February - April 2008 Blog Archives

26 April 2008

Started a new section in the web site which shows a copy of the Army Air Corps Pilot Notes for the de Havilland DHC-2 Beaver AL Mk. 1 . Thanks to Tron for scanning and sending. This is an ongoing project.

Got a period snap in from Frederick Longhi this morning of his US ARMY de Havilland U-6A Beaver. Thanks Fred. Here it is along with his remarks.

Photo: Via Fred Longhi © June 1969

I thought you might enjoy seeing a Beaver in an unusual pose! This photo was taken about June of 1969 in Lopburi, Thailand. I am the fellow on the right. I was a US Army Aviator, flying for a Green Beret unit at the time. We had two Beavers, three pilots and a couple of maintenance folks. This U-6, as we called it was a 1952 model and was painted in a camouflage scheme (although it is difficult to see). Almost 40 yrs later I am still flying airplanes from the Sarasota, Florida airport. I would do anything to get back into the Beaver. I loved that plane!! Really enjoyed your site. Thank you very much.

Fred Longhi

24 April 2008

Here is the article from Issue 3 March 2008 of Radial Nine Newsletter of the Aircraft Restoration Company at Duxford, who are rebuilding XP772 (1442) as G-DHCZ, as mentioned on the Group.

Article: Aircraft Restoration Company © March 2008

23 April 2008

Today I got a few images of C-GZBQ (919) from Newfoundland taken by Tony Roberts - here, in his own words, a short commentary to accompany the scene. Thanks Tony. I hope you all enjoy it, and the feeling it evokes, as much as I did.

"Every winter a friend of mine flies produce across the strait of Bell Isle to southern Labrador.....I was lucky enough the other day to catch his aircraft on the ground loading as we passed the strip in Sandy Cove, Newfoundland....I ALWAYS look for it as we pass....being from Labrador, bush planes are a large part of our past....it was flown by another friend from Black Tickle, Labrador. It was a really great scene...they loaded the aircraft....the pilot climbed in, pushed the primer 3 times as he was closing the door and hit the starter and away to go in his trusty Beaver...lifting off a gravel strip and crossing a body of water clogged with arctic drift ice in the evening sunlight.......what can be more Canadian than that....We continued our journey...but my mind was on that Beaver heading to Labrador......"

Tony Roberts © April 2008

22 April 2008

Just who are Arwen and David? Well I've added a small video clip taken with my still camera. They are of course Gamut Productions, responsible for the upcoming documentary "The Immortal Beaver".

13 April 2008

An update on "Jetsam" for you. Enjoying the process ;-)

04 April 2008

12 April 2008

Bill Sawchuk saw the image of C-GAEF (372) that was added yesterday and he came up with this image of it just after coming out of the B-M compound at Lachute, and captured at Ottawa-Uplands back in 1974. Thanks Bill.

Fence, what fence?

Photo: Bill Sawchuk © 17 August 1974

06 April 2008

The first really warm spring day +14C. Had a nice flyover from D-ABVH B744 operating DLH498 from EDDF to MMMX. Here is a shot taken through my Beaver port hole window. The Boeing was just 0.1nm from being directly above the studio.

Photo: Neil Aird © 15:33EDT 06 April 2008

04 April 2008

Plugging away steadily between Beavers at my painting "Jetsam". For those of you who requested a "viewing", here are two images of the progress so far.

04 April 2008

22 March 2008

Link to "Flotsam" part one of the diptych.

01 April 2008

Added a World Map to the main "Current Page" which will show the last 100 visitors to the website, interesting to see who's coming from where. Just giving it a test run as it might delay the opening of the Current Page too much. I will be redoing the page later today with a new banner photo and that New ! Beaver for April 1st - I was going to put an Otter on the page today, but I thought that I would just get way too many e-mails if I did that!

30 March 2008

Just barely able to maintain the "Beaver-a-Day" this month. Several reasons. Too many other interests, web site meltdown, rebuilding that after transfer. Also, at the end of the month a member of our family took ill. April may be at the same rate of additions, but already have one New ! one lined up, coming again from Stephen Miller.

I am working on a painting (finally) and hope to spend three to four hours each day on this project. I am not documenting the progress of this one as that takes time to do, also, not recording the amount of time painting...makes it more pleasurable and less like a "task". ;-) I might add the odd image just to let you know what I'm up to.

21 March 2008

Well, I guess it is a good Friday as I have the website back. Quite a chore. May it remain stable. This meltdown in Chicago did make me pick up my brushes and get started on my next painting.

