George Bayliss Lothian was born on November 1909 at Vancouver, where he attended school. He commenced flying at the Aero Club of British Columbia in 1929, and then joined the staff of the newly opened Vancouver Airport for a year. Until 1936 he flew locally as a commercial pilot and instructor, and with Canadian Airways as a flying-boat pilot and crewmember.
When Trans Canada Airlines was formed in 1937, he became one of their first pilots and a member of a small group who pioneered the Rocky Mountain route between Lethbridge and Vancouver. In 1941 he was seconded from TCA to the North Atlantic Ferry Command, delivering bombers from Montreal to the United Kingdom, across the North Atlantic Ocean. He became the first Canadian pilot to complete 100 air crossings of the North Atlantic. He became check pilot and eventually chief pilot of this unit, returning to Trans Canada after the war.
In 1952 he was named Director of Flight Standards for Trans Canada Air Lines, (later Air Canada). As senior pilot on the North Atlantic he won the trans-Atlantic speed record three times and completed his career with over 1,000 Atlantic crossing. He was named chairman of the International Air Transport Committee for Pilot Training and Flight Standards. When he retired from Air Canada in 1968 he had logged over 21,000 as pilot in command of many different piston and jet transport aircraft. He reluctantly gave flight instruction in the Vickers Viscount airliner to Howard Hughes.
After retirement he accepted the post of chief of the International Civil Aviation mission to Katmandu, Nepal from 1968-1973. He died February 13, 2000.
He was inducted into Canada’s Aviation Hall of Fame in 1973 with this inscription;
“His inspired leadership in ocean flying despite adversity, the sharing of his exceptional aviation skills with others willing to learn, his unswerving demand for perfection in all who served under his command, bred a most superior grade of airman and resulted in outstanding benefit to Canadian aviation.”