A Visit to Canada's Airports 1950s-1970s Coast to Coast
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- Опубліковано 28 вер 2024
- #airlines #aviation #planespotting
My name is Henry Tenby and I’m a lifelong Canadian aviation fan. My earliest memories of aviation were visits to the airport back in the 1960s and trips that I made across this country on Air Canada Viscounts and Vanguard to visit family in Ottawa in the late 1960s. This video will take you on a tour across this great country visiting our airports as presented by images mostly from old postcards that were published many decades ago that I’ve collected over the last 50 years. Join Henry Tenby for YVR Live Stream airport action from the beautiful Vancouver International Airport.
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Fantastic pics Henry thank you for putting this together!
My pleasure!
Lot of great memories, remember driving up to the top floor (the roof)of terminal 1 in Toronto. Miss that building it was great view of all runways. Thanks
I am from Vancouver, but whenever I visited Toronto or passed through, I would make it a point to spend time on the deck, there at terminal one soaking up the action. It was one of the best spots in Canada, and sadly it no longer exists.
@@JetFlix I was living in Mississauga and I agree with you, terminal 1 roof was the best place for plane spotting. Now I live in New West.
This is awesome, Henry, thank you!
Thank you very much. I’m glad you enjoyed the video.
Great history there Henry.
It was a fun video and it brought it back a lot of nice memories for me and I’m glad it’s resonated well with the viewers too.
Some nice photos for sure. Super Connie looks great, flew to BGI on one. The Toronto airport parkade roof was a great place to spot aircraft of the day.
Wow, you’re very lucky to have had a Connie fight to BGI. Was that back in the day on TCA or on one of the cargo airlines that was serving the Caribbean up until maybe 20 years ago?
I appreciate most flying videos and I appreciate this one as well. Interesting to see how the various Canadian airports looked back in the day and how they conducted business. Great video!
Thank you so much for taking the time to share your comment. I appreciate it. As a Canadian I’ve visited many of these airports over the last 60 years so I’ve seen them evolve, specially, my hometown airport Vancouver, and I also find it fascinating how things change. I wish I had more photos of Canadian airport evolution, but really it was my postcard collection that was the richest source of images for this project.
My Dad was an aircraft mechanic for TCA and then Air Canada until retirement in 1988. I've flown on the Viscount; DC-9; DC-8; L-1011; 747of Air Canada; and the Westjet 737. Not flown on the 787 as of yet; except in MS Flight Simulator 2020 . Stay well and clear skies!
Thank you, Ken. You’ve had good flights and I’m sure you’ll be able to get a Dreamliner flight soon as well as they’re quite prevalent out of Vancouver both on the Transcon, as well as overseas destinations.
Nice job Henry. Do you recall the large model of a plane on a pedestal near YVRs terminal (50s and 60s?) I believe it was relocated to a spot near the south/west end of the Cambie (?) bridge.
Yes, I’m aware of that item. It’s actually a Flash Gordon 1930s era fantasy spaceship that you are referring to and it was moved as you well point out.
Fantastic video! Brought back lots of memories. Can you maybe do a video on what the travel times were across Canada on propeller airlines.
I would love to do that. It’s a great idea. I just need to source images of air travel by airliners across Canada in the 1950s .. and the experience of such a journey. It would make an amazing video and I’ll put it on my wish list. Thank you for, suggesting it. You never know when I might find suitable images to make it reality, but I will keep my eyes open.
@@JetFlixI would be really interested to find out the non stop destinations from Vancouver and how long it took.
Thank You . Great work .
Thank you too!
This is a super video Henry. Thanks for taking us around Canada with these images and facts. Very interesting and great to see that time era. I'm from England. my local airport is East Midlands. it did have an upper level open viewing balcony. My parents use to take me there in the 70's. The local airline ran Vickers Viscounts. That engine sound, you don't forget! I have your book. Very good quality (it weighs a lot!) and top quality content. Cheers, Adrian.
