Collections & Archives

MUSEUM STAFF AND VOLUNTEERS HAVE DEDICATED UNTOLD HOURS TO PRESERVING OUR AVIATION HERITAGE AND DEVELOPING THIS WORLD-CLASS COLLECTION

    Ju 52/1m, CF-ARM (RETROFIT)

    FROM A SINGLE PLANE operation started in 1926, Western Canada Airways Limited had expanded regular passenger and cargo service to almost every corner of the nation by 1929. However, the heavy drilling equipment needed by the booming north-western Ontario mining industry required something sturdier than the company’s wood and fabric aircraft. Western Canada Airways President James A. Richardson had heard of a huge all-metal aircraft being developed in Germany by aviation giant Junkers, and ordered one of the first six Junkers Ju 52/1moff the assembly line, in 1930. When the plane arrived in Canada the following year Richardson had reorganised Western Canada Airways into a transcontinental air service named Canadian Airways Limited. However, the company was still in need of large cargo aircraft to access the vast Canadian Shield.

    Junkers new Ju 52/1m, or Iron Annie as she was affectionately known in Germany, was the largest aircraft the world had ever seen, when it was rolled out in 1931. The first six Annies, including the one ordered by Richardson, were built with a single BMW engine but, when the early models proved under-powered, Junkers revamped the design to include two more engines, located in the wings. The tri-motor Ju 52/1m would become Germany’s most popular aircraft; thousands were still in the service of the Luftwaffe at the outset of the Second World War.

    When the Canadian Airways Limited Ju 52/1m, registered CF-ARM, arrived in Canada it was not only the largest airplane in the country but the largest single-engine aircraft in all of North America. With a single engine, the “Flying Boxcar,” as it became known in Canada, was light enough to land on enormous specially designed pontoons. With its capacity of nearly 8,000 lbs, CF-ARM regularly carried oversized loads, including mining equipment and cattle, from the company’s Brandon Avenue Air Base on the banks of Winnipeg’s Red River.

    Although widely celebrated for its extreme capabilities, among pilots ARM remained notoriously under powered. Pilot Stu McRorie recalled that, “the rudder was off-set and–it wasn’t as bad on water as it was on land–on skis you couldn’t hold it straight on takeoff. It had so much torque; you just hoped that you could get off before you started back from where you left.” In 1947, under the new management of Canadian Pacific Airlines, ARM was pushed to a fateful extreme when McRorie was ordered to fly to Dease Lake, high in the B.C. Rockies. At high altitude and fully loaded, ARM could not get airborne. The behemoth was unloaded, and flown back to Brandon Avenue to be dismantled and sold for scrap.

    The replica of CF-ARM is part of our permanent collection.

    SPECIFICATIONS
    A018

    Museum Acquisition: Replica project 1985

    Capacity: 2,700 kilograms

    Length: 18.9 metres

    Height: 5.55 metres

    Wingspan: 29.25 metres

    Empty Weight: 4,662 kilograms

    Engines: Rolls Royce Buzzard

    Maximum Speed: 265 kilometres per hour

    Range: 998 kilometres

    Service Ceiling: 5,900 metres

    GALLERY


    In 1985, the Royal Aviation Museum of Western Canada, thanks to the Richardson Foundation, purchased a tri-motor CASA 352, which Bristol Aerospace reconfigured into a single-engine, static replica of CF-ARM. The plane was painted with the Flying Goose emblem and colours of Canadian Airways Limited and is now on display as part of the museum’s permanent collection.