Three Books to Check Out: “Bush Flying Captured” is CANAV’s Pick of the Year!

For any true fan of aviation this could well be “the” book of 2011. Bush Flying Captured has just been released. Author/publisher Rich Hulina had done us all a gigantic favour by turning out this magnificent tome. A large-format hardcover, Bush Flying Captured features hundreds of fabulous colour photos of the great Canadian and Alaskan bushplanes. Informative captions accompany each photo. The turbine Otter on the cover (one of Rich’s own planes from his Slate Falls Airways fleet), gets your attention immediately, and shows you what to expect from Page 1 to Page 164 of this hefty, finely-produced book.

What else do you like? Well, if it’s northern aviation, Rich includes much of it from the Beaver to the Otter, Twin Otter, Norseman, Beech 18, Beech 99, Founds, Cessnas, Pipers, DC-3, C-46, CL-415 and BAe748.

Rich is the very definition of the knowledgeable, avid aviation photographer. I need to tell you that, because he’s too low-profile a guy to tell you so himself. He’s won more than once in Aviation Week’s annual photography contest!

Bush pilot and entrepreneur Rich is no weeny when it comes to photography. He shoots in all weather and seasons, so you’ll see float scenes, ski scenes, even tundra tires throughout the book. You’ll see the planes hard at work, hibernating over the winter, at sunrise,  at sunset and there are scads of air-to-air photos that the aficionado always expects.

You know what … I can’t say enough about this magnificent book. It’s at once a solid work-a-day presentation and an artistic masterpiece. Order your copy from CANAV: Canadian orders … $40.00 + $12.00 shipping (it’s a heavy one, so a bit pricier to mail) + 5% GST $2.60 = $54.60 and a heck of a bargain at that! PayPal is good or send your cheque by post to CANAV Books, 51 Balsam Ave., Toronto, ON M4E 3B6. (US and overseas Cdn$64.00).

Tales from the Lakeview: Collected Aviation Stories by Robert S. Grant

Take note, folks … CANAV is sold out of this title. Google it to find where else you can order it. Thanks!

Since he was a boy, Bob Grant has been nuts about aviation, so he and I hit it off when we were getting started. Bob went into the bush and pretty well stayed there, flying whatever they’d trust him with — Cessnas, Founds, Pipers, then moving slowly up to the big leagues — to the MU-2 “Rice Rocket” and DC-3. Finally, Bob got a real job — the Ministry of Natural Resources hired him and he was in heaven with everything from the Turbo Beaver to the CL-215.

All along we also had our airplane photography and magazine writing gigs. We did a decent job at those and the writing opened many a door — we got to travel all over the world chasing aviation stories and got our first books out.

Bob had a real knack turning his bush flying experiences into some of the best stories. Everyone to this day enjoys them, especially his Red Lake yarns that always seem to feature something about “the Lakeview”, where local aviators and other n’er-do-wells seem to hang out and where Bob himself is always known (and proudly so, it seems) as the cheapest tipper.

Well, here is Bob’s latest book, just an excellent collection of his best stories. Great coverage of pilots, air engineers and the classic bushplanes of the Canadian backcountry — Beaver, Beech 18, C-46, DC-3, Junkers, Moth, Norseman, Otter, PBY, Twin Otter, etc. Tales from the Lakeview is a mini-treasure chest of a book for anyone who enjoys this great topic. 192 pages, softcover, photos galore. $29.95 in the stores, CANAV price $25.00 + $5.00 Canada Post + $1.50 GST. Send a cheque for $31.50 (US and overseas Cdn$35.00 all in) and you’re in business … PayPal OK. CANAV Books, 51 Balsam Ave., Toronto M4E 3B6

Mayhem to Mayday: The Two Air Wars of Andy Mackenzie

Norm Avery has produced this fine biography of one of the RCAF’s renowned WWII/Korean fighter pilots — the great Andy Mackenzie. Andy’s youth, his training, then his Spitfire years start off the book. Postwar, he flies Vampires and is posted on exchange on Sabres in Korea. There his career takes a very bad turn — his USAF wingman shoots him down over enemy territory. Andy spends two years as a guest of some of the rottenest members of the human race, but somehow comes out in one piece (more or less).

Back in Canada Andy remained in the RCAF, but never received another promotion. But he always loved airforce life and became a founding member of the Canadian Fighter Pilots Association. Mayhem to Mayday is a tribute to a great Canadian — you deserve a copy! 130 pages, sc, great photos, index. $20.00 + $5.00 Canada Post + $1.25 GST = $26.25 cheque or PayPal (US and Overseas Cdn$30.00). CANAV Books, 51 Balsam Ave., Toronto M4E 3B6

(Don’t forget … if ordering 2 or more books in Canada, postage is at the $15 flat rate. You also can check on a specific rate by asking me at larry@canavbooks.com. If ordering the Bob Grant and Norm Avery books domestically, it will not cost you $15.00, so why not check with me on that?)