Fantastic stuff Adrian you’re lucky to have East Midlands Castle Donnington airport in your memories. I’m also a diehard Viscount fan as you know. When I visited England in the summer of 1984 at age 20 on my first soo overseas holiday as an adult. I did plane spotting at Heathrow airport and was amazed to see all the British Midland Viscounts serving the drome at that time .. I couldn’t believe it. I was also impressed with the nonstop stream of Tridents as well. Those were good old days 1984. And thank you for the comment on my Air Travel Time Machine book. I appreciate it. I’m glad you are pleased with the effort.
@@JetFlix Thank you so much Henry for your reply. Heathrow got me started in airliners and plane spotting. My parents and myself went on a National Express coach trip day out to Heathrow in 1976. On the Queen's Building roof top viewing terrace, i was overwhelmed with it all! Yes, all those Tridents, it prompted me to buy an Airfix BA Trident kit! I'm so glad you remember those BMA Viscounts.
What a cool video. I got a little bit of info on Edmonton airport. I used to work there. The reason why the runways are so massive is because they are actually designated a airport for emergency landings (I in fact worked 2 of them in 2011 (a Swiss International A340 and a British Airways 747-400) because they are right on the flight path of planes going to and from Europe and California. It’s also the reason they shut down the Edmonton City Centre airport instead of the YEG
YEG had the largest airport property in the country to this day. runways are sized for when the density altitude is high. a 3rd runway is on the way!
@@SSaugaCrissMontreal Mirabel was by far #2 in area size in the world
My parents met on a TCA Super Constellation.
For all I know it was this very plane.
BTW - they were married to other people at the time.
☮
I started flying on TCA Viscounts back in the sixties. I also was on a Vanguard.
What a great video. Loved it! It took me back to my very first aviation experience: A Christmas Light Flight around Winnipeg in 1970 on an Air Canada DC-9. These flights were operated with a Vickers Viscount prior to the DC-9, and if you’re ever in Winnipeg I would recommend a visit to the new Royal Aviation Museum of Western Canada where you can tour an immaculately restored Air Canada Viscount - inside and out.
Loved this video - especially the picture of a Norcanair F-27 at Regina airport. I flew on those many times in the '80s from Regina to Saskatoon and Prince Albert. We often called it "TinCanAir" because those old Fokkers were held together with duct tape and baling wire!
By any chance did you get to meet or know the Norcanair’s owner during its latter part of its existence .. Albert Ethier? He was a good friend of mine and I do miss him.
@@JetFlix No, I don't believe I ever met him. I do recall a very scary flight on a Convair (maybe a 640?) that NorCan also used - a very rough cross-wind landing into Regina where the woman across the aisle from me grabbed my hand and said "I don't want to die alone!"
I remember my first flight out of YTS (Timmins) on a Vanguard, and then several Viscount flights stopping in North Bay and seeing the RCAF Voodoos and T33’s on the ramp in the late 60’s and early 70’s. My father’s first flight was on a TCA North Star to Mexico City in 1954. The Vanguard and Viscounts were such pretty aircraft. Saw one on display at Duxford England a few years ago. Made me nostalgic.
Great memories you have .. I would consider us both very lucky to have them. Aviation in Canada back in the 60s and early 70s was really special and very different to the US because of the UK influence with our flag carrier.
At that particular door of YOW terminal (first photograph), the windows next to the door leading to the interior (to the lfet on the photo) were those of the Air Canada First class lounge - Maple Leaf, before such ground amenities become anybody's cafeteria for back sacks and flip-flops travellers of the 21st century. I remember Uplands so well. Thanks a lot for that post!
My great pleasure thank you for letting me know. I also have a very faint memory of there being some form of aviation museum right at the main terminal building in Ottawa in the 1960s. And I recall there being some form of passenger airplane within that museum, I don’t know if that’s a figment of my imagination, but I do have this memory.
I was at Kelly Lake, probably in 1959 ( I was three but remember it well) with my Aunt and cousin to pick up her sister. Big ol' turbo props. It was a long drive from Canning in those days.
Until I saw this particular image when I was making this video, I had no idea that they use the name “Kelly Lake” for the airport back in the 1950s, so I learned something too.
