Beavering on

Now 70 years after first flight the Beaver continues to operate and thrive in numbers around the globe

Leading up to the first flight in 1947, the Beaver design was greatly influenced by the bush pilots who asked that a new bush plane would have so many of the things their existing aircraft types did not.

“They wanted an aircraft with good STOL performance, to allow operation from small lakes and short remote air strips. They needed an aircraft that could carry heavy, bulky loads,” Canadian Photographer and Beaver expert John Olafson observes.