Читать книгу Brace for Impact - Peter Pigott - Страница 9

Lindbergh, Leo the Lion, and Air Mail Aces

With the election of the Liberal government in late 1921, Prime Minister William Lyon Mackenzie King got his chance to jettison Robert Borden’s Air Board and remove the political appointees. Shrewd enough to realize that with an ocean on either side and Canadians seeing little need to fund an air force, King, ever a master of pragmatism and timing, disbanded the Air Board and neatly folded its responsibilities into the new Department of National Defence (DND). The board’s Civil Air Operations Branch, with Lieutenant-Colonel Scott as controller of civil aviation (CCA), was merged with the CAF on June 28, 1922, transforming all board stations into air force units and giving board personnel who had been civil servants temporary commissions in the CAF. The safety of all aircraft, civil and military, and their accident investigation was now the responsibility of the Directorate of Flight Safety in DND. As King knew, none of his political opponents would disagree with funding a military that performed community-minded services. The air services were reorganized yet again in July 1927, with the RCAF as its military branch under the minister of defence and the Civil Government Air Operations under a deputy minister. In 1930 the latter was absorbed into the RCAF.

Nothing did more to publicize aviation in 1927 than Charles Lindbergh arriving in Ottawa. Fresh from his solo 33.5-hour flight from New York to Paris in May, he was then the most celebrated man on the planet. On July 2, 1927, Lindbergh was invited by Vincent Massey, the Canadian envoy to Washington, to help celebrate Canada’s 60th birthday. He landed the Spirit of St. Louis on Ottawa’s Hunt Club airfield, promptly renamed in his honour, and was then escorted in the air in formation by 12 U.S. Air Corps Curtiss Hawk fighters. The U.S. planes hailed from Missouri’s Selfridge Field, which had been named after Lieutenant Thomas Selfridge.

Leading the escort, First Lieutenant J. Thad Johnson started downward as if to land but suddenly rose again to resume his place in the formation. The plane behind nudged his tail, throwing Johnson’s machine into a dive less than 100 feet from the ground. Johnson jumped out of the cockpit and tried to use his parachute. It opened, but not quickly enough to affect the fall. He was killed, his plane crashing far enough away so that the whole tragedy was out of the crowd’s sight.[1] Years later, reflecting on his good fortune at surviving into old age — in other words, not being killed when he was a barnstormer and an air mail, transatlantic, and military pilot — Lindbergh wrote: “Is aviation too arrogant? Is Man encroaching on a forbidden realm? Is aviation dangerous because the sky was never meant for him?”[2]

Leaping onto the Lindbergh flight bandwagon was Hollywood, especially Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM), which was about to enter the world of sound movies. Jackie, the second lion used for MGM’s opening logo, was the first to roar. In September 1927, the studio outfitted a Ryan Brougham aircraft (a smaller version of Lindbergh’s Spirit of St. Louis) with a cage behind the pilot’s seat and sent Jackie, now billed as “Leo the MGM Flying Lion,” off on a tour of the United States. On its way to New York from San Diego, the aircraft crash-landed in the Arizona desert. Martin Jenson, the pilot, and Jackie survived the crash, and the recovered aircraft frame can still be seen today.

Jenson left the lion with water and his sandwiches and walked into the desert for help. Four days later the pilot was found and was able to telephone MGM. Their first question was, “How’s the lion?” Rescuers located the plane crash and the unharmed Jackie (what Walt Disney could have done with this story!). Jackie eventually went on to survive two train wrecks and an explosion in the studios. Aware there was no such thing as bad publicity, Louis B. Mayer dubbed him “Leo the Lucky Lion,” and, roaring and shaking his mane in movies such as The Wizard of Oz, Jackie achieved immortality as MGM’s logo. Typical of showbiz, he was replaced by younger lions in 1931, especially for colour movies, and was retired to live out his life at the Philadelphia Zoo, although his image and roar were still used in black-and-white MGM films well into the 1950s and even made a comeback in Hearts of the West in 1975.

In Canada the 1927 Lindbergh visit did prompt the Canadian government to begin the Flying Club Scheme as a means of ensuring flying instruction. That December the RCAF (through the CCA) bought 10 De Havilland Moths for approved clubs across the country. In 1928 it also started courses for instructors at Camp Borden. The very short life of the Moths that went to the clubs must have caused some concern (they were always on loan from the RCAF), since by 1929 there had been 15 crashes, with half the aircraft written off. And only two of those crashes weren’t pilot error.

