Curtiss JN-3
Image Credit: San Diego Air and Space Museum Archive
In early 1915, the British War Office asks the Canadian government’s permission to actively recruit candidates for the Royal Flying Corps (RFC), followed by the British Admiralty which requests to enlist applicants in the Royal Naval Air Service (RNAS). Candidates for both the RFC and RNAS are required to secure pilot’s certificates at their own expense.
With the outbreak of war in Europe, the Curtiss Aeroplane and Motor Company Ltd. of Hammondsport, New York established a subsidiary in Toronto under the management of John A. D. McCurdy, age 29, to train pilots and build aircraft.
The company opened Canada’s first aircraft factory at 20 Strachan Avenue in downtown Toronto in April 1915 and began building six JN-3 biplane trainers for its own flying school in Toronto and 12 for the Royal Naval Air Service in the UK. The first JN-3 was flown on July 14, 1915, at an airfield the company constructed at Long Branch on a former militia rifle range on western outskirts of Toronto.
Production of the JN-3s was soon suspended so the company build the large twin-engine Curtiss Canada bomber with a 23.1 m (75 ft) wingspan for the UK which was based on a Curtiss flying boat design. The prototype flew at Long Branch on September 3, 1915, and was then immediately shipped to the UK for evaluation at Farnborough airfield. Eleven more aircraft were delivered to the UK in 1916, ten for the Royal Flying Corp and one for the Royal Naval Air Service, but the bomber never entered frontline military service.
– Kenneth Swartz
Today, students from Centennial College, Toronto Metropolitan University, Queens University, McMaster University, York University and the University of Toronto are working together on collaborative DAIR projects, developing skills and helping to build an even stronger aerospace industry for Ontario and Canada.