By: Rénald Fortier
Ingenium – Canada's Museums of Science and Innovation
A tale of air, water, and fire: A peek at the aeronautical activities of Hoffar Motor Boat Company of Vancouver, British Columbia, 1915-27, part 4
The first float-equipped Curtiss JN-4 Canuck, August 1919, Vancouver, British Columbia. CASM, 5245.
Greetings, my reading friend, and, once again, profuse apologies for improperly evaluating the amount of material uncovered while researching the aeronautical history of Hoffar Motor Boat Company of Vancouver, British Columbia.
You will remember that we ended the 3rd part of this article as the staff of that firm prepared the test flight of a seaplane. Let us pick up our story at that point in the spacetime continuum.
The first float equipped Curtiss JN-4 Canuck, the very first float equipped Curtiss JN-4 in fact, officially flew for the first time on 7 August 1919. The individual at the controls was an English Royal Air Force (RAF) seaplane pilot who had settled in British Columbia, Arthur Vickers Rogers. The Canuck also carried a passenger. And yes, you are quite correct, my observant reading friend. That passenger was James Blaine “Jim / Jimmie” Hoffar, one of the two brothers who ran Hoffar Motor Boat. Rogers was pleased with the performance and flying characteristics of the new floatplane.
And yes, Rogers had gone up alone before accepting to take a passenger with him. Yours truly cannot say if that very first flight took place on 7 August, or earlier in the month.
In any event, John Inwood, the manager for Western Canada of the firm which was then selling war surplus Canucks throughout North America, Ericson Aircraft Limited of Toronto, Ontario, was so pleased with Rogers’ test flight report that he seemingly recommended that a great many Canucks be sent to Vancouver to be converted into floatplanes.
Yours truly would love to provide you with detailed accounts of what took place at the Hoffar Motor Boat facility after the first flight of the first Canuck floatplane. Sadly, there was diddly squat on that topic in the local press I had access to.
Incidentally, United Aircraft of British Columbia Limited of Vancouver, the firm founded around May 1919 by the American firm United Aircraft Engineering Corporation and Hoffar Motor Boat, yes, the one mentioned in the 3rd part of this article, seemingly went out of business in 1920, but back to Hoffar Motor Boat.
In fact, the first confirmation I found that the aerial activities of that firm had not been ended by a kraken released by the Greek god Zeus was a snippet published in December 1920. Said snippet stated that a Chinese Canadian referred to as Lim On or M.Y. Lim On had recently bought a Canuck which could be used as a landplane or floatplane.
That machine had been loaded on RMS Empress of Asia, an ocean liner operated by Canadian Pacific Steamships Ocean Services Limited, a subsidiary of Canadian Pacific Railway Company of Montréal, Québec, a Canadian transportation giant mentioned several / many times in our blog / bulletin / thingee since April 2018.
And yes, the Canuck was shipped to China.
And yes, again, Canadian Pacific Steamships Ocean Services was also mentioned in our unavoidable publication, in September 2022, November 2022 and January 2023 if you must know.
As the Canuck made its way to Shànghǎi, China, the young aviator stated his intention to buy 3 more Canucks in the spring of 1921, and have them shipped to China. He wanted to open a flying school in that country using machines which could be used as landplanes or floatplanes. Yours truly cannot say if either statement of intention became reality.
This being said (typed?), the fact was that Lim On briefly worked as a barnstorming pilot in China, quite probably in Hong Kong / Xiāng Gǎng, a British colony at the time. He joined the Hángkōng jú, or aviation bureau, the immediate predecessor of the Chinese air force and a body created by the military government of the republic of China, in May or June 1921.
As such, Lim On was involved in the civil war involving that rebel government set up in September 1917 by the Guómíndǎng, a nationalist political party better known as the Kuomintang, founded in August 1912 by Sūn Zhōngshān, a Chinese political philosopher / physician / revolutionary statesman better known as Sun Yat-sen, and the internationally recognised government of China.