A typical CCA inquiry into a flying club crash read:

Report on Moth aircraft (CF-CAV) that crashed at Millidgeville, New Brunswick, on June 14, 1931, causing the death of Mr. J.K. Stirling, pilot, and Mr. Rudyard Brayley, passenger. We learned that Stirling, the pilot of the crashed aircraft, was definitely rough on the controls and was addicted to stunting. He had previously been under suspension by the club for one such offence and was fined $100 for a second. He was of an impulsive and arrogant nature but A.1 physically and a strict teetotaler. He fully intended to go stunting on the last flight.[3]

While few Canadians had been in an aircraft at all even at the fairgrounds, in Europe the transport of passengers by airliner began almost as soon as the guns of the Great War were silent. And why not? European capitals were close to one another, the Alps were the only geographical impediment, and for reasons of national prestige, governments poured money into “flag carriers” such as Imperial Airways, Air France, and Lufthansa. Well into the 20th century, Europeans considered profit for a state airline secondary to “flying the flag.”

It was different in Canada. An overbuilt railway system controlled by two empires, Canadian National and Canadian Pacific, in a country that barely had the population to support one meant that, as in the United States, the federal government looked to private industry to invest in commercial aviation. In December 1926, after buying an old HS-2L flying boat and a new Fokker Universal aircraft, Winnipeg grain dealer James Richardson bravely inaugurated Western Canada Airways (WCA). A freight carrier with the odd miner, trapper, or Mountie as passengers, WCA serviced the resource industry, initially at Red Lake, Ontario. Richardson was always painfully aware that only federal government contracts to fly mail would keep his company solvent and that several other aviation companies were also lobbying Ottawa for them. Scheduled passenger flights in Canada were to commence in the summer of 1928 — with disastrous consequences.

In 1929, impressed by all things German, in this case the metal Junkers trimotor G31 monoplane, Charles Lindbergh helped publicize Henry Ford’s venture into aviation. Designed by Bill Stout, whose company Henry Ford eventually bought, the 4-AT (called the “Tin Goose”) was dubbed the “safest airliner in the world.” Of all-metal construction, unlike the wood-and-fabric airliners then in use, the Tin Goose suggested great strength. The thickness of its airfoil, the absence of bracing wires, powered by not one but three 200-horsepower Wright radial engines, the aircraft was able to carry up to 12 passengers in a cabin high enough for a steward to walk around the aisle without stooping and serve food.

Prominent citizens pose with the Ford trimotor in August 1928. The first multi-engine metal aircraft to come to Canada, it would crash for unknown reasons while crossing the Strait of Juan de Fuca. Vancouver Archives.

Until the advent of the Boeing 747, no other aircraft had such a psychological impact on the public as did the Tin Goose. Operated by Transcontinental Air Transport (TAT) in the United States, the trimotor allowed passengers to enjoy hot meals (catered by the Fred Harvey Company, no less), sliding windows (to throw the “barf” bags out), and an actual “comfort station” in the rear — a hole in the floor but still a toilet.[4] Reassuring in strength, the ultimate in luxury, the Tin Goose could be compared with the Titanic.

Despite its name, British Columbia Airways was little more than a flying school that owned Lansdowne Airfield in Victoria. In April 1928, however, financed by local businessmen, the fledgling airline bought a 4-AT and planned to use it on the Vancouver-Victoria-Seattle triangle that August. Registered as G-CATX, the aircraft was picked up in Detroit by Ted Cressy and Hal Walker, an experienced pilot who had survived flying for the U.S. Post Office. The plane was flown home through the United States (there were few airfields in Canada) with a number of prominent citizens from Vancouver and Victoria on board, including the mayors of both cities.

Upon landing at Lulu Island, Vancouver’s airport, on August 7, the Ford trimotor was the first multi-engine metal aircraft to come to Canada. The Tin Goose was equipped with an impressive instrument array in its cockpit — an airspeed indicator, an altimeter, a turn indicator, and one of the first artificial horizons. But its arrival was ominous and marred by near-tragedy. With no regard for the three whirling propellers moving toward them, crowds rushed forward to greet the huge aircraft, and only the skill of the pilots prevented an accident. Then as L.D. Taylor, the mayor of Vancouver (no doubt dazed and deafened by hours in the Tin Goose), stepped out and walked over to address the welcoming committee, he was struck on the head by a propeller and rushed to the hospital.

