This February, the Digitization Centre has completed the digitization of nearly one hundred historical photographs related to aviation dated prior to the 1950s. These photos are part of the Uno Langmann Family Collection of B.C. Photographs and are now available to view for anyone interested in the aviation industry!
Amongst many incredible photographs, there are a few that stands out:
One example is a photograph (Image 1) taken on March 3, 1919 of two men standing in front of a Boeing-built C-700 seaplane. They are pilot Eddie Hubbard (1889-1928) on the left, and airplane-builder William E. Boeing (1881-1956) on the right, who helped shape the future of civil aviation. In the photo, Boeing carries 60 letters, the first bag of international air mail to be delivered to the United States, over the border from Vancouver to Seattle.
The next image (Image 2) shows Boeing stowing the mail sack on this lap in the front cockpit of the aircraft Boeing Model C getting ready to begin the flight.
Another spotlight in the collection is of aviator Mildred Mary Petre (1895 – 1990), who was one of the few women in her time to pursue a successful career in aviation (Images 3 & 4). She was a British business woman, record-breaking racing motorist, speedboat racer and aviator in the 1920s and 1930s.
Petre set several records with her round-the-world flight among them the first crossing of the Yellow Sea, the first England-to-Japan flight and the first circumnavigation by a woman. The trip departed from London in 1930, passing through several countries in eastern Europe, then to the Middle East, arriving in Asia including Thailand, China and Japan!
There are several photographs of different models of airplanes in the collections. Including this single-seat fighter aircraft known as Siskin (Image 5). In 1929, the Royal Canadian Air Force (RCAF) formed a flight demonstration team, known as Siskins aerobatic team, that performed daring maneuvers with these airplanes.
Image 5: Airplanes parked in a field with people standing nearby. Annotation on verso reads, “Siskin 1931.”
Another example is this aircraft model Department of Transport CF-CCT (Image 6), which was the first airplane to fly from Montreal to Vancouver in one day on July 30, 1937.
This next aircraft is known as Walrus, originally named Supermarine Seagull V, was a British single-engine amphibious biplane which was produced between 1936 and 1944 (Image 7).
In the collection you will also find photographs of other airplane models such as floatplanes (Image 8 & 9), aircrafts being serviced (Image 10), flight crew members posing in front of planes (Images 11 to 13), and even a rare image of a United Air Lines ticket office storefront in Vancouver with a staff handing out a flyer to a passerby (Image 14).
Image 10: Texaco No.13 aircraft being serviced near a hangar with a group of people standing nearby.
I hope you enjoyed seeing some aviation photographs!
For more, visit UBC Open Collections!
References:
- Brown, T. A., (2019, September 14). The Fascinating Life of 1930s Aviation Pioneer Mary Petre Bruce.
- Crowley, W. (1998, November 23) William Boeing and Eddie Hubbard make first U.S. delivery of international airmail on March 3, 1919.
- Dempsey, Daniel V. A Tradition of Excellence: Canada’s Airshow Team Heritage. Victoria, BC: High Flight Enterprises, 2002.
- Gillespie, H. Canada Aviation Museum Aircraft
- Pottle, M. (2004). Bruce [née Petre], Mildred Mary. Oxford University Press.
- Skaarup, H. A., (2021) Canadian Warplanes 1: Supermarine Walrus, Military History Books.
