Canada's Air Dominion

(See map p. 77)

Returning from gaily cold Montreal to unusually chilly Washington last week, Warren Irving Glover, Assistant Postmaster General in charge of mail transportation (see p. 68), had a new respect for Canada's aviation enterprise. He had been to Montreal to arrange for two more U. S.-Canadian air mail services and for the passage of Canadian mail through U. S. territory. The existing U. S.-Canadian routes are between Montreal and Albany, Toronto and Buffalo and Vancouver and Seattle. Next month a new line will connect Minneapolis-St. Paul to Winnipeg by way of Fargo and Grand Forks, N. Dak. As soon as that route operates smoothly, Great Falls, Mont., and Regina, Sask., will be joined. Those routes are for international mail. The purely Canadian mail will leave Canada at Windsor, Ont., travel from Detroit to Chicago, to Minneapolis; thence to Regina.

The U. S. circuit is temporary, at the most alternative, for Canada. The Dominion is now working out a line from Montreal to Winnipeg by way of Sudbury, Sault Ste. Marie, and Allanwater. When that is instituted, and the proposed extension comes into being between Calgary and Victoria, Canada will have a continuous airway 3,000 miles long.*

Another stupendous Canadian air stretch, and one which counts more to the Dominion, is the 1,800 miles from Calgary to Herschel Island. The East-West route parallels the Great Canadian Pacific and Canadian National Railway systems. Into the far North goes no railroad except the new line from The Pas to Churchill on Hudson Bay. What the railroads did in developing the U. S. West, airplane companies are doing for Canada's North, a district almost as great as the whole U. S./-

History. The first flight recorded in Canada took place Aug. 2, 1909, at the village of Petawawa, Ont., about 80 miles west-northwest of Ottawa. Very little experimental flying followed. During the War the Royal Flying Corps had some military schools around Lake Ontario. They were insufficient. So many a Canadian trained by courtesy at Kelly Field in Texas, the U. S. Army school.

Control. In the summer of 1919 the Canadian Government organized an Air Board, which at once began to organize Dominion flying and devise flying regulations. Eight years later Governmental work was split four ways: 1) Royal Canadian Air Force, investing all military operations (acting director, L. S. Breadner); 2) Civil Government Air Operations, in charge of all state aircraft work except the military (present director, J. L. Gordon); 3) Aeronautical Engineering Division, to advise all operators on technical and engineering matters (present chief, F. W. Stedman); 4) Civil Aviation, to administer air regulations and supervise flying operations by commercial interests (present controller, J. A. Wilson).

Operators. With Controller Wilson's aid and generous support of the entire Government commercial flying has bounded throughout Canada. Four years ago there were only 14 private firms in the country's entire 3,684,723 square miles. Now there are 89 companies. Last year they carried 100,000 passengers; with only 24 crashes--29 dead, 20 hurt.

Largest private operator is Western Canada Airways, whose routes spring from Ontario to Manitoba, to Saskatchewan, Alberta and British Columbia, to Northwest Territories and to Yukon. In the Patricia District of Ontario, in northern Alberta and northern British Columbia, W. C. A. planes carry passengers, mail, freight, food supplies, mining equipment and machinery for mineral prospectors and mining companies. At any time W. C. A. will despatch an ambulance plane for the wretched, sick or injured.

To those hardy men who are probing Canada for her natural wealth, Western Canada Airways bases are what Kansas City, Omaha, Fort Dodge, St. Joseph, Denver and Sacramento were to U. S. pioneers 50 years ago. Sioux Lookout, Ont., is the hop-off to gold fields at Red Lake, Woman Lake, Narrow Lake, Confederation Lake. Allanwater, Ont., is the hop-off for Pickle Lake and Crow River. Lac du Bonnet, Man., is a base whence to fly to gold, copper and tin properties. Cranberry Portage, Man., near The Pas is the hop-off for explorations and the famed Flin Flon (copper) exploitation. Other bases: Emma Lake, Sask., 30 miles north of Prince Albert, for gold and copper at Moose Point in Lac la Ronge area, for copper and nickel at Rottenstone, 30 miles north of Churchill River; Waterways (Fort McMurray),Alta., for trapping, fur-trading, prospecting and general commerce along the Slave River, around Great Slave Lake, then down the Mackenzie River to Aklavik, then to Herschel Island; Prince George, B. C., for hunters, miners, prospectors and aerial photographers; Steward, B. C., for prospectors; Vancouver, B. C., for fishery patrols.

Western Canada Airways uses Boeing flying boats at Vancouver and Fokkers elsewhere. (It has a Junkers monoplane for general operations and photography.) Except in British Columbia, the mail which Western Canada Airways carry bears the company's own stamps.

Western Canada Airways is greatest in Canada. Other companies are by no means negligible. Compagnie Aerienne Franco-Canadienne carries mail, passengers and freight to the lumber and mining country of interior Quebec. Canadian Airways, the commercial pioneer in the east, is the general carrier between Montreal and Detroit. Canadian Colonial Airways flies the mail between Montreal and Albany, N. Y. North Western Airways at Winnipeg does aerial advertising and passenger hopping. Rutledge Air Service teaches at Calgary and Medicine Hat and last autumn arranged with Commercial Airways at Edmonton to carry mail from Fort McMurray to Aklavik (to develop this program Commercial Airways last week was using new Bellancas). Southern Alberta Airlines teaches at Lethbridge, Alta., and helps the Alberta Provincial Police hunt escaped prisoners. Yarrow Aircraft Corp. does a general business around Vancouver. Gillies Air Service teaches at Kitchener, Ont.

