 |
Canadian Military Aircraft Serial Numbers The Air Board Years 1919 to 1927 (and beyond) |
|
|
|
|||
|
|||
|
|
|||
| The
Canadian federal government created an Air Board in June 1919, to
oversee
all aspects of aviation in Canada. Its responsibilities included
aircraft and aircrew licensing, aircraft inspection and certification,
construction and operation of "air
harbours", and
operation of government owned aircraft. The Canadian Air Force in
Canada also fell under the control of the
Air Board. |
|||
| Initially the Air Force was only
to undertake refresher training of
World War One veterans, who would then form an Auxiliary Air Force.
This was in keeping with the then current Canadian philosophy of
maintaining minimal standing forces and a large part time militia. A
central
training facility for air crew and ground crew was established at the
former RAF facility at Camp Borden, Ontario.
These facilities had passed to the Canadian Department of Militia and
Defense at the end of the war, and were transferred agian to the Air
Board on 5 July 1920. All the aircraft
operated here received Air Board civil registrations, as
explained below. Civil
operations would use most of the CAF/RCAF resources for several years,
and
the Auxiliary squadrons would not start operating aircraft until 1934. |
|||
| Other government air operations
were performed by the Civil Operations
Branch of the Air Board. In theory, this was an entirely civilian
operation.
In practice, almost all the initial staff and aircraft were military
veterans, and
increasing numbers of uniformed CAF members were
assigned. In the spring of 1922, the Civil Operations Branch was
transferred to the Canadian Air Force, who then undertook most
government civil air
operations. The aircraft retained their Air Board registrations.
By 1923, both the Air Board and the CAF were part of the new Department
of National Defense. |
|||
| The civil operations performed
included aerial survey, forest fire
patrols, fisheries and customs patrols, assistance to police
departments,
VIP transportation, support for scientific research, medical
evacuations, and a wide range of support to various government
agencies. Operating
from primitive bases, sub-bases, and mobile camps throughout Canada,
the Air Board and the CAF invented bush flying
through the early 1920s. The prefix "Royal" was permitted by King
George V on 1 April 1924,
the official birthday of the RCAF. |
|||
| As part of the British Empire,
Canada was then using the G-Cxxx series
for civil
registered aircraft (where xxx were 3 sequential letters, starting at
AAA). The Air Board aircraft were registered in the
G-CYxx
range, starting with Avro 504K G-CYAA. A small number of aircraft were
initially operated with their original USN or RAF serial numbers, for
evaluation purposes, or to meet urgent requests for the Air Board's
services. A very few of the Gift aircraft never received a Canadian
civil
registration. This may have been due to accidents, or to the aircraft
being found to be unsuitable, or to the aircraft only being used for
spare parts. These aircraft are covered on a seperate page for Canadian owned aircraft with RNAS and RAF
serial numbers. |
|||
| The Air Board's first aircraft
came from the
Imperial gift of 114 ex-RAF aircraft received
from the UK in 1919, and from RAF and USN stocks left behind in Canada
after
the war. Most of these were stored on arrival in Canada, and only
received their Canadian
registration when they were placed into service over the following
years. Additional second hand aircraft were purchased from the US
and
British military in the early 1920s. Purchases of new aircraft were
extremely limited
until about 1928, by which time G-CYHD had been reached. At this time,
the government began to purchase larger numbers of new aircraft for the
rapidly growing civil operations,and small numbers of military
aircraft. A new registry of numerical
serial numbers for military aircraft
was started in early 1928. Procurement also continued for
civil tasks, with civil registerations starting with G-CYZZ and
descending until about G-CYUR. Canadian
manufacturers were favoured, and other manufacturers were encouraged to
set up licensed facilities in Canada, as seen in the
lists below. This
led to the birth of the modern Canadian aircraft industry, and laid the
foundations for the massive Canadian aircraft production that would
occur in the near future. |
|||
| In
1927 it was decided that it
would be more politically correct to
return the non-military flying tasks to a nominally civilian
organization, and the Directorate of Civil Government Air Operations
was formed. Nearly all of the RCAF's non training aircraft, along with
their air crews and ground crews, were transferred to this
organization. Although this was supposed to be a civil organization,
with the aircraft retaining their civil registrations, the
staff remained mostly uniformed RCAF members. For this reason, my
database tracks the Directorate's aircraft after this date.
