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“Of Bush
planes and the Canadian Wilderness”
A historical snap
shot illustrating commercial Canso operations
from one of
ZK-PBY’s former owners, pioneer Canadian airline Austin Airways.
New Zealand’s Catalina, ZK-PBY has
had a very long and eventful career. One of its operators was Ontario
based airline Austin Airways. As C-FJCV, our aircraft served for at
least fourteen years supplying isolated communities in Mid and Eastern
Canada. The following makes interesting reading, it is summarised from
Larry Milberry, 1985; Austin Airways.
In the early fifties Austin
Airways reached another milestone by acquiring its first large aircraft.
Inco, a large Canadian mining company, was conducting a major nickel
exploration program in the Ferguson Lake region, some 305 miles
northwest of Churchill (Manitoba). Bush planes were being used to
support local efforts there, but a greater airfreight capacity was
required. Inco again approached Austin with a proposition, this time
that it provide a Canso for the job.
Austin’s first Canso was delivered
March 26, 1952, and put straight into service. Freight was shipped up
the Hudson Bay Railway from The Pas to Churchill, where it was assembled
and loaded aboard the Canso, which would then drone up the Hudson Bay
coast towards Ferguson at its steady 134 mph. It could home in on the
beacon which Inco had installed at Ferguson, the only beacon in that
part of the Arctic. The Canso was used to carry all sorts of loads:
food, construction supplies, field equipment such as drill rods, fuel
and so on. Fuel would be tankered from Churchill in one wing (700
gallons), much of it diesel fuel, or avgas for the bush planes. The
Canso could make the trip both ways drawing fuel from the other side,
though extra drums were sometimes carried in case some refuelling was
required at Ferguson.
The Mid Canada Line
Together, the durable Canso and
DC-3 were to be the backbone of Austin's multi-engine passenger/freight
operation for decades following the purchase of the first Canso: 25
years for the Canso, over 30 for the DC-3. A new lease on life for these
wartime veterans came in the mid-1950s when Canada and the United States
decided to install a continental air defence network to guard against
bomber attack from the USSR. There would be three radar/electronic
defence lines strung out across the land and their construction required
a huge civilian airlift operation that involved all Canada's regional
airlines and a fleet of dozens of freight planes, including the DC-3,
Canso, C-46, Avro York, Bristol Freighter and DC-4. The DC-3 and Canso's
were the most widely used.
For Austin Airways the most
important of the defence lines was the Mid Canada Line, a series of
stations strung across the 55th parallel, and Jack Austin was a key
participant in this story.
The Canso operation was basic bush
flying, some days, it was like an old-time travelling medicine show. The
Canso would plunk down at some little settlement and the pilot and his
two crewmen would start unloading or loading. Passengers would show up
with the usual trappings of canoes, skidoos, dogs or whatever, and the
co-pilot would pull tickets from his pocket and sometimes have to dicker
around to make change. Someone would owe two or three dollars for this
package or that.
On some trips, the lack of sufficient
easy access to the Canso's cabin resulted in drastic measures. On one
trip, a Canso flew to Lac Bienville to move out an Indian family. They
had two canoes but only one would fit in the Canso. Right on the spot,
the Indian sawed four feet off his canoe! As they prepared to cast off,
with the usual load of kids, dogs, sleds and so on, the co-pilot
(hauling up the anchor) fell overboard. Having soaked the wad of bills
with which the Indians had paid for the charter, the dripping wet money
was hung on ropes and wires crisscrossing the cockpit and left to dry as
the Canso lumbered off.
Canso operations could be very
hazardous. On the Labrador coast, the presence of fog presented an
unknown quantity in terms of flying in and out of settlements. Allied to
this problem, aircraft were often left moored for long periods of
inactivity with no place to remove the aircraft from seawater for
protection. Floating ice in harbours and bays often made water work
extremely hazardous.
In
spite of such difficulties, the Mid Canada airlift was carried out to
the contractors' satisfaction. Thousands of flights were made carrying
supplies and personnel into numerous sites between Labrador and the
western mountain region. The safety record was good, due largely to the
standards set in the operations manual, something that included much of
the Austin Airways philosophy for running an airline.
As
a postscript to this story, in addition to ZK-PBY, at least 2 other
Catalina / Canso aircraft with a previous association with Austin
Airways were still airworthy into at least the 1990s. Canso C-FDFB was
purchased by Austin in 1971 for use on passenger and freight services.
Sold in 1977, the aircraft was acquired by the government of
Newfoundland and converted into a water bomber. It is now on static
display at Botwood, St Johns, Newfoundland. The other aircraft, Canso
C-FIIW, was often leased to Austin in the early 1960s. This aircraft was
listed as a water bomber, re-registered as C-GFFC with "SLAFCO" at Moses
Lake in Washington State, USA in September 1999.
Sources:
Milberry,
Larry, Austin Airways, Canav Books, 1985, Toronto.
Ewing,
Ross, Catalina Dreaming, David Ling Publishing Ltd., 1996,
Auckland
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