Canada Day, Lysander, Eh!

July 1, 2010. Canada Day. Recently, another Lysander returned to the skies, taking the world's population back up to three fliers, two in Canada.

Image: Peter Handley, VWoC.

This is Vintage Wings of Canada's (VWoC) aircraft, which is now painted as '416' the first ever 'Can Car' built Lysander. The story of the VWoC Lizzie is on their website, here.

And here's a picture after the original first flight of the original 416.

National Archives of Canada, PA-124189

From my Lysander book:

"In April of 1938, a contract for 28 (later raised to 75) Lysander Mk.I was placed with the National Steel Car Corporation of Hamilton, Ontario, with Mercury and Perseus engines to be supplied from Britain. ... The machines were essentially the same as the Westland-built machines, although the National Steel Car Corporation were able to make larger panels with their presses (including the wing leading edge sections) and the undercarriage ‘U’ beam was of a composite construction, as Canada did not have the facility to heat treat such a large item at that time

"The first Canadian example was No.416 and it joined the RCAF on September 7th 1939. Its first flight, to the great and justifiable pride of the workforce, as it was the first aircraft that they had produced, was on 16th August, in the hands of E L Capreol."