Ottawa/Rockcliffe Airport
Encyclopedia : O : OT : OTT : Ottawa/Rockcliffe Airport
{| class="infobox bordered" style="width: 220px; font-size: 95%;" |- ! colspan="4" style="text-align: center; background-color: #4682B4; color: white;" |Ottawa/Rockcliffe Airport
|- !colspan="4" style="text-align: center; background-color: #4682B4; color: white;" |Runways |- !bgcolor="lightgrey" rowspan="2"|Direction !bgcolor="lightgrey" colspan="2"|Length !bgcolor="lightgrey" rowspan="2"|Surface |- !bgcolor="lightgrey"|ft !bgcolor="lightgrey"|m |- !align="left" valign="top"|09/27 |valign="top" align="right"|3,300 |valign="top" align="right"|1,005 |valign="top"|Asphalt
Ottawa/Rockcliffe Airport or Rockcliffe Airport, , a former military base, is a non-towered airport located on the south shore of the Ottawa River, 4.0 nautical miles (7.41 km) northeast of downtown Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. The airport is the home of the Canadian Aviation Museum, which owns the field, and is used and maintained by the Rockcliffe Flying Club.
History
Originally, the airport's land was a military rifle range. In 1918, the Royal Air Force began using the field behind the range for experimental mail flights. After Parliament's 1920 Air Regulations came into effect, Rockcliffe was chosen as an ideal site for supporting both an air harbour and a flying field. The airport opened later in 1920 as the Ottawa Air Station, as one of the six original airfields opened across Canada by the new Air Board. Major activities included military aerial photography for the mapping of Canada, air transportation, and aeronautical experimentation. The airport also served as a major centre for aircraft testing.In 1922 the civilian components of the Air Board began to consolidate into the Canadian Air Force, which became part of the Department of National Defence the following year and was renamed the Royal Canadian Air Force in 1924; thus Rockcliffe has the second-longest association with the nation's air defence after Borden. The facility took the name RCAF Station Ottawa after operations transferred to that organization from the Air Board; this name would vary until 1936 when it was permanently established as RCAF Station Ottawa.
On March 12, 1930, Canadian World War I flying ace William George Barker crashed into the Ottawa River and died during an aerial demonstration over the field. In July 1931, Charles Lindbergh and Anne Morrow Lindbergh visited the airport during their northern surveying tour.
The airfield's runways were paved in 1939 in preparation for operations during World War II. Rockliffe participated in the British Commonwealth Air Training Program and — as the nearest airport to the centre of the capital — was involved in many other kinds of testing, training, and transport operations, including the transport of mail to Europe using B-24 Liberators. Immediately after the war, in September 1945, Rockcliffe was the site of the first jet aircraft demonstration in Canada.
In 1957, the military's main flight testing and development operations moved to RCAF Station Uplands (now Ottawa Macdonald-Cartier International Airport), and in 1964, the RCAF ceased operations at the field and the property passed back into civilian control, though its aircraft collection remained and formed the nucleus of the Canadian Aviation Museum. The Rockcliffe Flying Club continues operation at the field, and the airport is also used for delivering aircraft to the museum's collection.
See also
References
External links
From Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia. Original article here. Support Wikipedia by contributing or donating.
All text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License See Wikipedia Copyrights for details.