Thanks for refreshing many of my memories from my youth. I recall a trip from Toronto to Sumerside when I was a kid. Toronto to Montreal on an Air Canada Viscount. Montreal to Charlottetown on an Eastern Provincial 737 and Charlottetown to Summerside on anF27. Return the same except the Air Canada leg was in a DC9.
What an amazing trip you had back then .. fabulous memories!! of course nobody back then realized what a good time they were when it came to Viscounts and all other great types that were available.
You really brought those airport postcards to life. Good job!
As for me, my very first airplane ride was on an Air Canada DC-8-61 from YUL to YYZ in Summer of 1972. I was headed to Castlegar, BC with plane change at YYC. The final leg was on a PWA Convair 640, the bumpiest ride I ever had. Interestingly, the cabin crew was busy serving lunch during fairly rough turbulence. Those were the days!
I remember YVR well from 1973 onward. Your so-called Air Canada L-1011 gates were actually wide body gates. For years, flight 136 to YYZ parked on the left. This was the flagship 747-133 ride (9:00 am departure time), which returned at night as Flight 149 (7:00 pm departure time). In early afternoon, Flight 148 would leave for Toronto as well, an L-1011, as pictured. The red eye was Flight 156 (midnight departure), a DC-8-61 for years, but eventually switched to an L-1011. (I grew up in an Air Canada household.)
in the circa YEG image you can see the former Wardair hangar in the top right that is now Canadian Norths western maintenance base. The original T1 is the building just above Wardair that looks like a hockey rink, now tenanted by Summit Air.
I think there’s also a CP Air DC-10 parked on the main ramp in the picture which is quite interesting.
I believe the old YVR tower came down in the early 2000s. Reason being it was structurally unsafe seismically and as a result had to come down.
Other people have made the comment too thank you very much for letting me know. If it was dangerous, I agree.. it should’ve been taken down.
Halifax...far flung??? Typical Canadian chauvinism toward the east coast...some times I wonder why the east coast provinces remain part of a country that considers them an after thought.
I loved the content of old airports. I’m not much of a plane spotter, though I love seeing airliners era 60s and before. My personal career took me from bush pilot to airport management so I’ve been in the biz. Too bad there are so few old Malton pictures (before 64) available. My earliest memories of airplane spotting.
Me too I love seeing images of the old Airliners at the airports here in Canada in the 60s and 50s. I was born in 1964 so I have memories of my flights in the late 60s and that’s what ignited the passion for me to become an aviation fan. My favorite types are the Air Canada Viscount s and Vanguards. Thank you for watching my video and I very much appreciate your taking the time to leave a comment.
Seeing the old Terminal 1 at YYZ reminded me of September 1992 when I was surrounded by probably 20,000 other travelers at Baggage Claim. It was hard to stay close to the ground transportation desk because it was right in the middle of the mass of humanity I experienced. Never fly charter airlines from Calgary to Toronto in 1992.
Your airport review miss one important airport. Saskatoon Airport was a big omission. You included Regina but missed Saskatoon which is much busier than Regina.
Unfortunately, I don’t have a single image of Saskatoon airport in my collection so I couldn’t include it.
My first flight was an Air Canada Viscount Toronto to Quebec city. Approx 1970. But we returned in a DC9. Good times. Great memories. Thanks
Is it scary that I recognize the Ottawa airport as it was in the early 60s? Thanks for this trip (flight?) down memory lane!
My great pleasure, Bob🇨🇦🇨🇦👍👍✈️✈️
So much fun to revisit childhood airports and planes (Dorval and the brand new YVR). Thank you, Henry. First flight at age 4 in 1962: Quebec Air DC-3 from Montreal to Wabush
What great aviation history you had as a child Henry, so awesome!! All my relatives lived on the US west coast so we drove everywhere. none in my family rarely flew unless they were in the military. thank you for sharing!
My pleasure, Cindy thank you very much for the comment. Yes I was lucky that my mother’s family in Ottawa so we had to travel by Air between Vancouver to visit them which we did several times in the 1960s. And I became interested and impressed with the aircraft when I flew on them. That said I had very middle exposure to military aircraft other than attending the Abbotsford airshow as a kid. My father used to take me to the Abbotsford airshow every summer almost .. through the 1970s. So I gained an appreciation for military aircraft as well.
