Page 15 - December 2018

The instructors were all R.A.F. tour expired pilots "on My roommate Beech
rest" and were the best lineshooters I ever ran into. O'Hanley was the first
aircraft to take on just
Of about twenty pilots on the course, at the end of
after 1 a.m. He climbed
August we were all posted to an operational training
unit at Debert, N.S. for training on Lockheed Hudsons, to about 2000 feet and
then something went
with the intention that we would crew up there and
wrong and the aircraft
each qualify as Captain for Atlantic ferrying - take one
turned upside down
aircraft over to England - stay there and go to a
and went straight into
squadron after some more training.
the ground - "all killed".
We were the first course of pilots for training at Debert. The rest of us were held
The instructors were mostly pilots who had done an for a daylight take-off.
operational tour in England on Avro Ansons. Most of
For my flight the weather held OK until we were
them were frightened of the flying characteristics of the
Hudsons. On average they gave us three hours of dual about fifty miles west of Montreal, then came rain
and lower and lower cloud. We stayed visual, but
instruction and then sent us off solo. In late October a
with very little forward visibility, with our Radio
flight commander authorized cross-country lights for
early morning. He put the authorization in the Direction Finder compass tuned in to St. Hubert.
Little did we know that this transmitter had been
authorization book the night before. The field was
moved a week earlier to Dorval - a little further east.
fogged in, in the morning but no one turned up to cancel
the authorization so as a group we decided it must be We had information that Dorval Airport was open
intended that we go ahead and take off. The instructors and an operating airport, as Montreal's main civil
had been giving us the line that there would be a lot of airport but we had no information on their radio
bad weather flying when we got to England, so this must operating frequencies. A look at our map indicated
be part of the training. that the best way of getting to Dorval in poor
visibility was to coast crawl around the island. This
I was the third airplane in line for take-off. I taxied out to
the middle of the runway, couldn't see either side of the took us via the St. Lawrence River through
downtown Montreal, where the river gets pretty
runway in the fog, so I moved back close to the left side
of the runway and was able to keep straight on the take- narrow. At one point we were favouring the right
side of the river, and on looking up ahead, we were
off run by watching the line between grass and asphalt.
about to run right into the Sun Life building about
One aircraft crashed on take-off. Another almost hit the
control tower, which caused a bit of excitement there. half way up. A quick turn put us out on the river
again. The next thing there was a bridge ahead and
The weather cleared up for our return, as expected,
above us. The sensible thing to do was to fly under
some five hours later. The instructors were severely
criticized for not getting up in the morning to make the it, but all of our training re bridges was to not fly
under them. So, as we approached the bridge, I
decision for us as to whether the weather was fit for
pulled back on the control column, climbed to 400
flying.
feet, which would clear the bridge but put us into
In early November a cross-country flight from Debert the cloud - on instruments. I counted to thirty and
N.S. to Windsor Ontario was laid on for twelve aircraft. then eased the control forward and broke out
The plan was that we would all do a night full-load take- contact over the river on the other side of the
off - a frightening experience for even experienced bridge, and continued around the island to a point
pilots. The afternoon before we were all required to "air the map indicated that a southerly heading would
test" our aircraft. I found the compass was out by thirty put us over Dorval Airport. We had no radio contact
degrees on a westerly heading and asked the Flight with the tower, but they got the idea we wanted to
Commander for change of aircraft. He implied that I was land and gave us a green on the lamp and we did a
"chicken" so I agreed to take the aircraft on the basis timed runway procedure to bring us around lined up
that if I couldn't maintain visual contact with the ground on the runway in use and we went in and landed.
I would turn around and come back.