Clunks & Frights

Standing at the end of the runway, I remember the sight of the last remaining CF-l00 Canucks (nicknamed "Clunks", "Lead Sleds" or "Double Nothings") passing overhead on takeoff. These craft were over 25 years old. Although obsolete and dated, they were still air-worthy and looked great. At one time, there were almost 700 of these birds. Some were even purchased by the Belgian Air Force. Built by A.V. Roe (AVRO) Aircraft of Toronto, this was the first and last all-Canadian operational jet fighter. It was a twin-engine, all weather subsonic interceptor. When I was there, 414 "Black Knight" squadron was the last "Clunk" squadron. No longer in a combat role, they were being used for electronic warfare, which was playing the part of bad guys in exercises and trying to jam our radar. I tried my hand one-day on the CF-100 simulator. What an experience! One moment you're at several thousand feet, the next, on the deck. Trying to land it, I crashed and burned three miles short of the runway. My thirty-five hours as a pilot in a Cessna didn't prepare me to be a jet-jock! Anyway, the Clunks were retired in 1981, on their 30th anniversary of operational service. Their airframe life span had exceeded all expectations; it's just that they couldn't get the engines for them from Orenda any longer.

CFB North Bay shared the runways with the civil airport. This led to some interesting sights. Like an Air Canada airliner waiting while one of our Otters landed. Or waiting while one of the Clunks or transient jet fighters took off. I'm sure the airline passengers always had an interesting show to watch - I know I did. You'd see Voodoos, Tutors, and Starfighters. Sometimes these planes would get permission from the tower to do a low-level high- speed pass. One day, while working on an Otter at our area, I was startled to see a USAF B-52 bomber drop from the clouds to do a pass very low to the runway. Marvellous! On another day, 411 pilot Wally Sweetman was flying an Otter with passengers. Wally was a sweet guy. He also gained a reputation for pushing the envelope with the Otter. His plane was quickly approaching the Alert Hangar when he pulls the plane up into a vertical climb right above the hangar! I didn't think an Otter was capable of that kind of rate-of-climb. I trust that Wally had permission for this stunt. I'm certain some of the passengers needed an underwear change.

A request was received to provide a flyby down to Orillia or Barrie, as part of some celebration they were having. Two Otters were dispatched for the task. I believe that Wally Sweetman was the pilot on one of them and that was the plane I was on for the ride. The two aircraft did a couple of passes over the town, performing steep formation turns, etc. Nice view of Lake Simcoe & the flight there & back was most enjoyable.

Not just the pilots did the flying. Some of us techs had private pilot licences or student pilot permits. Tom Binns & I went up in a Cessna 180 he rented. Tom was a slow talking AE tech. He use to drive the RSU nuts with his meticulous manner. There were some kind of inductor coils or something that were part of the engine checklist. None had worked since Columbus was a boy. I mean some of our planes were 25 years old. Whatever these things did was inconsequential. The RSU guys would tell him this & he'd still snag the planes for it. Anyway, Tom was interested in aerobatics. He really wanted to rent a CITABOREA (which is aerobatic spelled backwards. Clever, eh?) but the rent-a-plane people didn't have one. Probably just as well, as that plane could fly upside down. So we end up going for a few hours worth of taking turns doing take-offs & landings in the 180. Tom ends up doing some moves that pushed the envelope as well. He also had a little running joke that he'd frequently tell. "There I was at 40,000 feet. Nothing on the clock but the maker's name - RPM". I never flew with Tom again. I think he had a death wish, like the judge in the movie "And Justice for All". The one who keeps testing & extending his fuel range until he runs out. It was neat watching fighters take off below us while we were doing circuits. North Bay was that kind of place where you had commercial airliners, high performance military jets, and small private planes - all using the same airport at that time.

Where's The Nukes?

