Opening Up The Nation

 Continuing where I left off yesterday, with another view of that Junkers.

This is a Fairchild FC-2W2. Planes like this became useful in both military and civilian applications in charting the country and opening up the vast interior.

The Norseman is a Canadian design, a cargo plane well used by bush pilots. A handful are still being used today.

A Canadian classic- the Canadian branch of De Havilland came up with the Beaver, the iconic bush plane. This particular one is the first produced of the entire line.

Here we see the Stinson Reliant.

This is the Travel Air 2000, the product of Americans who would become pivotal names in air production- Walter Beech, Clyde Cessna, and Lloyd Stearman.

Airplanes Of The BCATP

 Starting where we left off yesterday, mounted above is a Fairchild Cornell, another staple plane of the British Commonwealth Air Training Program during the Second World War.

Here we see the Menasco Moth, another training aircraft.

And this is the North American Harvard, an elegant training plane.

Mementos of the program.

BCATP was a huge infrastructure project- not just the building of air fields and training schools, but the roads and infrastructure to get to them, as they tended to be in rural areas. It was the biggest infrastructure project in the country to that date, and critical for the Canadian home front.

One more look at these iconic planes of the Second World War.

Back into some bush planes. This first one, a Junkers W34, dates between the wars.

The Aerodrome Of Democracy

 A panel looks at the home front effort to send the machines of war to World War Two- in this case the Lancaster plane. It is the top photograph that impresses- the staff of an entire factory on and before a Lancaster, reinforcing how big these planes really are.

There is a section of a Lancaster here that you can get a look into. A platform is built beside and behind it.

This shows the positions and responsibilities of the forward crew of a Lancaster.

The Royal Canadian Air Force was involved in research as well as fighting during the war, working on centrifuge development, part of the process of making it possible for pilots to handle faster speeds, simply by testing g-forces in such devices.

This is one of them.

And a model of the facility in which the testing would actually take place.

Canadian doctor Wilbur Franks developed an anti-g flight suit to assist in reducing the effects of gravitational force on pilots. It was water-lined.

During the war, Canada served as a training ground for Allied pilots to learn the skills before going off to war. They would train in a series of aircraft found here. Franklin Roosevelt would refer to Canada as the Aerodrome of Democracy.

This is an Avro Anson, one of the planes of the British Commonwealth Air Training Program, which had multiple facilities in Canada for the war effort.

Another integral part of BCATP- the Link Trainer, a flight simulator that some pilots said was harder to operate than the actual planes.

Falcons In The European Skies

 More looks at this beautiful Spitfire today.

This statue stands between the Spitfire and its neighbour. George Beurling was an ace of the war, who ended up with the nickname the Falcon of Malta for his extraordinary actions in battle there.

Another iconic fighter of the war- the Hurricane.

This is a Daimler-Benz engine. These were used for the Luftwaffe, in their most iconic plane.

And that plane is the Messerschmitt Bf 109, one of which resides here.

Contrast its size with the Lancaster.

Beneath the wing of the Lancaster is another German plane. Here we have the Volksjager, a product of late in the war, a mix of metal and wood meant for training. Few were finished.