I flew to the UK as a young child in a Constellation out of Milton.Everyone was dressed to the nines. My mother wore a blue out fit with a pill box hat and white gloves. I had a brand new grey suit that I grew out of in a few months.
Malton was a wooden building with tables outside and you walked out through a gate and then to the stairs onto your plane.
Thank you so much for sharing your memories of Toronto’s airport back in the day. I was born in 1964 so I’m not old enough to have travelled through the old airport terminal building, but I have seen plenty of photos over the years.
The new Toronto terminal has to be 64 or later. I flew a TCA 8 from the old Malton in 63, returning in September of that year to the same wooden terminal.
Great comment thank you very much. I appreciate it. I wasn’t exactly sure when they transitioned from the old wooden Malton airport structure to the concrete Terminal 1 Aeroquay circle structure. But as you point out, it very well could have been in the 1963 to 1964 time frame.
Wow! I have quite a collection from the sixties, seventies and 80’s.
I’m glad to hear that Mike .. that I’m not the only one who is obsessed with these sorts of images and information and memories. That’s awesome.
Thank you so much Mr Tenby for sharing this wonderful video with aviation enthusiasts like me. It brought back great and precious memories and even tears to my eyes. As a kid, I used to go very often to Montreal Dorval airport with my dad to watch all these beautiful birds of what you call the Golden Age of Aviation. It's a period of my life that I will never forget.
I liked your reference to the ‘old’ Ottawa terminal. I remember its predecessor which couldn’t quite handle the passenger volume when there were two TCA Viscounts, one en route to Montreal, the other to Toronto, present. It was likely a leftover building from WW2.
The old Toronto Terminal 1 (round structure) looks like a smaller version of the Terminal 1 at Charles de Gaulle airport in Paris, France (which still exists but with new and improve international gate area)!
I remember my visit to Vancouver Airport at age 5 in 1969. I saw many Air Canada Vickers Viscount's, CL44 Britannia's Convair 240's, Hawker 748's The main attractions was the Air Canada DC-8, 727's and 707's and the fleet of turquoise green Grumman Goose amphibious flying boats which operated out of YVR and flew to my hometown of Sproat Lake Martin Mars water bomber base. from the 1960's to mid 80's. Great memories.
Wonderful memories thank you so much for sharing. Those green Grumman Gooses belonged to McMillan Blodell and my neighbor was the Chief Pilot for that operation. We lived in Richmond in Brighouse on Madrona Crescent between the time I was born 1964, and 1973.. and I remember one day he asked me if I wanted to go for an airplane ride. My parents allowed me to go so I had my very first float plane ride and it was on one of those Mac Blo Grumman Gooses and he was flying it. That must have been around 1971-1972, and I would have been seven or eight years old.
I recently saw one of those green Grumman Goose planes in a 2005 issue of Playboy Magazine on a exotic tropical beach but the plane was sadly a corroded, junked wreck half sunk in the shore sand with a beautiful hot chick posing. Im sure it was one of the McMillan Blodell goose's
Awesome video Henry! My falling in love with aviation was an Air Canada 727 on July 29, 1972 when moved to Canada. Seeing those pics of YUL brings back so much childhood memories of of the observation deck, the smell of Jet-A kerosene and screaming engines before hush kits
Yes, the Montreal observation deck was fantastic. It had a view across the ramp to the Aeroquay remote gate area, which was accessed by passenger via a foot tunnel underneath the ramp. Which exists to this very day. Montreal was and is a great airport for plain spotting in aviation and those interested in airlines. And many immigrants landed in Canada at Montreal, and still due to this very day as well. So it is naturally a very nice reminder and memory for many new Canadians. That is wonderful.
@@JetFlix My mom worked at the Aeroquay in the 70s before they open Mirabel, my dad would take us at night to pick her up, decades later I worked for Continental Airlines in YUL so spent quite some time in the Aeroquay and walking those tunnels. Keep up the amazing work!
