COVER N.152 - CANADA

Postmark: City of Toronto UC - MR 6 1834 / Canada Post Postes Canada Toronto ON Toronto's First Post Office
Posted on ?: received on the 16th August 2022
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I love things that fly, be it butterflies, dragonflies, damselflies, (I confess that even some types of ... flies, tickle my fancy) coleoptera, gyrocopters, helicopters and all types of aircraft.

As such it is always a pleasure to receive a cover laden with stamps related to aviation, such as the one I got from Jeff, from Canada. Thanks a huge lot, Jeff!

The three stamps that literally made my cover fly, are part of a five P (Permanent Tariff) stamp souvenir sheet issued  by Canada Post on 27MAR2029, to celebrate achievements of Canadians in the field of aviation.

And of these, nothing would be more famous, I guess, than the short lived Avro Arrow. A son of the cold war, ...( hhh..did it ever end, really..😞) ...and conceived as a Mach 2 capable interceptor to counter the Warsaw pact menace flying over the north pole route, the Avro Canada CF-105 Arrow started to be developed in 1955 drawing on the experience gathered from the Avro CF-100 Canuck.

Flight testing of a first prototype began in 1958 and the aircraft, from the  beginning, promised to be a solid platform delivering all that was expected from it, in terms of manoeuvrability and speed.

The development program progressed all through 1958 with the 2nd iteration of the design, the MK2 version equipped with more powerful engines, being ready to be test flown in early 1959, when the sort of questions that are universal to democracies - the ability to question political decisions, options for public funding spending, - but also, I suppose,  the less that optimal effects of corporatism in the public agencies, particularly in the branches of the armed  forces, brought the project to an absolute halt, the government giving the order not only to stop the development of the aircraft but also to destroy all the prototypes already built as well as any pre-production aircraft, tools, plans... the works…

So much so that when an example of the Arrow was needed to put in a museum, a replica had to be made from scratch by volunteers….only to be left to decay at the will of the elements when the Canadian Air and Space Museum where it was kept closed doors in 2011… but it found another home where it now resides in full glory at the Canadian Air and Space Conservancy at Edenvale Airport, Ontario.

This scope of the strange decision taken by the Canadian cabinet is pretty difficult to understand, the more so since it impacted greatly on Canada’s  air industry and it generated a lot of controversy in the country, the Avro Arrow to this day being a theme for discussion amidst aircraft fans.

Elsi Mcgill. I confess my ignorance. Can't remember having ever read her name, so I turned to Wikipedia and learned that she was "the world's first woman to earn an aeronautical engineering degree and was the first woman in Canada to receive a bachelor's degree in electrical engineering".

Known as the "Queen of the Hurricanes" for her role as Chief Aeronautical Engineer at CanCar, the Canadian Car and Foundry Company  during the 2nd World War when the company built Hawker Hurricanes under licence, she would also direct her endless energy after the war at the cause of women's rights, having been named for  Royal Commission on the Status of Women in Canada in 1967.

The last quarter of the 20th century saw a huge progress in ultralight and lighter that air aviation. The Lazair family of ultralight aircraft is one such example with the distinctive feature of being based on a twin engined design. Offered in kit form from 1974 to 1984, hundreds of Lazairs of the several types the basic design originated were built with many still flying in Canada and the US..

The other two stamps included in the souvenir sheet are dedicated to William George "Billy" Barker, VC, DSO & Bar, MC & Two Bars (3 November 1894 – 12 March 1930), the most decorated Canadian Air Ace of the 1st World War , who lived to tell the tale, and  to Clennell Haggerston "Punch" Dickins OC OBE DFC (12 January 1899 – 2 August 1995), a pioneer Canadian Pilot, who also served during both world wars and later, with De Havilland Canada would be instrumental in the development of the most famous of the Canadian bush aircraft, the De Havilland Beaver.