SHOOTOUT AT GENESEO
Geneseo is a magical place. A place where time seems to have not only stood still, but to have reversed itself. Each summer, the small village of Geneseo in west-central New York State puts out a welcome …
THE BOTTLE OF BRITAIN
Operation Sealion, the planned invasion of Great Britain by German armed forces was, in effect, cancelled because the Luftwaffe was unable to establish air superiority over southern England…
RANDOM BEAUTY 1
Over the past year and half of Vintage News stories, there has been much research to verify facts and find images that help tell the remarkable stories of Canada's aviators. …
THE BCATP IN WATERCOLOUR
While scrambling through the internet this past month in search of relevant images for last week's story on the filming of “Captains of the Clouds” I discovered a wonderful place and an amazing set of images…
CUE THE HARVARDS, LIGHTS, CAMERA… ACTION!
Back in 1941, long before United States of America joined the Allies in the war, Hollywood was already sending its best to fight tyranny - in a little known aerial battlefield deep …
SHEET METAL MAGIC
Driving east down the wide Ottawa River valley, heading away from the setting sun, Randy and I soon find ourselves running out of urban sprawl. The township road rolling due east out of Navan…
ERIC THE RED HOT — The Photography of Eric Dumigan
Eric Dumigan has megapixels in his DNA. His blood type is f5.6 at 1/1000. His family tree is a tripod. He comes from a long line of aviation photographers. His grandfather photographed dirigibles,…
WIZARDS AND MERLINS
Recently, Vintage Wings visited the Canada Aviation Museum to learn first hand about Project North Star - the Museum's supervised volunteer pilot program to help them restore not only a Canadair North Star, but several aircraft …
SAVED FROM THE BRINK
Unlike a painting which is the artist's perception of what he sees, a photograph captures that moment in time when the shutter is released. Photography, especially that of its early practitioners,…
DUX UNLIMITED
Several months ago, there was to be a foreign exchange of sorts at Vintage Wings of Canada. Howard and Peta Cook would come to Ottawa to fly and share the fun of the Classic Air Rallye…
THAT LITTLE FOKKER — Models and Vintage Wings
A year and a half ago, we ran with a little April Fools story about the Royal Newfoundland Air Force. It was done with great respect, a smidgeon of humour and lots of supporting historical data ..
RANDOM BEAUTY 3
Over the past three years of Vintage News stories, there has been much research to verify facts and find images that help tell the remarkable stories of Canada's aviators. Throughout that time,…
FOR GOD AND COUNTRY
No one has ever accused me of being a religious man. Not in the last four decades anyway. Perhaps it was all those years as an altar boy trudging to church through ice pellets and snow squalls at 5 AM …
YELLOW IN MONTEBELLO
The Ottawa Valley in the 1940s thundered and clattered to the sounds of the yellow training aircraft of the British Commonwealth Air Training Plan. In fact, it was one of the busiest pieces of flying real estate…
BADASS INVADER FROM MANITOBA
Though they are in fact machines, each and every aircraft type, by virtue of its design, its purpose and its history, carries with it a unique signature which gives it its own personality. …
THE HIGH WAR
For weeks on end every spring, air forces of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization send fighter elements to train in the unlimited, unregulated and unsullied skies of Northern Alberta as part of a multi-national fighter training exercise known as Maple Flag. …
BITE ME! The Story of the Shark Mouth, the World’s Most Enduring Nose Art
In the beginning—the very beginning—aircraft designed and built by early aviators like the Wrights, Curtiss or Blériot had more in common with dragonflies or even scaffolding than eagles or sharks….
THE OTHER ONE
Of the hundreds of thousands of pilots and aircrew who participated in training and/or combat operations during the Second World War, a mere handful can find an airplane from their log book entries that is still flying today…
BE AN AIRMAN
In 1941, young airmen-in-training enrolled in the British Commonwealth Air Training Plan were thousands of miles and months away from the hardships, deprivations and mortal dangers of the aerial battlefront. …