Ver lucky to have a dad that worked TCA/AC. Ha! The Connie flight was more like 65 years ago. Soon followed by DC-8’s with carved roast beef. The FA’s would let me retract the Vanguard stairs…Air travel has certainly changed. Many more people now have access to distant cultures and experiences.
Great photos, thanks for the memory jog.
Wow, what an amazing life and background and experience you have with a father that worked for TCA and Air Canada during the golden age of the 1950s. By any chance do you have large volumes of aircraft slides taken back in the 1950s and 1960s? I’m always looking for these images for future projects like this and often they end up being discarded so I feel I have to ask.
Hi Henry
All the film and photos are gone. I have a couple of corporate framed photos of a Vanguard and a DC 8. Together with a couple of DC 8 Jetliner etched wine glasses are my valued memories.
Keep the spirit alive Henry! I wish I could contribute.
the sleeping giant in the background at YQT looks over-scale but still a great portrait. westfort in the background hasn’t changed a bit, lol. Thunder Bay is a heck of a town and a great pairing for pilots.
I’ve never been to this airport and I just have a feel that it was much busier with Air Canada and their Viscount and jet traffic 50 years ago than it is today.
@@JetFlix i was based at yqt 20yrs ago. it’s a fairly steady airport for movements in my opinion over time. lots of regional props going into NWO and used often by the rcaf fast jets as a fuel stop on their cross country sectors. the airport is vital for medevacs too.
Flew into Toronto in the early 70,s on a Donaldson Airways 707 from Scotland i remember using terminal 1 but every body was talking about how terminal 2 was really a cargo building and made to use passenger planes
Very lucky that you got a fight on Donaldson 707 into Toronto. I have seen 35mm slides of the Donaldson 707 at Terminal 1 taken in the late 60s and early early 70s … what a great transatlantic flight you had.
@@JetFlix yes it is hard to find film footage of Donaldson Airways flights I can find lot's of still shots of them and as for my flight on them it was a straight pipe 707 they got from Pan am and the only plane I've ever been on that people applauded when the plane lifted off rather than the other way around 😊
I used to work in the YVR tower well past 2000, after the new tower was built. I took movement statistics from there. I felt a very severe earthquake jolt up there and it was not built to withstand a significant earthquake. The old tower was still there when I retired in 2005.
So I guess they must’ve taken it down sometime between 2005 and 2010 and the reason why they took it down was because it wasn’t earthquake safe. Thank you for pointing that out to me. Visually it looked very rugged and strong as it was made of reinforced concrete so I just assumed it could withstand just about anything.
@@JetFlix They keep raising the standard of survival and I believe that was a 4 centred in Seattle. I just know it’s the first one I felt. Ultimately I don’t know why the tower was removed. I just know it wasn’t rated high, so they couldn’t repurpose it after the new tower.
Thank you
Henry,
Well as far as Ottawa I first saw it on an exchange Boy Scout trip in '57-'58 when I asked to be taken to see the airport which was then just a small brick building and perhaps a single TCA Viscount came and went. YSJ Saint John hasn't changed a wit from the picture you show with only
a single flight (summer two) from Toronto and another Dash 400 from Montreal with seasonal service 3 times a week from Toronto on Flair which we saw this summer close up from the parking lot.
I wonder with the EMB 190s in significant numbers if Porter might replace AC altogether in the Maritimes which in August was COOL AND DRY
which might become a summer refuge for Americans/Canadians possibly even Europeans if they showed more effort to promote tourism but NB DOESN'T SEEM TO WANT tourism especially ON/QB hordes which may have been REFUSED ENTRY during COVID. Irving is such a dominant presence in the province with the Premier a former employee determined to keep taxes low and a private fiefdom. We met some Ukrainian refugees recently settled there.
Gordon Squire, US-MA
I neglected to add that vacation travel to AB/BC must be severely effected by yet another season of wild fires across both.
Very cool video.As a kid my Dad took me and my brother's to Dorval to watch planes on the outdoor observation deck,which was cool as a young kid.Security measures today wouldn't allow this so it was a relic of the past,and a good one for me.