I do have an announcement however:

"The Immortal Beaver" will be aired on History Television Channel on Tuesday May 20th at 21:00 EDT and again on Saturday May 24th at 20:00 EDT. I think this Channel is only available in Canada alas.

A couple of images were added to the DHC-2 Group photos section recently, I thought they could be tweaked a little, so here they are. Army Air Corps Beaver A.L. 1 aircraft shown during their Far East Service. Thanks to Barrie Davies for posting them. Keep digging Barrie.

Photos: via Barrie Davies © AAC

17 March 2008

Been a while since I made a blog entry. I'm another year older, I guess that's why! Today received news that c/n 1450 has been allocated N779XP. A fine restoration job for the John T. Sessions Hostoric Aircraft Foundation of Seattle. I look forward to some flying shots someday.

11 March 2008

Added another three-view, this time a Turbo Beaver, thanks to Neil Ayers. There is also a link to this and the Tech section on may main page.

09 March 2008

As a nice change from digging snow, I found this three view drawing - scanned it, cleaned it up, and added it to the website. Might be of use to some of you.

04 March 2008

Time Marches on. Happy to see another couple of New ! Beavers getting added to the ever expanding DHC-2.COM. One I had all along, but somehow it slipped through the net. Thanks to John Olafson for pointing me to this one. It was featured in the 2006 Calendar and I actually had the page prepared already . . so it was easy for me to add. The website is so big now, I really don't get the time to follow up to complete work I have only partly done. My trouble is I have too may other ineterests.

As some of you may know, Danie is again in India working with her projects to raise funds for Calcutta Rescue Canada . . what a dedicated gal ! This trip is for one month, so I should (technically) be able to get a lot done around here on the website. I will endeavour to add at least one a day.

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26 February 2008

As some of you may know, I am also interested in monitoring all aviation traffic in my region. Recently I have been having some fun helping with "flag making". Let me explain: These are small 60 x 20 pixel images of aircraft that fit in a column of a screen showing ADS-B or Mode-S aircraft. It really just makes the screen more graphically interesting, rather than just columns of numbers and letters. It is quite time consuming to match entries in one's database with ICAO type codes, but once they are entered, each time an arcraft "talks" (via a brief squitter) you have an immediate visual cue to the type. I will show a few samples below. All this takes time away from the website, but prevents me from, heaven forbid, getting lazy ;-)

24 February 2008

Added an image of XP779 (1450) taken in Tawau, Borneo in 1964 by Sgt Pilot Barrie Davies. Just before leaving on a mission, XP779 sits on her dispersal. Thanks for the addition Barrie. It is great to think she is ready in Victoria to spread her wings in another area of the globe. Maybe you can catch up with her one day!

22 February 2008

Received by e-mail a large collection of pictures from Ben Cogger, lots of older shots from the 70's and 80's, many with large external loads! Thanks Ben. I'll add some soon.

A couple of recent atmospheric shots. The first was a "sun-spot" when I noticed a reflected light on my calendar, in just the right location! The second a fuzzy shot of the lunar eclipse on the 20th.

05 February 2008

Things back to normal in the Aird household. Danielle made it back from Mexico safely.

Got an interesting cutting from Risto Sillanpaa today. If anyone has further details, I'd like to hear them. Translation by Sippo Nivalainen, Thanks Sippo. Comment about it being USAF by me.

Consensus has it that the apparatus is lightweight and flimsey, so might be used for sampling the atmosphere, perhaps for fall-out? Remember the time period when this would have been taking place. My thanks to Ian Macdonald and Ken Marshall.

02 February 2008

Well here we are into February already. Had to dig out yet again here in Kingston this morning, before I could get started on my daily Beaver!

Been doing some reasearch today, spurred on by an e-mail this morning. My friend Aad van der Voet suggested that there were two USN Beavers 148322 and 148323 that went to the Philippines. These are often misquoted as Otters. I think Aad has caught the error. While doing more digging I came across he following images of Philippine Navy Beavers. One of which is identified positively. c/n 1516 which kept her msn as the serial.

This image was taken from an Official Philippine Navy Website. Another machine was represented there, but I could not discern the serial. They had three on floats I believe. All came to sad ends I'm afraid.

If there are any of you out there who read Greek, I found a web page that shows some images of Greek Army Beavers and quotes info from DHC-2.COM - I therefore have taken an image from the website. It is of a previously unknown Beaver. ES314 (895)

Update July 2008: Thanks to research by Ioannis Mylonas we have this one "pegged".

Photo: Taken in 1971 at the Pahi-Megara Air Base by then 14 year old Dimitris Sambanis on a very old "bellows" Agfa Camera. Thanks Dimitris.

To January 2008