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19 Wing Comox Mar 2007

Volume 1 Issue 12

ON PROU WINGSTHE COMOX VALLEY AIR FORCE MUSEUM ASSOCIATION NEWSLETTER

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CVAFMA Executive 2006-07

President: Mike HendrenVice President:  Harlin PriceFinancial:  Mike SpoonerSecretary:  Allison HetmanMembership:  Lynda OxleyBingo Coordinator: Herb LightfootFund Raising: Terry Chester

Newsletter Staff

Publisher: Ken Oxley

Contact Information

Museum Chairman: John Low, Capt. 19 Wing Heritage OfficerCurator/Program & Volunteer Manager: Lorraine AnglyGift Shop Manager: Noreen Purdy

Comox Air Force Museum19 Wing Comox, Lazo BC V0R 2K0 (Vancouver Island)

Phone/Fax: 250-339-8162

E-mail: info@comoxairforcemuseum.ca 

Website: www.comoxairforcemuseum.ca 

Museum, Library and Gift Shop open 10am - 4pm daily

Spitfire Hanger - Saturdays 10am-3pm

Spitfire/Y2K Project Website: www.y2kspitfire.com 

Heritage Airpark is open May-September10am - 4pm

WELCOME NEW MEMBERS

Mike Benoit, Irv Fraser

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TOUGHTS FROM OUR CURATOR

Photo Ken Oxley

New Museum Library Conference Table is actually Very Old

The Museum recently took possession of a new conference table for the library. Thetable is unique in that it was built for the Museum using beams salvaged from thedeconstruction of Hangar #1. Larry Toovey kindly donated his time, tools and skill toconstruct this table to preserve a piece of 19 Wing’s Heritage. 

The story behind the beams makes the table even more unique. The beams were someof many hundreds used for the construction of hangars across Canada built in support ofthe British Commonwealth Air Training Plan. The beams were cut in the early 1940sfrom old-growth Douglas Fir from British Columbia’s forests. The trees that provided thebeams for Hangar #1 were at least 150 years old at the time.

The Museum is proud to display such a beautiful and unique piece and is very gratefulto Larry for building it for us. 

 Lorraine Angly  Curator/Program & Volunteer Manager

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THE PUBLISHER’S CLIPBOARD Welcome to a new year and a number of projects that will require everyone’s participation.

This includes continued improvements to the museum and airpark and various fundraising eventsand community participation. Refer to the schedule of events in this newsletter or our websiteand get involved. It’s fun and rewarding. 

If you have any comments, ideas, articles or material that would be of interest to otherAssociation members for our newsletter, please contact us at info@comoxairforcemuseum.ca orleave a message at the Museum. Visit www.comoxairforcemuseum.ca or drop by the museum tofind out more about current activities.

To join our Association download the application on our website under Volunteer , leave a

phone message at the Museum, or drop by and fill out an application.  For only $10 annually,some of the benefits you receive include our newsletter, discounts in the gift shop, and a voice inthe organization.Ken Oxley Publisher/Volunteer

If you are currently receiving this newsletter by mail, please forward your email address

to receive a high quality issue via the internet. 

Word from the Museum Chairman  In the last newsletter, I mentioned the upcoming events. Some of those events are already in

the past.Don Smith visited us in January, and a great deal was accomplished. He concentrated on the

442 Squadron exhibit to enhance the display. A plan was also developed to start upgrading theexhibits with large text and graphic panels. We have some examples at the Museum, so just askif you would like to see them.

The Charity Hockey Game was a HUGE success. It was gratifying to hear the volunteers say

things like, “I haven’t had that much fun in a long time.” The exact amount raised has not beencalculated yet, but it is clear that we “exceeded all our expectations.” 

 Now back to the future….. The School District History Fair will take place 27 and 28 April. Lorraine has been busy

coordinating this event with Aspen School principal, Gerald Fussell. It looks like it is going to bequite the event with approximately 300 students participating.

Also in April is the yearly migration of the Snowbirds. That usually means an increase ofvisitors to the Museum, as people make their way to watch the team. We hope to do theautograph session at the Museum again this year, following the show at the Comox Harbour.Time and date is yet to be determined.

We are now full swing into the Museum’s 20th Anniversary year, and things are happening.The volunteers have met and a good many activities have been planned. Please check out thewebsite at http://www.comoxairforcemuseum.ca/vbb or if you forget this address, you can alwaysgo to “News” and click on the “Volunteer Bulletin Board” link. As I always say…. Thank you

volunteers, you make it happen.

