Inflight Refuelling

It will take some time but we will eventually relate to everyone, the important role Newfoundland played in the startup of world wide commercial aviation. We Newfoundlander’s are more known for our role in nautical history, especially telling it’s story of the settling of North America by Europeans. Little do people realize that Newfoundland’s role in aviation outweighs this nautical story. As an example, today’s military air force use of inflight refuelling, in the strategic planning of world wide conflicts, was as a result of attempts to start a commercial aviation industry to transverse the North Atlantic back in the 30’s. In flight refuelling was started during the late 1930’s to solve the problem of those giant flying boat’s take off weight problems with extra fuel loads. Eventually larger land based aircraft eliminated this problem but the military caught on to this development and perfected it to transport fighter jets over long distances for present day military situations. It just blows our minds as to how happenings at Botwood and Gander in 1939 led to military procedures that we take for granted as ordinary aviation evolution. When you talk about the startup of commercial aviation, include the word ‘Newfoundland’ in your story.

Link Updates

We just finished updating our links in the right hand column. We have added Lisa Daly's blog 'Plane Crash Girl’. Lisa is an Aviation Archaeologist and is a contributor to our website. Her latest piece deals with a Digby bomber that crashed during the war very near where the Czechoslovakian IL18 crashed in 1967. This looks like this will be a very interesting blog to follow in the future. We also added a link to our Twitter account. This account has been in effect since last summer and is raising a lot of interest around the world. We have followers from as far away as California, Vancouver, Australia, New Zealand, Malaysia, Turkey, Germany and the UK. Just goes to show that people from everywhere are curious about Gander Airport's history.

Gander Commonwealth War Graves

We have updated the Gander Commonwealth War Graves webpage in the Ferry Command section in the WWII era to include a link where you can view the records of those who lie at rest in the cemetery (located at the bottom of the page). Highlighted names of the military personal will lead to photos of the grave markers. These records have been documented by Genealogical & Historical Data of the Newfoundland’s Grand Banks Site and we take the liberty of making use of this information by accessing their wonderful website. Our appreciation and thanks go out to those who researched this data.

New York Times Article on Gander Airport

Doing research on articles for the GAHS website sometimes brings the greatest pleasure when you find a nugget that we didn’t know existed. Such is what we found quite recently when browsing for past news items, we happen to come across this article in the NY Times about Gander Airport written 10 years ago. Reading the news item from such a prestigious news paper, it made us realize that Gander Airport still resonates with it’s past history. Something that is still remembered and understood by those who you would think might consider us as insignificant. Just goes to show just how rich the airport’s history really is.

Gander's First Aircraft Landing Jan 11, 1938

We make note that Jan 11 will be the 78th anniversary of the first aircraft to land at Gander airport by Captain Douglas Fraser in his Fox Moth VO-ADE. This date is very important as a most significant event in Gander Airport's history and to the town itself. Events such as this should always be remembered because in most cases it eventually affected us all.