Otter number 8 was delivered to the
RCAF with serial 3662 on 28th March 1953, the same day as 3661, the Force's
first Otter. Like 3661, it also carried an ABcode for DHC publicity purposes
prior to delivery. Its first assignment was to 408 Squadron, Rockcliffe,
carrying the unit's MN code, the squadron history recording that by 2nd April
'53 3662 was engaged on local pilot familiarisation flights. It remained with
408 Squadron over the summer, being transferred to 102 Communications Unit, Trenton in September
1953.
Subsequently, date unknown, it
joined 111 Communications & Rescue Flight at Winnipeg, taking that unit's PW code. It
was involved in the rescue activity for USAF B-47 tail number 17013 which
crashed in the Big Sandy Lake, Saskatchewan area on 12th February 1955, and
also in the rescue of the RCMP Otter CF-MPP, overdue on a flight from Fort Churchill
to Ennadai Lake on 22nd February 1955,
as described in relation to Otter 42. The history of 111 Communications &
Rescue Flight records that as at 1st December 1955 it had on strength three
C-47 Dakotas, three Beech Expeditors, one Harvard, two T-33s and two Otters,
3673 (which they had borrowed from 103 Rescue Unit at Greenwood) and 3662,
then on overhaul at Calgary. 3662 re-joined the Flight after its overhaul
later that month, and on 19th December '55 it was on a training flight to Big Trout
Lake when it
experienced engine trouble and had to overnight on the frozen lake. Parts
were dropped to the downed Otter the following day, enabling repairs to be
carried out.
The Otters operated out of Winnipeg on wheel-skis
during the winter, and on floats from Lac du Bonnet during the summer. In
August 1956, 3662 made a facility check tour of northern aerodromes, leaving
the Flight's other Otter, which was then 3696, at Lac du Bonnet. On 28th
October '56 a private Cessna made a forced landing on a lake in the Berens River area. 3662 flew in oil and
heaters to service the Cessna, which then flew back to Winnipeg. The Unit's history records that on
8th November '56, both 3662 and 3696 were ferried from the Lac du Bonnet
summer base back to Winnipeg,
where they were fitted with wheel-skis for the winter.
3662 continued in service with 111
Communications & Rescue Flight at Winnipeg
until September 1957, when it went to No.6 Repair Depot at Trenton for storage as a reserve aircraft.
In October 1964 it was transferred to Saskatoon
and continued in storage awaiting disposal. It was sold to DHC in June 1965,
who converted it to civilian configuration. The Otter was then sold to Coast
Range Airways Ltd of Atlin,
BC, to whom it was registered
on 7th February 1966 as CF-SUB. Atlin is in the northern part of the
Province, near to the Yukon
border, so the Otter was ideally placed to serve the charter needs of that
region, hauling fuel, diamond drills and supplies for mining and exploration
camps.
In the spring of 1967 Coast Range
Airways was purchased by Trans North Turbo Air Ltd of Whitehorse,
Yukon principally for its helicopter charter
licence and its one Bell
47G helicopter. Otter SUB continued to serve the mining industry, remaining
registered to Coast Range Airways, then a subsidiary of Trans North Turbo
Air. At that time, it was the only Otter in the vicinity of the Yukon and was much in
demand. Besides supplying the exploration camps, it was also used during the
summers of 1966 and 1967 for water-bombing forest fires with a “torpedo-type”
tank hung under the fuselage. On 16th November 1967, the Otter received some
damage at its Atlin base. An approach was made to land toward the southwest.
At about ten feet above the ground a gust of wind caused the Otter to balloon
slightly. Power was added and altitude and direction maintained. During touch
down, a gust of wind lifted the left wing and the right wing tip contacted
the ground and dragged for about 100 feet. The Otter went off the right side
of the runway before coming to rest. The damage was repaired.
In the fall of 1967, Trans North
Turbo Air sold the fixed-wing portion of their fleet, a Super Cub, Beaver and
the Otter SUB to Great Northern Airways Ltd of Calgary, so that Trans North
could concentrate on its helicopter operations. The Otter was registered to
Great Northern Airways on 17th July 1968 and painted in a blue
colour scheme with red cheat line. During the summer of that year, a blown
jug caused a forced landing onto Margaret
Lake, a small lake north of Mayo in
the Yukon.
After the necessary repairs were
made to the engine, the take-off was not so successful and the Otter went
careening into the bush at the end of the lake, tearing the floats off and
doing much damage to the fuselage. The aircraft had to be slung out in pieces
to a nearby strip and bush-repaired, using parts from a steel bed frame to
re-enforce it for the ferry flight out. It headed south to Field Aviation, Calgary for repair and was then temporarily fitted with
a set of borrowed amphibious floats, so that it could finish the season based
out of Inuvik in the Northwest
Territories.
