August 22, 2003 Celebrating 100 Years of Flight

When you look at the state of flight today in such things as the recent air show on the North Bay waterfront or the activity in the aerospace business in North Bay, it is hard to believe that flight is only a 100 years old. Actually, the Wright Brothers did not fly until Dec 17, 1903 so a hundred years ago this summer there was no heavier than air flight. One of many celebrations of the anniversary will be 100 fly-bys by the Canadian Snowbirds over 100 different cities and towns in North America.

Callander aviator Ernie Rousseau in his Russel-Henderson Parasol wing monoplane CF-ASH - the first plane built and flown in the area (1932). Rousseau Collection.

A recent Nugget supplement sparked a look on my part at some of our areas early flight history. The Nugget article points out that the first Canadian flight was at Baddeks, Nova Scotia in 1909 when J.D. McCurdy flew his Silver Dart 800 metres.

Captain Doug Newman, the curator of the Canadian Forces Museum of Aerospace Defense located near the North Bay Airport wrote several of the articles in the Nugget supplement. His article on the Canadian Norad Regional Underground Complex in North Bay which has served Norad for four decades is fascinating. The complex lies 60 stories below North Bay under Reservoir Hill and cost 50 million dollars to build. It could house 1000 people for a month completely sealed off from the outside world. There is a model of the complex in the museum. A good way to celebrate the anniversary of flight is to take a trip to the museum. (494-6011 ext 2783)

The Nugget supplement had little information on the early days of flight around North Bay so I was pleased to find some excellent information at the Callander Bay Heritage Museum. Rudy Mauro of North Bay, an award winning aviation researcher, has provided the museum with a book of photographs and papers on the first flights in our area with an emphasis on Callander's Ernie Rousseau. Rudy has also provided the material for a fascinating display on the James Cagney movie Captains of the Clouds, much of which was shot on Trout Lake in North Bay. More about this next week. I enjoyed a long conversation with Rudy recently and much of the information here is provided by him.

In an August 2 1996 article in the Nugget, Rudy talked about the work of North Bay residents Harold and Stan Chandler and Jack Richardson who were "The Wright Brothers of North Bay and their flying escapades were the talk of the town". In 1938 Stan Chandler and Jack Richardson flew a Gypsy Moth from Montreal landing at North Bay's not yet completed airport. An exact copy of the Gypsy Moth was brought to North Bay as a part of the 1996 Air Show to commemorate that flight. The newspaper article also mentioned the pioneering work of Ernie Rousseau.

Ernie Rousseau (1900-1979)

A 1929 magazine article on how to build a monoplane inspired Callander's Ernie Rousseau to build one. The plane was painstakingly built and took its first flight on Callander Bay in the winter of 1932. It was called a Russel-Henderson plane after a plan designed by Chas. Russel featuring a Henderson motorcycle engine. 

Seventy years ago last January Ernie Rousseau's friend and mentor bush pilot Herb Clegg took the first of several short flights in the plane, and Ernie soon followed. Two years later the plane's fuselage caught fire accidentally and the plane burned. Ernie immediately rebuilt it using the undamaged engine. He regularly took trips in other peoples planes.

Between 1935 and 1937 he took numerous flights including trips over the Dionne Quints home in Corbeil. Ernie's second plane was destroyed when vandals pushed it off the town dock in Callander. Ernie's third and last design was a taperwing design called the Falcon and it flew successfully. It crashed on Callander Bay ice in 1938 with Stan Chandler at the controls. Ernie rebuilt it in the winter of 1938-39. In March 1939 Ernie was caught in a snowstorm between Astorville and Callander and the plane crashed and was completely demolished. Ernie survived with a few bruises and a sprained wrist. The plane had only flown for about 4 hours in total.

Wreckage of Ernie Rousseau's third plane, a Falcon, which crashed near Callander in 1939. Sheldon Gunn Photo.

Rudy Mauro reports that Ernie was a "consummate mechanic" and helped others with their planes and eventually went to Manitoba as a mechanic with the Government Air Service. As a qualified pilot he got to fly the planes he worked on including a Norseman - the same model as James Cagney flew in The Captains of the Clouds. In his spare time he apparently built another plane.

Ernie's son "Bud", a retired CNR Vice President, still lives in North Bay and was helpful in providing information for the album at the museum including the photos in this article. In this anniversary of flight year it is fitting to recognize the remarkable work of Ernie Rousseau and the other pioneers in our area who had the passion and the courage to go where no one in our area had gone before.