Carlyle Clare (Carl) Agar was born at Lion’s Head, Bruce County,
Ontario on 28 November 1901. The Agars moved to Edmonton in
1905, where Carl received his education while his family farmed
on the outskirts of the city.
After saving the money he needed to learn to fly in 1928, he
became a member of the Edmonton Aero Club. By 1929, he earned
his private pilot’s licence. Agar became an agricultural
instructor in 1932 at Wabamun in Alberta, but returned to his
own farm in 1934.
With the beginning of the Second World War, Agar applied to
the Royal Canadian Air Force (RCAF), but was rejected because he
was 38 years-old, placing him over the age limit at the time.
An opportunity to join the RCAF later presented itself to
Agar in 1940 when there was an expansion of the British
Commonwealth Air Training Plan that brought a sudden increase in
demand for pilot instructors. Agar was accepted by the RCAF and
completed his training at Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan and Trenton,
Ontario.
As a flight instructor, he served at Edmonton and High River,
Alberta. He also taught at Abbotsford in British Columbia.
Agar was an outstanding flight instructor and was awarded an
Air Force Cross (AFC). In 1945, he was discharged from the RCAF,
because he had reached the maximum age allowed for aircrew.
Agar decided to move his family to Penticton, British
Columbia. While there, he worked with other past members of the
RCAF including Barney Bent, a pilot, and Alf Stringer, a
maintenance engineer, to form the South Okanagan Flying Club.
Because they were a club, they were restricted to training
and this quickly proved limiting for them. They decided to
relocate to Kelowna where they formed Okanagan Air Service. The
new company included training, charter flying, and crop
spraying. They still did not have the business volume they
needed, and in an effort to improve their profits they decided
to acquire a Bell 47-B3 helicopter.
To raise the money to purchase the helicopter, Agar and his
partners agreed to make their company public and sold shares.
They succeeded in raising the funds they needed, and on 9 August
1947 they purchased the first commercial helicopter in Canada.
The machine was used to spray orchards with insecticides.
Agar secured a contract with the Provincial Government of
British Columbia spraying forests that were infected with loop
worm, and to control mosquitoes in the lower Fraser Valley.
Through his work in the helicopter, Agar developed new
techniques for flying in the rough, high altitude terrain of the
Rocky Mountains, where sudden up drafts and down drafts combined
with low density air to provide unique hazards. Agar developed
effective ways to fly in the mountains that had never been seen
before, including landing and taking off from small mountain
ledges.
His abilities were showcased during a topological survey of
the Wahleach Mountain Range southeast of Chilliwack. Piloting
this survey, he was able to fly successfully at high altitudes
while safely transporting people and equipment into remote
mountainous areas.
In 1949, he carried out an airlift of 181,000 kilograms of
equipment, materials, and personnel to an altitude of 1,066
meters, to assist in the building of the Palisade Lake Dam. In
the process, he completed over 2,000 takeoffs and landings.
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