Recently CF-BSB made a tour “north of sixty” and next float season of 2019 might see this Mk V model return to the Yellowknife area. Owner, Tom Phinney normally has the aircraft overwinter at Riverside Aircraft Maintenance in Selkirk, Manitoba.
The only other Norseman flying in that area of Canada is Joe McBryan’s CF-SAN and it has been many decades since two active Norseman have flown there!
Beautiful picture of BSB at Sawmill Bay on Great Bear Lake.
In a somewhat unusual setting and geographic local, a Mk V Norseman can be seen in downtown corporate Calgary, Alberta, Canada.
CF-MAM, serial N29-26 started out with the Manitoba Government Air Service in September 1946. A civil, post WW II model it spent most of its working life with various operators in the Province of Manitoba after nearly ten years of duties with the government. During the mid to later 1970’s it became a common sight with Ignace Airways in northwestern Ontario.
The Certificate of Airworthiness expired 37 years ago and the aircraft was purchased by the Aero Space Museum of Calgary in 1982, then refurbished for display. For many years now, it can be found hanging in the atrium lobby of the Suncor Energy Centre “flying” over the lush vegetation on straight skis!! To me, this seems a mismatch and seeing this type of bush plane in the concrete jungle far from the lakes and boreal country of northern Canada is at odds with the cowboy cultural roots of the area. Then again, the Norseman is Canadiana wherever it is and the business people probably just glance at it as a piece of public art, not totally realizing it as a real aircraft intertwined with the history of the nation and their livelihood.
Here’s the irony, the Norseman and other aircraft types were paramount in developing Canada’s vast north and natural resources that the corporate headquarters in the south represent. To a large degree, our big southern cities, our wealth and standards of living depend on resources and aircraft to this day. Do you agree? e-mail me at c46commando@hotmail.com about anything Norseman related. Thanks!
