CASM-Aircrafthistories-Canadairnorthstar.Pdf
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CANADA AVIATION AND SPACE MUSEUM AIRCRAFT CANADAIR CL-2 / C-54GM NORTH STAR RCAF SERIAL 17515 Introduction In June 1946, Canadair Limited, located at the Cartierville Airport facilities near Montreal, rolled out its first production aircraft, a large, gleaming contemporary four-engined transport destined for the domestic and foreign commercial as well as Canadian military markets. With recommendations by Trans-Canada Air Lines (TCA), Canadair had taken the time-proven Douglas DC-4/C-54 Skymaster design, and combined it with legendary Rolls-Royce Merlin engines to become their first of a series of stalwart aircraft configurations to emerge from the Canadair production lines. The amalgamated aircraft project was christened North Star by the first president of Canadair Limited, Benjamin W. Franklin, after considering other suggested names including Polaris. The small Canadian production run had large domestic and international customers including principally Canada’s national airline, TCA, along with Canadian Pacific Airlines (CPA), British Overseas Airways Corporation (BOAC), and the Royal Canadian Air Force (RCAF). As a youngster in the mid to late 1960s, I would relish the time off from school during the summers as my family would take the seemingly too long a drive from our home, in St. Martin, Quebec, for our annual visit to the “airplane museum” in Ottawa, Ontario. Once there, we would wander around the aircraft displayed outside and tour through the three Second World War-era wooden hangars that formerly housed the aircraft and personnel of RCAF Station Rockcliffe. At this time, these old buildings at Rockcliffe Airport had been designated as the principal home of the famed National Aeronautical Collection of Canada. My father, Ross, had been employed at Canadair from 1943 to 1962, and his favorite aircraft to have worked on was the North Star series of transports, where he was classified as a Fitter and Riveter on the shop floor. One of his tasks was the final assembly of each of the dual nose gear doors for the early series of these aircraft. Later, he worked similarly on the flaps. Each time we paid a visit to Rockcliffe on our vacations, and he saw old North Star number “15” between the hangars, he would go up to it and Ross Upton poses next to North Star “15” and ‘his’ nose gear doors in June 1969. (Bill Upton Photo) gently pat one of the nose gear doors and proudly exclaim, “I made that!” Once, he hoisted me up above his shoulders, to what seemed a dizzying height for a small lad, so that I, too, could give a couple of raps to the forward part of one of the unpainted aluminum doors. My mom and my younger sister would just look at us, and then at each other, shrug, and with a collective sigh, shuffle on to the next airplane on display. Oftentimes both loved and loathed, the rugged North Star propliners and their dauntless crews proved themselves time and again capable of getting passengers and important cargo safely to their destinations in spite of weather, troublesome engines or distance. Of the 71 Canadair North Stars that were built, only 24 unpressurized examples were allocated for use with the RCAF from the late 1940s to the mid-1960s. Now, only one remains. Cover Photo Caption: Bearing the new Canadian flag on the tail, Canadair C-54GM North Star RCAF 17515 taxis in at Dusseldorf Airport in Germany on 20 July 1965 during one of the last overseas visit by a RCAF North Star. (Photo Courtesy Peter Seamann) Canadair Aircraft Conversion Programmes Towards the end of the Second World War, Canada’s peacetime needs for its national airline, Trans- Canada Air Lines, and the post-war requirements of the Royal Canadian Air Force for more modern and efficient replacement air transportation equipment were being closely examined by these two organizations for perceived future long-term needs. From 1943 to 1945, eight Canadian-built Lancaster XPP (Passenger Plane) transport aircraft were fabricated by Victory Aircraft Limited in Malton, Ontario with a new interior arrangement capable of accommodating up to ten passengers. These long-range passenger transports were pressed into service from 1943 on the high-priority domestic and North Atlantic routes for the Canadian Government Trans- Atlantic Air Service (CGTAS) operated by TCA. As a passenger carrier, the Lancaster XPP and its British- made counterpart, the Lancastrian, were uneconomical and uncomfortable. In the early 1940s, the aircraft division of Canadian Vickers Limited in Montreal was busy with the licensed manufacturing of 139 Consolidated Aircraft Corporation Canso amphibious flying boats per a Canadian Department of Munitions and Supply contract for the RCAF. Later, another production order for 173 examples, destined for the United States Army Air Force (USAAF), via the US Navy, was given to Canadian