dESPair THC 163

Story of the "Bandit" THC 163

This story starts nearly 50 years ago at the Canadair plant in Montreal. The Harvard training aircraft had been retired and pilots were receiving training on the T-34 Mentor aircraft. Although it was a nice-flying plane it was not up to the task of training pilots to fly the jet fighter aircraft currently in service at that time. Canadair had been building F-86 and T-33 aircraft under license for the military and had a good idea of what the military needed for a training aircraft.

With these ideas came the CL-41 jet trainer which was designed between 1955 and 1957. It was low budget project funded entirely by Canadair but with sound design techniques a very capable aircraft was designed. Early wind tunnel tests showed that the plane had too much directional stability and not enough lateral stability. The designers were instructed by the project engineer to "take a hacksaw to the damn tail and saw off everything above the horizontal stabilizer". The end result was the T-tail configuration in the current version of the aircraft.

A very solid landing gear system was designed since many harsh landings were expected from student pilots. The only real change to the aircraft after the first plane flew was the addition of a 2 inch strake on either side of the nose to let the plane spin.

The Canadian Armed Forces had decided that they needed a jet trainer aircraft and decided to evaluate the CL-41, the British Jet Provost, the Cessna T-37 and the Fouga Magister. Disaster nearly struck Canadair when the CL-41 test pilot accidentally jetissoned the canopy on the way to the aircraft evaluation in the only flying prototype. Another Canadair test pilot flew the route in a Cessna and was able to spot the canopy lying in the snow. Fortunately it had not been damaged with only a few scratches to the windshield. The CL-41 went on to win the aircraft evaluation, outperforming the other aircraft in most evaluation categories. The CAF then placed an order for 190 aircraft which they designated the CT-114 Tutor.

My particular aircraft left the Canadair plant on my birthday, June 29, 1964 so I've always felt connected to it in some cosmological way. My Dad discovered this when we attended my first airshow when I was seven and we were looking at one of the CT-114s on display. He took a picture of me beside the plane which I must really try and find. My plane flew in the jet training role from 1964 until 1977. It then flew with the Snowbirds aerobatic team until 1984 as the number 5, 8, and 9 aircraft. Here it is on the very top as the number 9 (second solo) aircraft:

After retiring from airshow duty it was again used for jet training in Winnipeg (see below picture) until it was retired from service in 2000. I went to most of the airshows at CFB Moose Jaw where the aircraft was based and always tried to spot this plane when I was there. I did manage to spot it a few times, a couple of times even flying over my house, which made me very happy. I always hoped that it had not crashed.

I had contacted the Department of National Defence when the CT-114 aircraft were scheduled for retirement and arranged to purchase this particular plane to my great delight. Finally I was able to have the aircraft transported by ship to dESPair Island along with a lot of spare parts. It is now assembled and has had a few test flights and flying in it feels like being home.

The name I chose for the aircraft was based on its radio callsign of Bandit-163. I'm calling her Bandit for short as she's too old for a name change.

Sir Darkwing