The aircraft was found last year by Capt Walter Workman, a primary flying instructor with the 3 Canadian Forces Flying Training School, while surveying helicopter training areas near Portage la Prairie Southport Airport. While the identity of the airframe – a 1940 Fairchild-Canada license-built version of the Bristol Blenheim Mk.IV – remains unknown at the time of writing, it is believed the aircraft was purchased in 1946 from RCAF Station McDonald, about 10 miles northwest of Portage la Prairie, and towed to its final resting site with the wings still attached. MacDonald was formerly the home of the RCAF’s No. 3 Bombing & Gunnery School, a unit attached to the British Commonwealth Air Training Plan, suggesting the aircraft is a Mk.IVT multi-purpose trainer.
With the parts removed and transported to the CATPM’s facility in the nearby town of Brandon for storage, museum volunteer and Flying Committee chair Jeff Bell noted the donation would “add considerably to our Bolingbroke project in the future.”