On August 25, with Walker and flying club instructor Robert Carson at the controls, the trimotor lifted off at 4:00 p.m. from Lansdowne Airfield for Seattle. There were five passengers and a fox terrier on board. Crossing the Strait of Juan de Fuca, the aircraft was enveloped by a fog bank near Port Townsend, Washington. The only witness to its demise was a fisherman who saw it turn violently, its wing tip hitting the water, and cartwheel into the ocean. With all that metal, the three radial engines, those sliding windows, the hole-in-the-floor toilet, it must have gone to the bottom immediately. Two bodies and some of the wicker chairs washed ashore. Aircraft, U.S. Customs boats, and Canadian naval vessels attempted to locate the 4-AT (it went down in U.S. waters) but without success. This was the first ocean crash the CCA encountered.

Asked about investigating air accidents that had taken place over water, Peter Rowntree, the Transportation Safety Board’s regional senior investigator, writes:

When most people hear about an aircraft accident, they think of them as only happening on land. The search, recovery, and corresponding investigations for those accidents are often very complex. However, that complexity pales in comparison when the aircraft has crashed in water. It is that very complexity that makes searching for missing aircraft on water so interesting, frustrating, and rewarding.

My first introduction to water-based search-and-recovery operations was Swissair Flight 111 off the coast of Nova Scotia near Peggys Cove in 1998. From that investigation on, I’ve always been fascinated by the world of search-and-recovery operations on water.

Searching for a missing or downed aircraft in water can vary from relatively easy to insanely complex. It is akin to looking for the proverbial needle in a hay stack. Quite often, we are lucky and the aircraft remains partially afloat and is easily spotted by air or surface vessels. Other times, it has gone down in a relatively known or confined area and is moderately difficult to locate. Finally, there are those times where you have a general idea of where the aircraft went down, but finding the aircraft can be extremely difficult. This can turn into your worst nightmare. But the harder the aircraft is to find, the greater the sense of accomplishment when it’s finally located.

There are so many variables to consider when we start looking for an aircraft under water. How deep is the water? What is the clarity of the water? How big is the search area? What time of year did the accident happen? What are the weather conditions like? What equipment and expertise are available and how much will all of it cost? One thing is for certain, the cost of search and recovery for a submerged aircraft is expensive, and those costs can increase [exponentially] with the size of the search area, the depth of the water, the duration of the search, and the size of the aircraft.

Once the aircraft is found, the recovery effort can be just as complex if not impossible. Before any decision to recover can be made, the aircraft must be thoroughly surveyed and documented. There is often much that investigators can learn by just looking at the wreckage underwater before anything is disturbed. This phase of the investigation can again be quite lengthy but can provide vital clues as to what happened before the aircraft is recovered.[5]

With no such resources in 1928, the CCA could only speculate on what evasive action Walker took and why. On hearing of the crash, Henry Ford cabled to advise that his company had “perfected a system of flotation which will definitely keep a plane above water.” Transcontinental Air Transport (TAT), the U.S. airline that also operated Ford trimotors, lost three more planes in the next five months and almost went out of business, its initials becoming “Take a Train.” Conjectures on what caused the British Columbia Airways crash included mechanical failure and poor visibility over water, and the court of inquiry recommended that amphibious aircraft should be used on that particular route in the future.

Ironically, the other crash in Canada that the controller was investigating at the time was that of a Loening Cabin Amphibian (G-CARN). On August 9 it had stalled on a turn near Beaumaris, Ontario, killing two passengers and injuring five.

Since there were no weather forecasts, radio time signals, or lighted airfields available to pilots in those days, flying in Canada was largely confined to the summer, fair weather, and daylight hours. Celestial navigation — using a sextant to locate the horizon on cloudy days — was impossible in an open cockpit with freezing air rushing past, to say nothing of trying to do that wearing heavy gloves! After years of visual navigating, the legendary bush pilots who had opened the country to aviation believed it was what you saw and felt while in the air, not what your earphones told you. Radio beams, they were convinced, would never replace “gut” instinct. IFR (instrument flight rules), they joked, meant “I Fly by the River,” the only sure highway after sunset. The novel idea that cross-country flying, especially after dark, should depend not on what a pilot could see or feel but what he heard began in 1926 in the United States when the U.S. Bureau of Standards copied a German idea to use radio not only for communication but also direction. Radio transmitters emitting beams to guide aircraft through clouds, fog, and in the dark were first tested in 1926–27 at Maryland’s College Park Airport before being employed across the country and later in Canada.

