Episode 76: The Veteran Series: Cold War Remembrance and the famous flight in the MiG-29 Part 1 - Bob Wade

In this Remembrance Day special, Major (Ret) Bob Wade - a Cold War Snowbird, CF-104 Starfighter, and CF-18 pilot - recounts his remarkable beginnings in Canadian military aviation. 

From growing up west of Edmonton and being inspired by the Golden Hawks, to earning his wings in 1969 and instructing on the CT-114 Tutor at Moose Jaw, Bob describes the high-tempo jet-training world of the 1960s. 

He shares how the Snowbirds were born from a few instructors with a passion for formation flying and a supportive base commander who defied orders to keep the team aloft. Along the way, he reflects on how military culture, mentorship, and sacrifice shaped his generation of RCAF aviators. 

Episode Transcript

Advertisement (00:00):
This podcast is presented by Skies Magazine. If
you're interested in theCanadian aviation industry,
Skies is your go to multimediaresource for the latest news,
in-depth features, stunningphotography, and insightful
video coverage. Whether you'rean aviation professional or
enthusiast, Sky's is dedicatedto keeping you informed and
bringing your passion foraviation to life. Visit

(00:21):
skysmag.com to learn more andsubscribe to stay updated on all
things Canadian aviation.

Bryan (00:58):
Alright. We're ready for departure here at the pilot
project podcast, the best sourcefor stories and advice from RCAF
and mission aviation pilotsbrought to you by Sky's
Magazine. I'm your host, BrianMorrison. And with me today for
our special two part RemembranceDay series is someone who is
fairly legendary in Canadianaviation circles, major retired
Bob Wade, a former snowbird andcold war fighter pilot and the

(01:19):
first Western pilot to fly in aMiG 29. Bob, it's such a
pleasure to have you here today.
Thanks for being on the show.

Bob (01:25):
Thank you, Brian. I'm looking forward to this.

Bryan (01:28):
Yeah. Me too. So today, we will be talking about how
Bob's life in the RCAF began,and we'll get into his
instructional tour on the tutorsas well as his time on
Starfighters. But before we getinto any of that, let's go
through Bob's bio. Bob Wade grewup West Of Edmonton and had his
life changed in 1963 when theGolden Hawks aerobatic team
roared overhead.

(01:49):
That moment launched him on athirty nine year aviation career
spanning fighter jets, aerobaticdemonstration flying, and
commercial aviation. Afterjoining the Royal Canadian Air
Force through the VentureTraining Program, Bob earned his
wings in 1969 and became a tutorinstructor. He was selected to
join the Snowbirds aerobaticteam in 1973 and 1974 flying

(02:09):
over 100 shows a year. He thentransitioned to the CF one zero
four Starfighter in Europe,pioneering tactics like silent
target, later instructing on theStarfighter and the CF 18
Hornet. In 1986, Bob became theCF eighteen air demonstration
pilot, introducing high energymaneuvers never before flown in
Canadian fighter demos.
His career included alertoperations in the Arctic during

(02:32):
the Cold War and a famous escortin flight experience with the
Soviet Air Force MiG 29 duringtheir historic visit to Canada
in 1989. After leaving themilitary in 1990, Bob flew for
Canada three thousand Airlinesand Korean Air on aircraft such
as the Airbus A330 and theBoeing seven fifty seven. Now
retired in Calgary, he remainsactive as deputy chair of the

(02:54):
Air Force Museum Society ofAlberta and honorary chair of
the Royal Canadian Air ForceAssociation for Alberta. So
let's talk about your early lifeand inspiration, Bob. Set the
stage for us.
We know from your bio that yourinspiration to pursue aviation
began with the golden hawks. Canyou tell us that story?

Bob (03:12):
Yes. It it was interesting, you know, because when I was a
young fellow, I was a goodstudent, but I had always wanted
to be a doctor, you know. And soby the time I was about eight or
nine years old, I could name all206 bones in the human body,
knew all the functions of theorgans, that type of thing. But
one day when I was about 15, Iwas out in this field trying to

(03:35):
catch a horse. I'd grown up withhorses and I rode a lot.
And all of a sudden this hugenoise came over top of my head.
And who it was? It was theGolden Hawk aerobatic team. They
were waiting to go on stage inEdmonton. And the town that I
grew up in was about 60 miles, a100 kilometers west of Edmonton

(03:58):
along the Jasper Highway.
And that had such aninspirational effect on me that
I just kind of decided rightthen, God, I want to do that.
You know? I forgot all aboutbeing a doctor from there on in.
I just wanted to be a fighterpilot. You know?
I wanted to do what those boyswere doing. And in those days

(04:23):
when you're 16, you can join theair force under the regular
officer training program. And somy dad drove me into the city. I
was just about to turnsixteenth. And I went to the
recruiting center and talked tothose fellows and wrote the
exams and got through that.

(04:44):
And they said I'd have to waitto start pilot training. And so
I did. And it was the nextspring that they sent me to
Toronto for aircrew selection.And I had been operating heavy
equipment up in the Far North atthat time. And so I was pretty
good with my feet and hands.

(05:05):
And so that on the second day,at pilot selection, they called
me out of the room and said,Wade, you're gonna have to be a
pilot. He said, you're too dumbto be a navigator. So I was
happy about that.

Bryan (05:19):
Yeah. No doubt. Wow. In this early quest to become a
fighter pilot, did you everthink about what serving your
country meant?

Bob (05:27):
You know, it was more in the in those days, you know,
when you're 16 years of age,it's more about the fun of
flying the airplane. You didn'treally think that much about
what it meant to serve yourcountry and the role that you're
playing. So that my dad was abomber pilot in World War two. I
kinda knew about the sacrificesthat he went through. But it was

(05:54):
mostly my motivation was just tohave fun, fly that airplane.

