WARPLANE HERITAGE
Museum draws History Channel
Today, the Mynarski Memorial Lancaster at the Canadian Warplane Heritage Museum sits in the hangar, parts exposed, waiting for its annual maintenance routine, but in June 2012, it was busy getting ready for its close-up.
The four-engine heavy bomber, named after Pilot Officer Andrew Charles Mynarski who won the Victoria Cross for gallantry in battle, was scouted by Cineflix Productions for a new six-part series called Air Aces. The show, that debuted on History Canada Monday, tells the real-life tales of heroic combat missions that took place during the Second World War.
Episodes highlight the stories of those like Canadian pilot George Beurling, whose Spitfire shot down more enemy planes during the Battle of Malta than any other Allied pilot, and the Red Tails — a team of African-American fighter pilots who flew the P-51 Mustang fighters that were new to the war effort in July 1944.
The third episode (scheduled to air Monday, Jan. 21, at 9 p.m.) was the one shot in Hamilton. It focuses on a rookie crew that flew a pair of Lancasters on multiple missions over Berlin and survived a crash landing.
Leon Evans, chief pilot at the museum and a retired Air Canada pilot, spent the afternoon last June teaching the film crew about the Lancaster — one of only two in the world still in flying condition and the only one the general public can fly in (the second is owned by Britain’s Royal Air Force).
Evans, 66, says more than 7,300 were originally built, but 60 per cent were shot down during the war. The one at the museum flies 25 to 35 times a year and the fees it generates are part of what keeps the place going. At $2,500 a trip, the hour-long flight is anything but cheap, but it’s definitely a thrill.
“We all fight for time on that bird,” Evans says of the six museum pilots qualified to fly it. “When this airplane fires up, people come out. They see the schedule in advance and lots of people come out just to watch it start up and fly.”
The scarcity of historical aircraft like the Lancaster presented the first problem for Air Aces, says Nick Godwin, head of documentaries for Cineflix and executive producer of the series.
Convincing aircraft owners to rent them to the show was the second. People were reluctant to lend their priceless planes (a working Spitfire like the one used in Air Aces’ first episode is worth $2 million to $3 million) to scenes that would have them performing wild aerobatics and in-air dogfights. Al Mickeloff, retail and marketing manager at the museum, says they bought the Lancaster in 1977 for $10,000, but have spent millions to restore and maintain it since. Eventually, Air Aces made all the right connections.
Museums and private collectors here in Hamilton as well as Britain and the United States came through. The result is a series that uses true-to-life action sequences, archival footage and interviews with veterans to tell six standout stories from the Second World War.