Another
First World War flying hero was
Captain Fred McCall
of Calgary, who established McCall Aero Corporation in 1919, and
was hired to carry out flying demonstrations at the Calgary Fair
in July of that year. A spectacular event occurred on 5 July
while McCall was carrying two young boys from the fair in his
Jenny. While flying over the busy
fairgrounds, the engine suddenly lost power, forcing him to land.
Landing directly below was impossible, however, because at that
very moment, a race was happening on the track below. The midway
was also much too crowded to land on safely. McCall manoeuvered his biplane over the
merry-go-round that was in operation at the time, stalled his
machine, and dropped directly onto it. The biplane was badly
damaged, but there were no injuries on the ground, or to the two
boys who were passengers.
McCall was constantly working to expand the number of local
fairs in which he was flying. For the summer of 1920, he did
demonstrations in communities like Bassano, Brant, Brooks, Cereal,
Drumheller, High River, Innisfail, Macleod, Medicine Hat,
Munson, Olds, Okotoks, Rockyford, Stettler, and Taber. To
generate more revenue, the pilots would fly to various towns
and circle above to gather a crowd. If they saw a crowd
gathering, they would land and ask if anyone would like to take
a flight for a fee. If the pilots saw that no one was
interested, they would fly on to the next town. But the novelty
slowly began to wear off, and by 1920, McCall had lowered the
fee from $20 to $15 per ride. |