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Classic RCAF Canso Rescue amphibian by Vancouver’s Lion’s Gate Bridge in 1960. |
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Big Jerry’s AN-2 Kolchosniki hangs it all out on finals to Boundary Bay last month. Hand made photo by ‘Spy in the Sky’ |
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Last month this photo of Mike Freund preparing to test fly his new RV-6a was incorrectly credited to Rick Sauter. In fact, the photo was taken by Bonnie Tidswell of High Alpine Air. |
My Canso…
After the Board meet last month in Ottawa my flight didn’t leave till late afternoon on Sunday, so was able to sleep in and wandered toward the By Ward Market to see what I could find for breakfast.
Being a bit of a camera buff, I popped in to the Museum of Contemporary Photography to see the current exhibition of images from the Sixties in Canada. It’s fascinating what the Photo Arts world consider significant imagery, often startlingly similar to the stuff I used to click all over the place when I got my first myriadly adjustable camera. Dripping taps, peeling paint, female form - that sort of thing.
Anyway, strolling around and dutifully reading all the fine print about the pics, when BOOM! There was a fantastic shot of an old Rescue Canso doing a JATO take-off right out of False Creek into English Bay, just off the water by the Bath Houses!
Thing was, not only did I do a bunch of drawings to modify that very aircraft, but with a suitably long lens, the picture could have been taken from our window! I scampered around telling anyone who’d listen, the security guard, a guy from Istanbul, the staff at the front desk. It was really something.
Eventually, I calmed down and went to get my stuff from the locker room, and told a couple of guys in there. “Yes! Yes!” one of them exclaimed… “I worked on that Canso at Uplands! We had ‘em for Search and Rescue in the Air Force!”
One tale led to another, and he’d worked on T- birds, Mitchells, Beech 18’s, the lot. I mentioned I’d designed the heater system for the Mitchell, Lanc, and Albatross, and he’d worked on them all. Ruined his hands taking Lanc cowlings on and off. He was Louis Patrault from Montreal, visiting family.
Coincidences like these make the world a fun place. Back home I rooted through my dusty archives, and came up with an old RCAF photo of the same Canso by the Lions Gate Bridge here back in 1960. The circle is skwerkled. One of my sailing friends was a Photo Tech back then, and donated me a bunch of his discarded prints! Serendipitous. Yay!
GOVER’MENT TYPE STUFF
At 0901hrs Coordinated Universal Time, May 12th, begins a traumatic day for a lot of folks who fly out of, into, or around Boundary Bay Airport, cos that’s the time the Mode C Control Zone clicks on.
Too bad if you haven’t read the book or attended one of NavCan’s special briefings. Why are only local folk urged to these briefings? Are guys flying through from Moose Jaw, The States, or Tuktuyuktuk, smarter than us? Are locals a bit slow, and unable to figure out the official paperwork? Strange.
However, life will be a lot simpler if you did attend one of those briefings. Too late now, as they were held in April.
I argued mightily against Mode C at Boundary, and lost. We should be concerned that what safety NavCan wins on the swings, we could lose on the roundabouts. I fear that many decent itinerant fly-abouts, to avoid troubling ZBB tower and its beeping regulars, will funnel themselves into un-noticed corridors.
Hopefully all will be well, but, according to COPA’s President, Kevin Psutka, experience back east has high-lighted the inconvenience of obtaining the required discrete code, required to do business with NavCan.
Apparently it’s somewhat easier to obtain the required code here, which is nice, however, seems the system differs subtly across the country. So read your CFS carefully. Human nature being what it used to be when I was a lad, don’t assume anything!
IT’S ONLY MONEY
Was a favourite saying of my Dad.
“It’s onny munny you Tawney. Yer can do owt wi munney!” he said, when I pointed out how clean our park was in Kitsilano compared with the paper wrapping littered parks in my home town.
Well Nav Canada’s V-P of Revenue, Arthur Andreassen, tried to address this problem in his Service Charges Discussion Paper, (56 pages) he presented to the COPA Board in Ottawa last month.
The discussion paper is grim reading full of graphs and tables. Very thorough, but hard to know what it portends.
We are still upset because our government refuses to apply any of the fuel tax toward aviation services, simply dumping it in general revenue. Nice work when you can get it, and they do.
Arthur is between a rock and a hard place because the Large Carriers, read Airline Industry, want to slough off a great chunk of their costs onto poor little General Aviation. Problem is, General Aviation covers a mess of differing ways to fly and our bit is unable to recover expenses via tax relief or flight revenue.
Using an average of 50 flights and 50 hours a year, he calculated what other paragons of general aviation paid for using the free air. Germany, the U.K. Australia and New Zealand.
And it was depressing indeed for we innocents. Upwards of $500 to $1100 a year per pilot per aircraft whatever. Of course this was only a discussion, but you get the drift. If it wasn’t for the fuel tax, we’d be getting a pretty good deal, or, from the other point of view, they are getting a crummy deal.
However of course, it’s comparing apples to oranges, as the type of flying involved is hard to equivilatize. No wonder pilots in the USA are lobbying their Senators and Representatives that the system not be privatized.
COPA type flying is more like American type flying than anywhere else in the world and the 50/50 calculation worked out to about $80 CDN for U.S. pilots.
Of course we believe that airports are simply short bits of highway, and we expect that personal use of smaller aircraft not be driven from the sky by burdensome fees imposed to appease the airlines. Maybe some of the airport fees, rents and fuel taxes should be reduced to ease their burden?
It’s all very unsettling, and COPA is constantly there stating our case.
RARE JANES KOLCHOSNIKI SPOTTED…
Local iron birdwatchers are thrilled to see the very rare Janes Kolchosniki AN-2 bird back in the sky flexing it’s new metallized wings after many months in it’s secluded nest on the ZBB ramp. Spotters came from kilometers around to catch a glimpse.
From Poland, this huge bird is rumoured to hover on finals while making the pilot’s mind up where and when to land. Back home in The Old Country, the ‘Little Colt,’ as it is fondly known, was used in summer as a dust suppressant to oil dirt roads. Highways Ministries of both Alberta and Saskatchewan have indicated an interest.
The AN-2’s majestic slow approach, enabled our lightning artist to get this fantastic action shot of the famous ‘Big Jerry Approach,’ with it all hanging out. Rooters, ZBB.
So, until next time, I guess that’s it for now, Fly Safe…
Tony Swain, Your Copaguy, BC & Yukon