Ffc Toronto To Vancouver 1939

Another canada cover.
Canada Flight Flight Cover.
Scott# C6.

Nice FFC onetoe

I also was looking at your 1932 cover as well.

It is interesting to note how many cachets are out there.

This one for the Toronto to Vancouver flight of 1939 has a cachet that I have not seen before.

I make it a point to check the different auctions to see what kinds of different ones are out there.

The reference book I have in my library is "The Airmails Of Canada and Newfoundland" which was published by the American Air Mail Society in 1997. While it is a great reference book, it is still lacking in cachets and I might add way behind the times with catalogue values (and has been for a while) versus the prices paid at most auctions.

Cheers

Bujutsu

When this thread appeared I waited expectantly for Canadian airmail covers to appear marking the inaugural cross-country airmail service initiated by Trans Canada Air Lines on March 1, 1939, knowing full well that I didn't have any in my collection.

Alas none appeared, which was surprising, given that it was such a momentous occasion, in fact, it took almost a decade to bring this event to fruition. My interest in it goes back over 20 years ago as an off-shoot to my work with maps and aerial photographs and an amateur's interest in trains.

The specific decade spanned the years between 1929 and 1939 and the creation of two organizations that share the TCA acronym, namely, Trans-Canada Air Lines and the Trans-Canada Airway system. The latter organization was set up to improve airport facilities across Canada, which, in turn, facilitated the formation of the airline and ultimately a transcontinental mail and passenger service.

Airport improvements and, in some cases, construction began as early as 1929 in western Canada where terrain conditions were less of a hindrance. Ontario's Precambrian Shield, however, presented the largest stumbling block in completing a country-wide network. To cover this immense distance a system of main airports, which would be regular stops, combined with intermediate fields having radio beacons for guidance and numerous rudimentary fields in between for emergency purposes was envisioned. These were constructed through the "dirty 30's using enormous numbers of unemployed in a system of work camps.

The airfields were stretched out along the railway tracks north from Toronto to Cochrane and then west along what was originally the National Transcontinental track to Winnipeg. By September 1938 the system was complete. Trans-Canada Air Lines immediately began familiarization and training flights along the rugged Ontario portion of the route and airmail service began March 1, 1939 and a few weeks later on April 1, passenger service began.

The rest, as they say, is history.

edit: came across this Youtube video pertaining to a Lockheed Electra familiarization flight between Montreal and Malton (Toronto) airport prior to the start of trans-continental passenger service on 1 April, 1939.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C4w1zImiK_c