Exactly, back in the day in the main terminal building at Dorval there was a little turn style that you could go through to access the open air observation deck, which faced the Aeroquay terminal. Air Canada Viscounts and Vanguards would be parked up close to this observation deck. It was a magical place.
Back in the late 70's when my sister and her best friend LEA graduated from high school "it was on"
who could become a stewardess first . LEA got a job first at Pacific Western 11:25 my sister was heart💔broken
every time the phone rang at our house or the mailman delivered mail (east van) my sister got so excited but disappointment
then that day arrived she got a interview with Air Canada heart 💔broken once again few weeks later another interview
well then she went on to an exciting carrier at Ward Air for 33 years
R I P 🙏💞 MY DEAR SISTER
(did not see a Ward Air / plane in your video)
Max ward started off as a bush pilot in northern British Columbia with a Dedavalend (Beaver 🦫 float plane) late 40's / early 50's
Stumbled across this amazing video, thank you!! Brings back a TON of memories. As a child in Halifax, my first flights were on AC's Viscounts, with a couple of them as a solo child traveller, YHZ to NY to visit my grandmother. Most of the flights would stop in Saint John and Boston with one I remember stopping in Yarmouth. By the early 70's these were replaced by DC-9-32's but most still stopped in Boston where we'd clear customs. We also flew a ton of AC DC-9-32's to YUL, many in winter storms where deplaning in Halifax was always an adventure as were many approaches and landings in snowstorms, I remember a ton of turbulence as a kid with one super bouncy landing in YHZ. We also flew several DC-8's to LHR in the late 60's and early 70's. The 60's flights would stop at Gander and Prestwick, by the early 70's these were nonstop, most serviced by non-stretch DC-8's.
I also noted the VERY similar architecture for Halifax and Ottawa's airports with lot of similarities to Gander's and Montreal's too, blue tinted glazing, similar observation areas, overall building shapes, wonder if Transport Canada at the time, hired a single set of designers.
Also of note, is the outstanding design of the 1968 YVR terminal which was never fully appreciated and had a lot of cues from Eero Saarinen's design of the Dulles terminal in DC. They were far too quick to re-clad it in the early 2000's in an attempt to match the new International Terminal which was a huge mistake IMO, as was ( you mentioned ) the removal of the control tower.
In the early 70's my family relocated to Vancouver and I remember the YVR observation deck and turnstile very well! I remember JAL 747's parking at the first gate on C pier where you mentioned CP Air parked many of their -8's I also remember how massive those JAL 747's looked from the inside of the terminal! Again, thank you for this great trip down memory lane, I also have a few of your postcards.
Love these finds!
I scanned 3k of Dads slides from 1964-84 recently. Dad had a great eye, nice camera and travelled the world.
He took some shots on the tarmac in Barbados with Mom that look like print ads.
A DC-8 (CF-TJY) features prominently.
One roll had 20 shots at St Hubert AFB in mid-70s Blue Angels airshow and static shots.
Thanks Dad.
Ottawa Uplands Fav Fact - in 1959 a F104 Starfighter did a 500' supersonic pass (as a military demo!) and blew out the under-construction terminal windows! $300,000 damage and delayed opening for one year.
My first flight was August 1972 on an Air France 747 out of Dorval...I was 7. It absolutely floored me and have been interested in aviation ever since. Thanks for the retrospective, well done, well narrated.
My first domestic flights were on a Viscount and a Vanguard between Toronto and Halifax around 1970. Loved the experience. Great to see these postcards!
I was riding with some teenaged friends in their car around 1979 and we got kicked off the roof of the Toronto airport terminal for doing donuts in the snow at about 2:00am. We were just told by whoever was in charge of security to find something better to do. 😆
Great video. Very nostalgic.
I miss YYZ from the 1970s. My parents would take us up the T1 parking lot to watch the planes.
