News
Rebel With a Cause

As a youngster growing up in the shadow of what is now Pearson
International Airport, I can remember going to sleep at night to the
sounds of large radial-engine aircraft rumbling overhead. If I was
lucky enough to catch a glimpse out the window, I could see the glow of
the exhaust stacks as the old workhorse lumbered overhead.

As
soon as I could drive, I spent many hours sitting around the ramp at
the north end of the airport watching the DC-3, DC-4 and Beech 18
activity on the Millard Air ramp. One day I even stopped by and asked
Mr. Millard if I could look around a bit. He went me one further, and
dropped what he was doing to conduct the tour himself.

I learned
a lot that day about round engine aircraft and the operations behind
them. I was also impressed by the fact that a businessman would stop
and take the time to introduce a young kid to the world of aviation.
Later I learned that this was nothing unusual for Carl. He always makes
time for others – especially young folks who are just getting into the
business.

When you walk up the stairs today and into Carl
Millard’s office, it is like entering one of those museum rooms
representing a time from the past. No computers. The shag carpet is
still there (although my wife tells me that is all the rage again now)
and the furniture could pass for a trendy art deco treatment. A
collection of awards, photos and personal memories that will keep you
staring for hours adorns the walls. Everywhere you look there is little
piece of Carl and his life. And don’t even mention retirement. The word
does not exist in his vocabulary. Even Hilda, his trusted office
manager, will tell you that she has been with the firm for 45 years and
at one time was the flight attendant on their DC-3 trips. Despite the
antiquity, it all works. They know what is where and how things need to
be done. After all, this time it is not business so much as a
lifestyle. And the most modern office addition between the two of them
is a fax machine. Hilda says that her typewriter does a better job than
computers and works when the power goes out!

Just about to turn
92, Carl is in the office and very much involved with his business each
and every day. He still shows the determination and enterprising spirit
that drove his firm to many industry firsts. Millard has earned the
right to be recognized as one of this nation’s true aviation pioneers.
Even a car accident and stay in hospital a few months ago has not
stopped him. His walk is a bit slower, but he remembers and recalls
with accuracy the very fine details of events and issues that many
would have long since forgotten – yet he is well up to date on most
aspects of the aviation community today, being an avid reader of
various aviation journals and texts.

Nearly everyone around
Toronto who is involved with aviation has some sort of Carl Millard
story to tell. Over the years he has been responsible for giving many a
young pilot or engineer their first break into the business. In
addition to training his own staff, Millard was one of the first in
Canada to offer the opportunity for pilots to pay for and earn a rating
on his type of aircraft. “I did all the training myself,” he says.
“From the Beech 18s through to the DC- 3s, DC-4s and even the smaller
aircraft – I was the one who taught them and checked them. I even was
asked by Transport Canada once to train and check one of their pilots –
so they could then check us. I told them to send someone qualified
instead.”

Any conversation with Carl and you quickly come to
understand why the label “rebel” fits. Over the years his air carrier
business flew everything from people to horses and large marine mammals
to parts and supplies. He always developed unique and workable ways for
the goods or people handled to be serviced properly. “The racehorse
used to just wander up the ramp we built,” he says. “And we found that
they preferred travelling by air – it was less bumpy than their road
trailers.”

While the OC assigned to Millard Air has been
retired, the business is still alive today selling aircraft and parts.
At its peak in the 1970s, Millard operated 21 aircraft (and owned more
on top of that) and employed some 25 staff (including pilots). There
are still six aircraft owned by the firm today: three DC-4s – one in
open storage at Brantford and two at Pearson – and three Piper Navajos,
which are also kept at YYZ.

Millard comes by his pioneer spirit
naturally. By the age of 18, the young Carl – a direct descendant of
Chief Joseph Brant – had started his first business. It was a grist
mill and feed store in his rural home town of Ingersoll, Ontario. After
three years he had saved enough money for flying lessons and bought his
first aircraft even before his first solo flight. Tom Williams – a
First World War Canadian fighter pilot and holder of one of the
earliest issued Canadian pilot’s licences – was his instructor back
then. He continued to run the mill and feed business for another five
years, during which he worked to upgrade his piloting skills.

Carl’s
first airline flying job came in 1940 working for Trans-Canada Air
Lines “You had to have a commercial ticket to get hired – and then they
trained you from there,” he says. His 15-year tenure (he was a captain
for 14 of those years) with the airline started on Lockheed 14s, then
progressed to Lodestars, DC- 3s and finally North Stars. “I have a
million miles under my belt in the North Star,” he proudly states.
Logged time as pilot in command is something that Carl is not lacking –
having accumulated 41,000 hours all told in his flying career. “At
Millard Air I have been type rated in everything that we operated.”

