Canadian Geographic Magazine

The Canadian Geographic magazine's cartographer has informed us they working on an article about the evolution of Gander and its airport. They have asked us for some historical air photography to show how the town and airport have evolved. We here at GAHS are more than enthused with this project. We have spent the last few days uploading information to assist them. Unfortunately the better the quality the better the result. Most of our images of the airport are not in the best of condition but all we can do is try. Their main interest is aerial images from the late 30's, 40's and 50's to portray this evolution. If anyone has good quality aerial images they wish to share, please pass them along.

Canadian Warplane Heritage Museum's Gander Airport Project

We have been in contact recently with the Canadian Warplane Heritage Museum in Hamilton ON. They are seeking our assistance in compiling information on the graphical layout of Gander Airport during the war years for a project they are getting underway. Their intent is to present a 3D simulated version of Gander during the war years to be available for all to see. This is as big of a compliment to Gander’s history that we could ever imagine. We are so looking forward being a part of assisting in the creation of this project. We ask everyone’s assistance in passing along to us photographic information on Gander up until 1958. there is no such thing as a bad photo that shows our historical past.

B377 Stratocruiser

To give you an idea of what a B377 Stratocruiser, the world's first double decker airplane, looked like , inside and out, go to this link and watch a 1950 PAA promo film about this airplane . The B377 was used by both PAA & BOAC and made flying all the more comfortable for those that could afford the airfares. They were a frequent visitor to Gander Airport back then and they were a very impressive airplane to watch.

Slide Show of Paul Bunyan In Action

Recently, a lady from Ontario was going through some photographs of her late father Ted Kelly. She knew that during the mid 50’s he had worked in Gander installing Radar equipment at the RCAF base and assumed that some of his photos were taken at Gander. She contacted us to ask,if we were interested, she would contribute his photos for our website. We jumped at this opportunity. The photos were of a Seaboard & Western DC4 that went into a ditch while taxing. What these photos shown mainly was DOT’s crane Paul Bunyan lifting the DC4. We have made a slide show of these photos on our website which shows the Paul Bunyan in action . This indeed warrants a look by anyone interested in the airport’s history.

Phyllis (Penney) Gaul - NL’s First Female Pilot

Last August (2015) we put a page on our website with reference to Phyllis (Penney) Gaul who in 1947, while working with KLM in Gander, became the first female in Newfoundland to get her pilots licence. Maybe a few of you have already read about her. This is to advise everyone that we have updated this page to include a better photo of her, documents showing her letters of permission from the Newfoundland Civil Aviation Authority to take flying lesson, permit to fly solo and a recent video of a BC CTV feature of her still flying at the age of 88. This item is definitely a worthy item in Gander Airport’s history.