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Michele LeTourneau
Northern News Services
Keep your eyes on the sky and don't look down. The fly-past, with eight or nine planes, will take all of five minutes.
The Rotary Club, which organizes the Canada Day parade in Yellowknife, decided to honour the theme Canadian Firsts, chosen by Heritage Canada this year.
In keeping with the theme, and the North's unique place in aviation history, the Rotary Club thought a fly-past of Canadian-designed and Canadian-built aircraft, used so much in the North, would be the perfect addition to our national birthday party.
One aircraft will direct the team of Yellowknife pilots, who have never flown together in a fly past before
"When there's a forest fire," explains organizer and Rotarian Brian McCluskey, "there's a spotter aircraft that goes in first. It picks out where all the hazards are, what the conditions are, what the terrain is like, what the winds are like and so on. He acts as an airborne controller and he'll direct the airplanes in on the fire. That way they're not plowing into the hillsides, they're not plowing into each other."
At a planning meeting on Wednesday, RWED volunteered their spotter aircraft. Call him Birddog.
"So Birddog's going to be in the air, but he's not a Canadian airplane so he won't be in the fly past. He's going to be out on Yellowknife Bay somewhere. But he will direct the airplanes in, one at a time."
Canuck leads the way
The Fleet Canuck will fly over Franklin first.
"The Canuck is quite meaningful for anyone that took their flight scholarship training in the air cadets. It's a pilot trainer. There have been a lot of fellows in town that have trained on that aircraft," says McCluskey, who as an ex-air cadet, trained on a Canuck.
McCluskey says the Canuck's noise is distinctive.
"People will hear it from Rae-Edzo. He's white with yellow trim, and quite distinctive. He's quite an attractive airplane."
Watch for the yellow maple leaves on the wings of this little beauty, owned by Carmen Properzi. Originally known as the Noury N-75, the design was sold to Fleet in 1945. After manufacture and testing began, design changes were made. The aircraft went on the market in 1946 as the Canuck. Of the 225 Canucks built before production stopped in 1949, Properzi's is number 67.
Both the Fleet Canuck and plane number two in the line-up, the Noorduyn Norseman, are fabric skins over metal frames, or in some cases, says McCluskey, wood frames.
The Norseman is one of 904 built by Noorduyn before production ended in 1959. Rugged and reliable, the Norseman has served the North faithfully.
"Once you get into the de Havilland Beaver and the Otter and the twin Otter, that's all metal skins," says McCluskey.
"The Beaver is the initial bush plane that came out of de Havilland and started their long line of short take-off and landing bush planes. It's large enough that you can carry heavy loads like a barrel of oil and supplies going up to mining and hunting camps. It was designed to take care of conditions here in the North."
Popular aircraft
About 1,600 were made after its first flight in 1947. Its success meant that more Beavers would be built than any other aircraft designed and manufactured in Canada.
"(de Havilland) found that the Beaver couldn't handle that many people. They still had the requirement to get into very short air strips and short lakes for take-off. But they had to carry more people.
"The Otter is like an extension of the Beaver. It's a larger airplane," says McCluskey.
This year, the Single Otter -- about 450 were made -- celebrates 50 years since being certified to fly. According the Canadian Aviation Museum, the United States Army and Navy used Otters and the RCAF operated 69, some of which served overseas on United Nations duties. Otters were used by nine other air forces. Civilian Otters were flown in 36 countries.
"The Twin Otter ... again it was a response to lack of space. It's designed more as a passenger airplane as opposed to a freighter airplane, although it does serve both purposes, but with more speed, more power."
As with all good bush planes, Twin Otters can be fitted with wheels, skis or floats.
The two Canadair water bombers will be the last aircraft traversing the Yellowknife sky.
"It was the first one ever designed to operate as a water bomber. Everything else before then, in terms of fighting forest fires, they were all converted from another purpose. Whether it was a Second World War bomber, or whether it was an anti-submarine aircraft. The CL215 was designed right from the start to fight forest fires. It has a massively strong hull in it."
Look for the big, yellow ones. But should a forest fire call them away between now and Monday, don't expect them to show up for the fun.
"All kinds of other planes were offered for this too, but we said, 'No, because they were designed and built in other countries.' This is Canada's day and we're taking full advantage of it," says McCluskey.
He adds that the formation speed will be 90 miles an hour.
"For the Fleet Canuck the throttle will be right to the firewall. That's just about as fast as it can go."
McCluskey notes that the response from the companies that own the planes -- Buffalo Airways, Adlair Aviation, Arctic Excursion, Arctic Sunwest and Air Tindi -- has been tremendous.
"This is a big expense for them, to get them cranked up and into the air, flying around up there and back down again. One company's got their aircraft scheduled out on a trip right afterwards."
In other words, these aircraft are not museum pieces, they're getting right back to work. McCluskey says his head will be tilted upwards just like everyone else's at 11 a.m. Monday morning.
"They'll be coming from the south heading north, from the direction of the fire hall heading towards lowertown. They'll just fly right down Franklin Avenue."
