: Don't worry about that too much now.
Mayday: It's okay for you to say that. You're on the ground.
(The conclusion will be in NetLetter nr 1311 - eds)
Alan Evans in South Africa sends this information -
This is a great the clip on the PBY. Believe it or not I was the last pilot to fly her here in South Africa way back in 1976. She then lay almost abandoned at the Rand airport. Her sister ship crashed being ferried from Australia. The registration on this ship was CF MIR and belonged to Geoterics. I had left SAAirways and was in-between jobs,when Geotrics found out I was here in SA with a Canadian license and with some years on survey both here and Canada on photo and geo, they hired me to continue with the flying contract they had out here.
I would like to contact the present owner as for someone who actually flew her back then, it is bit nostalgic... Cheers Alan This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
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| Consolidated PBY |
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Odds and Ends.
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 Sometimes we receive articles and information that just doesn't fit in our other areas. This is where it goes!
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 1949 Fire at Vancouver Airport.
The original airport administration building and control tower were destroyed by fire in February 1949. A temporary control tower was erected on a nearby rooftop. Construction of a new terminal building began immediately with the official opening of the terminal building in 1960.
Norman Hogwood, in New Zealand, sends us this memory of a trip in 1978 while working for Air New Zealand - "In 1978 an aviation safety organization, of which I was a member, announced that it was holding a seminar in Barbados in June. The timing couldn't have been worse for me because the NZ Government had already announced that NAC and Air NZ was to merge on 1 April. Therefore, trying to attract anyone's attention about my possible attendance at the event was hopeless.
Anyway, I thought why should my wife and I miss the opportunity to visit the Caribbean area again, although I have to say that our first visit, which was to a seminar in Curacao, was a bit of a disaster as the island ran out of water with the desalination plant having broken down. The seminar was hastily moved to the nearby island of Aruba which we didn't enjoy at all, but that's another story.
If the company wasn't going to support my attendance I would take leave and take my wife with me. At the time I had a very good friend living in New York and working for Pan Am who operated into Auckland from Los Angeles. He provided us with passes to get us to the States and also arranged tickets to get us from New York to Barbados.
But when we arrived there we found out that the original means of getting to Barbados had struck a snag. American Airlines, on whom our friend had arranged tickets for him and his wife and ourselves, had nastily gone on strike. But, of course, he had Plan B worked out. We would all go to Toronto on Air Canada from where we would continue with that carrier to Barbados.
The necessity to go to Toronto gave us a wonderful opportunity to pay a very surprise visit to her parents who lived in Holland because they were staying with my wife's aunt and her family who lived in Midland, Ontario, about 100 miles north of Toronto. In order to keep our visit a surprise, my wife phoned her aunt and she arranged for one of her sons to drive down to Toronto to pick us up. The look on the faces of my wife's mother and father when we arrived just had to be seen to be believed! Although we could only spend the weekend with them it was well worth the diversion.
With regard to the flight to Barbados, we subsequently discovered that our DC-8 took off immediately in front of the AC DC-9 CF-TLV fin 721 c/n 47197 that crashed on take-off. - Norm Hogwood (ex TCA LHR)
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Terry's Trivia and Travel Tips - by Terry Baker
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 It might seem after more than 100 years, we've figured out the best ways to fly, but creative folks insist on continuing to try new technologies. One young inventor, Aaron Wypyszynski, of Meridianville, Alabama, is working on a "wingboard" that enthusiasts could ride, like a kind of water ski, in the wake of an airplane. And Festo, a German technology company, has designed a set of drones it calls "eMotion Spheres," which are capable of flying without collision even in a confined space.
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| Smileys - Compiled by Terry Baker |
As we surf the internet and back issues of airline magazines we regularly find airline related jokes and cartoons. Below is our latest discovery.
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 Another Dave Mathias cartoon from "Between Ourselves" issued May 1950.
with the caption "...and now for some four-stripe dramatics on how much ice he picked up."
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The NetLetter is an email newsletter published (usually) every two weeks. It contains a mixture of nostalgia, current news and travel tips.
We encourage our readers to submit their stories, photos and/or comments from either days gone by or from present day experiences and trips. If we think that the rest of our readers will enjoy it, we will publish it here.
We also welcome your feedback in regard to anything we post here. Many readers have commented with additional information, names and personal memories from the photos and articles presented here.
The NetLetter, which is free, is open to anyone that wishes to subscribe but is targeted to retired employees from Air Canada, Canadian Airlines and all the other companies that were part of what Air Canada is today. Thanks for joining us!
We hope you have enjoyed this issue of the NetLetter, see you next week!
Sincerely,
Your NetLetter Team
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Disclaimer: Please note, that neither the NetLetter or the ACFamily Network necessarily endorse any of the airline related or other "deals" that we provide for our readers. We would be interested in any feedback (good or bad) when using these companies though and will report the results here. We do not (normally) receive any compensation from any companies that we post in our newsletters. If we do receive a donation or other compensation, it will be indicated as a sponsored article or link.
E&OE - (errors and omissions excepted) - The historical information as well as any other information provided here is subject to correction and may have changed over time. We do publish corrections when they are brought to our attention.
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First published in October, 1995
- Chief Pilot - Terry Baker, Nanaimo, B.C.
- Co-pilot - Alan Rust, Surrey, B.C.
- Flight Engineer - Bill Rowsell, Londesboro, Ontario
To contact us, send an email to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
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