RCAF Detachment
Chater
(Republished from the April 1959 issue of The Voxair)
By Ron Baynes
Photos by Sgt. Don Askett
We thank the C.O. of RCAF Station Lincoln Park and the O.C. and Personnel of the T.S.U. Station Winnipeg for co-operation in the production of this article.
Twelve miles North of Brandon, solitary in the prairie farmland, surrounded by the flattened foundations of long-departed buildings stands the hangar at Chater. Within it, in the shape of numerous air frames and aero engines, is contained much of the history of the RCAF, since 1939.
Chater, once a detachment of the parent unit at Brandon (also closed), is a period piece. The period is the early forties, the time of the British Commonwealth Air Training Plan, which produced 131,533 trained aircrew in 5 years. The prairie sky was the class-room and Chater’s little hangar played it’s part. But now there is a deserted, almost ghost town atmosphere to the place, accentuated by the emptiness of the surrounding prairies. The hangar with it’s shuttered tower, stands high above the the water streaked tarmac and it’s two desolate runways, and apart from the occasional farm-house, only a line of telephone poles interrupts the view across the prairie to a line of lowlying blue hills on the horizon. A sentry box, with peeling sides and a rusting roof, stands by the gate. This is all that remains of the once busy detachment. The access roads and the hangar are in good condition, but the silence gives the impression of history re-entered.
In side the hangar, cocooned, are the aircraft which played a part, in one way or another in the development of the RCAF, since 1939. The aircraft of the RCAF’s wartime opponents, the Luftwaffe, are also represented. All are stored here against the day when an aircraft museum may some day be built to exhibit them to the public.
Though cocooned for the most part, the aircraft silhouettes and the visible portions, reveal these as members of a different aircraft generation. Here is a Fairey Battle bomber, used extensively in the early days as bombing trainer, and briefly as an operational bomber too, still pained yellow, it’s rear turret humping up under it’s covering, it’s cockpit still in immaculate condition.
And over here, a Kitty Hawk, Flimsy and fragile by comparison with the whistling interceptors of the day, but an ancestor nevertheless. A mosquito – still shapely and pleasing to the eye, queen of the German skies in ’44 and ’45, and indeed still operational in civilian capacities. And in another part of the hangar, the Germans – a Messerschmidt 109 still bearing the Swastika and the white-edged black cross of the Nazi regime. Propped high on its stilt-like undercarriage, devoid of wings a Lysander, army cooperation aircraft of the time, – and still familiar to many, the sedate lines of the venerable Anson.
A touch of the future is contained here in a vaguely torpedo-like airframe with a flattened manta-ray under-surface and no undercarriage at all. This is the Me 163 “Comet,” a target defence rocket plane, which the Germans, towards the end used for target defense. The figures, 625 mph, climbing rate: 30,000 ft. per minute still sound respectable.
But airframes are only one part of Chater’s souvenirs. Aero engines are stored here too, including German Junkers, Italian Alfas, French twin-row radials, American Menascos and others.
The aircraft are well-preserved and show evidence of careful and well-conceived storage procedures. Every precaution seems to have been taken, including poison traps for inquisitive birds, to ensure that these irreplaceable mementos are preserved. This is necessary and is worthwhile. One need only remember that most World War Aircraft survive only in photographs, to see how easy history disappears without a trace.
Perhaps some of Chater’s aircraft are still too recent, too fresh in memory, to have acquired the legendary sheen of the true museum exhibit. But time passes quickly and to a new generation names like Kitty Hawk, Mosquito, and Messerschmidt will sound distant and symbolic of an era, like the Sopwith Camel and Silver Dart.
