The 13 October 2016 copy of the Transport Canada Aeronautical Information Manual is now available for free download as a 38.6 MB sized PDF. The book is 510 pages in colour!
Transport Canada doesn't give a lot of stuff away for free anymore, so get your free copy of the newest edition of the AIM today.
Which pilot hasn't wanted to take an SR-71 up to Mach 3.2 at 85,000 feet? Sadly the SR-71 flew its last mission on 9 October 1999, finishing up a 35 year career that started with its first flight on 22 December 1964. Thirty-two of the iconic black reconnaissance aircraft were built and, of those, 12 were crashed. The surviving SR-71s are now all museum pieces, although the Blackbird lives on in several video games. While you can't fly the real thing anymore, you can get a true insider's feel for what it would have been like to be assigned to fly them at the 9th Strategic Reconnaissance Wing at Beale AFB in California, by studying the aircraft's flight manual.
The USAF SR-71 Flight Manual was of course once classified as "secret", but with the aircraft now retired for 17 years the book has been largely declassified and has now been published for public consumption by Voyageur Press, part of the Quarto Publishing Group.
The SR-71 Flight Manual is a big book. Printed in its original 8.5 X 11" format, it is just under 2" thick and weighs in at 5.3 lbs. It would make a formidable doorstop!
To literally add colour to the original flight manual text, Voyageur Press engaged retired SR-71 pilot and 9th Strategic Reconnaissance Wing commander, Colonel Richard H. Graham, to create an introduction to the aircraft. Graham's contribution consists of the first 63 velum pages of text and photos, many of them in colour. Graham's text brings the aircraft to life as he relates many tales that illustrate the use of the aircraft in service, plus stories from other pilots and Reconnaissance Sensor Operators (RSOs) who flew the SR-71. His introduction is divided into sections that match the layout of the flight manual that follows and add very useful illumination. He even includes one official photo of the A-12 "Oxcart" single seater that preceded the SR-71 into service, too.
Following Graham's extensive introduction, the flight manual itself takes up the rest of the volume. It covers the SR-71A two seat reconnaissance aircraft and also includes the supplements about the SR-71B trainer model, of which two were built and used to check pilots out on the SR-71.
The flight manual is divided into sections covering: description and operation, the SR-71B trainer, normal operations, emergency procedures, navigation and sensor equipment, operating limitations, flight characteristics and all-weather operation. These are followed by appendix 1 which includes a glossary and performance charts and then finally an index. The SR-71B description and the index sections have been printed out of order, but it isn't too confusing.
I have to admit that I have a bit of a love for military writing and especially aircraft manuals. It was probably the two decades I spent in the Canadian Forces as a military pilot, including time at staff school, learning to write with "clarity, brevity and conciseness", as well as working in headquarters doing military writing, that left me with an enjoyment of the crisp terseness of good quality military prose. This book has it in spades, too. I'll give a couple of examples here. This is the basic description of the aircraft:
"The SR-71 is a delta-wing, two-place aircraft powered by two axial-flow turbojet engines. The aircraft, built by the Lockheed California Company, features titanium construction and is designed to operate at high altitudes and high supersonic speeds. The aircraft has very thin wings, twin canted rudders mounted on top of the engine nacelles, and a pronounced fuselage "chine" extending from the nose to the leading edge of the wing. The propulsion system uses movable spikes to vary air inlet geometry. Surface controls are elevons and rudders, operated by irreversible hydraulic actuators with artificial pilot control feel. The aircraft can be refueled either in-flight or on the ground through separate receptacles that feed into a common refueling line. A drag chute is provided to augment the six-mainwheel brakes. The aircraft is painted black to reduce internal temperatures when at high speed."
Reading the manual starts to give a flavour beyond mere counting of rivets and the reader gets drawn into not only the amazing engineering that went into creating a Mach 3.2 aircraft in the early 1960s, but also what the operational crews, pilots and RSOs who flew it were dealing with, all in that terse military, no-nonsense style.
Crew members normally flew in spacesuit-like pressure suits. This quote is from Section 3, Emergency Procedures, describing ejection procedures:
"After ejection, descent is normally made to approximately 15,000 feet while in the seat with drogue chute stabilization. (Refer to Figure 3-3.) Note: The seat may spin and rotate while descending with the drogue chute deployed. It may be possible to arrest such motions by using the arms and hands in the airstream."
Ejection near the maximum operating altitude of 85,000 feet must have been quite an experience for those who survived it!
The flight manual includes 139 pages of emergency procedures, all of which would have been learned and memorized. As a crew member your life depended on it!
A large part of section IV, navigation and sensor equipment, is dedicated to describing the Astrointertial Navigation System, which did its own automatic star plots by day and night to continuously update the on-board gyroscope-based INS. This was groundbreaking technology for the 1960s and without this autonomous system pilots would have easily become lost in the SR-71. As test pilot Paul Crickmore wrote about the SR-71, "you've never been lost until you've been lost at Mach 3." The ground disappears behind you fast at 35 miles per minute!
The book also provides great detail about air-to-air refuelling, the life-blood of all SR-71 operations. Almost every mission required dropping down to 25,000 to 30,000 feet and meeting up with a KC-135 or KC-10 tanker carrying the SR-71's unique JP-7 fuel, at least once and frequently more often. Sometimes this meant refueling in the dark and often the SR-71 needed one engine in afterburner at those inefficient altitudes to form up on the tanker. Pilots flew with their seats adjusted down low to provide the best view of the tanker above them.
As you read the flight manual the reader slowly builds up a picture of the effort required to design, build, fly and maintain this remarkable aircraft. You gain a new appreciation for what it meant to be over hostile lands, taking photos at more than three times the speed of sound and 16 miles up. It was an extraordinary aircraft and the flight manual tells its story well.
While this would be a great addition to any aviator's bookshelf, the manual reprint is not perfect. The book has 74 pages missing that show up in the "list of effective pages", but not in the book. Missing are pages 1-35 to 1-38, 1-74 to 1-75, 4-79 to 4-104, 4-119 to 4-160. The publisher confirmed to me that, "the pages in question were never declassified" and so could not be included. Judging from the table of contents the missing pages include such mundane text as how to operate the TACAN navigation radio and a description of the windshield, as well as subjects like the optical and electronic sensors carried, plus the synthetic aperture radar system. This does detract somewhat from the book, but it doesn't kill it. I have suggested to the publisher that a note in the front of the book about the missing pages might be helpful to readers.
The total stock of three of Jack Scofields's best seller aviation books have been lost in a fire that consumed his publisher’s warehouse. The award winning title, Flights of a Coast Dog and the pilot/author’s No Numbered Runways and Coast Dogs Don’t Lie are acknowledged as the pre-eminent books describing the colourful float-plane industry on the British Columbia coast. When first published, Flights of a Coast Dog was awarded a BC Book award and listed as recommended reading for grade eleven students by the Vancouver School Board.
Schofield is hoping to republish the three titles in a 3-book set in softcover if he can pre-sell 80 sets of the books at $75.00 per set to cover the cost of printing a short run. He suggests the 3-book set would be an excellent Christmas gift for your favourite aviator, who might just be yourself.
To order the three book set email Jack. Just order your sets, don’t send any money yet! Jack will advise you when 80 sets have been ordered.
Fighting Cockpits is the latest work from the team of aviation historian Donald Nijboer and photographer Dan Patterson. The two have collaborated before on other books in this series, Cockpit: An Illustrated History of World War II Aircraft Interiors, Gunner: An Illustrated History of World War II Aircraft Turrets and Gun Positions and Cockpits of the Cold War. This new work, just published in June 2016, covers a wider period of aviation history, ranging from the First World War to jet fighters of the 21st century.