CF-SUB continued to fly for Great
Northern Airways until that carrier went bankrupt in December 1970. Its
assets and licences were bought by International Jet Air Ltd of Calgary. Their main
interest was the “E” category licence which Great Northern had held, which
enabled International Jet Air to establish a scheduled and charter service
over the routes Great Northern had operated, using a fleet of Lockheed L188
Electras. On 5th April 1971 Otter CF-SUB was registered to International Jet
Air, but it was not operated by them and was kept in storage at Calgary. They sold on
the “D” licence (for DC-3 operations) to Northward Airlines of Edmonton, and
the “A”, “B” and “C” licences which Great Northern Airways had held (for
operation of aircraft in the Cessna 185 up to Otter category) to Trans North
Turbo Air, and included in the sale were four Beavers, two Aztecs and Otter
SUB, which was ferried from Calgary up to Whitehorse, Trans North Turbo Air's
base, in the fall of 1971. The Otter was registered C-FSUB to Trans North
Turbo Air (1971) Ltd on 4th May 1972 and painted in an all yellow colour
scheme with red trim.
The Otter was operated by Trans
North Turbo Air alongside a fleet of Beavers and Turbo Beavers for the next
seven years. For winter 1972 it was based out of Inuvik
on wheel-skis, for reindeer management, seismic and oil exploration support.
From time to time during its period with Trans North Turbo Air it flew from
Inuvik and Ross River, but mostly out of Mayo and Whitehorse. During the summers it flew from
Schwatka Lake,
Whitehorse on
floats. During the winters it was equipped with wheel skis and hauled
hundreds of tons of lumber, drill equipment, camp gear and groceries as well
as thousands of drums fuel (five or six full, 17 empty) onto the ice of
frozen lakes north of Mayo.
During the summers it continued to
haul the same type of cargo to the same camps on floats. Also, from August
until the end of the float season, the Otter carried hundreds of big game
hunters to and from the many hunting camps throughout the Yukon. Reindeer herders and their snow machines
were carried in winter.
During this period of operation with
Trans North Turbo Air, there were a few incidents recorded. To quote here
from Robert Cameron, one of the pilots who flew SUB during this time:”In 1972
another pilot and I were climbing out from Inuvik in SUB on floats, with six
drums on board for Fort
McPherson. All of a
sudden the decibel level of our geared R-1340 about doubled as the nose
reduction ring-gear disintegrated and the 600 hp Pratt was instantly unloaded
of the heavy 3-bladed prop. Our immediate forced landing into a side channel
of the MacKenzie River was without incident,
but the extra noise of that over-speeding engine sure got the adrenalin
pumping. We were subsequently picked up by Northward Airlines Otter CF-NFI”.
“Another pilot who was a little hard
on the old girl decided one overcast winter day to demonstrate how difficult
it is to judge height above the flat snow-white surface of a lake. Shooting
his approach out in the middle of the lake (to maximise his challenge!) his
demonstration proved to be very authentic indeed as he struck the ice heavily
and drove the main landing gear through the sides of the fuselage. Another
wilderness bush repair was undertaken, followed by a ferry flight to Calgary for permanent
repairs. This same pilot on another occasion experienced the joy of spotting
a downed aircraft, with its chilled but uninjured occupants waving excitedly
from a frozen lake. He decided to celebrate with a low pass over their heads.
As he approached the shoreline of the lake, a tree struck the wing and
slashed it right through to the spar. SUB stayed in the air but it was not a
pretty sight to bring home to the boss. Another blown jug and forced landing
on a gravel bar on the Porcupine River below
Old Crow left SUB heavily bogged down in mud. A few sheets of plywood placed
in front, to help get the take-off roll started, got sucked up into the
roaring propeller, resulting in much splintering of wood and gnashing of
metal, and cursing. The subsequent repairs were completed just in time to
make a hasty escape from the gravel bar as flood waters moved in”.
Another incident occurred on 28th
March 1974 at Reptile Lake on a glacier high in the MacKenzie
Mountains, when the Otter on wheel-skis collided with a snowbank
resulting in the main landing gear being punched through the side of the
fuselage. Because the site was so inhospitable, bush repairs were not
possible, so the Otter was slung out using a Sikorsky S-58 helicopter. This
had to be done in short stages, with an S-55 helicopter setting out fuel
caches every few miles, all the way to Mayo.
At Mayo the standard bush-fix was
carried out before SUB was flown via Whitehorse
to Field Aviation in Calgary
for permanent repairs. There was one further incident, in the fall of 1976.