A brief digression if I may. Lim On was the first budding aviator to slip the surly bonds of Earth, in early September 1919, aboard a Canuck operated by the Kēng Wah Aviation School, a flying school formed in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, in May or June 1919.
And yes, that school was supported / financed by the Guómíndǎng.
Sūn Zhōngshān was so pleased by what the Kēng Wah Aviation School was trying to do to that he sent it a signed silken scroll / panel, in late 1919 or early 1920.
The first instructor of the school was a Canadian aviator who had served in the Royal Flying Corps (RFC) of the British Army and the Royal Air Force (RAF) during the First World War. Douglas Fraser was soon sacked, however, after flying at very low level over the main streets of Saskatoon, in August 1919.
His replacement, Harold “Harry” Lobb, another Canadian aviator who had served in the RFC and RAF during the First World War, trained several budding aviators before a May 1920 crash in which he was so seriously injured that he never flew again. And yes, Lobb was the instructor who had trained Lim On.
The Kēng Wah Aviation School’s 3rd instructor was, you guessed it, a Canadian aviator who had served in the RFC and RAF during the First World War. His name was C. Raymond “Ray” McNeill.
McNeill having decided to become a barnstorming parachutist, the Kēng Wah Aviation School hired in August or September 1921 a Canadian airman who had served in… the RFC and RAF during the First World War. And yes, Roland John Groome was the last instructor of that school.
The primary purpose of the Kēng Wah Aviation School was apparently to train pilots who would move to China upon graduation and join the Hángkōng jú.
One had to wonder if the federal government, which did not recognise the military government of the republic of China, was aware of that detail. Indeed, it might have been led to believe that the pilots were returning home to become more or less commercial pilots.
In any event, the federal government seemingly did not interfere in the activities of the school, which closed its doors in 1922 after training more than 15 Chinese Canadian, Chinese American and Chinese aviators.
Incidentally, Hoffar Motor Boat continued to deliver boats throughout that period, of course. One only needed to think about the 15 dinghies the firm built in the later winter of 1919-20 and the spring of 1920 for the Royal Vancouver Yacht Club of… Vancouver. Those small sailboats were to be used for the training of young boys.
Mind you, the firm also built Patricia, the yacht with which the Royal Vancouver Yacht Club competed in the 1921 edition of the San Diego Sir Thomas Lipton Challenge Cup. Yes, that Sir Thomas Johnstone Lipton. And no, the Canadian yacht did not win. Sorry, but back to our story.
One of the Curtiss JN-4 converted to a floatplane by Hoffar Motor Boat Limited of Vancouver, British Columbia, circa 1921. This aircraft was owned by Aircraft Manufacturers Limited of Vancouver. CASM, 2998.
From the looks of it, Hoffar Motor Boat converted several / many Canucks into floatplanes. Several of those machines were registered in Canada. Another one was seemingly exported to the United States. In addition, a trio of Canuck floatplanes seemingly went to the Philippines, an American colony at the time.
One of the Canadian floating Canucks was a machine acquired no later than May 1922 by the Chinese Commercial Aviation School of Esquimalt, British Columbia, a flying school set up by a small group (a couple?) of relatively well-off members of the local Chinese Canadian business community, including Lee Kwong Yew and a well-known café / restaurant owner, Chan Dun.
The instructor was William Henry Brown, a British Columbian fighter pilot and ace who had served in the RFC and RAF during the First World War.
If truth be told, the Chinese Commercial Aviation School might have been created as a replacement / successor of the Kēng Wah Aviation School.
Would you believe that R.R. Bell, an individual associated with a well-known Vancouver photographer’s studio, captured some of the school’s activities on film, in June 1922? Well, he did. That footage was apparently sent to Fox Film Corporation, an American firm, and to British Pathé Limited, the British subsidiary of the French movie giant Compagnie générale des établissements Pathé Frères, for use in the newsreels of those firms, Fox News and Pathé’s Animated Gazette.
Interestingly enough, a British Columbian by the name of William S. Butterfield was then developing an English-Chinese aeronautical lexicon that Brown might have used to facilitate his conversations with his pupils.