With a hardback cover size of 12.25" X 10", 224 velum pages and at a gross weight of 3.7 lbs (1.7 kg), this is quite a large work. In fact it is curiously a slightly larger format than the previous Cockpit and Gunner books, which measure 12.25" X 9.25".
Fighting Cockpits also features a foreword by legendary RN test pilot Eric M. Brown, who also contributes some aircraft impressions to the text as well. Brown died during the work completing this book, on 21 February 2016, at age 97.
Each chapter includes an introduction to the historical period to set the stage, plus a list of typical things that an aviator would find in his aircraft's cockpit during that period. The entries for each aircraft generally run two to four pages, starting with Nijboer's brief history of the type, its development and operational employment. This is followed by Pilot Impressions, by pilots who have flown the type. Some are by operational military pilots, some by test pilots, like Brown, who were given the job of evaluating the aircraft for military purposes and some by museum pilots who fly them today. The second page of each entry then features Patterson's photo of the cockpit, usually taken from the pilot's point-of-view. Most of these have been shot in museums and so Patterson has blacked out the view forward, which would have otherwise shown other museum aircraft or building walls. The result is that distractions are eliminated. One exception is the Grumman EA-6B Prowler, shot on an airfield ramp, which needed no black-out treatment.
The book is organized by historical period. The first section is Wind in the Wires, which deals with First World War aircraft. Included are the Nieuport 28, Royal Aircraft Factory S.E.5, Bristol F.2B, Fokker Dr.I, Sopwith Camel, Sopwith Triplane, AEG G.IV, SPAD VII, Halberstadt CL.IV and the Fokker D.VII.
Between the Wars, The Rise of the Monoplane, covers the interwar period and the switch in military aviation from biplanes to monoplanes. It includes the Martin MB-2 bomber, Hawker Hind, Fiat CR.32, Boeing P-26 Peashooter, Curtiss F9C, Sparrowhawk, Vought SB2U Vindicator, Westland Lysander and the PZL P.11.
World War II, Death At 30,000 feet is the longest chapter and covers the Supermarine Spitfire, Messerschmitt Bf 109, Republic P-47 Thunderbolt, North American P-51 Mustang, Handley Page Halifax, Vickers Wellington, Focke-Wulf Fw 190, Fairey Firefly, Fiat CR.42, Ilyushin Il-2 Sturmovik, Heinkel He 219 Uhu, Kawasaki Ki-45 Toryu, Curtiss SB2C Helldiver, Northrop P-61 Black Widow, Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress, Boeing B-29 Superfortress, Dornier Do 335 Pfeil, Messerschmitt Me 262 Schwalbe jet fighter and the Arado Ar 234 Blitz twin jet bomber.
Cold War to the Present, Mutually Assured Destruction, includes the North American F-86 Sabre, Boeing B-52 Stratofortress, Grumman A-6 Intruder, General Dynamics F-111 Aardvark, Hawker Siddeley Harrier, McDonnell Douglas F-15 Eagle, Grumman F-14 Tomcat, Republic A-10 Thunderbolt II, General Dynamics F-16 Fighting Falcon, Mikoyan MiG-29, Rockwell B-1 Lancer, Lockheed F-117 Nighthawk, Lockheed Martin F-22 Raptor and finally the Lockheed Martin F-35 Lightning II, which was just entering military service as the book was published.
The majority of the entries then have a few operational photos that show the general layout of the aircraft, its shape and markings. A few of the entries, like the Halberstadt CL.IV, Martin MB-2 and the Fiat CR.42, have no other photos beyond the cockpit images. This is unfortunate, as these are rare types and many readers will be sent scurrying to Wikipedia to see what the aircraft looks like in overall view. Even a small inset photo of the whole aircraft in an unused corner of the full-page cockpit photo would have been appreciated.
The book has lots of detail, both in Patterson's immaculate photographs and in Nijboer's descriptive text, including his notes on the evolution of ergonomics and cockpit instrumentation over a hundred years of aircraft building.
This book has some overlap in aircraft types with the team's 1998 book, Cockpit: An Illustrated History of World War II Aircraft Interiors, as some aircraft, such as the Mustang, Me 109 and Spitfire appear in both books, but there is all new text, along with new cockpit photos, too, for each entry.
Some people may not see the value of a book like this, as it is pictures of museum aircraft, which can been seen by anyone visiting the museum, but the book does offer two distinct advantages. First this collection was assembled from a large number of museums, including Ottawa's own Canada Aviation and Space Museum in Rockcliffe, the Swedish Air Force Museum, The New England Air Museum, the National Museum of the US Air Force, the RAF Museum and of course the Smithsonian. A few were shot on air base ramps, like the Grumman EA-6B Prowler, photographed on the ramp of the Marine Corps Air Station in Yuma, Arizona. A person would have to do a lot of travelling to see in person the aircraft that Patterson has photographed.
The second factor that this book gives the reader something you can't generally get from a museum visit, the view from the pilot's seat. While a couple of cockpit shots were done from outside the aircraft, like the Arado Ar 234 Blitz, the rest are shot from the pilot's perspective, something not many museums afford the casual visitor. Creating a book like this obviously grants special access to the aircraft that the public just doesn't routinely get. That is worthwhile, alone.
Fighting Cockpits is a book that will appeal to aviation history buffs of all ages. Engineers and aircraft designers may also find it of interest, to trace the history of cockpit ergonomics and see how many earlier aircraft were designed in such a way that pilots had to learn to fly them, despite the designer's work.
I am hoping that the team of Nijboer and Patterson will one day turn their talents to general aviation aircraft past and present and bring us a view of the cockpits of light aircraft, gliders, motor gliders, gyroplanes, airships, helicopters, air tankers, crop dusters, flying boats, amphibians, hang gliders, homebuilts, ultralights and the other small aircraft found around the world.
Brace For Impact is Ottawa-based author Peter Pigott's 20th book and his 14th on an aviation subject. This certainly makes him one of Canada's more prolific aviation authors.
This new work tackles the subject of aircraft accidents and in particular Canadian aircraft accidents, although for perspective some notable accidents in other countries are touched upon. The book covers a history of Canadian aviation accident investigation, including the agencies and some of the people involved, the politics, the technology and, of course, describes many of the key aircraft accidents that have occurred.
The book has 18 chapters, interweaving the accident stories with the history of how the profession of aircraft accident investigation has progressed, as accident numbers and their complexity increased. The author especially focuses on how the introduction of cockpit voice recorders and flight data recorders has allowed the investigation of large aircraft accidents to be greatly improved.
Starting from the very first pioneering accidents in the very early 20th century, the book covers the First World War, the post-war barnstorming era, the beginnings of the airmail and the early airline passenger flights. Additional chapters cover civil transport in the Second World War, the coming of the jet age and the inevitable discussion of the early deHavilland Comet crashes as well as the landmark mid-air collision between an RCAF Harvard trainer and a Trans Canada Airlines North Star over Moose Jaw.
Accidents that get detailed treatment in the book include the Trans Canada DC-8 crash in Sainte Therese, Quebec on 29 December 1963; the Canadian Pacific DC-8 crash at Toyko's Haneda airport on 4 March 1966; the collision of two 747s on the ground at Tenerife, Canary Islands on 27 March 1977, which remains the biggest loss of life air accident ever, with 583 people killed; the Pacific Western 737 crash at Cranbrook on 11 February 1978; the Air France A340 runway overrun at Toronto on 2 August 2005; the Arrow Air crash at Gander on 12 December 1985; the Air Ontario Fokker F28 crash at Dryden on 10 March 1989; the Nationair DC-8 crash in Saudi Arabia on 11 July 1991; the Swiss Air 111 crash of an MD-11 off Peggy's Cove on 2 September 1998; the First Air 737 crash at Resolute Bay on 20 August 2011 and finally the Air Canada A320 crash at Halifax on 29 March 2015.