Clubs. Student training in the U. S., except for the military services, is entirely a private enterprise.* The Dominion Government has made it semi-public by its aid to the Light Aeroplane Clubs. Twenty-two such clubs are now active./- The members contribute dues which pay for an instructor and a light plane (Moths or Airo Avians chiefly). The Government contributes a second plane. More than 5.000 members now belong to the clubs. Last year 231 earned private pilot's licenses, 73 commercial licenses. Largest club is Calgary's with more than 1,000. Saskatoon has more than 600. Winnipeg's members flew most hours last year. Next were Toronto's, then Calgary's. Each of these had more than 1,000 hours. The clubs hold inter-club air meets.

Manufacturers. Except for the training machines of the Light Aeroplane Clubs. Canada gets most of her planes from U. S. manufacturers. Several of these have created Canadian subsidiaries, shipping their parts for assembly and sale in the Dominion. Chief among Canada's aircraft makers are:

Ottawa Car Mfg. Co. (Avro-Avians), at Ottawa.

Fairchild Aircraft, at Montreal.

Canadian Pratt & Whitney Aircraft Co. (motors), at Longueuil, Quebec.

Boeing Aircraft of Canada, at Vancouver.

Canadian Wright Co. (motors), at Montreal.

De Havilland Aircraft of Canada, at Toronto.

Bellanca Aircraft of Canada, at Montreal.

Curtiss-Reid Flying Service, at Montreal.

Canadian Vickers, at Montreal.

Fairchild cabin planes were early favorites in Canada. The Canadian Department of National Defense owns 32 (to the chagrin of English companies), for forest patrol, aerial photography and survey operations. Fairchild business is so good that the company is now constructing its own plant at Longueuil, 15 minutes from the heart of Montreal. Adjacent are its eight-rayed landing field, its seaplane T-dock on the St. Lawrence.

In central and northern Canada, Western Canada Airways uses Fokkers exclusively. At Vancouver Boeing flying boats are preferred.

Airports of Entry. A certain amount of aerial smuggling (liquor, silks, jewels) passes over the 4,000-mi. Canadian-U. S. border. The two Governments so far have been unable to cope with it. For legitimate flying they have established customs ports of entry where officials swiftly, neatly, pleasantly clear the incoming planes. Canada has ten such ports of entry--Fredericton (seaplane station), N. B., Hamilton, Ont., Leaside (near Toronto), Ont., Lethbridge, Alta., Montreal (seaplane station), St. Hubert (at Montreal), Moose Jaw, Sask., Regina, Sask., Virden, Man., Winnipeg, Man. The U. S. has nine--Pembina, N. Dak., Portal, N. Dak., Port Angeles, Wash., Seattle, Newport. Vt., Albany, Buffalo, Detroit. St. Paul*

St. Hubert's. Most important airport in Canada, most thoroughly equipped, is St. Hubert's across the St. Lawrence from Montreal. The main section was put into service last October, when the Montreal Light Aeroplane Club held a pretty air pageant to entertain the twoscore national air tour planes from the U. S. St. Hubert's has Canada's unique mooring mast, to accommodate the British dirigible R-100 if she crosses the Atlantic next May as planned. A hydrogen manufacturing plant stood nearly completed last week. New roads were being built from the airport to the city. Montreal hopes to get the U. S. national air races for 1931. The place's great pride is not its wireless and lights, but its hard-surface runways, its comfortable hangars.

Conditions. New Canadian airports have good runways. They do not need them, for the country is spangled with lakes and striped with rivers--splendid sites in summer for pontoon-equipped planes, for ski-equipped ones in winter./-

Hangars are another rarity in the Dominion. Planes are parked out-of-doors. In winter, mechanics build themselves a three-walled shack of lumber or snow, run the nose of the plane in, drape the opening with tarpaulins. An oil stove keeps motors from freezing, the mechanics warm enough to work.

Another peculiarity of Canadian aviation is its gasoline caches. The government, private operators, the mining companies and the trading posts keep gasoline stores at isolated spots for troubled flyers.

Pilots expect what to the rest of the world is the unusual--forest fires, lost parties, calls for ambulance service, mineral deposits, migrating caribou, herded reindeer. In New Brunswick bears might steal a pilot's food. In Hudson Bay a seaplane might be bumped by a white whale.

*The parallel U. S. air path between San Francisco and New York is 2,700 miles.

/-Canada's area is 3,684,723 sq. mi.; the U. S. including Alaska is 3,564,658 sq. mi. Europe covers 3,750,000 sq. mi.

*There are about 200 U. S. flying clubs

/-A twenty-third, the Victoria Aero Club, suspended last spring because its aircraft crashed.

* The other U. S. airports of entry are at Douglas, Ariz., Nogales, Ariz., Los Angeles (two stations), San Diego, El Paso, Miami, Palm Beach, Brownsville.

/-The outboard motor has been the airplane's partner in the present penetration and civilization of Northern Canada. They aided the construction of Canada's newest railroad, the grain-carrying line from The Pas, Man. to Churchill on Hudson Bay.

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