It is worth noting that Brown was asked, in July 1922, to fly between Esquimalt and Nelson, British Columbia, to look for forest fires, and this at a time when the situation in various regions of the province was very serious indeed.
The activities of the Chinese Commercial Aviation School came to an abrupt end in February 1923, when its one and only machine, the Canuck mentioned above, by then fitted with wheels, crashed. The novice pilot seemingly walked away. By then, Brown had (completely?) trained 10 pilots.
Did the final sale of a Canuck floatplane signal the end of the aeronautical activities of Hoffar Motor Boat, you ask, my reading friend? Not necessarily, state I.
You see, in mid March 1922, rumours began to circulate to the effect that staff members of that firm would begin to build a 2-seat single engine flying boat later than month. For some reason or other, a deeps secrecy was maintained around that project. Those rumours were seemingly unfounded.
So, was that it, you ask, again, my reading friend? Not necessarily, state I. Again.
You see, Hoffar Motor Boat became Hoffar Marine Construction Company and Beeching Limited in June 1925. And no, yours truly does not fully know who Beeching was. That name seemingly referred to Charles George Beeching, a well off Canadian from Vancouver, I think.
What yours truly can confirm, however, was that Hoffar-Beeching Shipyards Limited came into existence no later than October 1926. The firm’s previous name was just too long and awkward, something its management had been aware of since day one.
While yours truly readily admits that this change in corporate identity had / has nothing to do with aviation, the following might perhaps interest you, if only briefly. To fully appreciate this story, yours truly will need to take you back in time.
Major Pedro Leandro Zanni of the Ejército Argentino. Anon., “Pedro Zanni.” El Graphico, 2 August 1924, cover.
The two Fokker C-IVs piloted in 1924 and 1925 by Major Pedro Leandro Zanni of the Ejército Argentino, Ciudad de Buenos Aires and Provincia de Buenos Aires. Anon., “Round-the-world Flights.” Flight, 10 July 1924, 444.
In July 1924, an aviator in the Ejército Argentino, in other words the Argentinian army, Major Pedro Leandro Zanni, accompanied by a mechanic, Lieutenant (?) Felipe Beltrame, left Amsterdam, Netherlands, and began a journey east which would take them around the globe. Unfortunately, the civilian version of the Netherlands Fokker C-IV single engine 2-seat military reconnaissance biplane they were aboard was all but destroyed in August as its wheels were leaving the surface of the poorly maintained airfield near Hà Nội, the capital of what was then a French colony known as the Union indochinoise and now the capital of Việt Nam.
The other C-IV purchased for the round the world flight, that one fitted with floats, eventually reached Zanni and Beltrame, presumably in Hà Nội, which allowed the two men to continue their journey, in late September or early October.
A navigator and pilot, Ensign Evaristo Velo Ipola of the Armada de la República Argentina, in other words the Argentinian navy, joined them in Japan at some point.
In late May 1925, after a late fall, a winter and an early spring spent in Japan to avoid the monsoon, train and wait for the right weather conditions, the second C-IV was seriously damaged in a crash, near Ōsaka, Japan. Zanni decided to call it quits in early June.
Mind you, any decision to continue would have been cancelled within days anyway. You see, the Ministerio de Guerra of Argentina apparently ordered Zanni to return home in mid June, and…
Are those puffs of smoke that I see coming out of your ears, my exasperated reading friend? Such a demonstration of impatience is hardly necessary.
You see, again, crates containing an otherwise unidentified Fokker aircraft, probably a C-IV, apparently had arrived in Vancouver no later then February 1925. At the time, Zanni planned to fly that aircraft to San Francisco, California, and then cross the United States. That journey would then be followed by a transatlantic flight, presumably not a non stop flight, a flight which would presumably have begun in Newfoundland. As we both know by now, neither of those flights ever took place. The aircraft, however, was still in Vancouver, in its crates, in July 1927.
It was shortly before that time that the C-IV caught the eye of the secretary-treasurer of a more or less unknown firm, Union Trading Company of Vancouver, a gentleman who happened to be a Canadian fighter pilot educated at least in part in British Columbia, a pilot who had served in the RFC and RAF during the First World War.