Also covered is the demise of the Canadian Aviation Safety Board and its replacement with the Transportation Safety Board and some of the reasons for that change. The author also tackles the transfer of the nation's ATC to Nav Canada, citing its closure of facilities as a cause factor in the crash of several aircraft, including the mid-air collision of two Cessnas at Maschouche on 7 December 1997 after a portable control tower there had been decommissioned and the Air Canada CRJ crash at Fredericton, after the control tower had been replaced with what the author terms "a less expensive 'flight servicing station'".
The author saves some of his most scathing criticism for Michel Leblanc, a Canadian airline CEO, he describes as "callous" and "lacking ethics", as an example of how a top-down corporate culture can contribute to safety issues in airliner operations.
As can be seen from the list of accidents, the majority of coverage in this book is of airline flying, with mention of a few military accidents, like the Canso that crashed in Ottawa's Lac Deschênes in July 1945, with five crew members killed. General aviation is represented in a few of the case studies, including the interesting example of a mid-air collision between a Beechcraft Bonanza and Piper Cherokee over Warrington, Virginia, on 28 May 2012. Both aircraft were US-registered and the accident happened over the US, but the TSB was asked to investigate, as the two pilots involved were an FAA accident investigator and the NTSB's chief medical officer. The Canadian agency was asked to investigate to eliminate any potential conflict of interest in having the US NTSB handle the case. The TSB determined that it was a failure to "see and avoid" on both pilot's parts.
Piggot starts off the book with an invocation against the media and their tendency to sensationalize aircraft accidents. He writes on page 11, "because air crashes are so infrequent (compared with the daily carnage on the highways), when they do happen, they make for gut-wrenching, fear-inducing headlines and dramatic images." On page 65 he emphasizes the point over the Hindenburg crash in 1937, "the media's first resort in an air crash is to sensationalize it, and there was no better way in this case than to suspect sabotage." Of course the Hindenburg was brought down by far less dramatic reasons than sabotage. But with chapter titles like "Douglas Death Cruisers and Mourning Becomes Electra", "Terror in Tenerife, Pilot Error", and "Air Traffic Chaos" as well as "Nationair and ValuJet: Folly Upon Folly", I am not sure the author has entirely escaped this effect.
The book is generally well-written and illustrated, with many black and white, as well as colour photographs. It is an engaging read. One of the questions I asked myself while reading the book was who the target audience is. While light aircraft pilots may read this book, the focus on airline accidents and the lack of technical detail on accident causes makes this book of limited use as a flight safety text, for understanding accidents and learning to avoid them operationally. There are some technical errors in the text that non-pilots often make in writing aviation books, too, such as the description of a pilot increasing power and attempting to climb by pulling "the control throttle all the way back". As an aviation history book this work will appeal most to the aviation history buff.
Canadian Aviation Weather is the first aviation textbook that I have been asked to review. Up until now, most of the works sent to COPA for review have been history books or at least books of aviation stories, so this was something new, landing with a 1.03 kg (2.3 lbs) thump on my desk.
My first thought was, "why do we need a new textbook on aviation weather?" The author makes his case, "this book will fill the massive void that existed in Canada regarding a solid up-to-date discourse on meteorology for Canadian pilots." And he really is right in that regard. I mean, despite his homage to the legendary work, Weather Ways, on page 255 of this new book, some things have changed since my copy came out. Like the author, my copy of Weather Ways is marked "third edition, 1961". We now have weather radar, lightning detection, Nav Canada, climate change and a far better understanding of many things meteorological, from volcanoes to space weather. So I agree with the author, that the 21st century calls for a new weather text.
It is hard to argue that there is anyone more qualified to write this book than Doug Morris. Morris is an Air Canada captain on A320s, with more than 21,500 hours in the air. Like most of us, he started on small aircraft and worked his way up in the industry, flying light piston twins on courier flying in Atlantic Canada, yes, right in all that weather they get down east. Being a high-time pilot alone, though, does not qualify one to write weather text books. This is where Morris sets himself apart, as he worked for four years as a weather forecaster for Environment Canada, in a diversity of assignments, including writing east coast aviation forecasts, so he has seen the business from both sides. In fact it was his time as a forecaster that motivated him to learn to fly, something few pilots will be able to fault.
In more recent years Morris has become a writer on meteorology, while carrying on his piloting duties, writing for publications such as Air Canada's enRoute, Wings, Canadian Aviation and Weatherwise. He also gives talks to public audiences on weather, as well as aviation safety topics and gives weather training to new hires at Air Canada, too. Sometimes, when the weather is in the news, he gets the media call to be "an expert weather guru", so you may have seen him on TV as well.
So what is in the book? This is a beginner's book of aviation meteorology, aimed at people on the private pilot course, so Morris starts from the beginning, with a large number of short, sharp chapters, numbering 36 in all, including the three appendices. The topics start with the basics, like the atmosphere, stability and lapse rates, clouds, atmospheric pressure and then work into fog, visibility, air masses, fronts, wind shear, airframe icing, turbulence and thunderstorms, before delving into the reading of METARs, TAFs, GFAs, SIGMETs, AIRMETs, FBs (formerly FDs - wind aloft forecasts). From there the book shifts gears and the author presents a broad look at Canadian regional weather, where to find good met stuff on the internet, reading weather charts and understanding jet streams. He then moves into how ground and airborne weather radar work and how to use both. Next is satellite imaging, dealing with hurricanes and post-tropical storms, how space weather affects circumpolar flying and a chapter on volcanic ash. Yes, he even mentions the April 2010 Icelandic Eyjafjallajökull eruption and the air travel havoc it caused, not to mention the havoc in the news rooms where on-air news readers had to pronounce it. Finally there are appendices on airport identifier codes, RVR and the use of UTC time in weather.
Traditionally aviation weather texts have been, well, a bit dry to read. Most student pilots expect that, after all meteorology is a science subject and there is lots to learn and just plain memorize. Morris seems determined to crack that stereotype and produce a weather book that is actually interesting to read. He accomplishes this mostly with small anecdotes from his own flying career interspersed on almost every page as "sidebars" with their own little "smiling airliner" logo. In these he attempts to relate the book knowledge with occasions when when the lessons were brought home for him, poignant thoughts and minor asides on how the information is relevant and useful. Overall these make the subject much more lively and personal and will probably increase retention for readers as well. There are enough biographical and aviation stories interspersed in the text that by the time you are done you have a feeling that you know the author quite well.
Morris' pure passion for meteorology shines through the text, too. You can tell he has a great deal of enthusiasm for the subject and that can be pleasantly infectious for the reader, making a complex subject more readable and fun. In several places in the book he gets into technical details that are out of the depth required by pilots, which is just his meteorologist side taking over the writing. In many cases he stops himself, indicating that he acknowledges that he is off on a tangent and ends the subject there. I found these places in the book really detract a bit. I don't mind more depth than is needed in aviation meteorology, but it would be better to either pursue that line of inquiry or not put it in at all, rather than start and then quit, but this is a minor quibble on my part.
Like a number of books I have reviewed recently, this book is self-published by the author and printed by Lulu.com. This probably says more about the sad state of book publishing in Canada these days, than anything about the quality of this work. Here we have a well-recognized and highly qualified subject expert, who has written a much-needed textbook, did a good job at it, assembled a good team of expert reviewers, copy editors and even a graphic artist to do the more than 150 diagrams and illustrations, and he has to publish it himself, without further assistance. Canadian publishers and the administrators of the various government publishing support programs in place really need to back up and have a better look at what is being published in Canada these days and why they are not both doing more. That said, the good news is that the book is available from some well-known aviation booksellers in Canada, including VIP.
