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Canadian Poncho Homepage -> Canadian Poncho -> The Lounge -> 40 years for the Gimli Glider
Post Info TOPIC: 40 years for the Gimli Glider
4SPEED427


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40 years for the Gimli Glider
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You old guys will remember this-

Gimli Glider: Manitoba community marking anniversary | CTV News



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DonSSDD


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A good story on this in Readers Digest back in the day.

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4SPEED427


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Pretty neat that the banquet they are having will feature the pilot as the guest speaker. Such a spectacular good-news story with a happy ending.

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1966 Strato Chief 2 door, 427 4 speed, 45,000 original miles 

1966 Grande Parisienne, 396 1 of 23 factory air cars (now converted to a "factory" 4 speed)
seventy2plus2


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I flew on 767's many times, it was always my favorite aircraft.
Re the Gimli Glider, if I recall when it was retired they had Capt. Bob Pearson and First Officer Maurice Quintal fly it to the airfield in Arizona.

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LT1Caddy


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Didn't they fire the Captain after that incident? Then he was hire by another airlines?

I think, if I remember right. They flew out of Montreal, it was in the time when Canada was changing to the metric system. The co-pilot calculated the needed fuel in kg and the fueling personnel used lbs, hence they short fuel....

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4SPEED427


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I don't know if I've ever told this story here but I suddenly remembered it a little bit ago.

At the time this happened, my uncle was getting towards the end of his long career with Air Canada. He was some superintendent or supervisor or some fancy title to do with ground maintenance for Air Canada in Montreal. I believe this plane landed mid evening in Gimli so it would have been an hour later in Montreal. My aunt and uncle had gone to bed about the time it landed roughly. Apparently they were asleep and the phone rang. My uncle got up to answer it. My aunt said she heard uncle Lyle saying "What? It did what? They did what" LOL, she said the way he was talking she had no idea what had happened but she knew he couldn't believe what he was hearing!



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1966 Strato Chief 2 door, 427 4 speed, 45,000 original miles 

1966 Grande Parisienne, 396 1 of 23 factory air cars (now converted to a "factory" 4 speed)
bigdreams


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hi Carl - my family has had a cottage in Gimli since 1967

As it happened i was out in Gimli shortly after the  emergency landing happened- i remember  driving  by the airfield and seeing the plane with its front landing gear collapsed.

To me a slight bit of irony is that this air base was shut down in the 1970s - at the time there was a lot of concern in the town about the economic impact of that on the town- the airfield just basically sat for number of years- this time of year it probably has a number of water bombers  parked there

 

Anyway I have heard that the pilot Robert pearson is an excellent speaker.  It is unfortunate that his co pilot Maurice quintal has passed on. As i understand it he was the one who suggested landing in Gimli as he had trained there with the RCAF

 

 

 

 



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LT1Caddy


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The story I've read said that the strip was an abandoned air field, closed down. ( some of points are vague now) There was a car race (slalom maybe) on the strip at the time. Some of the racers noticed this plane coming, they were on the strip at the time. They all cleared off along with all the gear leaving a clear path for the plane...

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4SPEED427


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bigdreams wrote:

hi Carl - my family has had a cottage in Gimli since 1967

As it happened i was out in Gimli shortly after the  emergency landing happened- i remember  driving  by the airfield and seeing the plane with its front landing gear collapsed.

To me a slight bit of irony is that this air base was shut down in the 1970s - at the time there was a lot of concern in the town about the economic impact of that on the town- the airfield just basically sat for number of years- this time of year it probably has a number of water bombers  parked there

 

Anyway I have heard that the pilot Robert pearson is an excellent speaker.  It is unfortunate that his co pilot Maurice quintal has passed on. As i understand it he was the one who suggested landing in Gimli as he had trained there with the RCAF

 

 

 

 I would love to be able to go to this banquet they are having but unfortunately we can't. I think it would be fascinating to hear the captain give details first hand. 

Wiki has some great info on the Gimli Glider (assuming Wiki is accurate...) including details of the officers suspensions and successful appeals to the suspension.

Gimli Glider - Wikipedia



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1966 Strato Chief 2 door, 427 4 speed, 45,000 original miles 

1966 Grande Parisienne, 396 1 of 23 factory air cars (now converted to a "factory" 4 speed)
ak 67sd


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My brother was road racing his car there that day. A Bob Sharpe modified 280 zx ... My dad and I were out at our seasonal near Gimli, my brother let us know and we went for a ride to see it on the track. The track alternates road racing then drag racing on different weekends. The movie couldn't make up its mind and mixed both drag cars and road cars and some kids on bicycles pedaling on the track for more drama! ak

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bigdreams


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here's what was in the Winnipeg saturday  free press on this story

 

i used the windows snipping tool to do screen captures of the free press online edition- its not the most user friendly tool

 

glider1.JPG

glider15.JPGglider2.JPGglider2.JPG

 

 

glider2.JPG



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