IN DEPTH: AVIATION
Alberta's air pioneers
Kim Guttormson, CBC News | December 10, 2003
Twice in the past two years, pilots from Calgary-based Kenn Borek Air have flown daring rescue missions to the South Pole, flights no other pilots would attempt.
While they gained headlines around the world, those pilots were simply following in the pioneering footsteps of Alberta aviators.
"The modern bush pilot's job really hasn't changed since the 1920s and 1930s," Tom Hinderks, president of the Alberta Aviation Museum in Edmonton, says. "Now they have air conditioning, a really good radio and a navigation system.
"But the dedication, pilot skills, passion and, to a certain extent, risk taking, are part of the day-to-day job."
Airplanes first came to Alberta in 1911, a novelty that some quickly realized could revolutionize their way of life. Hinderks says of all the provinces, Alberta made the best use of the flying machines.
"They were more daring, a little earlier than anywhere else," he says. "Alberta attracted a pool of guys that went a little bit beyond. They not so much built [planes], as massaged them."
He says Alberta pilots helped develop modifications that include landing skis, parachuting search and rescue technicians into a scene, the widespread use of radio aids in navigation and cold-weather operation.
It's that mastery of cold weather that makes companies like Kenn Borek Air the first to be called when flights need to be made to the ends of the earth. Its pilots have landed on both poles over the past two years, in the dark and in temperatures neighbouring -60 C, to bring out ailing researchers and a stranded explorer.
Alberta Airborne Firsts
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| 1918 Katherine Stinson flew the first airmail in Canada, from Calgary to Edmonton, in a Curtiss Special |
| 1919 Police first used airplanes to search for a suspect on the run |
| 1924 Edmonton and Northern Alberta Flying Club established, the oldest flying club in North America |
| 1926 Blatchford Field in Edmonton became the first licensed "air harbour" in North America |
| 1929 Wilfrid Reid (Wop) May and Vic Horner flew diptheria anti-toxin from Edmonton to Fort Vermillion in a blizzard, using an open-cockpit plane. It was necessary that the anti-toxin not freeze, so the pilots wrapped it against their bodies and put extra clothes over top. The 600-mile flight was broadcast live on the radio, which stayed on the air throughout the night to report the flyers' progress |
| 1930 More air cargo and mail was flown from Alberta than anywhere else in the country |
| 1930 W.R. May – who had been in the Red Baron's sights when the legendary German ace was shot down by Roy Brown – helped the RCMP chase a murderer who fled Edmonton on a train |
Hinderks says many of the province's earliest aviators returned from the First World War with a love of flying and a wide-open province in which to employ it.
"It was the right time, the right place. There was demand for it," he says. "Even today, once you get north of Edmonton, it's not that far until you're required to carry survival gear, in case you go down."
Hinderks says the use of planes and helicopters today – from the STARS helicopter that airlifts the injured from accident scenes in bad weather to water bombers that dump 35,000 kilograms of water on a forest fire in one go – carries the early romantic notion of aviation forward.
"For the most part, our guys literally flew by the seat of their pants, and still do."
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