Alexander John Lilly

Alexander John (Al) Lilly was born in Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan, on July 19, 1910. He commenced flying lessons in the late 1920’s and dropped out of university to pursue a career in aviation.

In 1932 he joined the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) and while posted to the detachment at Meadow Lake, Saskatchewan, he advocated the use of ski or float equipped aircraft to replace dog-teams and canoes. He was successful in his advocacy, leading the RCMP and others to increase their use of the bush plane. Although he attempted to continue his flying training while at Meadow Lake by scheduling his holidays to take lessons, the shortage of Department of Transport inspectors to give him his test frustrated his efforts.

He welcomed a transfer too Moncton, New Brunswick, but the Moncton airport was inactive when he arrived, forcing him to drive 100 miles (160 km) to St. John for lessons. Because of frequent fog at St. John, he arranged to hire a de Havilland Moth in order to fly out of the Moncton Airport and Flying Club. This move led to the reopening of the Moncton Flying Club, which remains operational today. Lilly obtained his Commercial Pilot’s Licence while in Moncton. The RCMP transferred him to headquarters in Ottawa, but since this removed him from flying opportunities, he resigned and went to England to join Imperial Airways, the predecessor of British Overseas Airways Corporation (BOAC).

When World War II broke out, Lilly returned to the Moncton Airport as the Chief Flying Instructor at the British Commonwealth Air Training Plan (BCATP) station. After teaching instructors and new students for a year, he was persuaded to join Ferry Command in Montreal. He was the first on Ferry Command to deliver six Lockheed Hudson aircraft to Prestwick, Scotland. He was among the first to fly supplies in North Africa in a stripped down Consolidated B-24 Liberator. The route took him to West Palm Beach, Florida, across the South Atlantic from Brazil to Liberia, south to Accra and north from there to Cairo. The latter part of the trip was flown over thousands of miles of unmapped desert. Lilly was appointed Chief Test Pilot for Ferry Command, a job which required the flying of Lockheed Hudsons and Venturas, Douglas A-20 Bostons, North American B-25’s, Douglas C-47 Dakotas, B-24 Liberators, Consolidated Catalinas, Boeing B-17’s, Avro Lancasters and de Havilland Mosquitos.

In June of 1946 Lilly was hired by Canadair in Montreal, Quebec, as a test pilot. On September 14th he and co-pilot R.J. Baker  flew a ‘North Star’ from Montreal to Vancouver to test its long distance performance. The North Star was modified from the Douglas-built C-54 transport, and it became known as the DC-4M. Their passengers included the Hon. C.D. Howe, founder of Trans-Canada Airlines. R. J. Baker was test pilot for TCA on loan to Canadair as part of the conversion design team on this aircraft. Lilly was test pilot on this aircraft for a year, demonstrating it in the United Kingdom, Switzerland, Czechoslovakia, Holland, and Denmark. BOAC purchased twenty-two North Stars, renaming them Argonauts.

In 1950 Lilly was sent to North American Aviation’s plant in California for familiarization flights on the F-86 Sabre fighter which Canadair was to build under licence. Canadair was successful in selling this aircraft to several countries in addition to sales of more than 300 within Canada. Lilly was responsible for the training and checking out of pilots on the F-86 in Columbia, South Africa and West Germany.

On August 8, 1950, Al Lilly flew the first Canadian-manufactured F-86 Sabre jet at Dorval, Quebec. On this flight he became the first in Canada to exceed the speed of sound. He accomplished this by putting the F-86 into a steep dive, an act that was considered very dangerous at the time.