Canadian Warplane Heritage Museum - Chipmunks 80th anniversary.

 Rick bought a membership to the Warplane Heritage Museum at Hamilton Airport this year, and it included a membership for me too. This weekend they held an event commemorating the Chipmunk, a training airplane, and it seemed like a nice way to enjoy a sunny, not too hot, day, outside. Getting there at about 1pm, they were into overflow parking and the place was teeming with people.

We walked through the big hanger that contains the permanent exhibits and

 

out onto the tarmac

A few of the planes

had write ups and I suspect they were from the Museum's collection.

but most of them did not, instead their owners or pilots stood by and willingly answered questions and told stories. This one is a Chipmunk. The ones made in Canada had a "bubble" canopy

while the ones made in England did not. 11 Chipmunks had flown in for the event.

The Chipmunk was the first postwar aviation project conducted by de Havilland Canada. It performed its maiden flight on 22 May 1946 and was introduced to operational service that same year. During the late 1940s and 1950s, the Chipmunk was procured in large numbers by military air services such as the Royal Canadian Air Force (RCAF), Royal Air Force (RAF), and several other nations' air forces, where it was often utilised as their standard primary trainer aircraft. The type was produced under licence by de Havilland in the United Kingdom, who would produce the vast majority of Chipmunks. from wikipedia.

While Rick, as an ex-pilot, was into the technical details

 

I was interested in the artistry of the propellers

many of which were wood, sometimes with metal on the leading edge.

Some of the planes had been flown in from across North America

and had decals from various events.

This one was from Waterloo airport and rides cost $3,000.

So many different kinds of old planes. Rick knew them all by name while I can't remember their names a day later!

Even though most had been flown in, there were no bugs on them, clean and shiny.

One side of the fuselage had an "old crone" style witch 

and a totally different style on the other side.

The pilot demonstrated how to clamber into this one

which, among other things, was used to drop spies behind enemy lines.

The music over the speakers stopped so we could hear the 

Lancaster's engines start up.

She was taking up some paying customers ($5,000 a ride),

took off and flew overhead. I often see her circling over Long Point Bay.

There were a few more modern planes

and some bi-planes.

We spent a very pleasant couple of hours there.