In
1954, Carl started his own aviation business. Beginning with a Piper
Apache, Millard became one of the first air charter operators in
Canada. It was in 1956 that Millard Air was formally incorporated as a
family business with Carl as president, his wife, Della, as
secretary-treasurer and son, Wayne, as vice-president. (While Della has
long since passed on, Wayne is still very much part of the business
today.) By 1957 the first of many Beech 18s arrived and the firm was on
its way to becoming a significant provider of charter service for
everything from people to racehorses and auto parts. Eventually, the
carrier was licensed to fly throughout North America, Mexico, South
America, the Caribbean and the British West Indies as well as Bermuda.
Among its many memorable achievements were flying the Toronto Symphony
Orchestra on its tour of Arctic Canada (including the stage),
transporting fighting equipment to northern Ontario during the
devastating forest fires of 1968 and even flying to help in mapping the
Atlantic Ocean.

In 1961 Millard set the airport on notice that
he was playing for the long term when he purchased the old Toronto
Flying Club hangars and had them moved to what became known as the
‘North Side’ of the airport. “Because of the size of the hangars, we
had to move them across the airfield. The roads certainly would not do
and even the runways were not big enough. Some of the trucks and wheel
sets actually ran off the hard ground onto the grass and we broke at
least one axle. Regardless, once we started the move we had to continue
until we cleared the active flight areas.” Carl also noted that once
the hangars were moved to the north end, they set the new foundations
five feet higher above the ground than they were before to provide
clearance for larger aircraft. In the years to come, Millard Air even
took on the role of FBO (taking over the business from Innotech),
becoming the Shell Aviation service provider at YYZ. It offered one of
the first executive lounge/FBO service facilities at Pearson and stayed
active in the business for many years.

Over time, Millard has
been responsible for many industry-first STCs and aircraft refinements.
“We operated a lot of DC-3s over the years and found many ways to make
them work better. Having flown those aircraft for so long, I am really
proud of the fact that we were the first to make a DC-3 cabin really
warm in the winter,” he says. “We redesigned and modified the heating
system so that it actually did the job – and as anyone who has flown in
a DC-3 will tell you, that made a lot of people happy.”

As
recently as 12 years ago, Millard started a program to redefine service
life for the Piper Navajo. Among the mods developed for this aircraft,
one involved removing the turbocharging system from the engines and
redirecting hot air into the engine. This greatly enhanced performance.
The interior also came in for a significant change complete with seats
that were newly designed by Millard Air engineers. The end result is an
aircraft with improved performance, enhanced cabin capabilities and a
new lease on useful service to smaller carriers. The mod is still
actively for sale and available from Millard Air. Even today, it remain
one of the best sources for DC-3 and DC-4 parts – not to mention the
significant brain-trust it holds on everything to do with operating
these old aircraft.

Millard has always garnered the attention of
colleagues and industry officials – wanted or not. In one instance, he
bought the first – and perhaps only – Hansa Jet ever to fly in Canada.
The Hansa was a first-generation corporate aircraft developed by MBB in
Germany during the mid-1960s. When they ran into certification problems
in Canada, Millard trudged on and pressed it into service anyway.
Eventually Transport Canada won and the aircraft was sold, ultimately
being replaced by a Citation 500. On another occasion, when engaged to
move some sea mammals from Mexico to Niagara, Millard Air ran into
problems with US authorities for improper importation to the US. From
Millard’s standpoint they were not importing them to the US – just
passing through on the way to Canada. In the end it was all sorted out
– but not before hitting the media. During air traffic controller and
national postal strikes, it was Millard Air that continued to fly the
mail across Canada and make every effort to keep things moving.

One
of Millard Air’s final Transport Canada stand-offs – and perhaps the
one that signalled the beginning of the decline of its active air
service operations – occurred when all aircraft aviation radios were
changed to 720-channel service in the 1980s. Millard soldiered on as
long as possible, resisting a costly fleet refit that would affect all
the aircraft he operated at the time. In the end, he could fight no
longer and technology requirements of the day caught the operator and
his older equipment up. While this may or may not have been the
beginning of the end, several of the workhorses went on the open sales
market, and ever since Millard Air has slowly been selling off its once
proud fleet.

Even as recently as last year, everyone on the
north side of Pearson jumped and hit the phones one afternoon. The
reason? Carl was seen running up and taxiing one of his DC- 4s around
the ramp. Was he just testing to see who was watching? So even today –
when Carl Millard does something – people still take notice and talk
about it. And as for how long he plans to be around, he says that his
current space lease runs out in 2011. Carl states flatly that if he
does not like what is happening at Pearson then, he can always pick his
hangars up and move them somewhere else. And knowing the man involved –
he is fully capable of doing it too!

Thanks, Carl, for giving many of us a start and helping develop and evolve our industry.