Capt. John Low Chairman CAFM

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Presidents Report

I would first like to make mention of the great Christmas party held this past December 12 in theOfficers Mess. We had a large turnout of members and guests and something a little different, acouple of games organized by Val Kaehler. In addition we had a number of great door prizesdonated by local businesses for which we thank them. Norton Kennedy was presented with the

Volunteer of Year award and for the first time, perpetual Volunteer Appreciation certificates were presented to all active Association Volunteers with a dated decal for each following year that can be added to the certificate. Many thanks to Harlin Price for organizing a great event.

The Air Park entrance gate project is moving along. Don Smith’s conceptual drawings for  the AirPark gate have been approved by the Wing Commander, Col. Ambler. We are now waiting forthe detail drawings in order to do the next step, costing and start construction with first phasecompletion by September.

As you have all heard even if you weren’t there, the Charity Hockey Game was a sell out. Thewhole event created great awareness in the community for the Museum and had great volunteersupport and benefited the Association with a large donation as its share of the proceeds. Huge

thanks to everyone who volunteered; it wouldn’t have happened without you. 

The Association Annual General Meeting is scheduled for 1900hrs Tuesday, April 3rd in the Museum theatre. One of the objectives of the meeting is to choose a new executive; we have 2vacant positions on the Board; a Secretary and a Director at Large. The Secretary is a votingDirector who takes the meeting minutes. The Director at Large is a voting director who assists theother directors in their projects. These are not large time commitments, but if the Board is tofunction properly they need to be filled. If you have a couple of hours each month to help out please call me Mike Hendren at 339-4272, and we will get you involved.

Mike endren President

Mike Hendren © shows Tiger Williams (L) and Greg Adams ®, Canuck Alumni, the Museum Library

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UPCOM ING MUSEUM EVENTS

3 April –  ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING –  CVAFMA 1900 Museum Library

9-27 April –  Snowbirds Practice (Autograph Session in Museum-TBD)

27-28 April –  Comox Valley Heritage Fair –  Museum hosts at CMFRC

TBD - Volunteer Base Tour

Early May –  Air Park Reopening

20 May –  Spitfire Open House/Museum Garage Sale

21 May –  Cumberland Parade –  Heritage Vehicles participate

2 June –  Base Open House

3 June –  Heritage Stone Ceremony/Canadian Forces Day

23-24 June –  Radio Control Model Event

24 June –  Organization of Military Museums tour our Museum

BOOKSCanav Books under the able control of publisher Larry Milberry has done it again withthe fine photo collection, “The Wilf White Propliner Collection”. This is the companionvolume to the “Leslie Corness Propliner Collection”. The latter mainly deals with the

 North American aviation scenes while the former is more European in content. The photos in both volumes are of a particularly high standard and clarity. Some picturesdealing in aviation at Prestwick, Scotland often have a background of Canadian 1AIRDIV CF-100’s and F-86’s. Scottish Aviation Ltd had the second-line maintenance

contract for these aircraft in the 50’s and 60’s. Wilf White, who had devoted his life to aviation photography and has made several tripsto Canada and the U.S.A., would be hard pressed to get the quality and variety of in-depth photos post 9/11, which you could in previous decades, very sad! One can onlyhope there are more such quality photographs for future publications from Canav, LeslieCorness and Wilf White.The aviation mystery “Disaster on Mount Slesse” by Betty O’Keefe and Ian McDonald

tells the story of 62 people who died tragically on the night of 9 Dec 1956 and the time ittook to find the wreckage, ascertain what probably happened, publish a report, etc. This book covers the dangerous terrain, the accidental discovery, subsequent trips to the sceneto retrieve remains and parts of the aircraft and the final report.

I found that the authors have written a most interesting book and you’ll have to read it tosolve the “mystery”, or not. 

Brian O’Cain Volunteer6

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The Year in Review (2006)  from Bill Cuell 

It's hard to believe that 12 months have elapsed since the museum wasclosed for some much needed renovations. What is most gratifying to seethough, is that even only being open for 11 months last year, we posted

over a 5 percent increase in recorded visitor ship from 2005.

Year 2006 - visits 12,709. Year 2005 - visits 12,075.

As always, it is the comments in the visitor’s book that helps tell usif we are on the right track.

There were lots of "excellent" and "fantastic" remarks, but what helps makeit so personal to people are comments such as, "I found my fathers'

 picture when stationed here", or from a visitor from Blaine, WA. "442 picked me out of the woods near Penticton".

It was also nice to read from one visitor after his 6th visit, who wrote,'Well done, it gets better with each visit"

But my choice would have to be the one from a visitor from Montreal whois with the Canadian Space Agency and who just wrote, "Beautiful Museum" Let us make it evenmore so this year.

