A historic Fokker F28-1000 is being restored at the Lethbridge Airport by the Time Air Historical Society. (File photo: LNN)

By Joel Mendelson

Group advocating for aviation exhibit in Lethbridge

May 6, 2024 | 12:04 PM

LETHBRIDGE, AB – A local group is trying to establish a world-class aviation museum.

The Time Air Historical Society is responsible for bringing a Fokker F28-1000 back to Lethbridge. The 1976 edition passenger jet plane is 85 feet long and seats 65 passengers.

Time Air was an airline in Canada founded in 1966, originally named Lethbridge Air Service, later transitioning to Time Airways Ltd. before that name was shortened to Time Air Ltd. The company merged with Ontario Express in 1993 to form Canadian Regional Airlines.

Rik Barry is the chairman of the Society. He explains that they would like this to be an interactive experience.

“The long term goal is for us to establish an aviation museum, which we prefer to call a ‘history and events centre’. We certainly want this not to be something that you just walk around the outside and go, ‘it’s a pretty plane’”.

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Barry continues, “Whether fully restored, partially restored, or as-is, what we want to be able to do is have the public be able to enjoy the entire aircraft. That means opening the doors, letting people go into the cabin, letting people go into the cockpit. If they want to see how to load luggage, you can certainly crawl into the cargo hold.”

The process of getting the plane from Saskatoon to Lethbridge was quite difficult, according to Barry. They had to disassemble the plane in order to haul it here, which he says is more complex than reading a manual.

“There are no written instructions from A to Z for how to take these aircraft apart. Most of what you have for any of the manuals typically only had information on if there was a crash landing, some sort of incident at the airport,” Barry remarks.

“We had to physically figure out how to do this. To take off the wings, there are over 300 bolts that are between the wing-box and the wing. You have to crawl into an entry that is barely as wide as a persons’ shoulder squared, and then the wing-box itself is under two-feet tall.”

The Society aims to bring an additional 13 Time Air planes to Lethbridge for the centre, which will then have all 14 models of aircraft that the company flew.

Pictured is another F28-1000 of Canadian Regional Airlines. This aircraft is now located on a farm in Innisfail, Alberta. (Photo supplied by Rik Barry)

Additionally, Barry explains that each plane will display all of the airlines and logos that they flew under in order to demonstrate the complete story of each machine.

“Usually when you look at a museum piece, it’s a snapshot of a specific time. And although we will have that snapshot, we want to celebrate the full history of every aircraft.”

READ MORE: Lethbridge News Now.

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