You see, George Curzon Osbert Usborne wanted to take part in the Dole Air Race, a 3 850 or so kilometre (2 400 or so miles) competition between Oakland, California, and Honolulu, Territory of Hawaii, scheduled to take place in August 1927.
Incidentally, the Dole in Dole Air Race was James Drummond Dole, an American industrialist also known as the “Pineapple King.” And yes, his Hawaiian Pineapple Company eventually became today’s Dole Public Limited Company, an Irish, yes, yes, Irish, agricultural multinational firm, but I digress.
Once in Honolulu, Usborne would set off toward Australia, his true goal, after a well-deserved rest of course. And no, no one had yet tried to cover the 12 000 or so kilometres (7 500 or so miles) which separated and still separate North America from Australia.
I did mention that Usborne was planning to do all of that alone, did I not?
Usborne bought the C-IV quickly, pretty much sight unseen. Given that it had been shipped to Canada under custom bond, the aircraft was released by the good people of the Department of National Revenue on condition that it fly out of Canada within the next 3 months.
Very much aware that the fuel capacity and range of his aircraft were insufficient to cover the distance between the American continent and the Territory of Hawaii, Usborne initially thought that extra fuel tanks could be fitted within its upper wing. When the C-IV was uncrated, however, he realised that said wing was not thick enough to allow the installation of the large fuel tanks he would need to make the flight. The C-IV would require an entirely new upper wing. Bummer.
Time being of the essence, Usborne would not have the, err, time to order a new wing from Fokker Aircraft Corporation of America, an American firm which was seemingly a subsidiary of Naamloze Vennootschap Nederlandsche Vliegtuigenfabriek, the Netherlands firm run at the time by Antonij Herman Gerard “Anthony / Tony” Fokker, a world-famous Netherlands aviation pioneer / entrepreneur as well as aircraft manufacturer / designer mentioned in a February 2021 issue of our stunning blog / bulletin / thingee.
Usborne then contacted Boeing Airplane Company, a very well-known firm which was geographically closer, being in Seattle, Washington, but the latter was too busy to be of help. The upper wing of the C-IV would have to be constructed by the staff of Hoffar Motor Boat, with the help / technical assistance of some Boeing Airplane employees.
Usborne’s hopes to take part in and win the Dole Air Race suffered a fatal blow, however, when the organising committee informed him that he would need to take off from Oakland like all the other competitors. I know, I know. Vancouver was not / is not that far from Oakland, only 1 275 or so kilometres (790 or so miles) in fact. So, why fatal?
A possibility comes to mind. You see, yours truly wonders if Usborne’s efforts to find the dough needed to pay for the new wing did not eventually prove insufficient.
In any event, Usborne’s failure to attend the start of the race might have been a blessing in disguise. You see, 2 of the 8 aircraft present at the start of the Dole Derby, as the Dole Air Race was also called, crashed on take off, 1 was forced to return and 3 were lost at sea. Only 2 aircraft reached the Territory of Hawaii. All in all, 7 participants died during the race.
How did Usborne’s flight to the Territory of Hawaii and Australia go, you ask, my intrigued reading friend? Well, the sad truth was that he did not make the attempt. Indeed, without the new wing with its extra fuel tanks, attempting that epic flight would have been impossible.
Could yours truly impose upon you with a brief digression which involved the forlorn C-IV? Yes, a brief one.
It so happened that an admired, popular and wealthy, I think, English inventor / engineer / adventurer and passionate amateur golfer by the name of Francis Arthur Sutton bought that aircraft in August or September 1927. And yes, “One Arm Sutton,’ as he was often called, was definitely an adventurer.
After two years of engineering studies in university, he had helped to build railway lines in Paraguay and Argentina, before moving to Mexico where he had worked in the oil industry. He had fought during the First World War and lost part of his right arm before helping to perfect the Stokes’ Trench Howitzer 3-inch Mark I, the first practical example of one of the deadliest weapons of the 20th century, the infantry mortar. He had looked for gold and sold both shoes and horseshoes in Siberia, Russian Socialist Federative Soviet Republic, near the Chinese border, in 1919-21.
