Through The Mist Darkly

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

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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.

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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.

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The Memphis Belle is, arguably, one of the most famous aircraft in the world.  A B17 bomber, she was the first American bomber of WWII to complete 25 missions. 

The original aircraft is still undergoing restoration but the movie stand in still flies and made an appearance today at the Waterloo-Wellington air show outside Toronto.

I’m working here all weekend helping to man the museum’s booth but I, of course, had to duck out to get a chance to see this famous plane.

Seeing her up close was great but watching her glide through the air was amazing.  This is one graceful airplane and the crew put on a great show with plenty of low speed passes and tight turns.

The air show organizers have put on a terrific event and I’ve been taking some notes now that we’ve starting preparing for next year’s Wings & Wheels festival.

(click on a picture to enlarge)

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First flight of the de Havilland DHC-2 “Beaver” at Downsview Airport in Toronto.

One of the most important and recognizable aircraft ever built, hundreds of Beavers are still in the air even though production ceased in 1967.

The picture above shows CF-FHB, the very first Beaver now housed at the Canadian Aviation Museum in Ottawa. I took it last year during my visit.

Here she is as CF-FHB-X (for experimental) on one of the first test flights.

The building behind now houses an indoor soccer pitch and is located next door to the Canadian Air & Space Museum.

A picture I took last year in Vancouver of 2 working Beavers near Vancouver airport.  There’s nothing like the sound of those big Pratt & Whitney Wasp Jr. radial engines. 

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Captain L. Reid and J.R. Ayling fly a de Havilland Dragon (G-ACJM) from Canada to Britain. This is the first aeroplane flight between the two countries.  They left from Wasaga Beach north of Toronto and landed 30 hours later in England.

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Friday winding down and the weekend’s on the horizon gleaming with promise.  Spending the next 2 days at the museum.  Saturday is prep day for Sunday’s luncheon celebrating the 60th anniversary of the Avro Jetliner.

The Avro C102 Jetliner was the world’s 2nd jet powered passenger aircraft.  The de Havilland Comet beat the C102 by only thirteen days! CF-EJD (-X), pictured above, took to the air on August 10 1949 from Malton Airport.

In April 1950, the Jetliner carried the world’s first jet airmail from Toronto to New York in 58 minutes– half the previous record (c.340 miles, 352mph). The flight was highly publicized and the crew was welcomed with a ticker tape parade through the streets of Manhattan.

Just like the CF-105 Arrow, the C102 project was ordered stopped by the Canadian government.

Chief Designer of both aircraft, James C. Floyd, will be at this Sunday’s event.  Looking forward to some interesting stories!

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J A D McCurdy piloted the Silver Dart at Petawawa Ontario.  This marked the first flight in Canada at a military installation.

Picture above is of the 100th anniversary replica which will soon be put on display at the Canadian Air & Space Museum in Toronto

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All day long they’d been saying that the first Airbus A380 to land in Toronto would be coming in from the East to land on runway 24L.  I just happened to be outside the office when I noticed that the wind had shifted.  Grabbing the camera I was lucky enough to get a few shots as Emirates flight UAE241 came in on approach to 6L.

To all the thousands of photographers who were left scrambling at the change of runway, all I can say is HA HA!

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Loaded most of the pictures from the event in a photoset on Flickr.  You can see others at the Festival website.

Still lots of things to do to close off the 2009 gathering – like all that nasty accounting stuff.  We’re already starting to work out the dates for 2010!

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