Table of Contents - Griffin Books

Chapter 2

G-CY REGISTER

John Alexander Griffin - 1922-2008 - Liberator Pilot, Aviation Historian, Author, Former Canadian Aviation History Society President

The G-CY register of state-owned aircraft is Canada's roster of original military aircraft which subsequently became the equipment of the Royal Canadian Air Force. The term military is somewhat misleading, because the early development of the force was largely devoted to a wide variety of highly successful natural resource development and protection activities, with only minimal emphasis given to the more conventional service flying techniques.

This early concentration on non-military duties was in keeping with the system used to identify state-owned aircraft. The British Government allocated a block from its civil register, G-CYAA to G-CYZZ for the identification of Air Board Aircraft. As the aircraft in the Imperial Gift were brought on charge they carried the full five letter display above and below on the wings and on both sides of the fuselage as detailed in Canadian Air Regulations, 1920. The traditional roundels and rudder stripes were not carried except occasionally when roundels were not painted out on the upper wing top surfaces. The military look came with adoption of the full title Royal Canadian Air Force, for it was only then that the roundels and rudder stripes were applied and the five letter identity was reduced to the last two significant letters. Issues were made from the register up to G-CYHD at which time the major re-organization of 1 July 1927 separated the RCAF from the Civil Government Air Operations and both organizations ceased to be a part of the now defunct Air Board and instead reported to the Deputy Minister, Department of National Defence.

Though separate in role and budget, the RCAF provided the air crew to fly CGAO commitments from its many far-flung bases of operations across the Dominion. One of the by-products of the new structure was the isolation of the RCAF to a more military role for the first time since its inception. The Armstrong Whitworth Atlas and Siskin aircraft were the forerunners of many purely military aircraft to be acquired. The military role also had its impact on the identification of aircraft and so it was that the numerical register was opened in January 1928. Equipment was divided up and where used for training or service flying, numerical registrations were assigned. Aircraft which remained on CGAO operations were left in the G-CY register and new acquisitions were assigned registrations from the back of the register forward. Thus G-CYZZ was issued by the CGAO after closing the front of the block at G-CYHD.

Early RCAF numerical assignments picked up the RCAF's training aircraft and all of their new conversions and acquisi- tions starting very simply with the single numeral 1.

CGAO aircraft continued to wear roundels and rudder stripes in addition to the last two letters of their registration until the depression of 1929 when they were removed from aircraft engaged on projects on behalf of the Provinces where such activities were paid for by the Province served. In 1932, financial obligations necessitated combining the RCAF and CGAO activities under the administration of the RCAF and this unspectacular event brought an end to issues in what had become the CGAO's G-CY register. Though the aircraft continued to wear the letters assigned they were used in whatever capacity they could best serve under the RCAF's greatly curtailed budget and activities. The impending threat of war in the summer of 1939 spelled the final end to the G-CY register when on 30 June 1939 an instruction was issued to renumber the total inventory of the RCAF. JA Griffin et al 1968