Aviation Memorabilia Newsletter

For Air Canada Retirees
(Part of the ACFamily Network)

August 22, 2012 - Issue 1217

Extracted from the brochure "The British Invasion 1988 - 2005 - A Farewell to the BAe 146 aircraft" supplied by Robert Arnold 

Lori Furguson, Flight Attendant Halifax, made these comments: The in-flight group will never forget the excitement of welcoming the BAe 146 into the fleet. The smell of the new aircraft with its bright and clean materials, and the thrill of discovering each characteristic.
 

Coffee Makers - Flight attendants had to learn to use the coffee makers without spilling the brew over the floor and into the precious avionics bay. The winter months brought a new discovery - water left in the pipes would freeze overnight. After a couple of morning flights without coffee, the process of draining water from the pipes on the last flight of the day was swiftly added to the in-flight checklist. 

Ovens - It took some time to precisely coordinate the oven time and temperature, especially on very short-haul flights. There were occasional frozen or dried up meals served along the way, but eventually the appropriate settings resulted in a perfectly cooked meal. 

Slides - The BAe 146 was equipped with four evacuation slides. The distinctive characteristic of these slides was that each had to be manually armed and disarmed for every take off and landing. Needless to say, a few slides were unnecessarily deployed over the past 16 years. In fact, the last incident occurred as recently as January 2005 when deployment of the slide was inadvertently triggered. 

The BAe 146 aircraft played a significant role in the history of Jazz. The 'Queen of the Fleet' has bowed out of service to make room for a new era of regional Jets that will take us on our next journey. Goodbye trusted little Jet, you will be missed!      

Reader Submitted Photos -  The photos and information below have been submitted to us by our faithful readers.  

Robert Arnold shares some more information: I came across this unique item. I wonder if you or any of your readers remember this file folder used by TCA to help promote air cargo and rates as seen below.

The "Put Wings On Things" is on the front of the folder with the "AirCargo Answers" on the back. The "Speed Plus Service" is on the inside when folded as a file folder would be. It is dated October 1, 1948 in the blue Cargo Rates tag. It also appears to promote the North Star as a carrier of freight.  

Regards for now,
Robert


 

More information from Robert: The blueprint shows the new location of the word "Viscount" from the former dorsal fin location to its new place on the upper part of the fin and rudder above the TCA insignia. The blueprint  is titled "Installation-Vertical Stabilizer "Viscount" Marking" and is dated April 1, 1955.

If you read carefully, there is a lot of information on this drawing as to placement and style of the letters.
 

This photo is from the Martin Betts family:

Pionairs Board of Directors meeting January 1981
Front row left to right: A. Latimer, secretary; Frank Millman, 1st VP; Joe Lorimer, President; Mary Brown, 2nd VP; John MacFarland, treasurer;

Back row the District Directors left to right: Nancy Walchuck, Toronto; Jack Somerset, Vancouver; Beth Ferguson, Winnipeg; Evelyn Desjardins, Montreal; Martin Betts, past president; Paul Emerson, Halifax; Ken Taman, Ottawa.

Bernie McCormack has sent us this memory together with some background information on inaugural flights:  

For some time now you have carried inaugural flight articles from various sources and I will comment on them and then describe my own, unique I believe, inaugural. There is no great talent required to fly an inaugural. The pilots are not selected by management because of any special qualification as a rule. Blocks of flying are published month to month and in them a first flight to a new destination may be contained. Those blocks are bid on by the line pilots and awarded according to seniority.

The glamor flights are usually the ones that the newest aircraft fly and as a result they are taken by the most senior people in the airline. The preparation in my case was a look at the en-route, terminal area and approach charts and a good look at my national geographic maps of the route in case some one asked me a question that could be embarrassing if I "didn't have the faintest". Any unusual flight information would be sent out to the pilots well prior to the flight by our support staff and in fact the busiest people prior to one of these flights were the ground staff arranging transportation, hotel accommodation, customs and immigration protocol, describing local sensitivities and cautions, cash exchange and a host of other things so that everyone would be ready to greet us when we got there. 

I was employed by TCA when I was twenty and as a result, the last few years of my career saw me near the top of the seniority list. I flew the 747-400 on the inaugural flights westbound out of Delhi, Eastbound out of Seoul and Eastbound out of Osaka. The unique one for the reason I will tell you was out of Osaka Japan. Prior to the flight in September 1994, there were representatives of the Japanese government, the aviation authority, Air Canada management (Robert Milton) and myself assembled just outside of the terminal gate to the aircraft and held back by a thick pink (I think) ribbon. We each had a pair of beautiful scissors. Standing on my left was the former Japanese minister of defense. I can remember thinking don't fumble and drop those scissors or half of our passengers will book off the flight. When we were given the signal we each simultaneously cut the ribbon and proceeded to board.