So … if you are an aviation fan and bibliophile, you’ll want these beauties “sight unseen”. You’ll thank me for this little bit of advice!

Larry Milberry, publisher

Notes about Picture Background and (by the by) a Visit to Toronto’s R.C. Harris Water Filtration Plant

Andy Michaluk waits in Spitfire N730MJ at the button of Runway 26. The background is appropriate, including the original Toronto Island Airport hangar built circa 1938. The vessel tied up beside it is the old Maple City, a former TIA ferry boat.

We were always taught in photography classes by the likes of Nick “NJW” Wolochatiuk to chose (or at least be aware of) the background in our photos. Background often needed to be neutral, we were instructed, so as not to distract from the central subject. There was a list of pointers about overhead wires and such, i.e., look out for what you really don’t want in your photo “back there”. On the other hand you sometimes wanted a certain background. If the subject was an Otter bobbing at the dock, composing your shot to include the Beaver taking off behind would be ideal. That usually took a bit of patience or happenstance. So background can polish your shot.

Back on August 29, 2003 I was with the gang down at Toronto Island Airport checking out the Canadian International Airshow action. There were a number of participants present from an American-registered Spitfire Mk.IX to the Canadian Harvard Aircraft Association from Woodstock. In the usual course of milling around with the gang, I soon got chatting about doing an air-to-air shoot with Spitfire pilot Andy Michaluk.

Andy takes his Spitfire over the Eastern Gap. Next he crossed over Cherry Beach, Ashbridges Bay, the Eastern Beaches, the R.C.Harris plant, then reached the Scarborough Bluffs. His Spitfire was built in 1943, fought with the RCAF, then served the Italian and Israeli air forces postwar. It eventually returned to the UK for restoration, flying again in 1988 and coming to the US in 2000. Its markings are those of the CO of 32 Squadron while stationed in Greece in 1944.

Originally from Baltimore, Andy had his commercial pilot’s licence by 1960, then joined the Maryland Air National Guard. He trained on the T-37 and T-38 at Williams AFB, advanced to the T-33 and F-86H at Nellis AFB, then flew the F-86H with the 104th TFS Maryland ANG from Baltimore. A later stint was on F-100s with the 136 TFS at Niagara Falls, NY. Andy wrapped up his ANG career on the AT-37 and left the ANG in 1977. Meanwhile, he had been flying for American Airlines. Starting on the DC-6, he moved on to such types as the Electra, 727 and 767, off which he retired in 2001.

In 1988 Andy restored an AT-6, which he painted in Maryland ANG colours. He later checked out on the P-51 and recently had added the Spitfire. After we briefed for our photo trip, we taxied out and departed on Runway 26, the Harvard leading. As we turned back eastward, over my shoulder I spotted Andy blasting off down R26.

He soon was sitting on our port wingtip as we passed over the islands, crossed the Eastern Gap and headed for the Scarborough Bluffs, which always make such a fine background for air-to-airs. Nearing the bluffs we flew over my neighbourhood — the Beaches. Then in seconds we were over Toronto’s magnificent R.C. Harris water treatment plant. I banged off a few shots as we moved along at 130 knots. This was a photog’s dream scenario! A few rolls of Kodacolor later and we were on final back at TIA, another great “Kodak Moment” happily noted in my little passenger log book.

Passing over the magnificent R.C. Harris water filtration plant at the east end of Queen Street. Not surprisingly, this property often is used as a movie set.

A few weeks ago photography sidekick Andrew Yee called to remind me that there was an upcoming open house at R.C. Harris. This was too good to miss, so on May 29, 2011 there I was at (instead of over) this great Toronto landmark. Designed in 1929, the Harris plant was constructed 1932-37 and finally opened in 1941.

The Harris plant from ground level in a view that features many of its architectural fine points.

The guidebook published by the City of Toronto tells the story of the place:

The architect was Thomas C. Pomphrey [whose] career revolved around water supply and treatment plants … Dubbing it “The Palace of Purification”, critics attacked the plant’s appearance as early as 1938. The use of rich materials like marble and bronze in the interior, plus the extensive limestone carvings on the exterior is … characteristic of the times. While unusual for Toronto’s utilitarian structures, lavish treatment was typical in water treatment plants built across North America prior to World War II… The R.C. Harris is the largest unified ensemble of Art Deco buildings in Toronto. Inside and out, the plant features stepped, or set-back, profiles and a wealth of flattened, geometric and highly stylized ornament in stone, brick and metal. The plant is an excellent example of how the Art Deco style (1925-40) could integrate Late Romanesque Revival and Modern Classical forms, which are represented by the round-arched openings in the filter Building and the simplified pediments and pilasters on the Pumping Station.

