By Mike Davenport, EAA 89102, Langley, British Columbia
I am continuing a review of Canadians who quietly made significant contributions to aviation in Canada while not asking for favours but just carried on “getting it done.”
On April 1 of this year the Canadian Museum of Flight in Langley, British Columbia, held a celebration of the Royal Canadian Air Force’s (RCAF) 100th year of operation, 1924-2024.
Over the years, the museum has had several iterations, from a small family-owned operation to today as a medium-sized but well-tended complex. The aircraft on display run from World War I replicas to Cold War supersonic aircraft, with this weekend’s focus on both the trainers and combat aircraft used by the RCAF from trainers used for World War II and beyond. These include such aircraft as the Fleet 16B biplane, a Tiger Moth and the T-6 Harvard, to a CT-33 and later the CT-114 Tutor jet. The latter is still in use by the world-famous Snowbirds demonstration team. More about that a little later.
Retired Colonel George Miller, a well-known former manager of the airport, spoke at noon and described his 35-year career in the RCAF. This included flying such classics as the T-33 T-Bird as well as two tours on the F-86. In 1962, he flew one season as the solo in the F-86 as a Golden Hawk.
Miller went on to fly the supersonic F-104 both in Canada and then in West Germany.
He later topped this feat by becoming Snowbird lead, flying the Tutor and creating the nine-airplane formation still flown at air shows all over North America.
While Miller was in the RCAF, he received the Officer of Military Merit, and later as a civilian he received two awards from the British Columbia Aviation Council including its Lifetime Achievement Award. The Langley Aero Club also acknowledged George’s efforts to improve the Langley airport with their Ed Batchelor Award, and in 2015, he was inducted into the Canadian Hall of Fame.
During his time as airport manager beginning in 1991, he sometimes had to make decisions that were less than popular, and the airport was occasionally referred to as CFB Langley, a reference to his military service. I mentioned to him one day that I thought for a long time that his first name was “Damn” as he was forever being mentioned as that “damn Miller” by some malcontents. However, undeterred, he transformed the airport into the busy aviation business center that it is today with several active flight schools and many helicopter-related businesses.
As if he didn’t have enough on his plate, in 1996 he created yet another formation team who all had similar aircraft. Originally called the Langley Flypast Group, later formalized as The Fraser Blues, each member had a Ryan Navion L-17, a four-place, retractable gear, with a military style sliding canopy ideally suited for five-airplane formation flying. The team did up to 30 shows a year including missing man formations on November 11 each year.
In 2022, at age 86, Miller decided to call it quits as an airplane owner and pilot. However, it required one last long cross-country flight when he delivered the Navion to its final home in the New Brunswick Aviation Museum in Miramichi, New Brunswick.
Sources: Canda’s Aviation Hall of Fame, Canadian Museum of Flight website.