My criticisms of the book are few. Despite the team of expert and copy editors, a few grammatical errors slipped through. Hopefully these will be cleared up in the second edition. The book lacks the one thing that would be quite useful in a paper book, an index. Again, hopefully a future edition will add this feature.
So who will want to read this book? It is clearly aimed at PPL, CPL and ATPL student pilots, plus those pursuing an instrument rating. It is skewed towards jet airline flying, more than general aviation ops, so the ideal reader would be someone with those aspirations, although student pilots with any flying goals at all will find the book useful and very readable. I have to admit, as an old time pilot with three decades of flying behind me and with more than a dozen civil, military and academic meteorology courses, too, that I learned quite a lot from reading the book. This makes me think that just about every pilot, new and old, should read it, unless you really think you already know everything about meteorology. I would also say that this book would make a good gift for any budding young "met nut", who will learn not only meteorology, but probably catch some of the author's infectious affinity for the subject. This book would also benefit people in other areas of endeavour where understanding the weather is critical, such as sailors, and even all those people we see in many parts of Canada wearing shorts and sandals in January.
The World Directory of Light Aviation (WDLA) is more of a magazine format directory than a true book, but if you are shopping for a new aircraft, engine or avionics, or are just interested in what is new in aviation, then, regardless of format, this publication is essential.
The WDLA has been an annual publication for some years now and was originally called the World Directory of Leisure Aviation, but it grew too big and was split into two separate publications, the World Directory of Light Aviation, which covers mostly powered aviation and the World Directory of Free Flight (WDFF), which covers paragliders, paramotors, hang gliders, powered parachutes and other forms of foot-launched and related flight.
The WDLA is published by a large team of writers and researchers working in conjunction with the publisher, Flying Pages Europe. There are four separate editions published in English, French, German and Chinese.
The publication has listings for over 1000 aircraft, a quite remarkable number, illustrating the global scope of the publication. The WDLA is advertiser-supported and the pages feature aviation ads from many of the leading manufacturers. I didn't see any ads from non-aviation advertisers.
The WDLA is divided into a number of chapters, each with their own tab colour for quick flipping:
There are introductory articles to the publication overall, describing current trends in aviation, plus also introductions for each aircraft section, with more detail on what is new in the world of LSAs, gyroplanes, helicopters, etc.
The aircraft sections feature five entries per page in a standardized "box" format. Each entry provides a photo, a text description of the aircraft and its manufacturer, its regulatory category, the manufacturer's contact information and website, basic specifications, such as empty weight, gross weight, wing span, fuel tank size, engine, horsepower, seats, maximum speed, cruising speed, stall speed, climb rate, certification and prices. Since this is a European publication, the specifications are in metric. The prices are for the country of origin and thus may be in US dollars, pounds sterling or Euros.
The WDLA is affiliated with and carries the logos of Flying China, Vol Moteur, Flugel das magazin, Powered Sport Flying, The British Microlight Aircraft Association, the Experimental Aircraft Association, Paramoteur+ and Parapente+.
New editions of the WDLA and its sister publication, WDFF, come out each year, in updated form. They can be found on the shelves of some Canadian aviation booksellers and magazine stands, but they can also be ordered directly from the publisher's website.
Overall the WDLA is a great publication that will appeal to the the aircraft shopper, but also to anyone who wants to keep up with what is happening in the world of general and recreational aviation. It will also appeal to aviation enthusiasts, both young and older, just the thing to curl up with in a quiet chair on a low-IFR day!
For 32 years, from 1970 to 2002, Pem-Air flew scheduled and charter flights from its base in Pembroke, Ontario without a death or serious injury, which is quite remarkable. Its safety record alone would put it above most other small Canadian air carriers, but Pem-Air was quite different from the typical small airline. It was a community-building project, started by local Pembroke business men with the aim of bringing economic growth to the small Ottawa Valley town.
The book's author, Del O'Brien, is uniquely qualified to tell the story of Pem-Air. O'Brien is a local Pembroke lawyer who was also the founding chairman of the Pembroke Airport Commission in 1968 and became the founding president of Pem-Air in 1970. He was there from beginning to end of Pem-Air and to some extent this history of the airline is his own personal memoir from the period. He is also a private pilot and aircraft owner and so understands the language of aviation as well as the business and legal sides.
When O'Brien opened his law practice in Pembroke in 1966, the town had no airport and no air service. With the large army base at Petawawa nearby, plus Atomic Energy of Canada Limited's Chalk River facility in Deep River, there was no shortage of need for an air service, though. Furthermore the town's attempts to attract businesses to locate there often hinged on air connections and, lacking them, businesses often located elsewhere.
To address the problem, the town first built an airport, with O'Brien leading the venture in securing Bliss Brown's small grass airstrip for development and expansion. That was followed by airline service being initiated by Royal Air of Montreal. Service started in August 1968 with a Douglas DC-3 flying Pembroke to Toronto. Royal Air later applied to the Canadian Transportation Commission to serve the town with a Fokker F-27 turboprop, but the CTC rejected the application, a turn of events the author suggests was due to Air Canada's influence, a recurring villain in this story. Royal Air suspended service and that left the town without air connections again.
AECL indicated that they really needed daily air service to Toronto to maintain their nuclear facility and staff and this encouragement moved O'Brien to start a new airline as a community project. He approached many of the town's leading citizens and sold them each $5,000 shares in the new service, to be called Pem-Air. The new airline initially operated one Beechcraft Model 18, purchased for $20,000 and started service on 1 May 1970.
After a period operating a pair of Beech 18s on scheduled runs to Toronto, plus many charters as well, the airline bought its first DC-3 for $37,000. The operation did well for a time, until the 1973 Yom Kippur War resulted in the Arab employment of the "the oil weapon" and the price of fuel skyrocketed overnight. The economy experienced a recession at the same time, resulting in reduced passenger loads. A major construction project at the Pembroke Airport to expand the space and accommodate the army's requirements for air force Lockheed C-130 Hercules support for its airborne training meant that Pem-Air had to reduce operations and fly out of the military base's small grass airstrip instead, resulting in a further loss of traffic and financial red ink.
To reduce the costs of engine overhauls on the DC-3 fleet the company bought a Beech 99 Airliner, but maintenance issues and other problems meant it was not a viable replacement. The company moved to flying Piper Navajo Chieftains and these proved a winning aircraft choice. There were several setbacks along the way, too, such as a 1983 hangar fire that might have been due to arson. The fire burned four aircraft, but the losses were completely covered by insurance and the company recovered, building a new steel hangar at Pembroke as a replacement.
Pem-Air also operated a helicopter air ambulance service for a time, starting with a Bell 47-J2 and then with a Bell 206B Jet Ranger. The service was eventually ended and O'Brien names political and ground ambulance union issues as the culprits.
In 1983 the airline accidentally inherited a flying school after the local school closed, leaving many students stranded. The school was reopened and turned into a successful operation that went on to train Royal Canadian Air Cadets and also fed newly-minted pilots into the air carrier side of the business.
The company next moved to using a Beechcraft King Air A100 and finally a British Aerospace Jetstream intended to be used on a short-lived Kitchener-Waterloo to Ottawa service, linking the two hi-tech development centres.
In the end the airline was carefully shutdown over a period of time, a victim of deregulation, falling traffic levels from its home base of Pembroke, due to improved highway links, competition from the likes of Air Canada, plus a latter-day airport management at Pembroke that seemed to think that if they pushed Pem-Air out that another carrier would pick up the city as a destination. History notes that since Pem-Air shut down, now some 14 years ago, the community has been without air service.
The author doesn't mince words when it comes to analyzing what the caused issues for the community airline, from Air Canada's monopoly status to local political shortsightedness. This makes the book an interesting read and more than the usual handshakes and backslaps often found in airline histories.
