BCATP
|
Lancaster
|
Media
BCATP
|
Lancaster
|
Media
Many citizens of Moose Jaw are wondering Friday whether the training of a pilot in the Royal Canadian Air Force includes the gymnastics over a crowded centre of population which were indulged in by a Cessna Crane two-engine plane - bearing the number 7766, and with the dot and circle marking of the R.C.A.F.
Many complaints were made to the police after the pilot had frightened hundreds of citizens by his low flying. Many people on the east side of Main Street ran out of their houses, fearing the plane would crash into them. He was so low that the figures on the plane appeared to be two feet in height.
After spiraling for about five minutes in steep banks, when the wings of his plane were almost vertical, the pilot appeared to have difficulty with his motors as they sputtered. He flew out over the farms north of the city and then returned, did some more steep banking and then commenced his low flying. When he finally made off to the north, he flew over Redland Avenue and Second Avenue Northwest so low that he just skimmed the house tops, and the plane looked like a box car rushing through the air above the house tops.
There were two planes in the visiting group. While the low-flying pilot put on his show, the other plane continued to circle above the city at a height of about 1,500 feet.
Many citizens on Friday wondered whether a ten thousand dollar plane and a pilot, in whose training the Canadian people have invested another five or six thousand dollars, should be jeopardized in the type of flying which was done.
A resident of the east side of the city who was standing in front of his own home with a group of neighbors who had left their houses for fear the plane would strike them, told the Times-Herald that, looking between his house and the house next door, the plane appeared to be between 100 and 150 feet from the ground.
The Times-Herald was informed on Friday morning that the pilot of the plane was a local boy who has his wings and that he telephoned his friends in Moose Jaw that he would visit the city and asked them to be on the look-out for him.
A resident of the northwest side of the city watched the plane pass over his own home so low that he feared the plane would hit a chimney on a higher house a short distance away, but it skimmed the chimney by a few feet.
There have been a number of instances of foolhardy young pilots dive-bombing and shooting up the city since the air schools were opened but in no instance has there been more dangerous flying than that which occurred between 5:15 and 5:30 on Thursday afternoon. The lives of many citizens were endangered as well as that of the pilot and the costly aeroplane.