Aviation Memorabilia Newsletter

We have welcomed 67 new subscribers so far in 2021.

We wish to thank everyone for your support of our efforts.

Back issues of The NetLetter are available in both the original newsletter format and downloadable PDF format.

We invite you to visit our website at www.thenetletter.net/netletters to view our archives.

Restoration and posting of archive issues is an ongoing project. We hope to post every issue back to the beginning in 1995.

We always welcome feedback about Air Canada (including Jazz and Rouge) from our subscribers who wish to share current events, memories and photographs.

Particularly if you have stories to share from one of the legacy airlines: Canadian Airlines, CP Air, Pacific Western, Eastern Provincial, Wardair, Nordair, Transair, Air BC, Time Air, Quebecair, Calm Air, NWT Air, Air Alliance, Air Nova, Air Ontario, Air Georgian, First Air/Canadian North and all other Canadian based airlines that once graced the Canadian skies.

Please feel free to contact us at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

We will try to post your comments in the next issue but, if not, we will publish it as soon as we can.

Thanks!

Jazz pilots agree to Air Canada Express deal.

Pilots at Canada’s Jazz Aviation have approved a deal that will allow the company to become the exclusive operator of Air Canada Express flights.

The approval from the pilots, represented by union Air Line Pilots Association, International (ALPA), is the last piece of an agreement under which Air Canada will consolidate all its regional aircraft operations under one regional partner – Jazz.

Air Canada said last week it intends to transfer the operation of Sky Regional Airlines’ 25 Embraer 175's to Jazz. That leaves Sky Regional without any aircraft, and the company confirmed last week it intends to cease operations on March 31, 2021.

Of the 25 E175's to be transferred, 16 are in service and nine are in storage, according to Cirium fleets data. Jazz parent Chorus Aviation says that with the acquisition of the jets, it will be phasing out its 20 De Havilland Canada Dash 8-300's.

Source: flightglobal.com (Registration required).

Editors' Note: Stories in this section may be quite long for the newsletter format.

To view the entire story, click the 'Read More' link to open the full text posted on our website.

Our first memory is from Ralph Quick –

Embarrassed by Murphy's Law

"If anything can go wrong it will ". This is Murphy's Law which originated in aviation. Pilots fly their whole career, making sure they look ahead for what can go wrong and making sure it does not happen. Results of having an incident going unforeseen can lead to an accident, aircraft damage, or at the very least embarrassment. My encounter with Murphy's Law was caused by distraction and ended with embarrassment.

My distraction was provided by an Omega Navigation System (forerunner of modern GPS) that had been installed in my CP Air Boeing 737. It only appeared on this one flight, never to be seen again on any other flights. We left Vancouver for Edmonton on an 'all stops' to Montreal. At cruising altitude, we tried to set up the system by putting in waypoints to see how it worked. As we had had no instruction, it did not, no matter what we did.

On arrival at YEG there were no gates available, so we parked on the far side of the tarmac and were serviced by a PTV (Passenger Transfer Vehicle). Standard procedure was for the front door to be opened as the PTV arrived, deplane the passengers, then extend the "airstairs" with the door open after PTV departed. Airstairs would be retracted when the PTV arrived back to load the passengers for departure, and we would then receive our late load. 

From Mary Lou Mailloux -

As many of us have been doing during these unusual COVID times, I have been sorting papers and came across a letter from one of Trans-Canada Air Lines first employees, Irving F. Thomas, a family friend and fellow cottager at Sauble Beach, Ontario. The letter was postmarked 1991 and I, at the time, was an Air Canada passenger agent at YQGTR (Windsor, Ontario) so his recollections of the early days of the airline were of particular interest to yours truly and would love to share.

First of all, some background information about Mr. Thomas which was willingly supplied by his niece, Anne Venton, who I wish to thank for providing same as my memory is a bit rusty about all those details.

Irving F. Thomas was the fourth employee hired to organize Trans-Canada Air Lines. He was a recent graduate from the University of St. Louis, Missouri, the Aeronautical Division, receiving his Bachelor of Science degree in Aviation Administration and also a U.S. Transport Pilots license, including instrument rating in 1936.

Photographs: 

Mr. Thomas at Parks Air College in December 18, 1935 (above).

A group photo, time and place unknown. Mr. Thomas is 4th from right next to man with hat (below).

Mary Lou Mailloux,
Retired Air Canada Sales

We stood side by side in an elevator heading for a suite on the 14th floor. I stared straight ahead trying to look serious, cool and composed. I could feel him look me up and down and then he joined me in staring at the door. Although we had never met before, we had been very aware of each other for several years. As we passed the 10th floor he turned and spoke to me for the first time. “I don’t see the horns my people say you have?”

His name was Taylor……Claude Taylor, and he was the head of Air Canada. I represented Air Canada’s pilots as Chairman of the Master Executive Council (MEC) as well as the chief negotiator, and we were at war!

In their roughly 45-year history, there had never been an industrial strike by the Air Canada pilots. Professionalism and Marquis of Queensbury rules had always prevailed, and contracts were ultimately negotiated to a mutually satisfactory conclusion. In the late 70’s, Canada was operating under Government imposed Wage and Price controls and these constraints made a wage settlement a non-issue. However, Air Canada had recently taken two actions negatively affecting its pilots and which resulted in us placing these items into the current contract negotiations.

Bob Austin from YOW sends in this photo and request:

"Just found this pendant in a box of old Air Canada mementos.

Does anyone remember the occasion for which it was issued?"

John Weston sent us this photo and comment -

Don't know where or when. But do remember the time.

Canadian Flight Attendants (aka stewardesses for us old timers) in the 1940's, showing off their nylons, after they were reintroduced to their uniforms after WW2.