I only have a couple of criticisms of the book. The first is that it has a fair number of spelling, grammar and especially proper noun capitalization errors, that should have been caught by proper professional editing. The other is the choice of fonts. The book uses a very narrow serif font that, while in a good point size, is not as easy to read as it should be. I showed the book to a number of readers and all agreed it should have been set in a better typeface.
Other than those two minor gripes, I really enjoyed the book. It has everything a reader could want in a history of a community-owned and run airline, including details about the aircraft, the people who flew them, the business side of things and especially the perils and intrigues involved, both before and after airline deregulation occurred in Canada. While most pilots and aviation enthusiasts will find it an interesting and engaging read, it should be mandatory reading for anyone even vaguely thinking about starting up an airline.
The book is published by Burnstown Publishing House, a relatively new publisher, just started by Tim Gordon in 2015, after he sold his previous publishing business, General Store Publishing House, also of Burnstown and later Renfrew, which he had owned since 1981. The book selling business is very challenging these days and Gordon has taken an interesting tack on dealing with the diminishing returns that retailers offer publishers. He explains on his website, "with the demand for higher and higher discounts by the chain stores, we have concluded that we cannot do effective business with Chapters. We will be selling books to giftshops, bookstores, and libraries on a 50 percent-off, non-returnable basis. With this system in place, BPH will have no need for a warehouse, which will be a big help in keeping down the cost of getting a book into print." He also sells directly from his e-commerce equipped website, too. I hope Gordon succeeds in his publishing endeavour, as we have very few book publishers in Canada these days willing to print new works by new authors and not just print old back catalogue works guaranteed to keep selling. He deserves our support!
Hangar Flying - Tales From the Flight Deck, Volume 2 is, of course, the much-anticipated second installment to volume 1, which Jack Schofield and Arthur Cox released last autumn. This second book in the series continues the tradition set by the earlier work, of collecting together short flying stories written by the pilots who were there "when it happened". The book also features a wealth of colour and black and white photos, plus the artwork of both Schofield and Cox, too.
Another tradition continued with this volume in the series is that the book is made available to read for free. This volume has some advertising in it, but all are ads are for the other books that Schofield offers from his own Mayne Island, British Columbia based publishing house, Coast Dog Press. His plan is to continue the series to at least a third volume in the near future. As with the last volume, as a COPA member, all you have to do is send Schofield an email and he will send you the link for the book. He will also send you a note when the next volume is out. It is hard to beat all that service and for free, too!
So what do you get for free this time around? Hangar Flying - Tales From the Flight Deck, Volume 2 is 78 pages, just six pages shorter than the first volume. It is not a long book and like the previous edition took me about an hour to read it.
Each of the chapters are short flying stories. As last time, some are serious and some are amusing, but all are worth thinking about, reading and enjoying.
In volume 2 you get:
I was quite pleased to see the story by John Addison, the former RAF Vulcan pilot, who was the Chief Flying Instructor at Victoria Flying Club when I learned to fly there, almost 40 years ago. Ken Armstrong's name will be familiar to COPA members, as he served many years on the COPA board as a director from BC.
As with the first installment, I greatly enjoyed this book too. It is a fun short read and may lead many pilots to think about why they haven't yet written down their own favourite flying tales. Given the price, there is no reason that this volume shouldn't find a home on your laptop or tablet, too.
Review by Leeloo Lengagne
Air Crazy by Elizabeth Gillan Muir talks about how, over a 100 years ago, airplanes were only flown by men and woman weren’t even supposed to be passengers. The book has a short story for each woman and talks about their work and experiences with flying. It tells the stories in time order from 1912 to 2000 and each chapter has photos.
This book was interesting in many ways, such as the nicknames that were given to the pilots like “the flying school girl”. Not all of the women were pilots; some were the first woman to be passengers on a plane. I feel that it would be unfair to not be able to do something that you love and these women did it anyway. I found all of the stories fun to read especially the last story about Maryse Carmichael because she was the first woman to fly with the Snowbirds Canadian Forces acrobatic team. I didn’t know what the Snowbirds were before reading this book.
I think that Air Crazy is good for kids ages 8 – 12 because if you are older you might find it a little too easy. Also, this book is good for a young girl who is interested in flying or planes. I think it should be in a library or given as a gift.
The back of the book tells us that the author, Elizabeth, is a historian in Toronto. I find it interesting that she is a historian because if she wasn’t a historian then the books that she writes might be fairy tales. I like that the stories in the book are real. She has written stories for children’s magazines in Canada, the United States, Australia, and Great Britain. I think it is interesting that “She was paid $1.00 for her first story, “Marsh Hens”, which was published in Child Life when she was ten. She has recently published two adult books: Riverdale: east of the Don and Canadian in the sky: 100 years of flight”.
In general Air-Crazy by Elizabeth Gillan Muir is a great book for people who like the idea of flight and it gives the message that everyone should take a shot at anything that people say they can’t do.
Leeloo Lengagne is COPA's reviewer of aviation books for children. She is a student of art and literature and is eleven years old.
It is sad to think that here, in the 21st century, after more than 100 years of powered flight, that books promoting women in aviation are still needed. But the truth is that even today in Canada women make up only a very small proportion of pilots and very few young women see it as a viable career or past time. Author Elisabeth Gillan Muir seeks to tell the story of individual women in Canadian aviation and at the same time perhaps motivate and inspire a new generation with the fact that women really can fly.
Muir is no stranger to women's history. She has degrees from Queen's University, the Harvard Business School and McGill, where she earned her PhD. She also taught Canadian history at the University of Waterloo and the University of Toronto, too. She has tackled the history of Canadian women in several areas, including in Upper Canada.
Given her academic qualifications and background readers might be a bit wary that Canadian Women in the Sky would be an academic work, but that is not the case. No dry and extensive tome, Muir has intentionally written a simple and easily readable little volume, composed in language that teens can readily read and illustrated with many black and white photos, which adds to the interest factor.
Muir presents her look at women who fly by starting at the beginning, with a certain Mme Godard who was the first woman in the air over Canada, as a balloon passenger in 1856. Another aeronaut, Nellie Thurston, piloted her own balloons and parachute jumped from them as well, at 19th century fairs in Canada. With powered, heavier-than-air flight in the early 20th century, women soon became passengers, and later pilots, of these new "aeroplanes". Muir provides short biographies of women such as Dolena MacKay MacLeod, who was the first airplane passenger in Canada in September 1909, just seven months after the first airplane flight in the country. MacLeod flew with Casey Baldwin of the Aerial Experiment Association in his "Baddeck" biplane. Other early passengers included Grace Mackenzie and Olive Stark, who almost became Canada's first female aviation casualty.
Katherine Stinson, an American, was the first women known to pilot an airplane in Canada. Called "the flying schoolgirl", the petite Stinson flew at fairs and exhibitions all across Canada during the First World War. She did aerobatics and flew solo at night, by the light of flares. She also set records and carried the first airmail in western Canada.
Other chapters cover such fliers as Madge Graham who flew in the Curtiss H2SL flying boat, La Vigilance, which is now in the Canada Aviation and Space Museum in Ottawa. Pilots with short biographies include Eileen Vollick, Enid Norquay MacDonald, Louise Mitchell Jenkins, Marion Orr, Vera Dowling, Felicity McKendry and Dee Brasseur, who was one of the first women CF-18 pilots. Most of these women were career fliers, but there is a very short chapter on Canadian figure skating champion Barbara Ann Scott who flew for fun. Canada's first woman airline pilot, Rosella Bjornson also gets her own short chapter. Muir has a chapter on the Americans who were influences on Canadian women, too, including Harriet Quimby, Alys McKay Bryant and Amelia Earhart.