An airfield was wherever a pilot could safely take off from or land, and aviators either constructed their own or reused the convenient piece of land they descended on. In June 1919, for example, when John Alcock and Arthur Whitten Brown searched for an airfield in St. John’s, Newfoundland, from which they could conquer the Atlantic Ocean, they rented a meadow from a Mr. Lester. Since their heavily laden Vickers Vimy needed every inch of its 400 yards to lift off, the pair hired local workmen to clear the field of rocks and trees.[6] On April 25, 1928, when the American aviator Floyd Bennett fell ill in Quebec City and there was no airport to deliver the pneumonia serum for him, Charles Lindbergh chose the historic Plains of Abraham to land on. Today, for a country now peppered with airfields and airports, it is incredible to think that, with the exception of St. Hubert, Quebec, there were so few airfields in Canada less than a century ago. Because of the lack of any national aviation infrastructure, all air mail between Montreal or Toronto and Vancouver was sent below the border to connect with the U.S. Air Mail system and then north again from Seattle.

To build and maintain the first civil airways across the United States, the U.S. government gave the project to the Bureau of Lighthouses. Its Airways Division was made responsible for surveying the continent for suitable airfields, constructing them with runways and lighting, supplying weather information, and installing radio stations. Since Canada had no such facility, Ottawa justified the building of an airway as a defensive measure. On February 22, 1929, the Department of National Defence was ordered to construct a chain of airports from coast to coast that would be linked by beacons and eventually radio. The brainchild of J.A. Wilson and Army Chief of Staff Major-General A.G.L. McNaughton, the Trans Canada Airway had its considerable expense justified by the necessity, in case of war on the Pacific coast, to move RCAF aircraft from Trenton, Ontario, to reinforce squadrons in British Columbia. Whatever the reason, however, constructing the airway changed the country as much as the Canadian Pacific Railway had done in 1885.

Canadian Aviation Accident Statistics in 1929
Accidents:	33
Pilots Killed:	17
Pilots Injured:	12
Passengers Killed:	17

Stretching 3,314 miles from Toronto to Vancouver, with a side line north from Lethbridge to Calgary and Edmonton when completed in 1939–41, the airway connected eight public airports, 11 municipal airports, and 79 airfields. With revolving beacons and 35 radio range stations, the whole system allowed for the reliable delivery of air mail and eventually passengers across the dominion. The entire enterprise, unknown to and unappreciated by the majority of Canadians, rivalled the building of the Canadian Pacific Railway in 1885, only 54 years earlier.

Commercial aviation was tied to the fortunes of the mining industry, so it was accepted that in Canada it could only pay its own way with air mail contracts. The Canadian Post Office Department reluctantly agreed to participate in this endeavour but demanded that its mail be flown at night (after it had been collected) and on a tight schedule, whatever the weather. As in the United States, in attempting to meet both requirements, Canadian pilots encountered new problems such as ice accumulation, turbulence, and loss of spatial awareness. Then there was the cold. Pilots flew in open cockpits, enduring frigid temperatures that cut their skin until they bled. Every night in the winter, so the aircraft could be used the following day, oil had to be drained out of the engine before it froze. The next morning the engine was preheated with a plumber’s “blow pot” and the oil, now an icicle, was defrosted before being reinstalled.

Dangerous in a fabric-covered aircraft, labour-intensive in below-zero temperatures, and unreliable altogether, the whole process didn’t lend itself to the efficiencies of scheduled flight.[7] The railways, as Post Office Department officials were quick to point out, were unaffected by these problems. Desperate for government largesse, the struggling air companies risked lives and aircraft to fulfill their contracts, ignoring weights and balances, weather conditions, and pilot fatigue at their peril.

Just as ancient mariners steered by the North Star, aviators relied on the Trans Canada Airway’s radio towers. They emitted steady, directional Morse code for the letter A (· -), and the letter N (- ·) so the pilot knew on which side of the airway he had strayed.

Air Canada Archives.

