Issue Number 24

August 2010

PLAINS TO TRAINS TO PLANES

by Jim Lee

Jim Lee

When Harold Wilson’s government decided that they did not want me any more I decided to go to night school and get as qualified as I could before returning to civy street. So I got my ONC and started on my HNC. About 4 months before demob I saw an add in the local paper, Rolls Royce was looking for inspectors, so I applied, and was offered a job as a quality engineer. I accepted and settled in to RR until 1971 when the bombshell dropped, RR went bust and I was laid off. I was one of the lucky ones and was transferred to Rolls Royce and Associates on the nuclear submarine programme. It was a job but I did not like it. An add appeared in the local paper for test engineers at Pratt & Whitney Canada (then United Aircraft of Canada) in Montreal and that is how I ended up out here in the frozen north! After a year and a half in test I transferred to the service department as a tech rep. looking after the Lockheed L1011 APU. (But that is another story).

Now I had a good job with a little bit more disposable income, and as I had always been interested in steam engines I bought myself a bench lathe, and through a friend, connected with the local Live Steamers club and built a couple of ¾” scale live steam Locomotives, all the time wishing that we had been taught machine shop at Halton, (I must have made 2 ½ engines to get one right!!)

When I got “downsized” from P&WC we moved up to the Toronto area where I worked as a Tech writer at Bombardier Aviation.

Jim Lee

When I retired in 2003 we moved to a small town which is a suburb of Hamilton, and one of its best-kept secrets is the Canadian Warplane Heritage Museum. My eldest son, who is into radio controlled model aircraft, called me one day and suggested a day out at the museum, we went and I was enchanted. There were 40+ airplanes, over half of them airworthy and regularly flying, all restored and maintained by a force of volunteers. They have one of the only two flying Lancasters in the world as well as other war birds from a Sopwith Pup to a CF15. I offered my services and was accepted and I have been recently working on a Grumman Avenger which was rescued from spraying forests in eastern Canada and is being restored and will be flying in its original Royal Canadian Navy livery later this year. As I said to an ex 80th friend, who I still keeping touch with, “it’s like being back in the RAF but without a certain flight sergeant!!!”

Although I still “play trains” I have literally gone from planes to train to planes and enjoyed every moment of it. If you guys are interested I could write a brief article on the warplane museum. I would strongly recommend that if any of you find yourself in this part of the world, you pay the museum a visit; it is truly unique in the world.