Model radio-controlled ones, that is. While walking home today I ran across two guys flying their planes: a Beech Staggerwing biplane, a de Havilland Canada Beaver and a Supermarine Spitfire, buzzing them over the empty fields of what is now Lansdowne Middle School.
It has been a long time since 1910 when planes first took off at Lansdowne Field, which went on to become the first commercially licensed airfield in BC in 1928. Victoria actually has a rich aviation history, with the first Canadian-built plane built by William Wallace Gibson, the formation of the Victoria Aero Club (now the Victoria Flying Club) in 1928, and the training of pilots at the Pat Bay airport (now Victoria International Airport ) in the Second World War. Most UVic students would probably be shocked to learn that what is now the UVic campus might have become an airport in 1946. For more information, the Canadian Museum of Flight in Langley has a great page dedicated to the history of flight in BC.
