Boeing 727 - Air Canada Fleet
I have been attempting to track down the current whereabouts of the Boeing 727 fleet that flew in Air Canada livery. I can account for a total of thirty-nine aircraft deployed in passenger service but I am omitting three aircraft that flew on short term leases for cargo service in the late seventies.
Air Canada took delivery of Fin 401 on September 25, 1974 and deliveries continued in sequence until June 17, 1982 with the arrival of Fin 439. Originally utilized on Rapidair service, the aircraft was also a good fit for Trans border routes from eastern Canada to Florida and Caribbean destinations.
Replaced by the Airbus A320 beginning in 1990, the majority of the aircraft were transferred to FedEx where they became cargo work horses for many more years. Today most of them are stored at Victorville, California with others stored at various airports, most in the United States but one shows in Tianjin China (Fin # 414), where they are used for training purposes. Fin 401 seems to be serving this function in Dayton, Ohio.
Remarkably, I actually found two aircraft that may still be in service with Amerijet International of Miami, Florida. I sent an e-mail to their Customer Service requesting confirmation but have not received a reply. These aircraft were not sold to FedEx but were leased to Air Transat between 1991 and 1994 before being aquired by Amerijet.
Fin 406 original registration C-GAAF is now registered as N495AJ (pictured) has now been in service for 41 years. View at FlightRadar24. 
Fin 412 (pictured in header) original registration C-GAAL is now registered as N395AJ ; I cannot confirm that it is still in service.
Sources: planespotters.net , rzjets.net
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Ken Starnes has sent us a group of photos of the Aircraft Maintenance Retirement Party held at the Royal St. Lawrence Yacht Club in Dorval in 1983 which appeared in NetLetter nr 1338, here are some more – |
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 John Doljar , Mrs. VanStokkom , Mrs. Doljar , Tommy VanStokkom Foreman Aircraft Maintenance . (Retiree) |
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 Sam Gatelaro , Phil Whittingstall , Mrs. Marleau , Mrs. Whittingstall , Dave Marleau General Foreman Finishing Shop ( Retiree ) |
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 Sam Gatelaro, Mrs B. Sim, Bill Sim Finishing Foreman, Merle Wolfe Secretary |
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Ian and Agnes Jackson has sent us this photo - On the left, John Bradshaw, Toronto Supervisor; Jim Pintas; Don McKay, AC DC 8 engineer; Gerry Spraklin, Ian Jackson, and (an unknown) AC Maintenance Representative, Tulsa. |
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Jack Stephens has sent us this e-mail he received from Don Heron regarding Don's father George Heron and he also forwarded us some photos which Don had provided.. George K Heron was born in Toronto in 1910 and became very proficient in ham radio as a hobby. He hired on with Trans Canada Air Lines in Toronto in 1938 and was immediately assigned to early familiarization flights to ensure the radios worked as intended and to improve the radio systems. George was then transferred to the TCA maintenance base in Winnipeg. After WW 2 broke out, he was transferred with his new wife, Margaret, to Montreal to support radio maintenance for TCA’s role in the Return Ferry Service. After the war, George and his family was transferred back to Winnipeg where he spent the balance of his career headquartered at the TCA maintenance base in the field of radio and electronics. Here is a series of scans and a word document with captions of photos in one George’s photo albums from the era. Don Heron, Calgary. |
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 A photo of CF-TCE with Don's grandfather Orlando Heron and the hired person who helped Orlando's wife. |
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 One photo has CF-TCE with George Heron, in white coveralls, who was the radio specialist on the tour. |
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 Some of the stops on the tour included North Bay, Ontario |
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 George Heron helping with refuelling at Armstrong, Ontario |
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(George Heron's next move was to Winnipeg, and we have some of his photos which will be in NetLetter nr 1340 – eds). |
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This cartoon by Don Rice was found in the "Canadi>n Contact" magazine issued August 1989.
Go to www.waca.org/links for a long list of contacts for your travel needs.
In NetLetter nr 1336, under this column, we had information regarding City Leisure and some of our readers had a problem with the url we supplied.
Here are new urls -
1. London - www.londonpass.com
2. Paris - www.parispass.com
3. Berlin - www.berlinpass.com
4. Dublin - www.dublinpass.com
5. Rome - www.romeandvaticanpass.com
6. Vienna - www.viennapass.com
7. Las Vegas - www.lasvegaspass.com
8. New Orleans - www.neworleanspass.com
Should your flight be delayed by more than 3 hours, or 4 hours for a long-haul flight, confirmed passengers may be eligible for a "welfare package" from your airline.
If your airline does not give you a "welfare package" you can claim back any meals, transport and hotel costs from the airline, just keep your receipts.
Certain restrictions apply, but if you are delayed, you can ask the airline. If your flight is cancelled or arrives more than 3 hours late, you may be able to claim compensation on top.
Click here to view & download Air Canada's policy on compensation.
On a bluff near St George, Utah, this concrete arrow remains from the Commerce Department’s Transcontinental Airway System, a chain of beacons built in 1923 to guide airmail pilots. Clouds and fog rendered them useless. One mail pilot was forced by bad weather to parachute out of two airplanes in two months in the fall of 1926 (after one jump in training and another as a test pilot). Undeterred by this, the pilot—a Minnesota politician’s kid named Charles Lindbergh—continued his flying career with some success.