I enjoyed that! You really know your planes! You've probably seen my planespotting videos but you might have missed the Vancouver airport at the beginning of my 1993 long weekend video... ua-cam.com/video/nRk_seK1APA/v-deo.htmlsi=7P7oJiY2VIhKSVvE
28:43 when YEG was first built in the early1960's there was great consternation among Edmonton citizens about the remote location (26 km from city centre). "It's half-way to Red Deer!" Today, the City boundary is the north perimeter road and sub-divisions are being built a kilometer away.
Thats about the time I was bitten for life, CYUL in 1969, I was 8, still remember theviscounts, Vanguards, Dc9 5:29 , 8, BOAC vc-10, 707, 727's and the list goes on. Good times on the obs deck.
My first flight was on Air Canada Viscount out of Thunder Bay in 67 .
It wasn’t long before they were fazed out and replaced with DC 9 and occasionally 727 .
Trans Air and CP Air flew the 737 out of T Bay .
Now jets hardly land in Thunder Bay it’s only served by Dash 8 props from Porter and Air Canada .
Those dash 8 plane’s aren’t even close to the Vickers Vanguard and Viscounts that served Thunder Bay 55 years ago .
Those Vickers were really nice to fly on practically jets the Dash 8 are noisy slow and uncomfortable
Really shows how far Canadian aviation has fallen.
Even the iconic Air Canada livery is gone replaced with ugly looking schemes .
Thanks for this post, Henry!
As an aviation fan since childhood, I’ve always been fascinated by topics like this…and have recently been searching around for vintage photos, film clips, etc of CYUL. I have fond memories of the the airport from my youth, and still remember the interior of the main terminal…especially the easily-accessible observation deck facing the ramp.
On a related note, the Canadair facility was located not too far from where I grew up, and I have vivid memories of frequent fly overs of F-104 Starfighters that were regularly being serviced at that location in the early 60s (those suckers were pretty noisy…).
Thanks, again!
Thanks for the jog down memory lane. I remember the old Ottawa airport from when we arrived in Canada in 1971, more so for a couple of years following when we would go to Ottawa to pick up family members who came to visit us. There was the outside viewing platform from the terminal 2nd floor, and the huge picture windows that looked out at the intersection of runways 07-25 and 32-14 visible in your postcards. My dad and I would often watch the airplanes come and go from both viewing spots. On one of the airport upgrades sadly both of these features were removed, I would guess by the late 70’s if I recall correctly. Nonetheless as an adult I did become a GA pilot and would often fly into CYOW and it never got old. Sometimes I would just fly in to do some day/night touch and go’s on 07-25 or 32-14, the controllers were always very accommodating, even when there was commercial traffic coming and going they would provide the separation. I flew into many airports in Canada over the years from the east coast to west, but YOW was my favourite, although City Center YTZ ranks as a close second.
My first flight was in 1960 on a Viscount. I was in the Sea Cadets and I flew from Saint John to Sydney NS for a two week course at HMCS Acadia. I was an aviation nut and build model airplanes and did end up flying in the RCAF. I would have been in the Air Cadets but there wasn’t a squadron in Fredericton at that time. What a thrill flying in that Viscount and can still remember looking out the window flying over the Bay of Fundy. My first experience at an airport was when I was 6 years old with my Grandparents. It was at the airport in Pennfield NB. Pennfield was an airforce base and TCA operated out of it. I remember being out on the tarmack looking at a TCA DC3 and always remember the TCA logo on the aircraft. Thanks for the pictures of the old terminals. It was fun flying commercial at that time but not now.
I agree that YEG(Edmonton) is quite Lousy for Photography of Planes, unless you have Lenses that are 500mm and longer.
You could see in the background of the first yvr picture the huge 747 hanger nearly completed for air Canada
At YVR, I used to walk around that observation deck sometimes waiting 2 hours for an airliner to land back in the ‘60’s
Nice work and look forward to films/ videos of Canadian airports airplanes etc
Blue skies ahead!
I was a first officer on Viscounts out of the south terminal in the late 60s
Awesome job my friend. Very cool and well done
Air Canada is the worst
Thanks so much for this,Henry!
Cheers and Blessings!😀✈️🎸🖖