Trans Canada Airway
The
Trans Canada Airway was originally conceived in 1920 by the
Canadian Air Board as a development of the coast to coast
flight successfully completed that same year.
The infrastructure of the airfields and navigation aids
necessary were non-existent at that time and it was not
until 1928 that the Civil Aviation branch of the Department
of National Defense decided to survey possible routes for
the construction of the proposed airway.
In October 1932 Prime Minister Bennett approved a proposal
to use workers from the Unemployment Relief Scheme to
construct airfields along the airway, and a workforce of
over 2000 men began to clear and construct airfields every
fifty miles between Lethbridge, Alberta and Vancouver,
British Columbia.
By mid
1936 the Department of Transport had been created and
assumed control of civil aviation in Canada. The airfields
at this time were largely completed resulting in the Relief
Scheme projects being phased out.
In 1936 the Department of Transport began the development
of a radio range airway along the route with the first
station completed at Vancouver in 1937 and the entire
airway by 1939.
The construction of a chain of airfields along the route
together with a system of radio range navigational aids
across southern British Columbia could not have been
timelier. With the advent of war in 1939 came a significant
increase in the amount of air traffic across the Rocky
Mountains from the coast to the prairies.
In the post war years aircraft sophistication resulted in
the intermediate airfields receiving little use and many
were abandoned. but even seventy years after the depression
it is possible to find evidence of their existence.
At over 400 pages long, it includes over 375 pictures, maps
and illustrations.
Trans Canada Airway
Air Pilot Navigator (Volume Four)
Chris Weicht.
Creekside Publications. (2007)
ISBN 1-4251-2073-3