FLYING! Sooner than you…

…think.

AND WHEN it does, it will be the only flying Bristol Bolingbroke in the world!

Put that in your pipe and smoke it!!

COAST PROTECTORS and TRAINERS… that's what these twin-engine bombers were used for in Canada.

RCAF CANADIAN BOLINGBROKES were manufactured by Fairchild Aircraft Ltd., Longueil, PQ. Canada. The Quebec factory built a total of 687 Bolingbrokes between 1939 and 1943.

The Pic shows us the FUTURE, the PRESENT, and the PAST.

SEE Assembly Video:
www.thespec.com/news/local/article/307111--monumental-ass...

::..: AND SOME…::

…jus' get into LIFE more than others~


THIS is a TI-CAT FAN. This IS NOT a BLUE JAYS fan—

Thank-you.

Will Hamilton still have the Ti-Cats in 2012????

Is 2011, the VERY LAST YEAR at IVOR WYNNE and the very last year of the HAMILTON TIGER-CATS?

Will a 150 year (almost - 1873) football tradition really end?

Will Head Coach of the Ti-Cats cheerleaders LESLIE STEWART save the day?? Again???

::::: We All Need Answers…

…it's just you're not likely to find them at an air show~

CALEDON HILLS ::: 1941 ::: RCAF Anson Crash

SHORTLY AFTER MIDNIGHT in deteriorating weather conditions on November 13, 1941, RCAF Avro Anson W1672 with a training crew of five aboard slammed into Caledon Mountain…not far from the legendary Forks of the Credit.

The crew had lost their bearings.

The pilot thinking he was still near Hamilton, Ontario dropped to an elevation of 1200 feet above sea level, taking the Anson just below cloud cover when disaster struck. While that might have been a safe aerial height for RCAF Station: Mount Hope…it wasn't for Caledon Hills, Ontario.

Three British RAF navigators perished in the mishap.

One in the arms of a rescue worker, another was discovered dead after having crawled 200 feet from the wreckage, and the third later in hospital. Dennis Donahue, Denis Drayton and Reginald Gillman became the first training casualties of No. 33 RAF Navigation School based out of Hamilton, Ontario commonly known as YHM and Hamilton International Airport (hi). By the war's end there would be eleven others. They all rest in peace, nearby, at St. Paul's Glanford Anglican Church on the "Mountain".

Surprisingly the pilot and the wireless operator survived!

Take a second look at the Anson's nose will ya—

Miracle.

Majorie Cluff who resided two miles away on Highway #10, spotted the aircraft going down and alerted other locals. The wreck was found four hours later by Arthur Bracken, a Caledon farmer, who discovered the tragedy after hearing someone cry out. No lights around for miles, and brambles everywhere "in the hills" the aircraft was not an easy find.

Not even ten years after this crash, hockey legend Conn Smythe, owner of the Toronto Maple Leafs (1927 - 1961), and builder of Maple Leaf Gardens would buy 2,000 acres of Caledon land where he both lived and ran Smythe Racing Stables. Smythe and his son led the Leafs through their glory years and he also found time to breed his own horses and win the esteemed Queen's Plate twice! This former Anson crash site was located on his property and not far from his actual home.

(Photo by Ruth Braiden, courtesy of daughter, Urla Braiden and Fay McCrea of Caledon Village Heritage, Post-Production - Special Projects In Research)

There SHE is.

The SILVER DART.

100 years later.

Replica.

In Hamilton, Ontario.

YHM.

Yes, safe inside the world famous hangar of the Canadian Warplane Heritage Museum, being disassembled as NWAII looks on, to be crated and sent on to Baddeck Bay, Nova Scotia for its 100th Anniversary celebration flight, a mere two weeks from now on February 23, 2009.

What IS the Silver Dart besides being a “Drive” (road) around the inside perimeter of Toronto’s Pearson International Airport?

From the Canadian Encyclopedia:

“The Silver Dart, was the first powered, heavier-than-air machine to fly in Canada; designed and built by the Aerial Experiment Association (Oct 1907-Mar 1909) under Alexander Graham BELL (yeah…the same Canadian guy who invented the telephone), a flight enthusiast since boyhood.

After several successful flights at Hammondsport, NY, early in 1909 the Silver Dart was dismantled, crated and brought to Baddeck Bay, NS, the Bells' Canadian home. The "aerodrome" (Bell's preferred term) had a 14.9 m wingspan and an all-up weight of 390 kg, pilot included.

J.A.D. MCCURDY was the principal designer and pilot; Glenn H. Curtiss developed the water-cooled engine, an advance on the association's earlier experiments. Pulled on230to the ice of Baddeck Bay by horsedrawn sleigh on Feb 23, the silver-winged machine rose on its second attempt after travelling about 30 m, flying at an elevation from 3 to 9 m at roughly 65 km/hr for 0.8 km.

Over 100 of Bell's neighbours witnessed the first flight of a British subject anywhere in the Empire.

The Silver Dart flew more than 200 times before being damaged beyond repair upon landing in the soft sand of Petawawa, Ont, during military trials in early Aug 1909. The engine was later retrieved and restored and is now on display at the National Museum of Science and Technology in Ottawa. A full-scale model of the Silver Dart may be found in Ottawa's National Aviation Museum.” (Norman Hillmer)

Former Canadian Space Shuttle astronaut Bjarni Tryggvason flew the newest Silver Dart replica, just a few metres above Hamilton runways, on both Friday and Sunday. Incidentally this replica was built by a group of volunteers from Welland Ontario. And one of those volunteers is incidentally related to J.A.D. McCurdy, the Dart’s original pilot!

Another replica of the Silver Dart crashed in 1959 from flight instability originating from the airplane’s nose. The nose of any version of the Silver Dart has a strong tendency to move up and down uncontrollably, and Bjarni Tryggvason has wind-tunnel tested and engineered some changes from the original aircraft’s design to correct this flaw.

Other minor changes were made to the replica aircraft as well.

Nylon has replaced the original Dart’s silver coloured silk, and oddles of HOCKEY TAPE help keep the ancient design together. Where the reader can see stick framing surrounded by black splotches on all the aircraft’s joints, that is, hockey tape doing its thing!

Real Canadians use hockey tape, NOT duct tape, Mr. Green.

Oh and Bjarni and company…do tell the media and public when you decide to fly your beastie!

We really are interested in any Silver Dart flight…if you only give us a chance!!

I had to drive at breakneck speed, avoid two head-on collisions, and ended up mowing down two unsuspecting old ladies on the outskirts of Mount Hope…just to get to the Museum, and for what? You had already flown the Dart.

The disassembly was fascinating to watch though.

One stick at a time–

The GLORIOUS PAST Flies Overhead…

…and THE MOB below is oblivious.

“Why would you write such a thing?” asks Barb, incredulous that I toss out ANOTHER INSULT…kinda like some folk toss about footballs.

TOO MANY people today have forgotten the sacrifices of the past…and don’t recognize the sacrifices of today that PATRIOT CANADIANS have always made…and will always make to keep…“the True North strong and free!”

And let’s not forget the prayer found in our national anthem,

“God keep our land,
Glorious and free!"

AMEN to that–

FLYFEST 2007:::Hamilton

…THERE WERE some nice "birds" in the air and SOME NICE "chicks" on the ground!

AND DON'T GET ALL JUMPY…it's……jus'…Grumpy.

BEST FLYFEST 2007 quote: "Listen to the sound of that "thing" (the B-25)…it sounds like a very large, BAD-ASS motorcycle.

NEVER quite heard it put that way before…but THE ENGINES of that era actually do sound like that, very, very GUTTERAL ~