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Alexandre.
AeroTransport Data Bank
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Ottawa
denies export of 'Super Connie' aircraft
JAMES ADAMS
From
Tuesday's Globe and Mail
A battle between Canada and the United States
could be brewing over the fate of what's believed to be Canada's last surviving
Super Constellation aircraft after a permit to export the plane to a Seattle
museum was denied last week.
The 1953 California-built Lockheed aircraft,
once the pride of Trans-Canada Air Lines (now Air Canada) fleet, was sold last
year to Seattle's Museum of Flight for a reported $50,000 (U.S.) after more than
two years of negotiations with its unidentified Canadian owner who, according to
some sources, originally wanted $300,000. Currently stored in pieces in a
Toronto warehouse, the luxury propeller-driven aircraft was decommissioned from
service in the mid-1960s, and in the late 1990s was transformed into a dining
lounge and bar called Super Connie, near Toronto's Pearson International
Airport. That business folded about five years ago, and the abandoned,
deteriorating plane was subsequently moved off-site by the Greater Toronto
Airport Authority.
Groups such as the Toronto Aerospace Museum and the
12,000-member Air Canada Pionairs have mounted on-line petitions to try to keep
the aircraft north of the border. Earlier this year, Ottawa's Movable Cultural
Property Directorate told the Seattle museum that the Constellation was on the
Canadian Cultural Property Export Control List as an artifact of possible
historic or cultural significance to the country.
When an unidentified
representative of the plane's Canadian seller applied for an export permit April
27, the application was referred to Richard de Boer, a Calgary-based aviation
appraiser, who spent a month investigating the history and value of the
plane.
Late last month, de Boer told the permit-issuing officer that he
deemed the Super Connie "to be of significant cultural and historical importance
to Canada," whereupon the officer declined, on May 25, to issue the export
permit. The owner of the aircraft has until the end of this month to request a
review of this refusal by the Canadian Cultural Property Export Review Board,
whose next meeting is scheduled for Sept. 18-20.
(Federal legislation
does not require disclosure of the name of the person or institution asking for
an export permit. However, this week a representative of the Seattle Museum of
Flight said, "We intend to pursue the airplane," and that a request for a review
would be made shortly, although the application has to be made by a Canadian. If
the request isn't made before the deadline, the Lockheed could stay in Canada
for two years before another export permit could be applied for.) Legislation
requires the review board to make a decision on the aircraft within four months
of receiving the review request. Perhaps most important, if the board concurs
with de Boer's assessment, it can establish a delay period of two to six months
during which it can try to get a Canadian institution to make "a fair cash
offer" to the owner of the Lockheed.
In an earlier interview, Paul Cabot,
manager and curator of the Toronto Aerospace Museum, said he hoped the
export-review board would grant heritage status to the aircraft because it would
give his institution and others "the leverage" to organize a fundraising
campaign to keep the plane here. That campaign could receive some help from the
Department of Canadian Heritage, which each year sets aside about $1.2-million
to help institutions purchase artifacts that might otherwise leave the
country.
Cabot said last week's denial of the export permit is "a first
step . . . to give us the opportunity to mount a solid effort to keep the
aircraft in Canada. Now we know there's a hope. . . . We're just as determined
to keep it here as Seattle is determined to get it there. Except we have
different budgets."
Classic-Propliners: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Classic-Propliners
ClassicProplinerPhotos (For photos only) :
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ClassicProplinerPhotos
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