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Dear Subscribers,
We wish to thank you for allowing us to share a bit of your time and we hope that everyone remains safe and healthy during this difficult time. The NetLetter Team |
There is nothing helpful that we can say concerning the COVID-19 virus but it is impossible not to acknowledge that it is affecting all of our lives.|
We invite you to visit our website at www.thenetletter.net/netletters to view our archives back to March 2015 when we began sending The NetLetter in the current format We hope to continue to restore issues previous to March 2015 in PDF format for future posting in the Archive Section. |
| 1987 - October 29 - Service between Vancouver and Bangkok, Thailand commenced. |
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Commercial Airways Limited of Edmonton was one of several pioneering operators to bring air mail delivery to remote areas in the Northwest Territories. On December 30, 1929, it delivered the first official air mail to reach Aklavik, Three aircraft were used in the project between Edmonton and Fort McMurray, and two, flown by W. R. “Wop” May and Glyn Roberts, completed the haul from McMurray to the various stopover points between McMurray and Aklavik, which consisted of thirteen altogether. For more info check the link below: A gallery of commemorative stamps below: |
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Issue dated June 1987. Three Beluga whales were shipped on a 3 1/2-hour B-737 combi charter flight August 1, 1987 from Churchill, Manitoba. to New York. They went to the U.S. National Aquarium in Baltimore, a distribution point for the whales, and they were accompanied by 12 handlers, vets, aquarium and a film crew. Five whales made a similar trip during 1985. |
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Our featured video comes from one of our favourite 'YouTubers', Alex Praglowski, who booked a trip on an Air Transat A310 before the fleet was retired in March. The aircraft that Alex flew on (C-GSAT) is pictured in the header for this issue. It also appears to have been the aircraft that was used on the last A310 flight from Porto, Portugal to Toronto on March 30, 2020. (Source: simpleflying.com) More info in Wayne's Wings below. |
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Clarence Ash sends us this statement from "Military Words of Wisdom"
"You know that your landing gear is up and locked when it takes full power to taxi to the terminal."
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Airbus A220-300 in Yellowknife for Cold Weather Trials. Canada has a long tradition in cold-weather aeronautical testing. As early as the winter of 1926-27 a Siskin fighter conducted a host of demanding trials from the RCAF station at High River, Alberta. Subsequently, the RCAF and National Research Council did much pioneering R&D re cold weather. The pace of all such science was spurred by the war. Postwar, the RCAF's famous Winter Experimental Establishment tested a long list of aircraft in severe weather from such bases as Namao (Edmonton), Fort St. John, Cold Lake and Churchill. See “Sixty Years: The RCAF and CF Air Command 1924-1984” for a good history of WEE Flight. See "Aviation in Canada: Evolution of an Air Force" for further coverage in the pre-WWII period. Yellowknife recently had a rare visitor and another chance to feature itself as a centre for cold weather trials. On January 12, 2020 Airbus A220-300 C-FFDO landed there from Winnipeg to undergo some special testing. That afternoon Yellowknife had a temperature of -45C, so no one could complain about conditions. “FFDO” sat outside being “cold soaked” (sitting outside with all aircraft power turned off). |
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The purpose of the testing was to change the A220’s certified cold weather operations limit from -35C to -40C. On January 14, 2020 “FFDO” — by then thoroughly cold soaked — made a 49-minute local flight. Ground testing continued until January 18, 2020 when it departed for base at Wichita via Calgary and Kansas City. A220-300 “FFDO” was manufactured in Montreal in March 2016 as Bombardier CSeries CS300. Designated “Flight Test Vehicle 8”, to January 20, 2020 it had logged 77 flights/207.46 flying hours. Air Canada has introduced the A220 to its fleet, so we’ll soon be enjoying this great new airliner on Air Canada’s North American services. What a contrast in air transport history, right? (The Electra is C-GZFE, which had begun in 1961 as N138US with Northwest Airlines. There it gave good service into 1971 then flew with operators from Air Florida in the US to Atlantic Airlines in the UK (it had become a freighter in 1977). Finally, in 2013 "GZFE" was acquired by Joe McBryan's legendary Buffalo Airways. Today it's one of those "lifeline" Arctic freighters delivering groceries and all sorts of other supplies and equipment to the north's many isolated communities and mine sites.
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(From the collection of David Zekria at timetableimages.com) |
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Cargo Only. American Airlines will start using is grounded passenger aircraft to fly cargo between the U.S. and Europe. On March 20, 2020 an American Boeing 777-300 departed Dallas Fort Worth International Airport on its first cargo-only load and landed at Frankfurt Airport on March 21. This will be the first cargo-only flight for the airline since it retired its last Boeing 747 freighter in 1984 (Source: MRO Digest) |
