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Born
in Belleville, Ontario, Wilfred Leigh Brintnell became one of Alberta's true
aviation innovators. BRINTNELL HISTORY
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Born
in Belleville, Ontario, Wilfred Leigh Brintnell became one of Alberta's true
aviation innovators.
His career in the skies first took off in 1917 when he volunteered his skills to the Royal Air Force, and was assigned training duties in Texas and England. After a stint with the aviation branch in the Ontario Forestry Department, Western Canadian Airways hired Brintnell in 1927. He completed assessment flights to the west and piloted the first multi-engine flight from Winnipeg to Vancouver. He was the first pilot to circumnavigate Great Bear Lake, and in one particularly famous flight, travelled more than 16,000 kilometres over the mountains between Aklavik, Northwest Territories and Dawson City, Yukon. His trailblazing flights first established a route between Alberta and the Far North, making Edmonton a gateway city and an integral part of Canada’s aviation industry.
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Many
important men of the day took to the skies with Brintnell. Gilbert Labine, a
famous prospector, was among them; Brintnell flew him to Great Bear Lake in
August 1929, where a large deposit of uranium was discovered.
In 1931, Brintnell left Western Airways to form Mackenzie Air, based in Edmonton. In a rapidly growing and increasingly competitive industry, his airline found its market niche, carrying food, clothing and medicine into the North, and hauling ore out. The business was sold to Canadian Pacific Airlines for $100,000 in 1940.
Brintnell founded Aircraft Repair Ltd. in 1938 to help
keep up with the repair of his own)
aircraft. For a time he worked with another Alberta aviation inventor,
Jack Moar, who served as the planning and production manager at Aircraft
Repair Ltd.
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By
the time war broke out in 1939, business had expanded to include three new
hangars, employing 2,500 workers on three shifts throughout the next five
years. Those who worked with Brintnell during this period are quick to point
out his willingness to do the dirty work along side his employees, and his
ingenuity. Roy Miller, who worked in the welding shop throughout the war,
recalls a wheel adaptor built by his boss, which allowed them to put skis on
the aircraft without taking off the wheels.
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Brintnell
was awarded the Order of the British Empire in 1946 for his contribution to
the British Commonwealth Air Training Plan. As well, the Geographic Board of
Alberta named a lake in Northern Alberta after the pilot in 1954. He retired
in Edmonton in 1965, and was posthumously inducted into the Aviation Hall of
Fame in 1975.
Brintnell Landing
Townhomes, Edmonton, Alberta
Aldebaran Enterprises Inc.
www.brintnelllanding.ca
www.aldebaranhomes.com