The Canadair CL-44 was a Canadian built aircraft that was based on the Bristol Britannia. It was lengthened by 3.75 meters over the Britannia 300 and featured other modifications such as a hinged tail for cargo operators. Military people may know the plane from its Royal Canadian Air Force designation, the CC-106 Yukon.
Cartierville Airport in Saint-Laurent, Quebec hosted the first flight on 16 November 1959. Powered by four Rolls-Royce Tyne turboprops, the CL-44 featured a range of 8,993 kilometres and could carry up to 189 passengers or 29,959 kilograms of cargo.
Canadair CL-44 Video
Following on from the last video about the Antonov An-140, this time we head over to Canada for a look at the Canadair CL-44. This excellent presentation runs for just under 10 minutes and gives a decent overview of the aircraft and what it could do.
Illustrated with decent pictures as well as interesting video selections, it’s pretty fascinating. The swing tail certainly stands out as the most unusual feature, making the aircraft popular as a cargo carrier.
In Service with Loftleiðir
The only airline operator was Iceland’s Loftleiðir, which picked up some unsold airframes that Canadair was trying to offload. Their four Canadair CL-44D4-8 aircraft were all converted to the CL-44J standard. This was at the request of the Icelandic airline, who asked for the aircraft to be stretched to carry more passengers. They also operated one CL-44D4-2 that remained unconverted.
With 3.07m added ahead of the wings and 1.55m aft, the CL-44J became the largest aircraft operating across the Atlantic, with a capacity of 189 passengers. In an attempt to appeal to the US market, the airline called the plane the Rolls-Royce 400 PropJet as nobody knew what a Canadair CL-44 was.
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- The aircraft in service with Loftleiðir Icelandic.
The cheap fares between USA and Europe offered by Icelandic Airlines (as they were sometimes known) were popular with college students in the USA, to the extent that the airline marketed the services as hippie flights. Success meant other airlines took notice, and airports decided not to allow the airline to use the plane at full capacity. It was restricted to 160 passengers, the same amount as their Douglas DC-6s, at all airports in Europe except Luxembourg.
Loftleiðir took delivery of the plane in May 1964, while the last left the fleet in February 1972. An interesting fact is the Canadair CL-44 was the first airliner with enclosed overhead bins, which is common today. You can see a fantastic film here from November 1966 of a Loftleidir flight to New York, with the first 10 minutes on the CL-44.
Overall Thoughts
The Canadair CL-44 was primarily operated by the Royal Canadian Air Force and cargo carriers such as Flying Tigers, Seaboard World Airlines and Slick Airways. Only Loftleiðir operated it in regular passenger service, with their aircraft being converted to cargo afterwards.
Just 39 aircraft were produced in total with the last, the Conroy Skymonster (a Guppy conversion of a CL-44), flying in 1999. That ended the interesting history of the aircraft.
Did you ever fly on board a Loftleiðir CL-44 back in the late 1960s? What was that like? Thank you for reading and if you have any comments or questions, please leave them below.
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Featured image by Halldor Gudmundsson on Airliners.net.
Ground image via Icelandair.
With thanks to Yesterday’s Airlines.
Flew Loftleidir CL44 in 1969 at age 15. My father took the family to the UK and we flew JFK to Keflavik (to refuel) to Glasgow. Wasn’t aware it was called ‘hippy air” but in retrospect not surprised my Dad found a cheap ticket. Didn’t fly overseas again until 1977 so not much to compare with.
Fantastic you got to experience that though, not many people can say they did really. Thanks for the comment!
Not sure if I’ve seen one or not. When playing “Airline Empires” in a world where the aircraft is available I always order some for the capacity/range/short runway performance. Only problem is as the planes age there is no good replacement for them so I usually shut the airline down and move to a new world. Geeky like that.
Those kind of games are always good fun! There is one at airlinesimulation.com that I have played, though it seems they are in a transition phase. The game was called Airline 5 that I had, but looking at the site, it seems they were up to 7 and are developing 8. Always good fun!
“airports decided not to allow the airline to use the plane at full capacity.” It’s crazy to see the restrictions that used to be in place to benefit the airlines at the expense of the customer. I vaguely recall something about SAS having some spat with IATA over what food SAS could serve. Kudos to Juan Trippe for pushing for the 747 so that the masses could fly.
Yes, there are always ways that nations and airlines can stifle competition, that’s for sure. It was certainly interesting to me to see the capacity restriction. Who needs a free market, eh? Crazy really.