Through The Mist Darkly

The Canadian Aviation Corps is authorized by the Minister of Militia and Defence to be formed. This is the beginning of Canada’s military air force.  The Corps consists of 2 pilots and a mechanic. The aircraft, a Burgess-Dunne, never sees military service and the Corps is disbanded a year later.

The CAC was:

Capt. E.L. Janney, Lt. W.F.N. Sharpe and Lt. H.A. Farr. 

Edward Hogan makes the 1st parachute jump in Canada from a hot-air balloon in Quebec.  No picture of the event or the man seem to be available but the idea had been around since Leonardo Da Vinci designed the one above

The Curtiss Canada flies at Long Branch, near Toronto, and becomes the first twin-engine aircraft designed, built and flown in Canada.

Six months after the Silver Dart becomes the first powered airplane to fly in Canada, pilot Charles Willard flies the Glenn Curtiss Golden Flyer in Toronto.  The first flight lasted all of 10 seconds.

Trans Canada Air Lines flew its first regular service, on the Vancouver, BC – Seattle Washington route, in a Lockheed 10A Electra.

This picture of the restored Electra CF-TCC was taken in 2007 at the Toronto Wings & Wheels Heritage Festival.  TCC still flies and looks (and sounds) great.

Working at the Waterloo Air Show yesterday I had a chance to meet Bjarni Tryggvason, former Canadian astronaut and pilot of the replica Silver Dart that will be coming to the Canadian Air & Space Museum later this year.

Bjarni flew on the space shuttle STS-85 as a payload specialist from August 7-19, 1997 where he conducted fluid dynamics experiments designed to examine sensitivity to spacecraft vibrations.  He flew 4.7 million miles in 284 hours and 27 minutes.

This year, Tryggvason has been travelling quite a bit slower.  The Silver Dart replica has been flown 4 times.  In between, he’s been flying as part of the Harvard team and teaching at the University of Western Ontario in London, Ontario.

To Bjarni’s left is Rod Jones, a member of the museum’s Board.  We talked for a few minutes about the flying conditions and some ideas about how to coordinate all the events across Canada like the Waterloo show and our own Wings & Wheels.

Thanks to Bob Bourke, fellow volunteer, for taking the photo and sharing it with me.

A Canadair Sabre-5 flies 2,740 miles in five hours and thirty seconds (Vancouver-Gimli-Halifax).

Photo is of the restored Sabre-5 from Vintage Wings of Canada taken at CFB Trenton.

The first ambulance flight in Northern Canada takes place when W.R. Maxwell in a Curtis HS-2L flew J.W. Thompson from Moose Factory to Remi Lake (near Cochrane) Ontario.

Photo taken at Canadian Aviation Museum in Ottawa showing G-CAAC, which flew the first ever “bush flight” in 1919.

First flight of the Boeing Vertol CH-46C Labrador helicopter. 

This aircraft is a twin-engine, tandem-rotor search and rescue (SAR) helicopter used by the Canadian Forces from 1963 until 2004. It was a variant of the Boeing Vertol CH-46 Sea Knight designed and built in the United States. A search and rescue version was purchased by the Royal Canadian Air Force in the early 1960s and became known as the Labrador. Soon after, the Canadian Army acquired a troop and cargo version known as the Voyageur. In the mid-1970s, these army machines were replaced by CH-147 Chinook heavy lift and transport helicopters and the Voyageurs were transferred to the air force when Air Command was formed in 1975. They joined the Labradors on search and rescue duties and all were modified to a common search and rescue standard.

Picture above was taken at the Canadian Aviation Museum in Ottawa.  From their website :

Labrador #301, the first to enter service with the Canadian Forces and the last to retire, was delivered to the Canada Aviation Museum in July, 2004 and marked the retirement from active service of the illustrious Labrador fleet. Its place in Canada’s national aeronautical collection is a tribute to the men and women of the Search and Rescue community who risk their lives on a daily basis to save others.

The Anik D1 satellite is launched by Telesat Canada to provide television signals across the country.  A Hughes Aircraft HS376, Anik (which means “little brother” in Inuktitut) D1 was retired in 1991.

Telesat Canada launched a number of Anik models between 1972 and 2007 with 3 still in operation.  Launch vehicles included Delta, Ariane and Proton/Breeze-M rockets and 4 were launched from the Space Shuttles – Discovery, Challenger and Columbia.