Although I never went looking, I was told you could still find the remains of the Bomarc missile bunkers up in the hills. The Bomarcs were large anti-bomber missiles (Surface to Air Missiles or SAMs) equipped with nuclear warheads. In the early '60s there was a big debate about these weapons, which helped bring down the Diefenbaker government. Bomarcs weren't accurate enough without the nuke warheads, so they were eventually fitted. Although we had the missiles, I'm told American personnel held the keys to arm the warheads, as they owned these sensitive weapons! Dief-the-Chief bought into the theory that planes were obsolete due to ICBM & SAM missiles. There's even the belief that our government was forced to deploy Bomarcs by the Americans. If we didn't, the theory goes; Dief was told the Yanks would then deploy them on their side of the Great Lakes. Any nuclear detonation would then be over places like Toronto, instead of up north. The Bomarcs were a boondoggle, and shortly after their inception it was announced that further implementation was cancelled. It could never replace a manned fighter. As a result, 446 Missile Squadron at North Bay was one of only two batteries that came into being. By 1972, these were finally scrapped and air defence was solely the realm of fighters once more.

Welcome to "The Hole"

One day, a tour was arranged to see the SAGE, better known as "the hole". The nerve centre here receives signals from the radar stations of the DEW (Distant Early Warning) line, and co-ordinates the fighter defences in our region. Over six hundred feet below ground through the solid rock of the Canadian Shield, a three-story building sits within a cavern. Access is via two tunnels, the main one over a mile long. Propane buses take you down past the thick blast doors. The complex can be totally self-contained, when "buttoned-up". Having its own power plant, water supply, sanitation, hospital and food stores - it was meant to survive a direct nuclear attack. The building even sits on rubber insulators, to minimise shock. The place was awesome to visit! It housed the two largest computers in the world with 50,000 vacuum tubes. Occupying whole rooms, they were state of the art in 1959 but bulky and antiquated in the late 1970's. Our tour guide shows us a memory cell, a large cube filled with wires. Today, he said it was the equivalent of a pocket calculator. IBM staff did constant maintenance, mostly replacing tubes according to schedules. Controllers monitored radar screens. They'd touch a light pen onto an unknown on the screen. The computer identified planes by referring to flight plans. The war room was shades of "Dr. Strangelove" with its maps, displays, and boards showing the current threat to North America and our stage of alert readiness. I decided if I had to be somewhere during atomic attack, this was the place!

The SAS

In '78 we got to know members of Britain's Special Air Service (SAS). These modern day Commandos were an elite unit, right up there with the Green Berets, US Navy Seals, or our own Airbourne Regiment. It was said that these people trained the Israelis for the raid on Entebbe. How it came to be that these fellows found themselves training here on there own without air transport & support…I don't know. Apparently, they tried to get what they needed through regular channels to no avail. After speaking about their dilemma to our CO, Ron Pierce, our aircraft & resources were placed at their disposal. Anything for our brothers-in-arms from the "old country". We'd take them up for parachute drops or night landings at primitive strips where they could practice counter-insurgency. This added a great deal of prestige to our Summer Camp and new vitality for our old Otters. Imagine we were stealth transports for trained killers! I remember sitting in the mess with some of them one evening. They didn't look like military types. Their hair was quite long & they dressed in civvies when they weren't jumping out of perfectly good aircraft. I suppose they tried to blend in at all times in order to infiltrate & fight terrorists. I don't believe they wore dog tags or carried military ID, as a rule. All very clandestine. Their dialects & manner was like that of most Brits, but they were tough. On some, the muscles were evident. One of them told me about his buddy, James. You didn't come behind him & touch him. His own child had done that & he instinctively reacted, hurting his son. I guess many of them had hair-triggers. Much later I learned that it isn't easy to condition people to be such killing machines. It's harder still to turn them off. It was an exciting episode, though. I made sure not to sneak up on James. There were no nasty incidents during the two weeks with them. Afterall, we weren't fighters. We saw ourselves as lovers & partiers.