The departure was routine and on time, we had no problems communicating because the airport and en-route controllers spoke very clear English and we were on our way. Very satisfying and exhilarating. We had been underway less than an hour when we got a call on the satcom radio. Toronto. They advised that with our minimal crew availability (pilot training on the '400 was still underway) and because of illness they had no captain to take the flight back to Osaka the day after our arrival at home in Vancouver. The same aircraft we were flying Eastbound continues to Toronto after our arrival in Vancouver, overnight and returns Westbound the next day. (In fact the same aircraft carried all of the existing flight schedule to and from Osaka). Would I consider flying the Westbound the day after our arrival? We are usually pretty beat up sleep wise when we get home and sleep is difficult to come by even in our own bed, but I considered the problem they and our company had and agreed to do it. As a result, to shorten the story, (too late), I flew the first Eastbound, the second Westbound, and the third Eastbound on that route. It was a wonderful adventure.

Bernie McCormack, retired 1995

Passenger agents at Toronto's Malton Airport in 1943:

Sitting left to right: Jean Watson, Jean Hynd, Joan Harlan and Pat Paterson. Standing left to right: William Tupling, Chuck Gibson, Ralph Hawley, Allan Lewis, Bruce Gibson, and Dave Clark.


 

Here we have a photo of the crew for the first CGTAS flight Montreal to Britain.

Left to right: Squadron Leader J.R. Gilmore, Navigator; Capt. Ron George, Pilot; Capt. Art Rankin, co-pilot; and G. Nettleton, Radio Operator.

Equipment was Avro Lancastrian CF-CMS.

Halifax staff in 1943 were seated left to right: Elsie Price, Alice Kelley, Al Brown, Marg Major, Stew Carter, Steve Sime, Don Westman, Wally Rowan, Helen Smyth, Peter Sowden, Mrs. Furguson, R.Furguson.

Standing left to right: Harry Schofield, B. McGarva, John McFarland, Walter Hines, Bill Waldie, Nick Kosowich. 

IT WAS A CLASSY OCCASION, black tie, rose in the lapel, the best of wines, all the fine touches that make a good thing better. And that's just what CP Air Vancouver sales reps and flight attendants were promoting - Empress Class, the upgraded economy service for regular economy fare passengers.

They arrived at travel agencies and commercial accounts in the B.C. lower mainland complete with information kits and baskets filled with examples of the superior in-flight amenities now offered as part of the up-graded service.

From left are Erin Tate, Deni-Lynn Thomas, a staffer at Agent West Magazine, Dave Detwiller, Linda Isman and Tom Buecking.
 

From the U.K. Pionairs monthly newsletter for August we have further Travellers' Tales from Jack & Aureen Morath: 

Aureen and I traveled to Gibraltar earlier this year for a weekend break, leaving Heathrow on the Saturday morning for a direct flight on British Airways taking two and a half hours. We flew in over the sea to land on the short runway which had the sea at each end of the runway. We booked our hotel through Expedia, speaking to somebody in India. I asked them for a hotel close to the airport and they gave me one quoting 4 miles away. I confirmed that was OK and double checked that it was only a short distance away from the airport.

On landing at the airport and getting a taxi, it transpired that the hotel was half an hour's drive away in Spain! Actually the hotel deal was excellent getting half- board at a four star hotel in its own large grounds. The hotel had been built in 1901 and was very picturesque.

Many VIP guests had stayed there including members of the Spanish Royal Family, Roosevelt and Churchill. German and Italian spies had also used it during the Second World War monitoring the shipping movements around Gibraltar which you could see across the water from the hotel. (Spain was neutral during the Second World War). The food was excellent and we had no complaints about the hotel, and was a bargain at the price we paid. We found out the local bus service to get to the frontier with Gibraltar and we used this each time we went into Gibraltar. Much more fun traveling with the locals! At the frontier we took the free shuttle bus into the city, and from there you could take one of four or five free buses to points around the island. The main road into the city crossed the runway of the airport, and each time a flight landed or took off, the main road was closed!

From one of the bus routes, we took a tourist mini-bus to the top of the main Rock of Gibraltar, and also visiting other points of interest. We saw the famous apes at the top of the rock, but were not allowed to feed them. We were also able to go into the tunnels which had been used since the l8th century to guard Gibraltar right up to the Second World War. Unfortunately the shops in the area were closed on Saturday afternoons and on Sundays. As it turned out, Monday was a bank holiday in Gibraltar, which was very unfortunate as Aureen loves looking around the various shops. Only the eating places and tourist offices were open. We were able to explore the whole of Gibraltar whilst we were there and the temperature was a pleasant mid-sixties in March. The time difference is one hour from the UK, and the nearest large town in Spain is Malaga about sixty miles along the coast.

By Ron Cook found in the "Between Ourselves" issued July 1943.