OCA Grumman Goose in Yellow
- Apr 5, 2010
- Posted By: By Ed Zaruk
- Tags: none
Barney Lamm, who bought Ontario Central Airlines in 1952, wanted a Grumman Goose. He had Don Watson, who now was Operations Manager, go looking. Don found one on the west coast. CF-GEB was all done up as an executive airplane owned by a consortium of businesses. No longer used to fly company officials up and down the British Columbia coast, it was put up for sale. $32,000 changed hands and Barney had his Goose.
That winter it went into the new hangar at Lakeside and following the OCA standard, was painted yellow with red trim. This wasn’t very popular. Everyone had their own personal description of it. One view was i looked like a light bulb coming through the sky. Sometime during the summer of ‘58, it ran into a hailstorm, doing considerable damage. Into the shop it went and when it re-appeared, it was done in the grey, with yellow and blue trim that would adorn OCA’s metal skinned airplanes from then on.
This footage is from some 8mm film Fraser Jansen took at Lakeside in the spring of 1958.
Comments
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Dave McKie wrote:
Aug 16, 2010 at 5:43 AMWhen and where will your book be out. I have lived in Keewatin / Kenora all my life and remember OCA very well.
In fact, after IRH was involved in the crash with BZM it was rebuilt and relocated to Red Lake. On March 26,1960 it crashed during a missed approach in a snow squall. My cousin Al McLeod was the pilot.