Aviation and Heritage Roundup Feburary 2025
Leads and Comments, provided by Paul Squires, CAPA-ACCA Contact, Wetaskiwin, Alberta
Feb. 27 – Former BCATP Cornell Mk I undergoing restoration in USA. (Editor’s Note: This was a ‘Lend-Lease’ aircraft with a British serial, so it was returned to the USA. It is unlikely it was sold in Canada and the idea it has a Canadian history after the War is also unlikely. The reference to two Hurricanes being based at Yorkton likely means they were part of the deployment of fighters to Western Canada staged to intercept and destroy Japanese Balloon Bombs)
Restoration Begins on Fairchild Cornell Mk.I at the Military Aviation Museum – Vintage Aviation News
Feb. 26 – Trinidad Museum given eviction
Eviction notice served on Military Museum – Trinidad Guardian
Feb. 26 – Walk-around of preserved Beaver, a type not often found in Museums
Randy’s Warbird Profiles: DHC Beaver N779XP – Vintage Aviation News
Feb. 25 – Canadian North Airlines sold
Canadian North sold to Winnipeg-based company for $205M | CBC News
Feb. 24 – A look at aviation in Canada after Aviation Day
Canadians remain confident in aviation industry after 116-years of powered flight | Globalnews.ca
Feb. 24 – Confusing reports on dismissal of US Forest Fire Fighters
Cuts to wildland firefighter force – how have you been affected? – Fire Aviation
Feb. 23 – Museum approved for Roswell, New Mexico
Plan for air museum receives county commissioners’ support | Local News | rdrnews.com
Feb. 23 – Yorkshire Air Museum display on Operation GISELA, March 3-4, 1945. Fifteen Canadian airmen were lost in the actions that night, including F/L Laffoley, as below.
New Display at Yorkshire Air Museum Tells Story of Operation Gisela – Vintage Aviation News
March 3rd – 4th, 1945
Bomber Command sent 201 Halifax with 21 Lancaster and 12 Mosquito Pathfinders which made an accurate attack on the synthetic oil plant at Kamen, putting it out of production for the rest of the war. A further 212 Lancasters with 10 Mosquitos breached the Dortmund-Ems Canal near Ladbergen again. These were supported by 95 training aircraft making a diversion, and other operations included 64 LNSF Mosquitos to Berlin, 32 more to Würzburg, 61 RCM, 29 Serrate/Intruder, 31 Gardening and 17 Special Operations for a total of 785 sorties with 8 losses. On return to England, however, the bombers ran into Operation Gisela, a mass attack by German night fighter Intruders flying in the bomber stream, which caught RAF night fighter defences off-guard and shot down 20 bombers and 5 HCU aircraft over England and damaged 8-10 more, at the cost of 25 Ju 88G night fighters (BC War Diaries). For a description of this nights flying see L. Morrison’s account in Airforce Magazine, December, 1983. ‘418 Sqn. returned to the area of Munster and Osnabrück with 9 harassment patrols’.
March 3rd – 4th, 1945
10 Sqn. Halifax III HX332 ZA-V shot down by an Intruder over England when returning from an operation over Germany, F/L J.G.L. (Jack) Laffoley, P/O L.A. Thorndycraft, Sgt C.H. Finch RAF, F/S P.H. Field RAF and Sgt E.W. Bradshaw RAF killed, P/O K.H.V. Palmer RAF, F/S S. Hamilton RAF and P/O W. Kay RAF badly injured. There is a stain glass window dedicated to the memory of F/L Laffoley in the Dominion Douglas United Church, Westmount, Quebec (Pers. Comm. Adrienne Bode, great niece, Jan. 25, 2005).
Feb. 21 – Netherlands Transport Museum to close
Nederlands Transport Museum Set to Close – Vintage Aviation News
Feb. 21 – British C-54/DC-4 scrapped
The Skymaster Couldn’t Be Saved: North Weald C-54 Skymaster Scrapped – Vintage Aviation News
Feb. 20 – RNZAF’s first Hercules retired to Museum (paywall)
RNZAF’s first Hercules arrives at Wigram’s Air Force Museum
Feb. 19 – Re-examining Canada’s first airplane hijacking
More than 56 years after Canada’s first sky-jacking, the story finds a new audience | CBC.ca
Feb. 19 – Hangar Museum celebrates Aviation Day
Hangar Flight Museum celebrating National Aviation Day
Feb. 18 – Homeschool course at air museum (sign of the political times?)
