December 2024
The southern Ontario town of Wasaga Beach has the distinction of having the world’s longest fresh water beach, spanning 10 miles. The beach community has another distinction of being the starting point in a record-breaking aviation milestone.
The appeal of Wasaga Beach for both aviators was its naturally long, straight beach, which provided a suitable natural runway for airplanes. It wasn’t uncommon to see small airplanes using the beach to get airborne.
On 8 August 1934, Canadian pilots James Ayling and Leonard Reid set off on their attempt at a record-setting, non-stop flight from Canada to Bagdad, Iraq, a distance of about 6,300 miles. The pair ware inspired by British air ace, Captain James Mollison, who along with his wife, Amy Johnson, had attempted the same flight the previous year from Wasaga Beach, in their attempt to break the previous record of 5,657.6 miles, set by two French pilots the same year.
Mollison and Johnson’s attempt had been foiled by heavy crosswinds, with the third attempt critically damaging the undercarriage and ending all hope for a successful flight that day.
Flying the Mollison’s airplane, Seafarer II, which Ayling and Reid re-named Trail of the Caribou, the duo set off on what they hoped would be a record-setting attempt. Although they did successfully get airborne, their attempt similarly ended in failure to reach Bagdad. On 9 August, after a 30 hour and 55 minute flight, the duo were forced to land in England at Heston Airport in Hounslow, a large suburban district of West London, after bad weather and icing of the engine throttle controls accelerated the airplane’s fuel consumption.
While unsuccessful, the flight was still historic. It was the first overseas, non-stop flight across the Atlantic from mainland Canada to England.
On 28 August 1958, a stone cairn commemorating the historic flight was unveiled one block south of Beach Area #1, at the entrance to Nancy Island Historic Site.
Sources: Trail Of The Caribou, Heston Aerodrome – Wikipedia, Trail of the Caribou.
