Victoria Airport

The heavier than air flight in Victoria took place twenty years later in 1910, when William Wallace Gibson flew his homebuilt aircraft from the Dean farm near Mt. Tolmie.

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Subsequent years saw visits by different aircraft making public displays, mainly to and from Willows Park in Oak Bay.  Pilots Alys and John Bryant both flew from the Willows Park racetrack in Oak Bay in August, 1913.  On August 6^th, John unhappily became the first aviation fatality in Canada when his aircraft broke apart at 800 feet in gusty conditions over Victoria.

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Aviation activity picked up again following World War I, fired by the barnstorming of wartime pilots in their surplus aircraft.  Much of this activity again occurred from Willows Park, now heralded as Willows Aerodrome.  Lt. G.K. Trim is shown unloading mail, having just completed the first commercial flight from Minoru Park in Vancouver to Willows Park in a Curtiss JN-4.

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Various other aviation ventures grew over the following

years, including flying training, charters and the inevitable barnstorming.  Eddie Hubbard secured a contract flying air mail from Victoria�s Inner Harbour to Seattle in his Boeing C-700.  With Bill Boeing, Hubbard would eventually found United Airlines.

In 1927 Ernest and Cecil Eve purchased the land near Mt. Tolmie that had been used by William Gibson for his 1910 flights and began flying from Lansdowne field (between what is now the site of Lansdowne Intermediate School and Bowker Creek).  Lansdowne was the first licensed airfield in B.C. 

 

The brothers formed BC Airways Ltd. and in 1928 began regular service between Victoria, Vancouver and Seattle.  That August, the company�s Ford Trimotor was lost with five passengers and two crew during a flight in adverse weather, and the company subsequently failed.

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Another short-lived airline, Alaska-Washington Airways of BC utilized the field from 1929 until its demise two years later.  The Victoria Aero Club began operations at Lansdowne in 1928 but was forced to move with the closure of Lansdowne Field in 1931 due to the buildup of residential area surrounding the site.  This busy day in summer of 1928 saw an Eaglerock, a Travelair and a Stinson lined up on the field.

To replace the well-used Lansdowne airdrome, a new airfield was established in 1932 with the support of the province and the municipality at Gordon Head on the current site of University of Victoria.  This Fairchild KR21 from Vancouver was one of the visitors in 1932.

At the same time, Western Canada Airways was operating its scheduled service flying Boeing B1 flying boats to Vancouver from the Inner Harbour.  In 1932, WCA became Canadian Airways and began to fly from Esquimalt Harbour with the permission of the Department of National Defence.  The Esquimalt Harbour Aerodrome was still listed in The Canada Air Pilot as late as 1956.

 

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With war on the horizon, the government of Canada looked for sites for airfields on the west coast that would be capable of handling large military aircraft.  Patricia Bay (now Victoria International Airport) was chosen for development and No. 111 Squadron relocated there.  RCAF Avro 626 #225 was the first aircraft to arrive on October 22, 1939, with no facilities or runways to welcome it.

Runway paving was completed in early 1940.  By May 15, 1940 the Squadron had moved all its aircraft, including these Lysanders, to Pat Bay, in time to fly their first mission in June. 

 

 

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By 1943 RCAF Station Patricia Bay was a busy and fully functioning military base with units that included fighter and bomber reconnaissance squadrons, as well as training units that were part of the British Commonwealth Air Training Plan�No. 3 Operational Training Unit (RCAF) and No. 32 OTU (Royal Air Force�RAF).

This unusual photo shows three Canadian built Cansos taking off in formation from Pat Bay during the wartime period. 

Despite the significant wartime flying activity, the Department of National Defence gave Trans Canada Airlines permission to use Pat Bay for a scheduled service from Vancouver starting in 1943.  This TCA Lockheed Lodestar is shown flying over the Gulf Islands.  At the end of the war, a civilian use area was created on the east side of the field, taking over from the RAF who left in 1944. 

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Control of the airport was transferred to the Department of Transport in May, 1948.  The RCAF maintained a presence at Pat Bay until 1952.  In a sad footnote to the wartime military presence, several reliable and now surplus Cansos met their ends on the airfield at the end of the war.

In May 1959 the airport was renamed Victoria International Airport (CYYJ).  It has since undergone a continuous program of improvements, including air and ground side facilities and a new terminal building that is still being expanded.  The airport has a large number of aviation and ground based tenants, including Viking Air (Longview Aviation Capital) which manufactures (among others) the deHavilland Twin Otter.  As of December 2022, nine different commercial carriers connect passengers to domestic and international destinations.  The Victoria Flying Club is located at YYJ, as is the British Columbia Aviation Museum.