Although a requirement for a commercial pilot licence, flying at night in Canada, especially in the winter, had rarely been done. Before rural electrification it meant venturing into total blackness. Airfields, when you could find them after dark, were unlit, and altimeter or glide-slope information was unavailable. In the dark, pilots inevitably approached too low, succumbing to the “black hole approach.” Even today this illusion tricks pilots into thinking they are higher than they actually are, causing them to fly dangerously low approaches that end in crashes. For a pilot of the 1930s, after dark, all of Canada was a black hole. Aircraft weren’t equipped with flares or landing lights until 1932. Even then pilots disliked using flares to illuminate the runway because, when dropped over the airfield, they caused deep shadows that made landings even more confusing.

And if the pilot did make it down, runways were lit with flare pots, if the snowplow operators could get out to the airfield in time. It was no wonder that both Douglas and Boeing equipped their aircraft with landing lights in the nose and wings to give pilots (and their passengers) a reasonable chance of survival. As for the Trans Canada Airway’s new revolving acetylene beacons, they were useless in bad weather when really needed. Flying after sunset, one pilot recalled, was “like flying in a black sack.”

None of this discouraged James Richardson who, after intense lobbying in Ottawa, was awarded night air mail contracts in 1930. He renamed his company Canadian Airways Ltd. (CAL) and bought more aircraft. Safe flying was very much his emphasis. For every fatal accident, he claimed CAL had flown 410,629 miles. To entice reluctant customers, perhaps with reference to the frontier conditions his company operated in, he advertised, “Living may be Dangerous but Air Travel is safe.” Given the rail and (soon) road network in the country, air mail was still considered a fad, but the contracts did foster the growth of commercial aviation, especially in the bush. By 1930 a credible 5,685 passengers had been transported by Canadian Airways, albeit in cramped conditions. If there was a dog team, the passengers were squeezed into the cockpit with the pilot, who also had to clean out the cabin afterward. Needless to say, if a more lucrative cargo of air mail was taken on, the passengers could expect to be dumped anywhere en route. The Post Office Department’s stipulation was: “Letters First, People Perhaps.” Night flying, of course, was exclusively for mail, the reason given being: “You cannot kill a mailbag.”[8]

Fulfilling the sought-after mail contracts on a schedule took a murderous toll. On June 2, 1930, CAL’s Fokker Universal (G-CASF) crashed at Allanwater Lake, Ontario, in poor weather, killing the pilot. Its new Boeing 40B-4 (CF-AIN), bought on January 23 that year, crashed on a night flight on September 23 at Southesk, Alberta, killing the pilot and two passengers. On a September 27 night mail flight between Toronto and Detroit, the company’s Pitcairn PA6 Mailwing (CF-ACT) overturned on takeoff and crashed in heavy winds.

Canadian Airways’ competitors on mail runs were hardly more fortunate. A Fokker Super Universal (CF-AJG) owned by International Airways attempted to land in dense fog at Whitby, Ontario, on January 7, 1930, on the Montreal-Toronto mail run and hit a tree. On June 23, 1930, an Interlake Airways’ Fokker Universal (CF-ABL) crashed a mile east of Oshawa, Ontario, when the pilot was forced to perform an emergency landing because of technical problems.

Navigation by radio might have been prone to weather disturbances, but it was critical to the evolution of commercial aviation in Canada. A network of transmission towers approximately 200 miles apart and strategically located around the country, usually near the larger airports, was built. The towers emitted low-frequency radio beams, and not until the beams were functioning on the Trans Canada Airway, beginning with the Prairies, did night flying become marginally safer.[9] All that remains today of the Morse signals that each station transmitted to identify themselves — UL for Montreal, FC for Fredericton, and HZ for Halifax, becoming YUL, YFC, and YHZ — are on luggage tags. On June 15, 1931, in the country’s first radio-guided flight, a Canadian Airways Fokker 14A was flown from Winnipeg to Moose Jaw. By 1936, with the Trans Canada Airway nearing completion (thanks to the Great Depression providing an expanding labour pool of unemployed men), the ability to fly by instruments alone was made mandatory for a commercial licence.

Major W.G. Barker with a wrecked Sopwith Camel, Italy, 1918. Barker was killed in 1931 when the aircraft he was flying also fell inverted onto its back. Library and Archives Canada.

But the crash that got the most attention that year had nothing to do with air mail, night flying, or poor weather — and everything to do with ego. On a freezing March 12 afternoon, a Fairchild KR-21 trainer (CF-AKR) took off from Rockcliffe, Ottawa, only to plunge through the ice of the nearby river almost immediately afterward. The pilot was none other than Wing Commander W.G. Barker, VC, DSO, the most highly decorated Canadian airman of the First World War. Unfamiliar with the limitations of the KR-21, he treated it like the Sopwith Camel fighter aircraft that had served him so well on the Western Front, but it didn’t have the Camel’s engine power and stalled as he put it into a steep loop. At about 250 to 300 feet above the frozen river, on the very top of a zoom, the aircraft slid backward and fell inverted onto its back, smashing Barker’s skull on the ice.

