Tour the CWH Canso

[mrhenniger]

I have just posted some videos of the CWH Canso when it visited Vintage Wings last July 1st. I got some video of the arrival, departure and a tour of the inside. To find the videos go to...

http://www.aerialvisuals.ca/TheaterLobb ... Type=Canso

Enjoy the tour!

Mike

[daveymac82c]

Very cool!

Thanks for posting the link!

Cheers,

David

[mrhenniger]

Thanks for the thanks. I hope to have some video ready soon of former Typhoon pilots as well. I have also just started on Thunder Over Michigan.

Mike

[Oscar Duck]

Why did the Canucks call the PBY the Canso? Couldn't they spell Catalina????

[Old SAR pilot]

Great videos, Mike!!

(O'course, I wouldn't have expected anything less!)

[daveymac82c]

Answers... (silly version)

Canso is the name of a town in Nova Scotia or something... and it seems that naming planes after towns was the "in thing" to do back then.

And Catalina is a big word like you mentioned. I had to copy and paste it from your post to get the spelling right. Canso is easy for us Canucks because it's like putting two familiar words together "Can" and "So."

Maybe the name came from when the RCAF was testing the airplane to see if it was appropriate. The Consolidated representative told the RCAF reps that it could take off and land from either LAND or WATER. In disbelief the RCAF guys said "CAN NOT" and the Consolidated rep said "CAN SO!!!" It must have stuck.

I apologize if that was too silly.

Cheers,

David

[David Legg]

Answer (Serious version!)...

The name Canso is derived from a stretch of water known as the Strait of Canso, between Cape Breton Island and mainland Nova Scotia. Canso was used on the flying boat version of the RCAF contract aircraft and Canso A on the RCAF contract amphibians. The original plan was to name the RCAF aircraft Convoys but early on someone decided that would cause all sorts of confusion given its maritime role and it was never applied. To this day, the Canadians have a habit of giving their own names to military types.

[CAPFlyer]

To this day, the Canadians have a habit of giving their own names to military types.

...Except for (but not exclusively) Hornet, Globemaster, Hercules, Buffalo, Twin Otter, Jet Ranger, Voodoo, Seafire, Sea Fury, Banshee, Firefly, Avenger, Tracker, Nimrod, Swordfish, Anson, Huey, Dakota, Expeditor, Harvard, Sea King, Freighter, Starfighter, Caribou, Albatross, Firefly (Slingsby), Chipmunk, Kiowa, Challenger, King Air, Chinook, Griffon, and Hawk.



Sorry, had to (although it took 30 minutes to go through the list of aircraft operated by the Canadian forces and find their nicknames on the web).

I do think some of the Canadian nicknames for some aircraft were/are pretty good though, like Comorant for the EH-101, Aurora for the P-3s, North Star for the Merlin-powered DC-4s, Cosmopolitan for the Convair 580s (even though I'm not a fan of the short yoke installed on them), and Yukon for the CL-44s.

[David Legg]

Very good!!! Obviously more of a habit than an obsession!!

[Steven M. Dennis]

Mike,

Thanks very much for posting your videos for us, they are great.

Do you know if the CWH intends to remove the water tank and associated equipment (illustrated in your video) from the Canso in the future? I would think there would be some significant weight savings in doing that.

Love the Catalinas/Cansos!

Steve

[mrhenniger]

Geezzz.... It looks like you guys liked that one! Glad you did, and again thanks for the thanks. As for the tank, I doubt they would remove it. I would imagine the expense would not be worth the effort. I am sure every museum would like their aircraft to be perfectly war-time-authentic, but at some point financial reality kicks in. I ASSUME that is the case for the CWH.

Mike

[vernicator]

To this day, the Canadians have a habit of giving their own names to military types.

As did the Brits. B-29 became the Boeing Washington, the A-20 Havoc became the Douglas Boston, the T-6 became the Harvard, etc., etc.

[Steven M. Dennis]

As for the tank, I doubt they would remove it. I would imagine the expense would not be worth the effort. Mike

Thanks Mike. I didn't know if that was something you guys talked about off camera or not. I am sure you are correct about it being expensive to remove the equipment. Just thinking about weight savings in regards to fuel costs to operate the aircraft, and whether it affected how it had to be licensed and/or insured.

Beautiful aircraft. Thanks again for the tour.

Steve

[k5083]

Why did the Canucks call the PBY the Canso? Couldn't they spell Catalina????

They didn't call the PBY the Canso. If it was a Canso, it was Canadian built, and it wasn't a PBY. If it found its way into USN service it might be a PBB or PB2B (if built by Boeing Canada) or PBV (if built by Canadian Vickers) but a PBY would have to be built by Consolidated and couldn't be a Canso.

Flying boat versions built by the Canadians generally continued to be called Catalinas, by the way. Only the amphibs were called Cansos. The Canadians thought the two types deserved different names because it makes a little bit of operational difference whether the thing can land on land or not. Go figure, huh?

To this day, the Canadians have a habit of giving their own names to military types.

...Except for (but not exclusively) Hornet, Globemaster, Hercules, Buffalo, Twin Otter, Jet Ranger, Voodoo, Seafire, Sea Fury, Banshee, Firefly, Avenger, Tracker, Nimrod, Swordfish, Anson, Huey, Dakota, Expeditor, Harvard, Sea King, Freighter, Starfighter, Caribou, Albatross, Firefly (Slingsby), Chipmunk, Kiowa, Challenger, King Air, Chinook, Griffon, and Hawk.



Sorry, had to (although it took 30 minutes to go through the list of aircraft operated by the Canadian forces and find their nicknames on the web).

Uh ... if Buffalo, Twin Otter, Caribou, and Chipmunk weren't Canada's own names, whose were they?

August

[CAPFlyer]

Uh ... if Buffalo, Twin Otter, Caribou, and Chipmunk weren't Canada's own names, whose were they?

August

Everybody's name.

Seriously though, the Chipmunk was DeHavilland (UK)'s name for the aircraft as it was designed in the UK to a UK requirement even though it was produced by DHC. The Buffalo, Twotter, Caribou, etc, were all named by their manufacturer but when in RCAF/RCN/CF use, it did not receive a different name which some other aircraft did (like the Cosmopolitan which was actually built by Canadair using the Convair tooling, but are structurally identical to any other Convairliner out there).