INTRODUCTION -

This little collection of short stories records the emergence of Trans Canada Air Lines/Air Canada into a sophisticated world-class airline, circa 1960-2000. The cultural changes of the airline viewed from the best seat in the house, the cockpit, are through the somewhat cynical eyes of this now retired pilot. The language used while not strictly politically correct by today’s standard is contemporary to the era involved. No need for anyone to run to his or her safe place, however, i apologize in advance if i offend anyone. it is not intentional. i am merely trying to add ethos to the tales. i have woven my whimsical yarns together with skeins of autobiographical nonsense. These events are from my personal recollections and are true within the constraints of my aging memory. Other people may have a different view of the events and i certainly welcome anyone’s comments on how my experience may have differed from theirs. They are most certainly entitled to their own version of the saga.

No one walks off the street to submit a pilot application to an airline without first learning to fly, therefore, i have added my own stumbling path to that door.

Today’s airline pilot is a male or female educated professional, likely to be the graduate of a college or even a university that includes aviation as a bona fide study. in the early sixties airline pilots were a different breed, an eclectic mix of quasi middle class, mostly high school graduates, sons of the greatest generation who ever lived. it was most certainly a man’s world in 1960. Even by the year 2000 while the majority of the gentler sex, although integral important crew members, were relegated to customer service in the back of the bus, but some ladies were starting to appear in cockpits as pilots.

included in the stories are quips of world geopolitical events including the major players who, due to the need to get where they had to go, had to fly? We were sometimes front row spectators to great events and witnessed also that sometimes our heroes have feet of clay. At the end, are bits of stuff i wrote just for the fun of it...Enjoy.

The author receiving his wings from his mother. Jim Griffith was a top ranking Air Cadet holding the rank of Warrant Offier first class (WO1). He received flying training under a special RCAF program extended to the Royal Canadian Air Cadet League. He would later receive his Air Force Wings following regular flight training in the RCAF best seat in the house

In The Beginning

it all started in the spring of 1947 when my parents took my brother, Owen, and i to the annual Air Force day at RCAF Station Winnipeg. Dad was about to be de-mobbed after having served in the RCAF City of Winnipeg auxiliary squadron, the 112th. He was overseas during the blitz with the Squadron when it renumbered to 402 Squadron.

Mom was giving him hell because he did not want to bug his pals in the squadron to add Owen and me to the list of civilians being taken up on a squadron DC-3 courtesy flight. Dad in his quaint oldfashioned way did not think it was proper to use his undue influence to get us a ride. Mom won and big brother and i went for a thirty-minute flight.

To be honest, i was not thrilled.

in fact i was scared witless being in this hollow metal tube experiencing weird feelings i had only felt in Eaton’s department store elevators in downtown Winnipeg. Those were like metal cages operated by ladies in military style smart uniforms. They clanged and rattled and when they started lift-off, they made your stomach feel funny, even funnier when they started down.

it was unique to be a pilot back then but railroad engineers made the big bucks in our blue-collar neighbourhood of west end Winnipeg. Being a train engineer was my first choice but in the meantime, to keep me off the streets, my parents enrolled me in Air Cadets. Actually, i had to admit that the uniform had more panache than the stripped railway cap i wore as i blun- dered, hormones raging, out of puberty. By some miracle known only to the gods of flight i won an Air Cadet scholarship and hence a private licence introducing me to a lifelong love of flying not to mention a rich and rewarding forty year career as an airline pilot. i became a member of the RCAF reserve in their high school trades training summer for something you loved seemed outrageous. it was here that i developed my fascination with the North American Mustang fighter plane. i hoped and prayed that i would someday fly it. i was accepted by my Dad’s Alma matter, The RCAF City of Winnipeg Auxiliary Squadron for wings flight training. i finished my basic flying training on the Harvard aircraft at RCAF stations Moose Jaw SK and Penhold AB and oh yeah, got married against regulations. Nothing happened. i began to think that maybe things were going a little too smoothly. it didn’t take long for the other shoe to drop at RCAF station Gimli MB.

The North American Mustang was developed late in WWii to provide a long range fighter capable of accompanying the B17 daylight raids on enemy targets deep in eastern Germany— targets like Berlin. The P51 Mustang proved to be a capable fighter against the Me 109s. Not often mentioned is the fact that it was a British design built in the USA by North American Aviation.

Any Air Cadet worth his salt would want to fly this great aircraft.

My cadet CO, a TCA North Star captain, was my idol and mentor. it may not have been the wisest choice since he and all seventy-two of his passengers and crew perished when his aircraft, loaded with 18000 lbs. of high-octane aviation fuel, flew into a vertical cliff. The fireball could be seen for fifty miles in spite of thick cloud cover and heavy rain.

Our course of NATO students finished T bird ground school, completed plan... the cold war was peaking and the government wanted a cadre of trained disciplined youngsters for cannon fodder in case the balloon of WWiii went up. For a teenager the money they paid that best seat in the house our fixed simulator and impatiently waited for our first flight. Continuous bouts of freezing rain for three days in March threw the training schedule into chaos. The resulting ice coating turned sidewalks, roads and aircraft movement areas into a skating rink.