aviation - the past, present and future of flight

improving picture led to two additional DC-8-

43s being ordered.

The Bristol Britannia was retired in 1966

and the DC-8 operated all but the Western

Canada feeder routes flown by DC-3s and

DC-6s, making it an all Douglas airline.

Tragedy struck on March 4, 1966 when

Canadian Pacific’s DC-8-43, CF-CPK,

Empress of Edmonton crashed while

operating flight CP402 at Tokyo’s Haneda

airport. It touched down 2,800ft (854m)

short of the threshold in poor weather, killing

64 of the 72 people on board.

DC-8-50 SERIES

The Series 50 was the last of

the so-called ‘Baby 8s’. It

used the new Pratt and

Whitney JT-3D fan jets and had a new low

drag wing allowing 1,000nm (1,852km)

greater range. Canadian Pacific bought

two, DC-8-53 CF-CPM Empress of Lisbon

arrived on May 31, 1966 in the same

configuration as the DC-8-43s. A DC-8-

55CF (Combination Passenger/Freighter)

CF-CPT, Empress of Santiago was delivered

on November 17, 1967. It was briefly combi-

configured with 69 seats in economy, but

usually operated in full passenger layout. It

was the only cargo-door equipped DC-8 with

Canadian Pacific and was the first second-

hand DC-8 used by the carrier.

The Douglas DC-8 prototype ‘Ship #1’

(c/n 45252/ 1) N8008D, was leased by

Canadian Pacific from Trans International

Airlines for a year from October 1966 as

CF-CPN Empress of Santiago. It filled a

gap between deliveries of the two DC-8-

50s, and the loss of CF-CPK. The type

was in high demand and it took six months

to find an example to lease. The carrier’s

vice president of technical services (later

president), Ian Gray commented: “I think we

leased the last DC-8 in captivity.” Configured

as a DC-8-51, it accumulated approximately

4,200 hours during its year with the

Canadian airline.

The new DC-8-50s were used for its first

service to the United States, Vancouver-

San Francisco, in 1967. The carrier heavily

promoted Canada’s Centennial in 1967, which

as part of the celebrations included ‘Expo

67’ – the World Exposition held in Montreal.

The same year it increased the number of

22 Aviation News incorporating Jets August 2018

CP Air’s first DC-8-63 C-FCPO Empress of Tokyo at Toronto’s Terminal 1 with DC-8-53, C-FCPM, parked at the gate behind in July 1979. John Griffith

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