Page 6 - June2019

Postwar, pioneering local airman Roland Groome, a
former Royal Flying Corps Canada instructor, set up a
firm called the Aerial Service Co. in 1919 on the corner of
Cameron Street and Hill Avenue, a few hundred feet
Written by west of what's now Albert Street. This company (formed
Will Chabun
by Groome, and RFC buddies Jack Wight and Robert
If a picture speaks a thousand words, then this photo McCombie, a mechanic) later failed, but it was notable
is a small book -- and a sad one at that. A wrecked
for owning the first registered aircraft in Canada, Curtiss
aeroplane, the grim faces of burly men, some in
JN-4 (Can) Canuck G-CAAA.
uniform, shuffling around it. Its date is Sept. 20, 1935
-- or one day or two thereafter.

The subject: the crash on Regina's western outskirts
that killed pioneering local aviator Roland Groome
and a student, ending an early phase of aviation in
this province.

In addition, Groome became Canada's first licensed
commercial pilot, mechanic Robert McCombie was the
first licensed air engineer and their crude airport was the
first licensed "air harbor" in the Dominion.

To put this into perspective, Groome undeniably was one
of the very first aviators in Canada, but by no means the
only one.

Groome had helped launch aviation in Saskatchewan,
and helped to launch the Regina Flying Club, which
this year celebrates its 97th anniversary -- a ripe old
age in a world where air organizations seem to come
and go.
Just before the February meeting of the CAHS's
Roland Groome Chapter, member Ray Crone (who
found this dramatic photograph and many others)
shared with club manager Tom Ray the fruits of his
research -- and found the latter impressed by the

scope of the young flying club's early activities and its
For historical purposes, he had the good luck to be in
gritty will to survive. "It's quite stunning that this club
Regina when trainborne federal air regulators made their
has managed to hang together," said Ray. "And Tom
first foray out of Ottawa in the spring of 1920.
tells me that, in the last few years, they've even
managed to make a couple of bucks!" Alas, flying waned as the economy slid downward during
the mid-1920s.
Before and during the First World War, daredevil
aviators occasionally went aloft from the grassy infield
in the racetrack at Regina Exhibition Park.