Wop May - Postwar Career

Postwar Career

After returning to Edmonton at the end of the war, May and his brother rented a Curtiss JN-4 Jenny and started May Airplanes Ltd., opening Canada's first airfield (or aeroport) in a rented pasture in the neighborhood now known as Mayfield. They appeared at various functions during 1919, and would now be considered to be one of the first barnstorming companies in the world.

In September May Aeroplanes was hired by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) during their manhunt for John Larson, wanted on two counts of murder and a break-in. May flew Detective James Campbell to the small town of Edson, and Larson was caught soon thereafter. They were soon joined by George Gorman to become May-Gorman Airplanes Ltd. and took delivery of another Jenny (built by Standard Aircraft) in which George delivered the Edmonton Journal newspaper to Wetaskiwin, 45 miles south of Edmonton.

May and Gorman were hired by Imperial Oil Limited to fly two Junkers airplanes, equipped with skis, from New York to Edmonton in early 1921. Imperial Oil planned to fly these planes into the Northwest Territories to service its proposed oil developments along the Mackenzie River at what later became known as Norman Wells. In March, Gorman and Elmer Fullerton flew these two planes across the 60th parallel (the first ever flight into the NWT) into the Canadian sub arctic proving that aircraft could operate in sub-zero temperatures. This was the start of aerial exploration in the most distant parts of Canada.

In 1924 the business failed, and May married Violet "Vi" Bode in November. He decided to get a "real" job, joining National Cash Register in Dayton, Ohio where he went for training. While working on a lathe he was hit in the eye by a shard of steel, and from then until 1938 he began slowly going blind. Convinced that flying really was his calling, he formed the Edmonton and North Alberta Flying Club in 1927, and became a flight instructor.