A final flight for 'magnificent machine'
Last of the Labradors touches down at aviation museum
Graham Hughes
The Ottawa Citizen
Wednesday, July 28, 2004
Forty-one years of aviation history came to an end yesterday when CH-113 Labrador 11301, the first Labrador to enter service with the Canadian Forces and the last to retire, landed at the Canada Aviation Museum after a final flypast.
The Labrador, long the work-horse of Canada's search and rescue efforts, has been replaced by the Cormorant, and the Canadian Forces donated the Labrador to the museum. The helicopter had operated out of 8 Wing Trenton, the last Canadian base to use Labradors.
Anthony Smyth, the museum's director general, said the museum is proud of its relationship with the Department of National Defence.
"Labrador 11301 will serve as a reminder to Canadians of the hundreds of lives saved and people rescued, often in near-impossible conditions."
Canadian Labradors flew more than 20,000 missions and logged nearly 190,000 hours of flight time.
One of the most memorable missions was in 1980, when the cruise ship M/V Prinsendam caught fire off the coast of Alaska. Canadian helicopters helped save all 510 aboard.
Capt. Mark Levesque, who flew the Labrador yesterday, was emotional on what was also his last flight before becoming a Canadian Forces recruiter.
The captain, the Canadian pilot with the most hours on Labradors, almost 6,000, called it "a magnificent flying machine."
The yellow, twin-rotor machine has a 1,110-kilometre range, which made it ideal for search and rescue missions.
Labrador 11301 will be kept outside until the fall when it and other large aircraft, which have languished outdoors for years, will be moved into the storage facility now under construction. The helicopter will go on display in the museum in the spring.