Aware that the press and public would be keenly interested in its report, the court of inquiry called by J.A. Wilson was scrupulous in its investigation. It examined the aircraft wreckage — it hadn’t burned — and concluded that the KR-21 had been perfectly airworthy before Barker had taken it up. Since the accident had occurred at the RCAF’s Rockcliffe air station in full view of several officers, there was no lack of competent witnesses. The cause of the mishap was ruled a judgment error on the pilot’s part: he had performed aerobatics at too low an altitude and had lost control due to too steep a climb without sufficient height to recover from the resulting dive. The court recommended that the dangers of aerobatics at low altitudes be more strongly impressed upon all pilots. Stunting, it seemed, wasn’t just confined to callow flying club students.[10]

Nor was death by aircraft exclusively for the famous. A well-worn HS-2L flying boat, a plane designed by Glenn Curtiss to protect American convoys from U-boats during the Great War, came in to land on Lake Superior at Pays Plat, 100 miles east of Port Arthur (today’s Thunder Bay). It was 4:30 p.m. on May 4, 1931, and the HS-2L was part of the Ontario Provincial Air Service (OPAS) fleet. Pilot Earl Hodgson had left Sault Ste. Marie at 1:00 p.m. that afternoon with Air Engineer J.L. Mewburn and had planned to land at the OPAS Pays Plat station to await orders. He brought the aircraft down from 2,500 to 800 feet and made a circuit of the shore to determine the water conditions prior to landing. The telegraph wires beside the railway track along the shoreline ahead were visible, and Hodgson had enough height to clear them … or so he thought. The telegraph wires caught the aircraft, tripping it up, and the flying boat crashed into the lake. Hodgson remembered nothing more until he was pulled from the wreckage. Mewburn wasn’t so lucky. He drowned.

The court determined that the cause of the accident was pilot error: Hodgson was attempting to land with insufficient height to allow the aircraft to clear the obstruction. The pilot admitted that he hadn’t consulted his altimeter prior to the approach. “With his length of experience of flying this type [of aircraft], it can hardly be attributed to lack of skill but is more likely the result of familiarity that breeds overconfidence,” wrote G.S. Abbott, the CCA inspector. “Pilots,” he added, “are reluctant to allow a sufficient margin for safely clearing obstacles, foolishly thinking that the successful accomplishment of an approach by a small margin is the stamp of a skilled pilot. One sees the same fault continually at aerodromes.” The court’s recommendation was that Hodgson be severely censured and that his licence be suspended for one month.[11]

The prissy “holier than thou” attitude of the investigating RCAF officers toward civil air accidents must be understood within the context of the day. Investigations of accidents didn’t extend further than collecting witness accounts, examining the damage to the aircraft (if it was accessible), and collating the injuries to the occupants. After the correlation of these data before a board of officers, judgment was passed on why the aircraft had crashed. The officers had neither the investigative training nor departmental budget to conduct a forensic examination of the wreckage. Loss of control because of turbulence, mechanical failure, or built-in structural defects weren’t considered. As a niche industry, commercial aviation in Canada didn’t warrant the political will, especially during the Depression, to assign appropriate resources to its accidents. Instead, conclusions were based on answers to inquiries such as: Was the pilot a teetotaller, of good character, or prone to perform aerobatics? Did he always wear a seat belt while flying?

“The direct cause of the accident,” to quote an RCAF finding in one case of the period, “was, in the opinion of the Court, that the pilot allowed the aircraft to get on its back; then in that position, stall — and then fall into an inverted spin, from which he failed to recover in the height available.” In another case, the officer’s prose to describe the contributory cause of a crash hints of an elegant, understated weariness: “The Court assumes that safety belts were not worn on the flight which terminated in the accident under investigation. In the inverted position which the aircraft took up, the difficulties of control would be complicated by the endeavours of the pilots to prevent themselves from falling out of the aircraft.”[12] All that air force officers had to go by were the Air Regulations, and blaming the pilot — who was usually conveniently dead — for contravening them sufficed.

