Lancaster Formation Flights Planned

The Canadian Warplane Heritage Museum’s Mynarski Memorial Lancaster will cross the pond in August for a formation flight not seen in 50 years.

The CWH Lanc was a popular attraction at Wings Over Gatineau last September.Jim Cole Photo

The aircraft will form up with Royal Air Force’s Battle of Britain Memorial Flight Lancaster, the only other flying example in the world, for a series of exhibitions in England.

The flights will be “once in a lifetime opportunity, something that will never happen again,” said Al Mickeloff, spokesman for the museum.  “We don’t expect to ever do another trip like this.”

The two aircraft will fly in events commemorating the 100th anniversary of the beginning of the First World War and the 70th anniversary of the D-Day invasion that led to the end of the Second World War.

Museum CEO David Rohrer said the two groups have been trying to get the aircraft flying together for at least 10 years but the timing became right for this year.

“A window of opportunity was identified to bring the last two flying Lancasters in the world together in tribute to the crews who flew it, the people at Victory Aircraft who built it, and all the veterans of the war,” Rohrer told CBC News. “We always would have regretted it if we hadn’t tried our best to make this happen when the window presented itself.”

 Ironically, this will be CWH Lanc’s first time in the U.K. The aircraft was built by Victory Aircraft in Malton, ON and used for training on Canada’s east coast.
The last time Lancasters flew in formation was at RCAF Station Downsview in 1964 when three Lancs did a flypast to mark the retirement of the type by the Air Force.
Last year, the CWH Lancaster appeared at numerous aviation events in Central Canada, including the Music of the Merlins at the Hamilton Air Show last June. In that show, it flew with the world’s only flying Mosquito, along with other Merlin-powered aircraft including Spitfires, a Kittyhawk and  P-51 Mustang.

Bombardier's Ups and Downs

Bombardier ended the month on a high note with the firm order for one CSeries CS 300 model that will be used as a large corporate aircraft. Falcon Aviation Services also took an option on another aircraft, the largest of the CSeries line.

An Abu Dhabi company has ordered one and maybe two CS300s as corporate aircraft.
An Abu Dhabi company has ordered one and maybe two CS300s as corporate aircraft.

In passenger configuration, that CSeries would hold up to 160 people but Falcon has other plans.

“The superb versatility of the CSeries aircraft will allow us to offer a unique aircraft configuration on our CS300 aircraft, specifically catering to business, corporate and elite travelers in the Middle East and connecting to North Africa, Europe and the Far East,” said Captain Mahmoud Ismael, Chief Operating Officer, Falcon Aviation Services. “We selected the CSeries aircraft because of its excellent range, exceptional economics and its outstanding cabin. All these factors, along with the strength of the Bombardier brand, position the CS300 aircraft exceedingly well for our business development plans versus its competition.”

That brings firm orders for the efficient, quiet airliner to a little more than 200 and potential orders to more than 400, which will put the program on firm financial footing.

Bombardier also announced that it has FAA approval to fly its first Learjet 85 prototype. Like the CSeries, the Learjet 85 has been plagued with delays. Both aircraft incorporate considerable new technology and are mostly made of composites.


McLeod Starts Red Bull Race Season

With an improved airplane and a pent-up need for speed, Canadian Red Bull Race pilot Pete McLeod is ready to take on the world’s best in the first of the spectacular events in the series in Abu Dhabi this weekend.

peteabuMcLeod, of London, ON, was just finding his wings in what many consider to be the ultimate motor sport when Red Bull put the enormously popular, but complexly expensive event on hiatus during the worldwide economic recession.

“It’s great to be back in Abu Dhabi and the U.A.E for this race. I’m excited for race weekend but right now I’m focused on maximizing testing time in the warm weather – something we couldn’t do in Canada with the harsh winter.”

Pete is the youngest pilot in the field and just had his 30th birthday.

His aircraft is the latest model Edge 540 and has a new 340 horsepower Lycoming AEIO 540 EXP and all the speed mods necessary to make man and machine serious contenders in this year’s series. McLeod has no illusions about his competition, though.

“It’s not going to be easy. It will take some time, but my team will keep getting stronger, the airplane will keep getting faster, and I will keep flying harder,” he said. “There is no better place to start than here in Abu Dhabi.”

Canadian Aviator will be doing regular updates on McLeod’s progress through the challenging year ahead .


Welcome To Our Newsletter

Aviation is a dynamic industry and pursuit and while we do our best to provide readers with interesting and though provoking articles in our bi-monthly magazine, we also want to give a snapshot view of the important stories in aviation as they unfold.

Canadian aviation is as diverse as it is interesting as the ramp at the round engine meet in Oliver, B.C. expresses perfectly.
Canadian aviation is as diverse as it is interesting as the ramp at the round engine meet in Oliver, B.C. expresses perfectly.