Muir tackles discrimination carefully throughout the book, but one chapter points out how women were discouraged from piloting and funneled into becoming stewardesses instead. She details the requirements and the challenges of that profession.
Further chapters cover Margaret Fane Rutledge, the Flying Seven and their efforts to promote women flying in the 1940s, Elsie McGill, Canada's first female aeronautical engineer and the 166 women who flew in the Second World War in the Air Transport Auxiliary delivering aircraft domestically and overseas. Canadian women bush pilots are profiled, too, including Lorraine Cooper, Vi Milstead Warren, Lorna de Blicquy, Elisabeth Wieben, Judy Adamson and Berna McCann as well as Judy Cameron who went on to become Air Canada's first female pilot. There is also a section on Mary Ellen Pauli, a helicopter bush pilot.
Other chapters cover women who have flown around the world, the group of Ninety-Nines who started the pollution patrol volunteer service Skywatch and the military pilot who flew with the Snowbirds and then went on to command the team, Maryse Carmichael.
The final chapter of the book deals with the two women who went further than any other Canadian women have done so far, Roberta Bondar and Julie Payette, Canada's two female astronauts who were crew on the Space Shuttle and later, in Payette's case, the ISS.
This is a lot of material to pack into 175 pages and so the stories told about each person are short and to the point. The book makes for fast-paced reading and, while it can easily be read by teens and adults, it might almost be ideal for bed-time stories read to a young aspiring aviator.
Dundurn Press's publishing program is supported by both the Canada Council for the Arts and the Ontario Arts Council.
Marc-André Valiquette is most well-known for his extensive series of five books on the Avro Arrow, but lately he has branched out into Canadian military squadron histories, most recently tackling 425 "Alouette" Squadron.
With a title like "Fangs of Death" the casual reader glancing at the book might think this is a horror story, but the title comes from the post-war motto of 439 "Sabre-Toothed Tiger" Squadron, the unit that is the subject of the book. A large-format and hefty (4 lb, 1.8 kg) hard-cover book, Fangs of Death is largely a photo album of carefully collected squadron photos from the Second World War right through to 2013, with text and captions describing the history. The book is bilingual, with each leaf written in English on the left page and French on the right. The title in French is "Les Crocs de la Mort". With the large numbers of photos, drawing and paintings, plus the bilingual format, the book is a relatively quick read, as most people will only read it in one of its two languages. Vaiquette shares credit for the book with historical and photographic researcher Richard Girouard.
The book starts with 439 Squadron's origins as the School of Army Co-operation and later 123 Army Co-operation Training Squadron, flying Grumman Goblin biplanes and Westland Lysanders from RCAF Station Rockcliffe in Ottawa. Converting to Hurricanes and moving to Debert, Nova Scotia, the unit languished far away from the fighting until ordered overseas in 1943. Once in the UK, the squadron traded their aging Hurricanes for brand new Hawker Typhoons and started operations on 2 March 1944 in the ground attack role. Prior to D-Day they engaged in attacks on targets such as the V-1 "flying bomb" launching sites and conducted anti-shipping missions. During the June 1944 invasion of Normandy the unit took on German coastal batteries and performed attacks on road and rail targets ahead of the allied ground forces, including interdicting German armour. Throughout the latter part of 1944 the squadron took part in the fighting in France, Belgium and into Germany, including taking part in the Battle of the Bulge. In early 1945 they joined the battle for Holland. Not all targets were on the ground, as unit pilots downed two Me-262 jets, among other German aircraft.
439 became the first RCAF squadron to operate from a German base, with its move to Goch in March 1945. With the war in Europe over in May 1945 the squadron had 86 pilots who served with it in total, of which 20 finished their tours, 24 were killed or presumed dead on operations, plus five killed in accidents, eight were POWs and three escaped after being shot down.
The squadron was reformed on Sabre Mk IIs at RCAF Uplands, again in Ottawa, in 1951 as part of Canada's NATO commitment. They became the first unit to fly their Sabres over to Europe, rather than having them shipped, as part of Operation Leapfrog I. They flew from Ottawa to Bagotville, Quebec; Goose Bay, Labrador; Bluie West in Greenland; Keflavik, Iceland; Kinloss, Scotland and onto North Luffenham, England where they were initially based. Four years later the unit moved to its operational base at Marville, France, the new home of No. 1 Fighter Wing. The unit later upgraded to Sabre Mk 5s and finally 6s, holding quick-reaction intercept stand-by and training at weapons meets, NATO exercises, Tiger Meets and other opportunities to hone their skills. The Tiger Meets were NATO gatherings of squadrons that had tigers as emblems.
It was in this post-war period that the squadron got their sabre-toothed tiger badge and the deadly-sounding motto to go with it. In 1961 the Maharajah of Rewa in India donated a stuffed tiger, which became their mascot, Fang. 439 became the last Sabre RCAF squadron in Europe, prior to its conversion to the CF-104 Starfighter in 1964.
In 1966 France ended its military involvement in NATO and 439 moved to Lahr in Germany. It was in 1969 that the squadron first painted a CF-104 in overall tiger stripes to take to the Tiger Meet. In 1970 all CF-104 flying was moved to CFB Baden-Soellingen and, in 1973, 439 received its squadron colours from the Duke of Edinburgh. In 1984 the squadron flew its last CF-104 sortie and was disbanded, to be re-formed flying the CF-18 late the next year, still at Baden. The unit formed the "Desert Cats", along with 416 Squadron, as part of Canada's participation in the liberation of Kuwait in 1990-91. In January 1993 Canada ended its commitment to provide a fighter wing to NATO and 439 was disbanded, its CF-18s returned to Canada. The unit flew them home, across the Atlantic, with air-to-air refuelling.
On 1 April 1993 the squadron was reformed, by rebadging Base Flight Bagotville as 439 Combat Support Squadron, flying the Bell CH-118 Iroquois helicopter and the venerable T-33 two-seat jet in the rescue, transport and utility roles. In 1995 the unit re-equipped with three Bell CH-146 Griffon helicopters and in 2000 retired the T-33 jets. As well as covering base rescue operations, 439 also participated in the Saguenay flood operation of 1996, and the international response to the earthquake in Haiti in 2010, as well as deploying to Jamaica to cover SAR for the island in 2011 as the Jamaican Defence Force was shorthanded.
439 Combat Support Squadron continues today in Bagotville with its three Griffon helicopters in the rescue and transport roles.
The book, Fangs of Death, is well written, very readable with roughly a double page for each year the squadron has been in existence, with more coverage of the Second World War years, naturally, as those were busier times. The choice of photographs is outstanding and I am certain that it was hard to decide which ones to include, given the photographic riches available.
My only criticism of the book is not on what was included, but excluded. The book does seem to shy away from controversy and even though the unit picked up the nuclear strike and reconnaissance roles in 1964 with the phasing in of the CF-104 there is lots about the photo recce role, but not a word about the nuclear weapons that were very controversial at the time. Other historical sources mention the nuclear strike role for 439, but not this work. Similarly the CF-104 had a very high loss rate, with half the aircraft built lost in accidents, but not a single Starfighter crash is mentioned in the book, during almost twenty years of flying the type, which seems odd when reading it. Other works, like Larry Milberry's Sixty Years, delve into the high number of Starfighter losses in some detail. Not to pick on the CF-104, but of the Sabre years, 1951-63, only one accident is mentioned in the book and then it seems only because it was the squadron commanding officer, Squadron Leader CJ Clay, who was killed and only a month and a half after assuming command, too.
Other than these omissions this is a fascinating book, a photographic window into the world of wartime operations and peacetime flying in Europe with NATO and in Canada. It will surely appeal to any present and former squadron members as well as anyone interested in fine-grained twentieth century history and military aviation.