SAR

While there in '78, I went on my first long trip and SAR (Search And Rescue) in an Otter. We flew out of Sudbury. They put us over night in the Holiday Inn for the weekend. We spent daylight for 8 or 9 hours flying back & forth along search grids. My task was the same as the others in the cabin - a "spotter" looking out of the window at the bush for any sign of the missing. What with the heat, monotony, vibrations, and being hung over; I began to feel quite poor & used the barf bag. For trips away like this, they'd provide us with box lunches. They were better than K-rations but not much. The box would contain a sandwich, maybe a can of pop & an apple. Mess food was great in comparison. I don't know if the box lunch contributed to my illness, but it sure didn't help. I kept trying to adjust the air vent above me to get some fresh air. Bob Stopp gave me some "helpful" advice that was useless. RSU Crewman Chuck Concubine gave me some real pity as well as some gravol, which helped. We didn't have the honour of finding the missing party. I don't know if this was the same search but I recall that a couple of clowns were found in their missing floatplane. They never filed a flight plan, miscalculated their fuel, and had to put down on a small uninhabited lake. They had no food or supplies, other than beer for their fishing trip. When found, they were very pissed & were waving empty beer cans. A massive search had been staged. There was then a rumour that these idiots were to be billed for the cost. If true, they'd probably still be making instalment payments today!

Back at the hangars, training & servicing continued. Pilots did aerial photo challenges, para drops, & such. We did maintenance & repairs. I remember assisting Doug Wilkins on a repair to a cable that was a classic "field repair". Without parts, the item was rigged in a clever manner so that the plane could get back to Toronto. Sometimes you had to improvise & sometimes you were recognised for going above & beyond. As long as nobody loses an eye, it's all fun.

Pay Parade

Since our unit was away from home, a pay parade was conducted to receive your earnings. This was conducted by the Finance Officer, Captain Pool, who later would become a chopper pilot. We lined up in the Alert Hangar & approached his desk. Your SIN (Social Insurance Number) was always required for matters dealing with your pay, so I memorised mine & it's another piece of trivia that I carry around in my head today. It was great that they brought the money to you. Recently, Chip Ray was telling me that the Forces paid you in the currency of the country you were in, while you were overseas. This was good for you. Not so good for any family back home if you pissed it all away & your wife or dependants didn't receive any of it. Many an airman would return home & find their family gone. Small wonder!

Distractions

All wasn't just military & airplanes. Our workday ran from 7AM to 3PM, which gave us lots of free time afterwards. I had brought my books & papers from college, with the idea of being productive but not much work was done. There was always lots going on, especially parties! There were no strip clubs that I recall (were there we'd be there every night) but there were plenty of bars. Such as the lounge at the Ramada Inn. I recall one night there drinking zombies with the group. Gary LePere, who normally was in a miserable mood & hated his subordinates, was my buddy after enough zombies kicked in. There was also Ladies Night at the Elk's Club. This was a "grab a granny" type of evening with plenty of older women. I didn't get lucky there but we had a few laughs. One night, someone suggested we go for a ride to Temiscaming. This was a town in Quebec that wasn't very far up Highway 63. It was like driving to Trout Creek. The attraction was that it was in La Belle Province & the bars were open later than ours were. It gave me an opportunity to use my broken high school French. We didn't cause any scenes or inflame the provincial rivalry. The anglais airmen picked up no French nymphs that night. Even if you didn't go off base, there was always the mess and plenty of parties in the barracks rooms.

I brought my .22 calibre rifle with me one year. Bill Khyber also brought his gun. Bill was with 411 Squadron & some called him the "Mad Iranian". Sometimes aka "Wild Bill". Obviously, he was of Iranian descent. His father was a former army officer under the Shaw. Bill was very excitable & animated. Anyway, we took our guns to the dump & plinked cans one afternoon. Bill would probably have enjoyed killing something.