Vickers. These particular versions were assigned the USAAF designation OA-10A. When Vickers wanted to concentrate on its shipbuilding capabilities, it eventually divested itself from aircraft manufacturing at the riverside plant as well as at a satellite plant at nearby St. Hubert Airport, and re- established it at a new facility constructed farther inland at Cartierville Airport in St. Laurent by mid-1944. The remaining 57 examples of the OA-10A were produced from the newly established Canadair Limited manufacturing facilities in Cartierville by November 1945 under the first of an eventual long series of Canadair Model number designations, the CL-1. With the end of the flying boat contracts, Canadair took on some necessary new tasks to keep the workers employed and earning a respectable reputation in the business of aircraft conversions. Lockheed Lodestars and Beech Model 18 Expeditor types were acquired, many from ex-military stocks, during the late 1940s to be converted at the ex-Noorduyn Aircraft Plant, also located at Cartierville, into executive variants for numerous corporations. This early executive/business aircraft work experience would bode well for the organization decades later. But it was not enough work on which to continue long-term business, especially with the end of military production contracts following the cessation of the war. Other work had to be found. By a measure of good fortune and timing, as well as insightful instincts by Canadair’s president Ben Franklin and plant manager Ralph Stopps, Canadair acquired all of the surplus Douglas Aircraft Company C-47/DC-3 transport aircraft series tooling and spare parts. Numerous DC-4 and C-54 aircraft fuselage barrels, nose shells, and empennage assemblies were also picked up in the bargain. These were being disposed of by Douglas and the US government in August 1945 to make room for the manufacturing and support of the newer DC-6 model transports soon to be rolling off the Douglas production lines. In the lean post-war years, Canadair Limited seized upon the opportunity to convert then surplus war- weary military C-47 type transports and their derivatives into new DC-3 passenger aircraft for domestic and international airlines looking at inexpensive replacements or additions to their fleets. To support these sales, Canadair was also pegged as the prime source for all spare parts requirements. This ambitious project received the retroactive Canadair Model number designation CL-0. Along with the acquired Douglas equipment stocks, Canadair also purchased a large number of former USAAF C-47 Skytrains, as well as ex-Royal Air Force (RAF) Dakota transports, these latter aircraft being ferried over directly from Britain. Canadair then initially leased the famed Noorduyn Plant, eventually acquiring it and establishing it as the Canadair Conversion Plant (later to be known as Canadair’s Plant 2 facility). There, from 1945 to 1947, Canadair converted, modified, overhauled, and re-built several The first large aircraft to arrive for conversion at Canadair was this ex-USAAF C-49K, serial 43-2001 in March 1945. In hundreds of C-47/DC-3 conversions for numerous the background are some of the final OA-10As produced. domestic and international air carriers. Converted by Canadair in 1945, CF-TDJ was the first DC-3 for Trans-Canada Air Lines, seen here next to Canadair’s Plant 1 facility. By late 1948, the aircraft was sold to the Goodyear Tire and Rubber Company of Canada who then contracted Canadair to re-convert “TDJ” to an executive transport. In 1983, it was donated to the National Aviation Museum in Ottawa. Development of the Canadair DC-4M and C-54GM In the early 1940s, a study team that included TCA, the RCAF and Canadian Government had looked at numerous American and British aircraft designs, existing or on the drawing boards, that might meet the their needs, and specifically TCA’s, for a new long-range passenger transport to replace the Lancaster XPP. Some of the aircraft types examined included the Avro Tudor, Avro York, Boeing Stratocruiser, Handley Page Hermes IV, Lockheed’s Constellation, and the Douglas DC-4. Each had a reason to be on the want list, however, in the end they were either too slow, lacked range, were too big, too small, would not be ready soon enough, or too expensive. One of the most promising types was the Douglas DC-4, but the government was also looking at a newer Douglas design making its way through the early design stages – the DC-6. When the United States entered the war, most civilian aircraft production was redirected to the USAAF, and the DC-4 was modified to military requirements as the C-54 Skymaster. C.D. Howe, the Minister of Transport, Munitions and Supply as well as Construction and Supply, and other titles (oftentimes simply referred to as the “Minister of Everything”) decided before the end of the war that Canada would have a viable commercial and military aircraft industry.