That smooth talking and charismatic enemy of the proletariat (Hello, EP!) had convinced the leadership of the Bolshevik forces which took over the area in 1921 not to put him in front of a firing squad. Would you believe that he had helped to repair a paddlewheel riverboat that said Bolsheviks briefly used as a warship?
Before I forget, the Bolsheviks in question were members of the Rossiyskaya sotsial-demokraticheskaya rabochaya partiya, or Russian social democratic labour party, which had seized power in Petrograd, Russian Republic, in November 1917.
Aware that the Bolsheviks did not trust him all that much, Sutton had crossed the border into China where he had become an advisor and director of munitions production for one of the warlords who had carved up the Chinese territory. He had later joined the entourage of a far more important warlord. Indeed, would you believe that Sutton had become a major general in the army of Marshall Zhān Gzuòlín? I kid you not.
Aware, also, that working for a ruthless Chinese warlord might not be conducive to a happy retirement, Sutton arrived in British Columbia in June 1927. He soon became intrigued by the idea of looking for gold in a big way in the Cariboo River region of British Columbia.
Sutton soon came up with another idea, however, an idea which captivated the mind of many settlers and potential investors: the acceleration of the development of the Peace River region of northern British Colombia and Alberta via the construction of a railway line which would be linked to a railway line which ended in Vancouver.
And yes, such a railway line had been requested by Peace River region settlers since at least 1925, if not earlier.
Either before or after buying the C-IV, and having it thoroughly overhauled, Sutton hired a well-known Canadian fighter pilot who had served in the RFC and RAF during the First World War, one of the great fighter aces of that conflict in fact, Donald Roderick MacLaren.
And yes, Sutton began the process which would lead to the proper registration of the C-IV in Canada. That way, he could use it to figure out where to build the railway line of his dreams.
Informed that the C-IV was too heavy or awkward to operate in the interior of British Columbia or Alberta, however, Sutton decided to sell it. An unknown aviator flew the aircraft to the United States in November 1927, before the Canadian registration process could be completed. What happened to the C-IV after that point was / is a mystery.
At least for me.
What happened to the railway line project, you ask, my polite reading friend who has something else to do? Well, from the looks of it, Sutton seemingly failed to interest a sufficient number of (British?) investors in his project. His railway line was not built.
Indeed, the rail link between the Peace River region and Vancouver was completed only in 1958.
And no, that was not a brief digression. Sorry.
So, you ask, my still intrigued reading friend, was the work proposed for the C-IV the last aeronautical act envisioned by Hoffar-Beeching Shipyards? Well, I think so but that was not / is not the end of the story, however.
You see, in late April 1929, the management of Hoffar-Beeching Shipyards announced that this firm would soon be taken over by Boeing Airplane. Boeing Aircraft of Canada Limited was incorporated in late May, but that is another story.
Before we part company, however, yours truly would indeed be remiss if I did not point out that the first aerial fire detection patrol performed in Canada was performed in Québec, near Lac-à-la Tortue, in early July 1919 by Stuart Graham, an American Canadian pilot who had served in the RNAS and RAF during the First World War. That flight was performed under the aegis of the St. Maurice Fire Protective Association of Trois-Rivières, Québec.
The flying machine used for that historic flight was a Curtiss HS-2L single engine flying boat whose remains can be seen in the stunning and astounding Canada Aviation and Space Museum, in Ottawa, Ontario.
Henry Stonestreet Hoffar eventually became President of Boeing Aircraft of Canada. He retired in 1944 and died in April 1978, at the age of 89. James Blaine Hoffar, on the other hand, became the founding president of a marine engine distributing firm founded no later than 1925, Hoffars Limited of Vancouver. He died in February 1954, at the age of 63.
Inactive for some time, Boeing Aircraft of Canada was officially liquidated around May 1949.
See ya later.
Rénald Fortier
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