We spent a lot of time thinking about how to do that and settled on a single-sheet newsletter that gives brief highlights of the stories of interest and allows those who want to read more the ability to click through and see the whole article.

We also wanted to give readers a chance to help us provide the content and resources needed to keep on top of the huge range of issues and interesting stories that define Canadian aviation.

So, if you see something you think other Canadian aviators would be interested in, click on our newstip button and the email will go directly to Editor Russ Niles.

We also want to see those videos you shoot when you go flying. The best way to do that is to upload your videos to YouTube and send us the link. We’re going to pick a reader-submitted video each week and pick the best one at the end of the year to earn a prize from one of our sponsors.

We’ve also embarked on an ambitious project to create a photo and and information data base of Canadian airports that can serve as a ready reference to anyone flying into an unfamiliar airport. We call that feature On Final and we’re asking pilots across the country to take a camera and a safety pilot with them on the next nice (snow-free) day they go flying and get a variety of aerial views of their home field, including the view from short final on the most-used runway(s) and upload them in our easy-to-use submission form. Those who send us photos will go into a draw for a valuable prize at the end of the year.

We’ve been very conservative in the creation of the mailing list for this newsletter. Many of you signed up for our first attempt at a newsletter a few years ago and we’re hoping you’ll give us another chance. Others on the list are people or companies who have recently been in contact with us we hope will enjoy a chance to stay caught up on Canadian aviation news.

Please enjoy the newsletter and by all means let us know what we’ve missed and what you’d like to see in this publication. You can contact Editor Russ Niles at russ@canadianaviator.com .


'Ill-Advised" Spin Ended Flight

No one will ever know for sure if Marko Misic killed himself and three of his friends by intentionally spinning a Cessna 172 at near gross and close to its aft C of G limit but it’s clear by the report issued late last week that TSB investigators think that’s a distinct possibility.

Photo by David BebeeKitchener-Waterloo Record

Misic was a freshly-minted commercial pilot with most of his time in Waterloo-Wellington Flight Training Centre’s Cessna 172s when he, Mohammed Shahnawaz, 23, of Toronto, Wasay Rizwan, 27, of Toronto, and Victoria Margaret Luk, 19, of Mississauga took off on a sightseeing flight in a rented 172 on Aug. 24, 2012.

For almost two hours they flew at about 2,500 feet going to Niagara Falls and north to Toronto. As they approached the Kitchener Waterloo Airport, Misic headed to the practice area and climbed to 6,900 feet, announcing twice that he intended to do some upper air work.

Radar plotted his speed at about 50 knots at times and then showed the aircraft descending almost vertically at 8,200 feet per minute in a spin that was never recovered. The plane crashed in a cornfield and according to aerial photos taken by the Kitchener-Waterloo Record it impacted almost vertically with little damage to the corn outside of the footprint of the aircraft.

Investigator Don Enns told the Record that doing upper air work with all the seats occupied was at best “ill advised” as was the fact that the passengers exchanged seats during flight allowing each a turn in the right front position.  If the spin was intentional, it violated the POH, the CARS and the flight school’s policies.

“It’s conceivable that he did enter this spin intentionally,” Enns said. “That’s not something you do with four people on board the airplane, normally. It is going to be more difficult to recover with four people on the airplane.”

An aft C of G flattens the spin and the blanking of the air flow by the horizontal stabilizer reduces rudder authority but Enns said the spin was still recoverable.

“There’s no aerodynamic reason why he could not have recovered from that manoeuvre,” he said.

The flight school has since said it will add cockpit voice recorders and GPS tracking devices to all its aircraft and has changed its training curriculum to emphasize all the rules pertaining to this tragedy.


Multi-Crew Pilot Licence Established

The federal government has taken the first legislative steps to establish the multi-crew pilot’s licence in Canada.

airlinercockpitChanges to the Aeronautics Act were published in the Canada Gazette on Wednesday and will become law in 60 days. The new licence will allow ab initio students to train strictly for the job of flying an airliner, rather than take the usual route of cross training from the military or advancing through the private and commercial licences with multi-engine and IFR ratings.

Conversely, those who attain the MPL will have to earn the other licences and ratings separately if they want to fly anything but a two-pilot turbine-powered pressurized airliner.

The MPL is designed to streamline training and allow new pilots to start working with as little as 250 hours of flight and simulator time. The MPL training stresses cockpit resource management and risk and threat evaluation and management that is specific to the airliner cockpit environment, rather than the pilot-in-command focus on individual skills and decision making that is the focus of existing flight training programs.

It’s aimed at providing a pipeline of new pilots needed to fill the right seats of tens of thousands of airliners that will enter service in the next 20 years.

The new sections of the Aeronautics Act will form the legislative basis for the MPL but there is plenty of practical work left to do. Certification of approved training organizations who want to offer the course is next.