Air Canada marks 80 years
Airline celebrates 80th anniversary by flying a 1937 Lockheed L-10A across Canada this month
The light isn’t hitting the polished aluminum of the airplane just right.
So, everyone who turned up at this Air Canada news conference a little early, myself included, is asked to put a shoulder into the wing and push the aircraft.
When the 38-foot-long and 6,454-pound 1937 Lockheed L-10A plane reaches the middle of the Air Canada hangar at Vancouver International Airport, the position, and light, is declared perfect and our physical toil ends.
All attention then turns to conversations and photos and how this gleaming vintage aircraft figures in Air Canada’s 80th birthday celebrations.
First of all, the L-10A is also 80 years old and looks fabulous for an octogenarian.
And a plane just like it flew Air Canada’s first flight on Sept. 1, 1937, when the airline was known as Trans-canada Air The cockpit of the L-10A doesn’t have any autopilot or instrumentation for flying in bad weather. This photo of the L-10A with registration number CF-TCC was taken in Winnipeg in 1938.
Lines.
That jaunt was 50 minutes from Vancouver to Seattle and the 10-seater plane carried just two passengers, a pilot, co-pilot and some mail.