Canadian Associated Aircraft
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Canadian Associated Aircraft
During the build-up to the Second World War, Fairchild Ltd. (Canada) had joined together with five other aviation companies in setting up Canadian Associated Aircraft Ltd. The consortium was formed in 1938 to build the Handley Page Hampden for use in the Royal Air Force with Fairchild mainly contracted to build the Hampden's empennage.
Of 1430 Hampdens manufactured, 160 were built in Canada by the "Canadian Associated Aircraft" consortium of three Ontario and three Quebec aircraft companies as a so-called "educational project" to build up the Canadian aircraft industry and provide the expertise for building the four-engined Short Stirling bomber (ultimately the Stirling project was dropped and the Avro Lancaster was substituted).
Of the 160 Hampdens built, 84 were shipped by sea to Britain, while the remainder came to Patricia Bay (Victoria Airport) B.C., to set up No.32 OTU (RAF). Due to heavy attrition from accidents, a number of "war weary" Hampdens were later flown from the UK to Pat Bay as replacements.
Hampden Mk I P5436 was one of the Canadian-built Hampdens. It survived only 100 hours of flying time before crashing near Patricia Bay, on 15 November 1942, while engaged in torpedo dropping practice. In the 1980s, the Canadian Museum of Flight salvaged the remains of Hampden AN136 from Mt. Tuam on Saltspring Island and, later, N132 from a mountaintop near Ucluelet, B.C. Together with the salvage of P5436 in 1985, a lengthy reconstruction project was culminated in the unveiling of the composite P5436 Hampden now on display in the museum.
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