RCAF 75th anniversary

Flight Journal, Jun 1999 by Reyno, Mike

February 18, 1999, marked the 75th anniversary of the establishment of the Royal Canadian Air Force (RCAF) as a separate service from the Royal Canadian Navy and Army. The RCAF was at its height during WW II with more than 250,000 men and women. It was the fourth largest Allied air force after those of the U.S., the Soviet Union and the UK. To commemorate the anniversary, RCAF 410 TF(OT)S based at 4 Wing, Cold Lake, Alberta-the operational training squadron for Canadian CF-18 fighter pilots and home of Canada's Fighter Weapons Instructor Course (Top Gun)-adorned one of its 27 CF-18s (188718) with the Air Force's blues-complete with the old RCAF roundels and tartan and the crowns of the King and Queen of England on the vertical tails. Flown by demo pilots Capt. Rob Mitchell and Capt. Mike Mirza, the aircraft will appear at airshows across North America as the Canadian Air Force celebrates its 75th anniversary.

In February, during a local training mission, Capt. Rob Mitchell freshened his air-to-airrefueling skills with a Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) B-707 from 33 Squadron based in New South Wales, Australia; it was in town for two days of cold-weather trials, and it was the first time an Australian tanker had visited North America for such an operation. The RAAF has five B-707s, four of which are configured for air refueling. This one is the first to be painted in the new tactical gray (painted only three weeks before it arrived in Cold Lake). Canada retired the last of its five B-707s (CC-137) in 1997; two had been configured for air refueling. -Mike Reyno