YVR hangar door cutout; Electra?

[gregv]

hello all

spotted this while walking by the old hangars at the Vancouver International South terminal yesterday; I believe that this is the hangar now operated by BCIT.



At any rate, the cut-out in the door caught my eye; am I to guess correctly that this is to allow for an oversize aircraft to be hangared with the doors closed, i.e. with its rump hanging outside? And if so, what kind of aircraft would it be for? My first thoughts were for a Lockheed L-188, but I can find no record of these being used by any Canadian airlines in the period.

Just curious.

cheers

gv

[BLR]

That’s the old Boeing Canada production plant on the south terminal of YVR which was built in 1939 and is the only surviving of two plants built in World War II. In 1960 it was used by Trans Canada Airlines, in 1981 it became Pacific Western Airlines’ maintenance base and in 1988 it has been leased by Com Air. Currently a company called Airside Properties Ltd resides there.

Those cut-outs have been there for a long time and about the only plane I ever remember seeing with its bum out of the hangar were 737's but it could have accommodated some of TCA's larger aircraft.

HTH

Brian...

[gregv]

thanks Brian

so is it the hangar to the left of that one that is used by BCIT, or do they no longer have a presence there? And where did the Tracker go?

cheers

greg v.

[davem]

Brian;

Was the cutout not put in for the Time Air deHavilland Dash 7's in the late 80's, early 90's?

[BLR]

Brian;

Was the cutout not put in for the Time Air deHavilland Dash 7's in the late 80's, early 90's?

Thinking about it, it wouldn't have been TCA vintage but I think it was before Time Air. PWA may have put them in when it became their maintenance base which would make it the early 80's. I think around that time they were flying mostly 737’s.

thanks Brian

so is it the hangar to the left of that one that is used by BCIT, or do they no longer have a presence there? And where did the Tracker go?

cheers

greg v.

Hi Greg,

Standing on Inglis Drive with the Fraser to your back, BCIT would be on the left, the big arch top hangar. They are building a new campus which is looking close to being finished on Russ Baker Way inline with runway 26. As for the Tracker, I was told that it was collected by DND but I don’t know where it went. Apparently it was dropped when they were loading it!

For anyone interested, here’s a link to some info on the old WWII Boeing plant at Vancouver airport. http://seaisland1.homestead.com/Boeing.html .

Brian...