Aviation Memorabilia Newsletter

 Central Airways & the Wong Brothers continued

In NetLetter #1453, the topic of my article was the Wong Brothers and the Central Airways Flying School with insights from subscriber Roger Slauenwhite.

After we published the original story, Roger submitted some additional material from a Toronto Daily Star article from March 12, 1958 with the heading:

Central Airways, Toronto, Is Biggest Producer of Civilian Pilots.

The Wong Brothers, Bob (left) and Tom, operators of the Central Airways Flying School, have been turning out more civilian pilots than any other flying school in Canada for years. More than 100 pilots are now flying for TCA.

Editors' Note: Text is quoted from the 1958 article.

Cessna 140 'Poppazulu'  - Memories -1963

By Roger Slauenwhite

At Central Airways we operated 3 Cessna 140's. My old log book tells me "I have flown 'FPZ' 74 times on flight instruction and charter miles with nary a scratch" is probably correct.

On one occasion we received a charter request to Sudbury, Ontario from a lady customer. The lady who showed up was a 'Nun' and was wearing a full ankle length religious gown and ready to go.

Bob Wong gave me the charter, and told me to use one of our Cessna 140's that I had just completed fueling. A Cessna 140 is a tail dragger, and when parked on the ramp the floor slopes a bit to the rear, making entry and exit for a passenger somewhat difficult.

There was no problem flying the 140 to Sudbury; the problem was getting the passenger in and out of the aircraft without her losing her finesse and composure. Her beautiful smile was always permanent; a lovely lady.

For her, this exercise could be defined as one of life's embarrassing moments. The trip was a success and uneventful except for loading and unloading —for me it was a pleasure. I was hoping at some future date my passenger might take flying lessons, but that did not happen. As the saying goes "you win some and you lose some".

Pictured from left to right are: Ellen Burke, Frauke Voss and Lily Greig who passed the qualifying tests and became pilots.