photo

Serial Number

 14

Registration

 C-FODJ

Model

 DHC-3

Year of Manufacture

 1953

Engine

 Piston

Location

 Red Lake, Ontario

 

 

Owner

 Green Airways Ltd

Address

 Box 331, Red Lake, Ontario P0V 2M0

Contact / Link

 

Notes

 

Otter number 14 was the first Otter delivered to the Ontario Provincial Air Service, as CF-ODJ on 8th May 1953, registered to the Department of Lands & Forests. It gave the Service its first experience of changing an engine in the field. In July of that year, an unserviceable engine had to be changed when ODJ was working from a remote stretch of the Albany River. Poles had to be flown to the site to create an 'A' frame pulley hoist to change the engine. Despite this early difficulty, for an incredible 32 years it went on to faithfully service the Province of Ontario without incident, the registration being changed to C-FODJ when it was re-registered to the Province of Ontario, Ministry of Natural Resources in September '72.

ODJ was used for the same purposes as the other Ontario Government Otters (as described for Otter 13) but in addition ODJ was used extensively for aerial photography, and is believed to have been the only Otter in the world with an extra porthole behind the rear door to facilitate photography. When the Ontario Otters were disposed of during the mid 1980s, ODJ was sold, its new owners being Green Airways Ltd of Red Lake, Ontario, to whom the Otter was registered in November 1985.

With its new owners it continued to provide a full range of bush services, flying out of Red Lake on floats during the summer and on wheel-skis in winter. C-FODJ has been re-engined with the Polish PZL 1,000 hp engine, as has Green Airways other Otter C-FLEA (286). The work on ODJ was carried out by Airtech Canada at their Peterborough, Ontario facility during January/February 1995.

History courtesy of Karl E Hayes from DHC-3 Otter: A History (2005)