Aviation Memorabilia Newsletter

From the "InfoCanadi>n" magazine.

Issue dated July 1993

A310 conversion is Engineering's biggest project.

Bringing the idea of an executive A310 to life, Engineering devoted a full year on designing and now supervising the configuration of the Department of National Defense (DND) executive aircraft.

Engineering's design for the aircraft required over 4,000 work hours, says Systems and Interiors Engineering manager John Witt. "We've spent a full year on this project - it's Engineering's biggest job ever."

DND is introducing four A310's to its fleet and Canadi>n is preparing the aircraft for delivery and maintaining them at the DND base in Trenton.

Editor's Note by Ken Pickford: The Canadian Armed Forces took 5 of the 12 ex-Wardair A310's (all 5 still in service), inherited when Canadian acquired Wardair in 1989. The article mentions 4 but I see it's dated July 1993. The 5th arrived in August 1993.

Providing engineering support on the A310 project was, from left, Vic Riley, manager of Structures, Gerry Ruge, manager of Projects, and Ian Simpson, technician Aircraft Technical Projects.

Missing from picture was Ken Goosen, director of Central Engineering, who was involved in solving design and certification.

Systems and Interiors engineers included, from left, Ed Wagstaff, Russ Gibbon, Andy Burns, John Witt, and Dan Hink.

Bringing the engineers' concepts to life, producing blueprints for construction was the responsibility of, from left, Jim Swoboda, Julian Roy, Doug Keller, and Bryan Fiebelkorn.

The group put in exhaustive hours at the computer-aided design machine and on the drafting table.

Among the many Calgary employees who are helping to renovate the A310 is, from left, Dan Hook, Air Engineer II; Bill Findlay, Mechanic - Aircraft upholsterer; Audrey Cameron, Cleaner; and Ian MacKay, Foreman.

Much of the structural design for the executive aircraft is being handled at the DND hangar in Calgary. Involved in this design is, from left, structural engineers Scott Brooks and Rob Meath, Tim Cooper, Project Foreman in Calgary, Nick Besseling, Draftsperson and Chris Marshall, Systems and Interiors Technician. Missing from photo is Gunner Wohlfarth, Structures Engineer.

Handling the electrical engineering to meet the complex communications for the executive aircraft was Avionics.

From the left, Dennis Chan, Technician, Don Morrison, manager, Ardeshir Darabi (seated), Engineer and Technicians Rob Ransley and Joe Kam. 

Photo essay by Howard Leibman, Contact News.