Valiquette notes that none of his books have received any financial support from any level of government and that he publishes them himself through his own publishing company, Imaviation. While his five volumes on the Avro Arrow and his 425 Squadron history are featured on his website, at the time of this writing, Fangs of Death is not yet on the website, although I expect it will be soon. It should also soon be available in museum bookshops and the other bookstores that stock aviation titles.
It is hard to argue with a professional-quality book of flying stories that is offered at this price - free! And perhaps best of all, this is the first of three volumes of books for free that author and publisher Jack Schofield has planned in conjunction with writer and illustrator Art Cox.
Both Schofield and Cox earned their aviation writing and artwork skills honestly, honed during years of lay-overs awaiting passengers in that "downtime" that all pilots find they have at points in many flight itineraries. These two are not writers who know a bit about flying, (but get the details wrong), these are both veteran pilots who learned to write about aviation, as well as draw and paint airplanes, too.
So what's with "free"? Schofield relates that it is so hard for aviation writers to get published these days by traditional book publishers, that he started his own publishing house, Coast Dog Press. Upping the ante, he publishes or distributes not only his own works, but books by other aviation writers, too. The Hangar Flying - Tales From the Flight Deck, series is intended to be a showcase for the talents of the writers in his stable, as he includes writers like Bill Grenier and Peter Barratt in this book. As a platform the book also includes one small advertisement for some of the other titles he sells. He hopes that volume two will have a bit more advertising, at least to help cover costs. It seems like a good formula that works for all concerned, especially readers, who get a free book and will likely get two more volumes of free books in the near future. As a COPA member, all you have to do is send Schofield an email and he will send you the link for the book. He will also send you a note when the future volumes are posted. It is hard to beat that kind of service, all for free!
So what do you get for the price? The book Hangar Flying - Tales From the Flight Deck, is 84 pages. It took me just over an hour to read it, so it is not a long book.
The chapters are short tales, each a good aviation story that the authors thought should be recorded for posterity. Some are amusing and some are thought-provoking, but there is something to be learned from each one.
You get:
There are also several extra anecdotes thrown in, in between chapters, including a few subtle smirks that some people might miss, like a little half-page story about General Romeo Dallaire that has a photo of someone else to illustrate it.
Speaking of illustrations, aside from the photos, the book includes Schofield's art, sketches and pointillism drawings as well as Cox's paintings, which add up to give the book a rich, custom feel.
I enjoyed the book, it is great fun and will probably make most pilots recall similar stories from their own hangars. I would normally say something like, "this book would make a nice addition to any pilot's book shelf", but this book is web-based, so it will only find a home on your coffee table and then only as long as that is where you keep your laptop or tablet.
Readers are often skeptical about reading autobiographies and self-published autobiographies are often on their "do not fly" list, but From Miles to Millions by Bill Grenier is in a different category from most autobiographies. For one thing the author claims it isn't an autobiography. He says on the last page, "This book is not an autobiography. It is a memoir of events and anecdotes as I recollect them and therefore not necessarily in chronological order or complete."
In his defence, Grenier signed up lots of professional help in the editing, proofreading and layout of the book and the final product is on par with any that you would find from the commercial publishers of Canada.
Even though it is a self-published autobiography there is no need to accuse the author of arrogance, as, at many points in the book he humbly addresses that. For instance, on page 274 he says, "it's not exactly a chip on my shoulder - at times it is more like a block of wood." But given the era of the story (1936-87) and his childhood experiences, the reader really wants to forgive him any shortcomings in that regard. If he had been reticent he couldn't have done the things he accomplished in life in that period of history.
Also worth noting is that the book is for a good cause. His website says, "net proceeds from the sale of From Miles to Millions by Bill Grenier will be donated to aviation student scholarships.The author has sent the first installment of $2000 to the Canadian Owners and Pilots Association who will add it to the Neil Armstrong scholarship fund for the express purpose of assisting aviation students in their quest for advanced training in flying skills." Now that is hard to take umbrage with! It is a book about aviation that will lead to future flying for some worthy young people.
This is the story of a person who learned to fly, worked his way though the dues-paying flying years making little money and then broke into corporate aviation and finally a job with Air Canada. He worked his way up in that famous company, too, becoming a 747 captain in that plane's early days with the airline. He started a housing development to provide his family with a place to live and ended up spending his off days in the real estate business, gradually building up what became a large property development empire, Pagebrook. He took early retirement from Air Canada at age 50 in 1985 and dedicated himself to the real estate business full time. He covered many miles flying, but in the end made more dollars in real estate than miles flown, as he concludes in the book.
The book starts with a chapter detailing a dramatic pilot incapacitation incident combined with a non-retracted main gear on a fully-loaded Boeing 747 taking off from London and bound across the Atlantic for Canada. Grenier was first officer on that flight and managed to get the captain and the rest of the aircraft and crew home all in one piece. He offers this up as some of the most challenging flying that can be found on airline heavy iron and the chapter is a very engaging start to the book.
The second chapter goes back in time to the author's days trying to scratch out a living flying in Florida in the early 1960s, when he ended up doing light airplane repossessions. He recounts many lessons he learned there in the deep south in that rather rough game. He goes on next to detail the day he was asked by a bank to take over and fix a large real estate development company, Mascan, that had fallen in arrears. Similar to the 747 incident in the first chapter, Grenier describes how he used the same sort of flying skills to tackle that job.
The author waits until the fourth chapter to go over his childhood and it was a rough one, full of conflict, violence and too much abuse and neglect for a small child. It isn't hard to see where Grenier developed his approach to life, his drive to succeed and his "street smarts". The chapter fits in well with the rest of his story.
Having owned many personal aircraft, the author dedicates one whole chapter to the clapped-out Funk B85C he and a friend bought as a time builder early in their aviation careers. You can feel his affection for the odd-ball and much-maligned plane shine through. Eventually he owned and restored another Funk B many years later, one that was later often flown by his youngest son and one-time COPA Board Member, Glenn Grenier. Today the younger Grenier is COPA's legal counsel.
Other chapters give accounts his flying on the DEW line construction in DC-3s and Avro Yorks, his early days getting hired by and then laid-off by Trans Canada Airlines, which left him having to move to the US to feed his young family and led to the airplane repo job. His big break was being hired by General Electric for their corporate aviation department, a place he worked and honed his flying skills on aircraft like the Convair 440 and Grumman Gulfstream I. Finally he was recalled to Trans Canada, now Air Canada, and flew Viscounts, Vanguards, DC-8s and ultimately the 747 there. It was during this time that he got into real estate development in Toronto and he relates many of the lessons learned in that business as well.
The book is approximately half aviation and half business stories, but it is a very worthwhile work for anyone interested in either field of endeavour. This is not a thin book, but it moves along at a good clip and never gets bogged down in the minutia of the business world that would lose the attention of aviation readers. Right until the end of the story the book remains engaging and genuinely hard to put down. It is a good read, would make an excellent gift, and would be a splendid addition to anyone's aviation bookshelf.
The book won a bronze medal from the American Independent Book Publishers.
This book, by author Shirlee Smith Matheson, was originally published in 2005 as Lost: True Stories of Canadian Aviation Tragedies. The new edition, with a new name, is more than just a reprint, it expands some stories and even completes some, when old wrecks have been located in the intervening ten years since the first version came out.
The theme that ties this collection of chapters about missing aircraft is how easy it is to completely lose an aircraft in the Canadian wildness and not just small aircraft, as some aircraft lost for years have been quite large.
The book starts with the story of Ken Leishman and his 1979 disappearance while flying a medevac in a Piper Aztec between Sandy Lake, Ontario and Thunder Bay. The charismatic Leishman literally lived a life of crime, having stolen everything from furniture to gold and carried out bank robberies, but he was caught and did jail time. He even completed several jail breaks, but it was after his debt to society had been paid and he seemed to be "going straight" that he disappeared doing a "real" job, flying for a commercial carrier. His aircraft wreck was found some five months later.
