Article

Joseph Pierre Roméo Vachon

Published Online May 26, 2008

Last Edited July 24, 2015

Joseph Pierre Roméo Vachon, pilot, airline executive (b at Ste-Marie-de-la-Beauce, Qué 29 June 1898; d at Ottawa 17 Dec 1954). After service in the RCNVR during WWI, Vachon joined Laurentide Air Service in 1921 and in 1924-25 performed an aerial survey of Québec's North Shore.

Joseph Pierre Roméo Vachon

Joseph Pierre Roméo Vachon, pilot, airline executive (b at Ste-Marie-de-la-Beauce, Qué 29 June 1898; d at Ottawa 17 Dec 1954). After service in the RCNVR during WWI, Vachon joined Laurentide Air Service in 1921 and in 1924-25 performed an aerial survey of Québec's North Shore. After flying with the Ontario Provincial Air Service (1925-27), he was hired by Canadian Airways to open an airmail route along the North Shore, work for which he was awarded the MCKEE TROPHY in 1937. In 1938 he joined TRANS-CANADA AIRLINES as deputy manager of the eastern division, and he was named a member of the federal Air Transport Commission on its creation in 1944. In 1960 a park named for him was laid out on the site of Québec City's first airfield, and in 1968 the Vachon Award was created to honour outstanding contributions to aeronautical engineering in Canada.