Ste-Anne-de-Bellevue, QC, Canada — Patrick Campbell clearly remembers the day more than 75 years ago when he climbed into the open cockpit of a two-seater Curtiss-Reid Rambler and took off from Cartierville airport. “It was a tremendous thrill,” Campbell said, recounting the flight over the Bois-Franc neighbourhood in the Saint-Laurent borough.
He was 15 years old at the time and had no idea he’d later spend three decades working as an engineer for Canadair at that very location.Nor did he imagine that now, at 92, he’d be helping to build a replica of that Rambler with other airplane enthusiasts.
Campbell is one of some 40 volunteers at the Montreal Aviation Museum, located on the Macdonald campus of McGill University in Sainte-Anne-de-Bellevue.
Inside a historic stone barn where cows used to feed, you’ll find an aviation art gallery, handcrafted model airplanes, a functioning flight simulator, airplane engines, several full-size aircraft models and a workshop, where volunteers are putting together the full-sized Rambler replica.
The museum launched the project – Campbell’s idea – about a year and a half ago, with the goal of completing the plane in time for Montreal’s 375th anniversary celebrations next year.
“Right now our volunteers are working on the fuselage, so they can cover all the airplane itself in metal,” said Robert St. Pierre, a volunteer in the artifact department who is also a retired air traffic controller.
Read more: http://www.cbc.ca