Photo Ken Oxley

Lynda, Bill, Herbie and Torg enjoy the Vancouver Canuck Alumni Meet and Greet

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The Spitfire Hangar Weather indeed played a major role with our visitor count in January, the more it rained and pelted down snow, the fewer people attended the Y2-K Spitfire hangar yet, we still managed tosell a few “Touche” prints, sell T-Shirts and raise additional funds to keep our project engineer busy. Some very nice donations came in just prior to the year end.

Work has started on the rudder (see below) and Dave McLeod has been very busy obtaining andselling Spitfire parts. Dave traded some spare fuselage parts with an English based Spitfire project for some new elevator and fuel tank parts with an Australian project. We sold a few sparewindscreen parts on eBay to a project in South Africa and one of our spare seats to a project in New Zealand. Bonn has decided to take February off to catch up on some private work but will be back at work on the Spitfire in March.

The plans are well underway for our 7th Annual Open House. Given that this is the 20th Anniversary of the museum we are anticipating the largest event in the projects history. 12Spitfire pilots have been invited to attend this year’s event and to date 11 have confirmedattendance. We are expecting 1,500 people, a giant increase compared to our first open house

 back in May 2001, when about 70 people attended.

The Spitfire pilots will be set up in the new Spitfire hangar annex and will share their stories withour guests, sign autographs and help us raise the all-important funds to carry on. This year 2veteran 442 pilots will attend, Hugh Morse and John Mallandaine who flew Spitfires andMustangs together. John lives in Qualicum Beach and Hugh in Vancouver. Duke Warren andStocky Edwards will be part of our honoured guests along with Art Sager and Hart Finley bothfrom Victoria. Jimmie Rankin flew Seafires and Spitfires with the Royal Navy and Eric Marshflew Spitfires with the RAF in England and South East Asia both will attend the event this yearalong with Jim O’Toole, Kit Carson and John Pomietlarz. The pilots will assemble at the museumfor a light lunch, socialize, and then be escorted to the Spitfire hangar in the museum’s heritagevehicles at 1.p.m. The Comox Air Cadets under the command of Major Jack Shapka will provide

an honour guard and escort the pilots into the restoration hangar. Hope to see you all at the openhouse.

Photos Pat MurphyPat Murphy Spitfire Volunteer8

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Volunteer Profile: Norton Kennedy   by Ken Oxley 

Photo Ken Oxley

Col. Jon Ambler presents Nort Kennedy with the Museum Volunteer of Year Award

Interviewing a man of action rather than words is a bit of a challenge for both theinterviewer and interviewee. But everyone knows the fellow with the experienced  hats, big smile and boundless energy. If you want something done, and done right, you call Nort.His love for aviation goes back to his early childhood, being fascinated by those planesflying overhead. It got him into building just about every model kit he could get hishands on.He always dreamed of flying so in 1963 he joined the RCAF and ended up in the

technical trades. Good with his hands and problem solving, Nort initially trained onground radar. The Air Force decided they didn’t need anymore people in that area and heended up as an Electrical Technician Airborne (Instrumentation).His early years were spent in St-Jeans, QB, Clinton and Borden, ON.He was then posted to Comox from 1965 to 1972 with the 409 Sqn. servicing CF-100’s,Voodoos and T-33’s. Next he was stationed in Baden-Soellingen with 1 Canadian AirGroup from1972 to 1975 on CF-104’s and T-33’s, in Air Reserve Augmentation Flight.Cold Lake was his next home, 1975 to 1984, where he worked on T-33’s, Dakotas, Hueychoppers and the sleek CF-5’s. Then Nort moved back to Comox in 1984 with 442 Sqn.working on Labs and Buffalos, then Ground Handling (AMSE) until he finally retired in1997.

 Nort still didn’t get enough, so he started volunteering with the Air Force Museum in1997 working with Murray, Herbie and Rob Roy on whatever needed attention. Not onlydid he help rebuild and maintain most of our aircraft and vehicles, he has assisted inmany of the projects in and away from the museum.The executive of the Comox Valley Air Force Museum selected Norton Kennedy as theVolunteer of the Year for 2006, a much deserved honour. Keep up the good work, Nort. 

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The Last Three Months in Pictures Photos Ken Oxley 

Wine and cheese at the museum Volunteer Appreciation Night

Volunteer Christmas Parties

Vancouver Canuck Alumni/Comox Valley1st Responders Meet and Greet

Photo John Lalonde

The teams after the game The Canucks fly home