Aviation Memorabilia Newsletter

Terry Baker, co-founder of the NetLetter scours the internet for aviation related Trivia and Travel Tips for you, our readers, to peruse.

"When once you have tasted flight, you will forever walk the earth with your eyes turned skyward, for there you have been, and there you will always long to return."

Leonardo da Vinci

A good website to use when you are planning a trip is www.Rome2rio.com.

This website is full of great information on how to get anywhere using any mode of travel. It is useful for discovering what airlines travel to destinations that AC does not and when you need to use ZED fares.

(Source: Vancouver Island Pionairs Winter 2017 Newsletter)

Here are some more web sites to help you on your way!

www.webflyer.com - Mileage calculator for determining zones for ZED travel.
www.amadeus.net - Flights, hotels and load information guide.
www.skyscanner.ca - Routing information guide.
www.PassRider.com - Online non-reving community.
www.flyzed.info - Airline specific ZED travel tips.
www.theairDB.com - Routing information

Teenager Robert Shun Wong built a full scale, single seat Pietenpol air plane in the family apartment in Vancouver China Town.

He assembled the aircraft with his brother, at the Boeing plant on West Georgia Street, when an officer was so impressed he gave the registration of CF-BAA. By August of 1936, CF-BAA registered to R. S. Wong of Vancouver took off into a clear blue sky. Robert was 17 and solo in his own single-seat, single-wing aircraft.

After WWII, they bought a used aircraft and formed Central Airways a flying school on Toronto Island where some of the TCA pilots were former students. We have this photo of Tommy Wong and his aircraft.

(Source: Vancouver Sun archives).

Click Here for more information.

We will run some articles on the flying clubs in Canada in existence in 1931.

Aero Club of B.C.

Started in 1915, operates at Pitt Meadows, British Columbia. CYPK. (from article in Vancouver Sun July 18, 1981).

“MacLaren and the Aero Club of BC spearheaded the psychological assault on city council.” to get an airport for Vancouver. Finally the city council decided to spend $300,000 to construct an airport at Sea Island.

This was in 1929; MacLaren and club members got farmers to agree to sell their land for $150 per acre and conducted such an excellent publicity campaign that the airport bylaw passed with a large majority.

"If you build a mile of road you have a mile of road; if you build a mile of runway you have a gateway to the world."

(Source: aeroclubofbc.ca)