Procurement of civil registered aircraft for the Directorate continued
until at least 1931. As
the threat of war increased through the mid and late 1930s, some of
these
aircraft were transferred to the RCAF for military use. |
|||
| The Directorate continued to use
a mix of civilian and RCAF staff to
operate its aircraft. More and more, specific tasks were
assigned to the customer government agencies or commercial contractors,
and the aircraft and
civil staff where usually transferred from the Air Board to the new
operations. At this point, the aircraft were generally re-registered in
the new CF-xxx series. I have not attempted to track this series in my
database. What was left of the Air Board, minus the last RCAF operating
units, became the federal Department
of Transport in 1936, by which time almost all Directorate flying
operations had
been transferred. By this time the remaining civil registered aircraft
had all been transferred to the RCAF numerical registry, or disposed
of. The loan of uniformed RCAF personnel to the
Department of Transport continued until at least 1945. Today, Transport
Canada is
still a favorite retirement destination for ex Armed Forces members. |
|||
| Some other Federal and
Provincial
government agencies owned aircraft registered outside of the G-CYxx
series during this time,
and these were
occasionally operated by Air Force personnel. In addition, the
DND owned several civil registered light aircraft operated by the
Controller of Civil Aviation,and others that were passed to the flying
clubs. These aircraft now have their own web page. |
|||
| Initially, all Air Board
aircraft carried the full registration
on the fuselage (in black letters in a white rectangle), the letter "G"
on the rudder, and the full
registration on the top and bottom of the wing,
in the largest letters that would fit. Later, all RCAF
aircraft, and some other government aircraft, displayed
only the
last 2 letters of their registration on the fuselage side in large
characters, and the complete registration on the top and bottom wings.
This can lead to possible
confusion from photos showing only the fuselage markings. Usually, RCAF
aircraft
also displayed RAF style roundels on the fuselage, and the 3 vertical
stripes on the rudder. This permits you to positively identify the
aircraft as belonging to the Air Board, registered in the G-CYxx range.
When the roundels and fin marks are absent, determining the complete
registration may be an educated guess. |
|||
| The table below will connect you
to two types of listings of these
aircraft. The "Brief lists" present a minimum amount of information
about as many aircraft as I can fit on a reasonably sized page.
Use these lists to
identify individual aircraft, or to quickly scan a large range of
serials. The "Detailed lists" contain all the information currently in
my database, and are broken into many more pages to keep the data
manageable. |
| Brief
lists |
Detailed
lists |
| known G-Cxxx
registrations (326 records) updated 11 June 2004 |
G-CYAA
to
G-CYCZ  (78
records) updated 7 May 2005 |
| G-CYDA
to
G-CYFZ (73
records) updated 20 May
2005 |
|
| G-CYGA
to G-CYTZ (30
records) updated 3 July 2005 |
|
| G-CYUA
to G-CYWZ (60
records) updated 3 July 2005
|
|
| G-CYXA
to
G-CYZZ (79
records) updated 18 December 2005
|
This data has come from a variety of sources, and may contain all sorts of errors. In the future, I will add a complete list of references. For now, some recent Internet references can be found at the links below. I would welcome any corrections or additions you may have. Contact me using the link below.
| To main page | to
top of this page |
contact me | Canadian Military Aircraft links | Serial Number Links | About the Author | The
Project |
© 2004, 2005, 2006 by R. W. R. Walker All rights reserved under the copyright laws.
This is an amateur site - please don't rely on any of this data for anything important!
Created 21 April 2004. Updated 17 December 2006.