National Naval Aviation Museum’s Homeschool Academy – Vintage Aviation News
Feb. 17 – Restored Junkers F.13 returns to Canada for display.
Junkers F 13 Returns to the Royal Aviation Museum of Western Canada – Vintage Aviation News
Feb. 17 – Aviation Day at the Langley Museum
VIDEO: History takes wing on Family Day at B.C.’s Canadian Museum of Flight – Peninsula News Review
Feb. 16 – Lockerbie still troubled 37 years later
‘You don’t see the trauma until suddenly you do’: Lockerbie bombing’s lasting impact on a ‘normal
and little town’ | Lockerbie plane bombing | The Guardian
Feb. 14 – New airship development, first new Rigid Airship in decades. (Editors Note. This article has all kinds of errors, for example Aug. 20, 1939 was the last flight of the Graf Zeppelin II, not the first. And the ‘A century after terrifying disasters’ is the journalist eternal go-to for phrase for 3 civilian airship accidents. Only 2 of which had fatalities. And the error, ‘Helium is less flammable than hydrogen’, ie, not at all, is rather funny.)
Pathfinder 1: The airship that could usher in a new age
(Editors Observation: What happened to that development of an inflatable wing aircraft able to be transported to remote sites to carry cargo into inaccessible regions?)
Feb. 13 – UK Museum successful in bid to keep temporary hangar open
De Havilland Aircraft Museum’s appeal to keep hangar is granted
Feb. 12 – US EA-18 crash at San Diego, crew fine.
Watch moment US fighter jet crashes into San Diego Bay
Feb. 12 – Fundraising ‘Donations by Cockpit’ at Saanich Air Museum
Saanich Peninsula aviation museum opens cockpits by-donation – Saanich News
Feb. 11 – Very Low Earth Orbit satellites or Sky Skimmers
Sky skimmers: The race to fly satellites in the lowest orbits yet
Feb. 10 – “Philippine Mars has left the building”
B.C.’s legendary Martin Mars water bomber makes final journey to its permanent home | CBC News
‘End of the road’: Iconic Philippine Mars makes final flight out of B.C. | Globalnews.ca
Tucson’s Pima Air Museum lands World War II-era flying boat
Last Mars Waterbomber To Be Trucked To Arizona Museum – AVweb
Feb. 10 – History in Miniature
2025 NorthWest Scale Modelers Show – Vintage Aviation News
Feb. 8 – Using formations to reduce fuel use by airliners
The aircraft that may fly like a flock of geese
Feb. 6 – Pilot creates giant Maple Leaf flight path over Ontario
Patriotic Ontario pilot creates massive maple leaf in the sky to send message to U.S. | CBC News
Feb. 6 – Potential disruptions to aircraft due to space debris
UBC researchers say space junk has increasing potential to disrupt air travel | CBC News
Feb. 3 – Gear down and safe. Looks like a good outcome.
Investigation underway after plane’s emergency landing on Highway 11 near Nipigon | CBC News
Feb. 3 – A history of solar mirrors in space
‘It could illuminate an area the size of a football stadium’: How Russia launched a giant space mirror in 1993
Feb. 3 – Solar Sails (Editors Note. And also fermentation, another subject near and dear to aviation, and one of the processes that I’ve always felt has to be credited to a bachelor to discover. Along, of course, with cheese)
3 Things you should know about fecal transplants, solar sails, and precision fermentation | The Channel
Feb. 2 – Conviction in Drone collision with Quebec CL-415 in Los Angeles
Guilty plea to recklessly crashing drone into firefighting aircraft at Palisades – Fire Aviation
Feb. 2 – Latest on Halifax Project
Exhaust Ring and Engine Cowls – Halifax 57 Rescue
Oct. 19, 2024 – The past and future of the SST
Concorde Supersonic Jets Were Once the Most Elite Way to Fly: Photos – Business Insider
(Editors Comment. There was a real missed opportunity for James Bond films scene, that was done in a mock-serious radio show, where having located the Villain’s Lair in China Bond activated a beacon, and just when he was about to be killed, a British Airways Concorde from Hong Kong came screaming over the horizon, slowed, and banked over the target — SAS Paratroopers coming out the rear doors — before streaking off again with Chinese fighter jets in futile pursuit. Boy, I would have liked to have seen that in a movie!)
Cartoon of note:
