Aviation Memorabilia Newsletter

During the Pionairs AGM held recently in Vancouver, Leslie-Anne Vezina, Manager of Travel and Recognition announced that active AC employees have a flight load APP for their smart phones/tablets that provides flight load information with high accuracy up to 2 hours to flight time.

Leslie-Anne advised that Pionairs and retirees can expect this APP by later this month.

Memories by Lois North which were passed along, verbally, during the Pionairs AGM, April 30th, 2017 - Vancouver to Terry Baker of the NetLetter.

One of the joys of flying in the Maritimes - (this was back in 1958). I was the only Stewardess on the North Star from Sydney to Montreal and a man got on in Halifax, an elderly man, he was probably younger than I am now but he got off, and when he got back on again, (this is before we had gates) he handed me a dollar bill and said "I want to tip you". I said "that's very kind of you but we are not permitted to take tips" and he seemed a bit crestfallen. Anyway, we went to St. John's and he got off again and when he got back on he had his hand behind his back as I greeted him and he said "If you can't take money, can you take these?" and he handed me a bouquet of wild flowers that he had picked along the way back to the aircraft. I thought it was a very insignificant thing but it stayed with me for years.

There were other times all fun.

I remember we were taking an airplane from Halifax to St. John's and we had come in on a regular flight. There were just two guys and myself. Just before we left the airport, crew scheduling called and told us they needed the aircraft. Whether they had a cancellation or what we didn't know, anyway, we just wheeled around back to the airplane again and I ended up sitting up front with the flight crew, sitting in the jump seat. There was nobody in the back. We were over Cape Breton and all of a sudden the old North Star gave a real good “whoomp” and we lost an engine. I kind of looked up and I can't remember who the pilots were now, but the F.O. looked over and said "Oh it's Ok, we just lost one, but we have three others out of the four”.

Later I told one of my grandchildren and they said "Was there any problem when it fell on the ground?" I said "No it just means an engine did not work, it did not fall off". (see Engline Failure in "Smileys" below)

Here's another memory... My husband (he was a Captain) used to fly the lobster run between Stephenville and Boston and if they had extra lobsters in Stephenville, he would buy them, maybe 20 or 30 pounds and he did this all one summer. Many times he would come home with lots of lobsters so we bought a special garbage can to use just for cooking lobsters, but it took awhile to get the water boiling. It was common practice on his way back to Montreal he would call crew scheduling to say he was in-bound and ask them if they would they please call Lois and tell her to put the garbage can on, " I'll be home for supper".

Now how many (that was in 1953) years later - well maybe 40 years later - we were at the TCA alumni at the initial opening and we had been to the Pionairs original meeting. We stayed on for the TCA one and I am sitting in the bar and there is a crew scheduler who I used to know in Montreal who logged most of the flights out for us and he said "You know Lois, I always liked your husband
Captain North very much, but there was one thing that really bothered me, he would say "Would you call Lois and tell her I will be home for supper and put the garbage can on".

The crew scheduler said "I considered that most disrespectful". Of course that was also the "code" for me (Lois) to get on the phone and call up our neighbours, who were also Air Canada people, to come over for lobsters - we had lots of fun.