With the onset of the Depression, Prime Minister R.B. Bennett cancelled all air mail contracts, reasoning that government funds could be better spent elsewhere. In response, to educate the public that aviation was more skill and careful attention to aerodynamics than derring-do, the first Trans-Canada Air Pageant was set up in 1931. Launched in Hamilton, Ontario, on Dominion Day that year, the pageant was to travel across the country and parts of the Midwestern United States with 26 flying displays before it returned home on September 12. Pageants weren’t about stunt flying, danger, or risk-taking. Instead, they showcased the latest in aircraft and flying schools, with the most exciting flying being a carefully rehearsed formation flight by the RCAF. Their emphasis was that flying would soon become a means of transportation as safe and commonplace as taking a train.

A formation flight over Hamilton that July 1 morning by all the aircraft involved opened the first pageant. One of the aircraft that had been in the flypast was a Travelair SA 6000-A (CF-AIB). Flown by H.M. Stirling, the plane was part of a demonstration flight and carried four sightseers to the show. The other pilots in the air show saw it returning to the airport around noon and then dive to within 20 feet of the ground near the Motion Picture News truck. The pilot then opened his throttle and pulled up in what RCAF Flying Officer A.L. James called a “gentle zoom.” Just as the aircraft changed altitude, a ripple was seen running through the full length of the leading edge of the right wing, with the fabric tearing backward in shreds. The Travelair then climbed steeply, the left wing rising higher and higher, even as the right wing dropped. The pilot was heard throttling the engine down as he fought for control, but it was too late. The aircraft fell toward the ground onto its left wing. All on board were killed.

The court of inquiry was held in Ottawa on July 9, with the pageant’s organizers, Travelair operators, and Canadian Airways Ltd. representatives in the audience. Flying Officer James was a member of the court; he had begun inspecting the wreckage 10 minutes after the accident. Among the witnesses called were W.J. Sanderson, president of the Fleet Aircraft Company, and L.J. Tripp, a flying instructor at the St. Catharines Flying Club. Both of these pilots were destined to be elected to Canada’s Aviation Hall of Fame one day.

The court of inquiry’s findings were as follows:

1 That the aircraft had been examined by an air engineer on June 31 the day before at Hamilton.

2 That the aircraft had been fitted with single controls piloted by H.M. Stirling.

3 That the aircraft had taken off from Hamilton Airport in excellent weather conditions.

4 That Stirling hadn’t done any dangerous flying or performed any manoeuvre during the day that would have imposed greater loads on the structure.

5 That the controls were all securely locked — evidence of failure of the right wing in flight.

6 That there was no evidence of a breach of Air Regulations.

Given the ideal conditions, why then had the Travelair crashed? Research on aerodynamics in Canada began as early as March 1907, when the first technical paper on aircraft stability by a Canadian was published. Its author, Wallace Turnbull, had built the country’s first wind tunnel five years earlier and later developed the variable pitch propeller. By 1929 the mounting toll of casualties and the burgeoning aviation industry in Canada encouraged the National Research Council (NRC) to begin aviation research. Its assistant director, J.H. Parkin, convened a committee on aeronautical research with the Department of National Defence and the aviation industry, and construction was begun on an aircraft engine laboratory and wind tunnel in the Ottawa suburbs. Throughout the 1930s the NRC pioneered research on aircraft icing, stress tests on aircraft skis, and engine vibration, but incredibly not on oil dilution — a major deterrence to commercial aviation in the Canadian winter.

If at previous courts of inquiry, accidents had been blamed on pilot error or willful stunting and all the courts could do was recommend that the Air Regulations be followed, this time the evidence wasn’t at the bottom of the Strait of Juan de Fuca but was available for examination in detail. Intense scientific research — for the day — went into what effect a “zoom” would have on the angle of incidence on the leading edge of the wing. The strength of the duralumin sheathing was questioned, and measurement of pressure distribution over the wing section of the Travelair was calculated. The conclusion was that the metal sheets over the leading edge had become detached and that their sharp edges and corners had pierced the fabric and begun the doomed effort.

The court ruled that the fatal accident “was caused by the failure of the leading edge ribs of the right wing due to an upload in flight. The metal leading edge sheathing being unsupported sheared off its attachment to the front soar and punctured the fabric. Air forces tore the fabric from the upper surface of the right wing destroying its lift.”

Here was proof that accident investigation in Canada had matured. This time, for once, the pilot wasn’t blamed.