North Atlantic Aviation Museum

[briankizner]

I have just returned from a few days in Gander, Newfoundland. As many of you are aware, Gander has a special place in aviation history. The city has a large, well maintained airport that has been in use for many years. Its airforce base was crucial to the Allies in World War II. Its civilian airport in the 1940's, 50's and 60's was used by many trans Atlantic airliners as a refueling stop. The development of longer range jetliners was a difficult development for the town as most of the refueling stops were no longer required. The town had a more recent moment in the sun on September 11, 2001, when the US closed its airspace, 38 flights headed for USA were diverted to Gander where the townspeople made a frantic effort to take care of its sudden, unexpected rush of guests.
Anyone who is an aviation buff would appreciate the museum there. One small exhibit I particularly liked there is the little red model pictured. It was flown by by a team led by Maynard Hill non-stop from Cape Spear, Newfoundland to Ireland. It was handlaunched and controlled by a standard radio control to start the flight, then handed over to a telemetry system, then taken over again by a radio control in Ireland. As you can see, it is a pretty ordinary looking balsa airplane, powered by a 4 stroke OS 61 converted to spark ignition. If I remember correctly, the flight took approximately 39 hours.

[Burning Head]

Cool pic Brian, thanks

[Sunfly]

Cool,

If you want the whole story about this Rc plane crossing from Newfoundland to Ireland here is the link:http://www.memagazine.org/backissues/membersonly/dec04/features/amodel/amodel.html

[loflyer2001]

Gander Airport after WWII was the landing base for all propeller driven commercial aircraft until the jet age. All flights from New York (Idlewild) and Montreal (Dorval) had to land there prior to their ocean crossing for refueling.
It was the days of DC4, DC6, DC7, B377, L749,L1049.L1649s and many others. They would arrive during late afternoon and early evening hours
to depart some time later for Prestwick or Shannon Airports in the UK.
Another group of return flights would return back in early hours of the
day. I was an air traffic controller there in those days and in the quiet
hours of mid-day I would launch my rubber powered free flight models
right there from the Control Tower.....some of them got caught in
thermals and were never seen again. Those were the years my friends.
Modelling never gets out of your blood even after ?? years.
Keep modelling....Guy....CYQX

[briankizner]

Before going to Gander, I wondered why these refueling stops did not take place further east in Newfoundland, such as in St John's, the only city of any size in the province. According to the information at the museum, the problem with St John's was that, being located right on the Atlantic ocean, it was considered too foggy to be a safe and reliable place to stop. Gander was far enough east, yet located enough inland to not have the fog that hindered the many flights that needed fuel. Even today, there are frequent delays and cancellations at St John's airport due to the fog.