September 23, 2026: The Canadian Harvard Aircraft Association’s newest pilot, Jamie MacDonald, was inspired to fly by a relative who flew on a Second World War Royal Canadian Air Force plane.
“My goal started off when I learned more about my great-grandfather’s war efforts as he was a rear air gunner on the Lancaster bomber,” she said in between flights at the recent Wings and Wheels event.
In Grade 10, she completed a project on her great-grandfather and learned more about him. She moved away from planes and flying, planning on becoming a teacher. However, a strike changed her plans after she took an introductory flight as a pilot.
“And after that, I was hooked,” she recounted.
She studied to be a pilot at the Brampton Flight Centre.
“I then ended up moving to Yellowknife to fly for Buffalo Airways, which a lot of people know from Ice Pilots,” she said.
Flying the C-46 Commando and DC-3s, she flew cargo into remote villages in the Northwest Territories, often landing on gravel airstrips. These villages would be inaccessible by road in the summer. Buffalo Airways was featured in the television series Ice Pilots, but it ended in 2014, and MacDonald started there in 2018.
“Supplies, food, a lot of stuff that is very easily accessible for us, but not quite for them,” she said of her cargo. “A lot of the time we would be bringing in building supplies, whether that’d be lifts of lumber or drywall, what have you. We brought in generators to communities whose generators had gone due to winter storms. Those are quite frequent up there. If you could think of it, we probably brought it up there.”
The DC-3 holds about 7,500 pounds of cargo, and the C-46 almost 15,000 pounds, depending on the fuel load cap. The Northwest Territories has only six paved runways, all of which MacDonald landed on.
Moving to Yellowknife was an eye-opener for the Toronto native.
“It takes only about 10 minutes to get from one point of town to the other,” she said. “The winters are definitely harsher up there; they’re colder; they’re windier. There’s not as much snow because minus 40, the temperatures start to not allow for snow to be falling as frequently as it would be here, for example.”
Mercury dipping to -40˚C was common in January and February, and MacDonald said she even saw -50C.
However, MacDonald never forgot her initial goal “to become a Lancaster pilot.” After moving back to Toronto in 2022 to work for Air Canada, she learned about the Canadian Harvard Aircraft Association and applied to become a pilot.
“And my end goal is to use the Harvard as a stepping stone to get me onto the Lancaster,” she said.
MacDonald said the Harvard makes pilots “honest” and referred to its reputation. The Harvard was the primary trainer for the British Commonwealth Air Training Plan in the Second World War, and the Royal Canadian Air Force used it for years after.
“Throughout its time, it has been known as the pilot maker, and it just really shows that you always have to be on top of your toes to be able to fly one of these, and I’m very honoured to be able to fly one, continue to fly one, and be a part of CHAA’s mission to preserve all the aircraft that were in the British Commonwealth Air Training Plan,” she said.
But getting back to her original goal, the only Lancaster flying in Ontario is owned by the Canadian Warplane Heritage Museum at Hamilton Airport.
MacDonald recently met with the CEO of the Warplane Heritage Museum and is hopeful her end goal may be in sight. In the meantime, she plans to keep flying Harvards.
Article courtesy of Jeff Helsdon, Editor Tillsonburg Post. Click here to read the Original Article.