Another chapter covers the loss of Sigismund Levanevsky and the Soviet four-engined Bolkhovitinov DB-A bomber he was flying across the North Pole in 1937 as part of raising Soviet technical prestige and that was never found.
There is the story of Gavin Edkins and his Cessna 150 flight from Fort McMurray, Alberta to Red Deer in 1996 that never arrived. In that chapter author Matheson criticizes the Canadian Forces SAR team and their scientific search methods, giving a lot more credence to people's dreams about where the aircraft was and the inherent wisdom of the local bush pilots, but when given free reign none of them could locate the aircraft either and it remains lost to this day. That same chapter covers the strange story of gold miners and suspicious mine stakes, ending in the loss of a Fairchild 82, pilot Chuck McAvoy and two American geologists in 1964. That wreck was located, 39 years later, in 2003.
The author next delves into British Columbia and its habit of "collecting wrecked planes". This chapter covers the 1942 crash of a Lockheed 14-H2 Super Electra en route to Vancouver from Prince George, BC. Its ten passengers and crew of three died when it hit Mount William Knight in the Cheam Range. The aircraft was not found for eight months. Another BC wreck was an RCAF Consolidated B-24 Liberator bomber that disappeared in 1945 on a training flight from Abbotsford, BC. It was found three weeks later, also in the Cheam Range. A Trans Canada Airways Canadair North Star with 66 people on board disappeared in 1956 on a flight from Vancouver. The captain declared to ATC that one of the North Star's Merlin engines had caught fire and was heading back to Vancouver when it impacted Mount Slesse, not far from the other two. It was found five months later, possibly the victim of mountain wave conditions. There had been no survivors.
Other chapters cover war hero and seasoned bush pilot Johnny Bourassa's 1951 disappearance, another wreck that was never found, plus the crash of a US Army crew and their Martin B-26 Marauder in 1942 on what was to be a ferry trip from the US through Canada to the UK. It crashed in Labrador and was noted for the fact that when it was found the captain had left a lengthy diary that detailed how the crew eventually starved to death awaiting a rescue that never came. SAR during World War Two was often non-existent. Further stories include a U-boat hunting Lockheed Hudson that has eluded location in Nova Scotia since 1943 and a Boeing B-17G Flying Fortress lost in Labrador. Another chapter deals with famous hockey player Bill Barilko, who had scored the Stanley Cup winning goal for the Toronto Maple Leafs in 1951, but who disappeared on a fishing trip with a friend just a few months later, a wreck that wasn't found for 11 years.
For her final chapter the author returns to British Columbia's "Graveyard of Lost Planes" and relates a set of stories that include a lost Convair B-36, an enormous six-engined bomber that iced up, lost three engines and jettisoned a "Fat Man" atomic bomb over BC waters in 1950, the USAF's first "Broken Arrow" incident. The crew bailed out and the bomber flew on to crash, but it was not found for three years.
Overall the book is an interesting read for all aviators. It can be a bit dramatic in places, but never gruesome. It really drives home the reality that you can never be "too prepared" to survive in the terrain that is under your route of flight, because, even with modern ELTs and SAR, some aircraft still go missing and are never found. You really want to stack the odds in your favour.
The publisher, Frontenac House, is supported by the Canada Council for the Arts and also the Alberta Government's Media Development Fund.
This book, by freelance writer Anne Gafiuk, was an accidental project. She started off writing a story about another World War II pilot when her background research took her to the Bomber Command Museum in Nanton, Alberta. The Museum's Tink Robinson connected her with Gordon Jones, a local pilot who was an instructor with the British Commonwealth Air Training Plan (BCATP) during the Second World War and taught at #5 Elementary Flying Training School in nearby High River, Alberta. In interviewing Jones and his family at their home in High River in southern Alberta, Gafiuk became entranced by his story and the museum convinced her to create the book from her interviews. The museum then published the book in house. Jones was well known at the museum because he owned and flew a deHavilland Tiger Moth, a yellow one in BCATP markings and he displayed it often at the museum.
Gafiuk showed up at the Jones house for her first interview bearing a homemade lemon meringue pie and that won over hearts and minds. She came back, several times, to complete the interviews through 2011-12.
Gordon Jones was born on 12 January 1923 in Bangor, Saskatchewan, the son of Welsh pioneer settlers. Jones' father served in the infantry in the First World War and was gassed in France. He came home with shrapnel wounds. Jones himself lived through the rigours of farm life in the Great Depression and then he enlisted in the RCAF when he turned 18 in 1941. He had to redo the medical three or four times before they took him and he then reported to #2 Manning Depot in Brandon, Manitoba in May 1941. After basic training he was assigned to do guard duty as an Aircraftsman Second Class at #10 Service Flying Training School at Dauphin, Manitoba. He was next sent to #4 Initial Training School in Edmonton, where he flew the Link Trainer simulator.
Jones did his Elementary Flying Training at #5 EFTS in High River, Alberta, on Tiger Moths, where the instructors were civilians at that time. Jones arrived in Fort Macleod and #7 SFTS for his service flying training on Ansons. Billy Bishop himself pinned Jones' wings on and Jones was then promoted to Sergeant pilot. Hoping to be sent overseas, Jones was surprised to be posted to #1 FIS in Trenton for instructor training on 1 January 1942, on Harvards. He says of the 40 or so members of his course who did go overseas, only one made it home.
After instructor training Jones was posted back to #5 EFTS in High River in March, 1942 to teach pilots and was promoted to Pilot Officer and later Flying Officer. It was in High River that Jones met his future wife, Linora Randle, and he says that she taught him how to dance at Alberta country dances. In October 1943 the school converted to Cornells, but Jones never lost his admiration for the Tiger Moth. Jones and Linora Randle were married in October 1944 and it was in that month that the orders came to begin the closure of #5 EFTS as the war wound down. Jones was sent to #1 FIS Trenton and later posted to #16 SFTS in Hagersville, Ontario, where he became a testing officer, taking trainees up for flight tests. No matter how much an instructor wanted to be sent overseas, once you had some seniority in the job you were too valuable as an instructor to go.
After the war Jones went back to farming and stayed in High River the rest of his life. He owned a Piper Cherokee 235, became a member of the International Flying Farmers and a freelance instructor. For a while he owned a flying school and flew charter flights as well, including air ambulance flights. He served on the local airport commission and became the Flying Farmer representative to the COPA board. He was elected to the Municipal District of Foothills five times and became the Reeve. He had kidney cancer in 1973, but overcame it. He later traded his Cherokee for a Piper Lance and then in 1994 bought a real yellow BCATP Tiger Moth when it came up for sale. He kept the Lance as well until 2008, when he was diagnosed with cancer again, beating it again. In 2012 he was given an Award of Merit by COPA President and CEO Kevin Psutka. He kept his Tiger Moth to the end of his life, willing it to the museum.
His biography was published in late 2012 and Gordon Jones passed away on 10 September 2013, at age 90.
In many ways this isn't a classic sort of biography of a World War II pilot. Instead this is a sort of a scrap book of interview transcripts, old photos, pages from logbooks, flight test reports, that sort of thing. It's a warm and personal book and has an intimate quality to it. During the long interviews that the author did with Jones and his family, friends and wartime associates she became a part of that family and very close to her subject. The book is full of the little stories and anecdotes that made up wartime service, even here in Canada, far from the fighting, stories of low flying exploits, cross country flights, promotions, train trips and country dances held on remote prairie air bases. Overall it is a delightful read and surprisingly compelling. It is also profusely illustrated with hundreds of photos and documents.
Wings Over High River is an interesting personal story, one that most aviators would find of interest.