To again quote from pilot Cameron: “I was taking off with some hunters and
their meat out of a short, high mountain lake in a gusty crosswind when I
decided to abort. It turned out that the small amount of lake left in front
of me to get stopped was full of rocks, and I tore the bottoms out of the
floats. Under very difficult conditions our engineers managed to patch them
up good enough for me to get SUB into the air before sinking (with the
engineer pumping steadily during taxying) and back home to base”.
In 1978 Trans North Turbo Air
decided to get out of single-engined fixed wing bush flying to consolidate on
helicopter and IFR twin-engined fixed wing types. Otter C-FSUB was sold in
the fall of 1978 to a Vancouver man named
Walter Davidson, who was in the logging business, but its next operator was
Tyee Airways Ltd of Sechelt,
BC to whom it was registered on
23rd April 1979. The Otter flew down to Sechelt, which is just north of Vancouver, where it
joined the Tyee fleet of Beavers and Cessna 185s. “Sechelt” is a native word
for “place of shelter from the sea”. Appropriately, it describes the
sheltered head of Sechelt Inlet, where Tyee Airways docked its float planes.
The Tyee fleet linked Vancouver harbour with
communities north of Howe Sound, as well as providing services to Vancouver Island. Tyee Airways was taken over by West
Coast Air Services (operators of Otter CF-UJM) who in turn were taken over by
the Pattison Group, intending to merge both carriers into Air BC.
However, the founder and former owner of Tyee Airways, which at that stage
was still operating as a separate company, commenced court action to get out
of the whole deal and to continue as an independent.
In any event, the Otter did not stay
long with Tyee Airways, and its next posting was in fact back to Whitehorse
in the Yukon, where it joined the fleet of Air North Charter & Training
Ltd, to whom it was registered on 12th June 1980, named “Bert”. Air North is
one of the major operators in the Yukon
and C-FSUB resumed its charter operations throughout the Territory, flying
alongside Air North's other Otter C-FQOQ. Only one incident is recorded while
SUB was flying for Air North, exact date unknown, but it was not long after
the Otter entered service with them. The accident site was about 250 miles
from Dawson City
and approximately 15 winding road miles from the Arctic
Circle, near the Eagle Plains Hotel. The Otter landed on a
section of the Dempster Highway,
which also served as an airstrip, but had run off the strip, causing
considerable damage to the propeller, engine mount, cabin roof and a bent
right wing. The repairs were carried out by Denny McCartney, the whole
episode being well described in his excellent book “Picking Up The Pieces”.
After four years of service in the Yukon with Air North, SUB returned to the Vancouver area when it
was purchased by Harbour Air Ltd. It arrived in Vancouver on 4th October 1984 on delivery
to Harbour Air, still in the Air North colour scheme. It was overhauled and
repainted over the winter and emerged from the hangar on 21st March 1985 in
full Harbour Air colours, on floats. It was registered to Harbour Air on 30th
April 1985. It flew with them for that summer, before heading north up the BC
coast to Prince Rupert,
where it was registered to North Coast Air Services Ltd on 1st November 1985.
It joined their fleet of four Beavers, a Fairchild Husky and a Grumman
Mallard and flew for North
Coast for nearly two
years.
Having served all of its commercial
existence thus far in Western Canada, it
then moved eastwards, where its next operator was V.Kelner Airways of Pickle
Lake, Ontario to whom it was registered on 3rd June 1987. It flew that summer
out of Pickle Lake
and then moved further east, when it was acquired by Cargair Ltee of Quebec, to whom it was
registered on 1st October 1987.
Since then, SUB has served with
Cargair, based at St.Michel-des-Saints during the summer months on floats,
being put into storage each winter. The Otter is used to fly tourists, hunters
and fishermen into the beautiful wilderness areas of Quebec. It also supports exploration camps
in the James Bay area. During the caribou
hunting season of August/September each year, the Otter flies out of the LG-4
base on the La Grande river, flying the hunters to the James
Bay region in search of their prey, before returning to
St.Michel-des-Saints for winter storage. As of May 2001, the Otter had
accumulated 21,000 airframe hours. SUB was noted in the hangar at
St.Michel-des-Saintes on 4th May 2004 having just had a new R-1340
engine installed. It entered the water the following day for the first flight
of the 2004 summer season.
This Otter has been operated by
Cargair Ltee from its base at St.Micheldes- Saints, Quebec for twenty years, since 1987. In
2007 the bush aircraft division of Cargair, including the Otter, was
purchased by Air Mont Laurier (1985) Inc of Ste.Veronique, Quebec to whom C-FSUB was registered on 5th
April 2007. Air Mont Laurier also operate Otter C-GGSC (366),
both Otters still with their original R-1340 engines.
History courtesy of Karl E Hayes from DHC-3
Otter: A History (2005)
|