You’ll chuckle at the bit about the critics. Those often-clueless cases are always out there casting their stones. Toronto gave us the R.C. Harris plant 75- years ago, thank goodness, but where are the dopey critics today? Long gone, lucky us! Every community has its landmarks, which the hobby photographer can always have fun shooting — day or night, summer or winter, rain or shine. So have a look at what’s around you where you live or travel and get to it. If in Toronto take the 501 streetcar down to R.C. Harris and enjoy the many photographic possibilities.

Some of the pumps in the low-lift room. The larger ones bring in raw water from Lake Ontario, the smaller ones pump filtered water into the city’s distribution system.

The data plate on one of the big old pumps. Such detailed photography adds to the overall picture, if you are building up any sort of a story line — some photos are wide, others are right in close.

Another useful and informative close-up.

Many historic photos and artifacts add to the tour of the Harris facility. What well-rounded aviation fan wouldn’t enjoy a visit to such a remarkable urban treasure!

Peter Mossman is one of Canada’s great aviation artists. On July 30, 2011 he sent me some reminiscences of boyhood days during WWII at the Harris plant:

“I saw your piece on the waterworks in the east end–I grew up playing there. We had a sophisticated baseball club going urged on by a local retired pro player. We played football being careful not to tackle near the steel water tank covers, hockey down by the turbine building, and handball on the fountain terrace. We sleighed down the hill before they added the other wing. And soap box derby was held on the roadway. We also used to dive off the pier,  sun on the beach and fly our rubber powered model airplanes.

During the war, when my big brother was flying operations overseas, there was barbed wire and guards in huts to protect the place. Then one morning when I went for my walk with my 2 spaniels and it was all gone — the grass which had not been cut was up to my waste and I couldn’t see my dogs running through it! I could not begin to guess at the hours of my childhood I spent there. Never once did we get told to leave or go play somewhere else. You sure opened a floodgate of great memories. It’s funny, but we kids never knew the name of the place — it was always just “the waterworks” to us.

History is where it pops up

C-FETE is Beaver No.1204, delivered new circa 1959 to Father W. Leising of the missionary order Oblates of Mary Immaculate at Fort Smith, NWT. Later owners included North Coast Air of Prince Rupert and Odyssey Air of Richmond, BC. Several accidents marred the career of OMI/ETE through the years, but each time it returned to the air spiffier than before. Here, it takes off on September 8, 2009 from Downsview, the place of its birth decades earlier. You can find the history of nearly every Beaver at Neil Aird's amazing website dhc-2.com. (Larry Milberry)

While the photogs were fussing about getting their Arrow-Snowbirds pix this day, a few realized that there was another bit of good history cooking at Downsview. As some beautiful Q400 regional airliners and Global Express bizjets waited on Bombardier’s flight test ramp, a solitary Beaver came rumbling out for takeoff. Minutes later it took off nonchalantly behind a fresh-off-the-line Global Express. Two fabulous airplanes manufactured at Downsview, but half a century apart.

A "green" Global Express (the 363rd example) blasts off on a test flight from Downsview on September 8. This grand bizjet contrasted totally with our pair of iconic Canadian "time machines" -- the Avro Arrow and the DHC-2 Beaver. (Larry Milberry)

Fantasyland: The Arrowmaniacs Strike Again

Canada sure has its mythology under many a banner. Aviation myths involve Billy Bishop shooting down 72 enemy planes in WWI (not), the Beaver being the world’s greatest bushplane (not) and the Avro Arrow being the greatest everything ever made by anyone in the universe (not).

No one with any sense can besmirch the reputation of a Billy Bishop – read The Brave Young Wings, for example, to get a taste of the war in the air 1915-18. Anyone who died, got wounded, cracked up, or somehow survived in that cauldron of death is a special hero in my books. The only argument is with the statistics and some odd details. These things were manipulated by the generals and their PR lackeys far behind the lines where they were suffering no lack of anything – there was no mud but there were clean underwear, silk sheets and booze. These people could make Donald Rumsfeld look like a beginner at fact-twisting, and they didn’t need a Blackberry (no shortage of very effective, hi-tech communicating devices in WWI). Billy Bishop certainly scored high, but not likely anywhere near 72. But it suited “Colonel Rumsfeld i/c propaganda” back there to say that Bishop did so do all that and should have a Victoria Cross. Explanations for this are in the best of books, such as mentioned above, Canadian Airmen and the First World War, etc.

Of course, the 1948 Beaver is a tremendous little workhorse. Who would say no? But not even 2000 Beavers were ever built. Meanwhile, the DC-3 or Beech 18 had been working the bush since the late 1930s, and far exceeded the Beaver in numbers alone on every continent! Then came the Cessna 180/185. Well, Beaver, please stand aside.

