Page 7 - June2019

In Saskatchewan, 1926 saw not a single flight made -- Regina's aircraft, for the record, were DH-60X Moths G-
save for a tragic one that saw a pilot fall to his death
from his Curtiss JN-4 (Can) near Shaunavon on June
30.
This flying drought mirrored the situation across
Canada. So few pilots were being trained that
aviators were "imported" from Britain for the RCAF,
the Ontario Provincial Air Service and commercial
operators.
Mindful of the aeroplane's military potential, the
federal government realized this could become "a
serious problem".
Locally, another commercial air enterprise overseen
by Groome, the grandly named Universal Air
Industries, set up roughly on the site of what is now
the Golden Mile shopping centre in May or June 1927;
this was called the "Lakeview Aerodrome". It was on
June 7 of that year -- mere months after Charles
Lindbergh's epochal flight across the Atlantic, that a
Morning Leader article noted there were efforts under the Regina Municipal Airport.
way to create a local flying club. As Ray put it,
"Groome and Wight got yakkin' about it. They wanted
something to happen, so they formed their own
company and bought the JN-4 (G-CAAL) from Moose
Jaw that had belonged to the Western Aeroplane
Company there. It had been sitting in a defunct flax
mill in Moose Jaw. They brought it to Regina and re-
built it, re-covered it; then brought a Swallow up from
Wichita in 1927 and began trying to make a buck or
two out of barnstorming or anything they could,
carrying passengers and hoping something would
happen. They even wrote letters to Ottawa and
eventually formed a flying club."
The federal government soon announced a policy
under which it would give two training aircraft to each
club of this type, subject to certain conditions. A
series of crated deHavilland Moths were sent to the
RCAF station at High River, Alberta, for assembly and
test flying. Flying club members from Saskatoon and
then Moose Jaw were dispatched to pick up their
aircraft; those aircraft destined for Regina were
shipped, disassembled, in a boxcar, then trucked to
Universal Air Industries' Lakeview field for assembly.
As a very small boy in Moose Jaw and Saskatoon, Ray
cycled out to see these aircraft, scarcely recognizing
their historical importance.
CAKP and G-CAKT, operating briefly from the Universal
Air Industries hangar. It also operated a Stinson SM-2AA
in which Canada's first airborne wedding was held over
the Queen City on May 24, 1929.
That third local aerodrome lasted only about a year
before being replaced by the current airport at the west
end of Regina Avenue.
One of Saskatoon's most prominent members was pilot
Richmond Mayson, who with Angus Campbell created
M&C Aviation in Saskatoon and later Prince Albert. After
a decade of northern bush flying, this firm operated a
training base and overhaul facility at Prince Albert during
the Second World War. (Postwar, the firm was sold to
the provincial government to become Saskatchewan
Government Airways during the 1947; SGA became
Norcanair in 1965, then part of Time Air in 1987.)
Considering how hard the 1930s were, an amazing array
of flying machines came past the flying club's quarters at
It began with the official opening of the new airport on
September 15, 1930, timed to coincide with the arrival of
the aircraft of the Ford Reliability Air Tour, an endurance
test of aircraft flying a huge circuit around North America
and gaining contest points, from a starting point at
Detroit. This odd cavalcade (which included a Sikorsky S-
38 flying boat, a early Cessna monoplane and several
sleek Lockheed Vega high-wing monoplanes) arrived
from Brandon in one of the "black blizzards" typical of
the 1930s. Parked on the ground, the aircraft stretched
for a half-mile.
Barely a year later, the airport played host to the first
Trans-Canada Air Pageant, perhaps best described as a
traveling airshow, complete with five RCAF Siskin fighters
supported by an air force Ford Trimotor loaded with
spares and maintenance gear -- the "Herc" of its day --
plus a civilian Saro Cloud mini flying boat and a DH Puss
Moth. As the air pageant's participants rested at Regina,
there appeared an autogiro CF-ARO, which had flown
nonstop from Minneapolis via Winnipeg that day. An odd
sidelight is that a special trophy for flying club
proficiency was awarded that year. The competition was
never held again, so the modest trophy still sits in a club
display case. "It was never given to another club," said
Ray.