Fly likes it’s 1942!

Staring on April 30 and extending to 6 more Saturdays throughout the summer, pilots and aircraft of the Vintage Wings Warbird flight program will assemble on the ramp, offering rides in historic aircraft over the beautiful Gatineau Hills and Ottawa River valley. Aviators as well as descendants and relatives of Second World War and Cold War pilots and aircrew can learn first hand the experiences of their parents, grandparents and elders. You can take a ride in an open-cockpit trainer like the Fleet Finch and experience seat-of-the pants flying like never before or book a flight in a more advanced trainer like the Fairchild Cornell, Chipmunk and even the powerful North American Harvard.

Prices vary with aircraft type and duration of flight.

Where: Vintage Wings of Canada hangar at the Gatineau-Ottawa Executive Airport, 1699 Rue Arthur Fecteau

Click Here for more details and to book your flight into history

Rain or shine, the event is a go!

Fly-in, Walk-in, Drive-in! Everybody is welcome.

Imagine sitting next to a newly restored Canadian Spitfire or Hawker Hurricane with the early morning light streaming through the open hangar doors while you sip your morning coffee and tuck into your piping hot sausage, bacon and eggs. Bring your friends and family for a meal they won’t soon forget. VW tour guides will be on hand to answer questions about the aircraft in the collection. Weather and maintenance permitting you might witness a few flights, not to mention the arrivals and departures of breakfasters form across Eastern Ontario and Western Quebec

Breakfast starts at 0800 hrs.

$10.00 for members, $20.00 for Non-members

Where: Vintage Wings of Canada hangar at the Gatineau-Ottawa Executive Airport, 1699 Rue Arthur Fecteau

More Details to Follow

DATE TO BE DETERMINED

Join us soon (COVID protocols permitting) for a beer call at the Vintage Wings of Canada hangar when the now-complete Hawker Hurricane XII project will be unveiled and dedicated to the memory of this near-mythic Battle of France and Battle of Britain ace and fighter pilot.

Short presentations will be made by Mike Potter (plans for Oshkosh), Paul Tremblay/Pat Tenger (the restoration) and Dave O’Malley (researching and creating the unique and historic markings).

William Lidstone McKnight , DFC & Bar was a Canadian aviator and Canada's fifth-highest scoring ace of the Second World War. McKnight joined the Royal Air Force (RAF) in early 1939 and joined 242 Squadron at its formation in November, 1939. He saw detached service with Nos. 607 and 615 Squadrons during the opening days of the Battle of France, 14-20 May 19. He then rejoined No. 242 Squadron in time to take part in the covering operations of the Dunkirk evacuation. By this time would be credited with destroying 8 German aircraft and awarded his first DFC, before going back to France to cover the Allied retreat from Brittany, and later the Battle of Britain. It was probably sometime from the middle of July to the end of August 1940 that McKnight’s personal markings featuring the upper body and head of a skeleton brandishing a sickle from one of its hands – the Grim Reaper – were painted on each side of Hurricane P2961’s fuselage beneath the cockpit opening. Hurricane P2961 is thought also to have later worn No. 242 Squadron’s well-known ‘giving Hitler the boot’ motif on the engine cowling’s port side, although there is no documented evidence of this. McKnight was credited with 17 victories, as well as two shared and three unconfirmed kills. McKnight was shot down and killed on 12 January 1941 during a fighter sweep over Calais.

Meet the entire restoration team.

Beer and Pizza on hand.

$10.00 for members, $20 Non-members

Vintage Wings of Canada hangar at the Gatineau-Ottawa Executive Airport

More Details to Follow

An evening with author Ted Barris

In the 20th century’s greatest war, one battlefield held the key to victory or defeat – the North Atlantic. It took 2,074 days and nights to determine its outcome, but the Battle of the Atlantic proved the turning point of the Second World War.

For five and a half years, German surface warships and submarines attempted to destroy Allied transatlantic convoys, mostly escorted by Royal Canadian Navy destroyers and corvettes, as well as aircraft of the Royal Canadian Air Force. Throwing deadly U-boat ‘wolf packs’ in the paths of Merchant Navy convoys, the German Kriegsmarine nearly strangled this vital life-line to a beleaguered Great Britain.

In 1939, Canada’s navy went to war with exactly 13 warships and about 3,500 sailors. During the desperate Atlantic crossings, the RCN grew to 400 fighting ships and over 100,000 men and women in uniform. By V-E Day in 1945, it had become the 4th largest navy in the world. The Battle of the Atlantic proved to be Canada’s longest continuous military engagement of the war. The story of Canada’s naval awakening in the bloody battle to get convoys to Britain, is a Canadian wartime saga for the ages. Ted Barris has published 19 non-fiction books, half of them wartime histories. His book The Great Escape: A Canadian Story won the 2014 Libris Award as Best Non-Fiction Book in Canada. His book Dam Busters: Canadian Airmen and the Secret Raid Against Nazi Germany received the 2019 NORAD Trophy from the RCAF Association. And his book Rush to Danger: Medics in the Line of Fire was listed for the 2020 Charles Taylor Prize for Non-Fiction in Canada. Battle of the Atlantic: Gauntlet to Victory is Ted’s 20th published non-fiction book.

As many people who have attended Ted Barris’ talks in the past will tell you, his presentations are entertaining and thought provoking.

Free for Members, $15:00 for non-members, including pizza
Beer and wine available for purchase

Vintage Wings of Canada hangar at the Gatineau-Ottawa Executive Airport

Register Here