The ultimate bushplane in my view has to be the Antonov An-2 biplane: more than 10,000 built, service since 1947 on all continents, incalculable loads carried, current presence still in the many hundreds if not a few thousand, production life from pre-Beaver to post-Beaver, on and on. However, mention this in Canada and you make a new brigade of furious enemies wishing you every malevolence imaginable: “Puleeze, keep the facts to yourself, we Canadians prefer our myths!”

Then comes our beloved Arrow, Canada’s grandest aviation tall tale, and one that never goes away. Wonderful technology project that it was, it wasn’t to be and for all the good reasons. Even so, Arrow silliness again crops up in this April 3, 2009 Toronto Star article. Not surprisingly, the perpetrator is an academic – ironically, when it comes to history, these folks can be pretty sloppy with the facts.

In “Privatization of AECL Radioactive Issue for Ottawa”, Prof. Duane Bratt of Mount Royal College in Calgary, begins irrelevantly and erroneously by harkening back to the Arrow: “In 1959 the Diefenbaker government shut down the Arrow, the world’s most technologically advanced interceptor aircraft. Not only did it mean the demise of a uniquely Canadian high tech invention, but it also forced thousands of highly skilled scientists and engineers to leave the country.”

Well, talk about a crock of doggy doodoo (as I have commented before)! The Arrow was one of many similar advanced fighter projects underway throughout the world during the 1950s. Most of these aircraft concepts never reached production, and all the participant nations moved ahead. Only Canada created a myth out of its unsuccessful effort. Like the Arrow, all the other shelved projects had proved too costly or had been superseded by advancing science or geo-politics. (Two Cold War designs that did succeed in entering service were the superb US-built McDonnell F-4 Phantom II; and the SR-71 which, in speed alone, would leave an Arrow in its wake – so much for the generally unproven Arrow being the “mostest” of everything.)

Professor Bratt states that the Arrow cancellation “forced” ex-Avro workers to leave Canada — the alleged post-Arrow “brain drain”. However, nearly every worker worth his/her salt let go by Avro soon had a new and, often, better job in Canada. In researching history in the subsequent decades, I have interviewed many of these workers (and workers they were). Most moved quickly and naturally to other aviation or science-type employers, where they shone with their successes developing truly useful products for humanity — as opposed to fighters. (In the late 1950s, do you really think that the world needed yet another jet fighter?)

Development of the PT6 engine by Pratt & Whitney Canada, and of the
Dash 8 by de Havilland Canada are proof positive that fabulously important spin-off products resulted from the timely demise of the Arrow program. So the loss of the Arrow “forced thousands” of Canadians to flee the country in search of meaningful work, eh? In truth, but a handful of ex-Avro workers emigrated to the US or UK. Meanwhile, hundreds of the best minds behind the Arrow in its heyday circa 1952 to 1959 had been post-WWII immigrants to Canada from other nations. Now we’re talking brain drain, but into Canada.

Without these reverse brain-drain people there would have been no Avro Arrow. Canadians did not have the ability to single-handedly produce such an advanced airplane. Had it not been for WWII, they would still have been building wood and fabric airplanes by 1950. Typical of the reverse brain-drain genii were design team leader James C. Floyd from the UK; and Arrow test pilots Jan Zurakowski and “Spud” Potacki, and designer Waclaw Czerwinski, from Poland. Why is this important reality never mentioned in the Arrow nostalgia debates? Well, for one thing, it wouldn’t help book sales in Canada’s “Avro Arrow” publishing industry (there’s always a new Arrow book looming somewhere).

Bottom line on the brain drain? Canada gained immensely by draining brains from many countries in the post-WWII industrial boom, but contributed very few in terms of any outflow of brains to the US, etc. On top of that truth, some of the ex-Avro emigrants from 1959 returned later to Canada, as did James C. Floyd himself.

Some basic research into aviation history would reveal these and other facts – not as charming or exciting as our cherished myths, but true all the same.
Larry Milberry, publisher

PS … The never-ending lament for the Arrow includes one in the Montreal Gazette of January 23, 2012 reiterating the moronic old claim about John Diefenbaker, etc., and has the predictable anti-American crapola about some Washington conspiracy being behind the Arrow’s downfall, since Americans can’t stand anyone out-doing them, bla, bla, bla. Talk about pitiful! Here is what this simple-minded “reporter” says in the Gazette: “It was killed by John Diefenbaker’s government, presumably at the behest of Pres. Dwight D. Eisenhower on behalf of his country’s aerospace industry (which hates competition).” Can you believe this garbage? Where does the Gazette find its muse? Maybe from the “Coast to Coast” loonie bins … or the National Enquirer?