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The Stinson SM-6000 Airliner owned by Bickford’s, Incorporated and flown by William H. Wincapaw, Boston Light, Boston, Massachusetts, 25 December 1937. Anon., “ –. ” L’Illustration nouvelle, 3 January 1938, 12-13.

Aviation & Space

The Flying Santa Claus, William H. Wincapaw

Rénald Fortier

Happy New Year, my reading friend. Our first 2018 story is a heart warming endeavour that began in 1929. With your permission, yours truly would like to use a source other than a magazine found on the mobile stacks of the amazing library of the Canada Aviation and Space Museum, in Ottawa, Ontario. Our photo thus comes from the 3 January 1938 issue of L’Illustration nouvelle , and that’s a problem. You see, my reading friend, the editor of this populist illustrated daily published in Montréal, Qu

A Rohrbach Ro VIII Roland flown by Deutsche Luft Hansa Aktiengesellschaft. It flew with Iberia, Compañía Aérea de Transportes Sociedad anónima for some time in 1928. Anon., “Rohrbach Metall-Flugzeugbau G.m.b.H., Berlin.” Die Luftwacht, April 1928, 204.

Aviation & Space

Never on a Sunday: The tall tale of an Iberian Roland, Part 2

Rénald Fortier

Welcome back, my sceptical friend. Let us pick up where we left off. Once upon a time, in 1918 to be more precise, an aeronautical engineer at Zeppelin-Werke Staaken Gesellschaft mit beschränkter Haftung, a subsidiary of Luftschiffbau Zeppelin Gesellschaft mit beschränkter Haftung, designed a giant five-engined bomber made almost entirely with aluminum alloy for the German air service, the Luftstreitkräfte. (A few moments, please, so I can catch my breath. That was a long sentence and I’m not ge

BOARD:
In the Community

Find out what our three Ottawa-based museums are doing in the community.

“L’avió del Tibidabo” or Tibi-Air, the best known and most iconic ride of the Tibidabo amusement park, Barcelona, Catalonia. https://www.tibidabo.cat/en/home

Aviation & Space

Never on a Sunday: The tall tale of an Iberian Roland, Part 3

Rénald Fortier

Welcome back, my reading friend. Do you remember what this text is all about? The nearly all metal Rohrbach Ro VIII Roland? Heywood “Woody” Allen? No? No matter. You can read Parts 1 and 2 of this article later on. For now, let us proceed. The Madrid-Barcelona and Barcelona-Madrid flights of December 1927, organised by Iberia, Compañía Aérea de Transportes Sociedad anónima and mentioned in the first part of this article, so impressed a group of people that they decided to keep their memory alive

An artist's impression of the interstellar asteroid 'Oumuamua.

Aviation & Space

The Interstellar Asteroid

There are almost one million asteroids and comets in our solar system. And every single one of them (we think) formed here, within our solar system, alongside the planets just over 4.5 billion years ago. However, in the summer months of 2017, an object not borne from the Solar System made a silent entrance, whipped around the Sun in September 2017, and started heading out again, never to return. This object, now named ‘Oumuamua, was the first asteroid discovered from outside the solar system. Th

Two Rohrbach Ro VIII Rolands operated by Iberia, Compañía Aérea de Transportes Sociedad anónima, Madrid, December 1927. The one in the background was used for the Madrid-Barcelona flight of 14 December. Anon., “Inauguración del nuevo servicio aéreo Madrid-Barcelona.” Aérea, October-December 1927, 33.

Aviation & Space

Never on a Sunday: The tall tale of an Iberian Roland, Part 1

Rénald Fortier

While it is true that the Canada Aviation and Space Museum of Ottawa, Ontario, is primarily interested in the history of this country’s aerospace industry and the preservation of its heritage, its staff will not neglect a good story when it sees one. Yours truly found this good story in the monthly (most of time) Spanish magazine Aérea . And yes, the museum’s library does have magazines from countries other than Canada. It has American, British and French magazines. It also has some / many Austr

The mystery car at the heart of this article, Montréal, Québec, late 1937. Its owners, R. Gélinas and G. Duhamel, are standing beside it. Anon., “Voici une cadillac [sic] d’il y a près de 40 ans!” Photo-Journal, 9 December 1937, 3.

From the top of this seat, 30 years are watching you

Rénald Fortier

Hello there, my reading friend, and welcome to the merry, merry month of December. Our topic this time around will be brief, yes brief. You do not believe me, now do you? Well, read on. Our story, say I, comes to us courtesy of a weekly from Montréal, Québec, Photo-Journal . And yes, there is a typo in the title of the article published 80 years ago this month. The word Cadillac should be spelled with a C, not a c. That, of course, is not the reason yours truly chose this story for our blog / bu

Thomas R. Trefethen and his single seat flying boat. John Murray, “Trefethen’s Fantastic Machines.” Sport Aviation, March 1971, 33

Aviation & Space

Do you remember Joan Trefethen? I do, I do!, Part 2

Rénald Fortier

Greetings, my reading friend. We are gathered here to day to dwell into the unforeseen second part of this article. We remain with the Trefethen family but focus upon another of its members, Thomas R. “Tom” Trefethen. What we see in the photo above is the single seat flying boat that this teenager put together in the very late 1960s or very early 1970s on the patio of the family home. The main element of this seemingly unnamed machine was one of the two floats his father had used to create the T