Bryan (05:59):
Yeah. That makes sense. How did that change over the
years?

Bob (06:03):
Once I got operational and, I could see how important it
was, it meant a lot to me. Youknow, when I flew on fighters, I
knew how important that job was,and I wanted to do it. I wanted
to do that so that I couldcontribute the best way I could

(06:25):
to making Canada, you know, asafe environment for everyone to
live.

Bryan (06:32):
Mhmm. Yeah. Once you get into the operational world, it
all becomes a lot more real thanwhen you're going through
training and when you first joinand everything's exciting and
you're super pumped to get intothat flight training world, and
you're just thinking about thatnext making it through that next
hurdle, but it gets more realonce you get into the
operational side.

Bob (06:51):
Yeah. It was quite a challenge, You know? And so
that, we found that, it was theboys that had a passion to do
that job made it through thetraining system. It wasn't, guys
that were had better educationsor that type of thing that got
some through, pilot selectionand, training. It was, guys that

(07:14):
had a passion, would do anythingto do that job.

Bryan (07:18):
Mhmm. Now you mentioned that before that moment, you had
wanted to be a medical doctor.How big of a pivot was it to
choose aviation instead? You'vealso mentioned your dad was a
bomber pilot in World War two,so it was kind of, something
that ran in the family.

Bob (07:33):
Yes. You know, when I went to school now this is back in
the fifties. I think every kidin my class, their dad was in
World War two. You know? So wewere aware of what that
contribution was and, theproblems those fellas were
dealing with.
And, my dad got shot down, and,they made it back to The UK. You

(07:59):
know, he had a pretty goodstory, but he didn't talk about
it very much. You know? He ranthe cadet corps when I was a
young fella as an army. It wasan army cadet corps.
But he did that because the kidscould have the most fun in a
cadet corps that allowed you toshoot guns and go on schemes and

(08:21):
build bridges and this type ofthing. We you know, on November
11, every kid's dad marched downMain Street. You know, we kind
of appreciated, you know, whatthose fellas did. Whereas
nowadays very few people evenknow anybody in the military.

(08:44):
You know?
So the kids it's not the kids'fault, you know, it's just the
way things are, that theenvironment I grew up in was
different.

Bryan (08:53):
In a way, it's something almost to be thankful for that,
you know how can I put this?Like, remembering is so
important, but at the same time,the fact that kids don't have a
direct that most kids' parentsweren't in a major war is
something to be thankful for.

Bob (09:08):
It certainly is.

Bryan (09:10):
And

Bob (09:11):
that happened not by accident.

Bryan (09:13):
That's right.

Bob (09:13):
That happened by the contribution of those boys back
in those days that guaranteedthis way of life for us.

Bryan (09:20):
Yes, absolutely. Another thing you mentioned was that you
started working at a very youngage. I think you said, in the
write up you sent me, it was 15years old in Fort McMurray. Is
that right?

Bob (09:31):
That's correct. Yeah. I went up to McMurray as a gravel
checker. And in those days,there was no road into Fort
McMurray, so you had to take atrain. And I think it was about
seventeen hours from Edmonton onthis little narrow gauge railway
track, and they stopped at everylogger's cabin along the way.
So it was a long haul to get inthere. But Freddie Mannix at

(09:52):
Mannix Construction had hired meas a 15 year old kid, and he was
happy with that. But I was justthere to show gravel trucks
where to dump. And then one daythey brought in these three huge
earth movers or Euclids forhauling dirt, and they only had
two operators. So I told theforeman that, hey, I could run

(10:17):
one of those things.
And he allowed me to get on it,and he could see right away. I
didn't know how to get it going.But he said, Okay, kid, I'll
give you till noon to figure itout. And I did, you know? And I
became a buggy operator, that'swhat we call those earth movers.
And it was a great experience.You know, I loved that so much.

(10:39):
You know, I'd rather work thantake days off because you work
thirty days in and they give youthree days off, but when you
can't get out except by thattrain, of course, you're stuck
there on the job job site. Butworking with those those boys on
those huge machines was quite athrill.

Bryan (10:59):
How do you think that early responsibility shaped your
character?

Bob (11:02):
You know, it was a different experience and the one
that very few people get to,have. And that was because I was
just a kid. You know? And allthe other guys in there had,
were in their thirties, forties,fifties. You know?
They're older men. And most ofthem had done time in jail, and

(11:23):
they'd lived pretty rough lives.But they kind of looked after
me. I don't know why. They justkind of adopted me and helped me
out where they could.
And so that they didn't treat meroughly. You know, they could
see that, you know, what I wasdoing, I enjoyed, and they just

(11:45):
wanted to make sure that nothinghappened bad to me. They took me
to the bar. Like, Fort McMurrayin those days had they had one
hotel they had a bar in. Andthese boys would take me into
the bars of 15, 16, or I guessI'd be 16 at the time.
They're about to turn 16. Andthe bartender, he didn't care

(12:09):
about that. He said, as long asyou're not drinking, you can sit
here with the boys. And so Idid. And, you'll you grow up a
lot faster than, what normalkids would because you're in
that environment.

Bryan (12:23):
Yeah. No doubt. I can only imagine I mean, 15 years
old, I think by that point, wasworking at Tim Hortons. Yeah.
You can't really compare.
That's like to be at that faraway from your family in such an
isolated place and doing thatkind of heavy labor, that must
have been, very intense.

Bob (12:43):
Yeah. You know, it but I was ready for that. I was a big
kid, you know, so that I wasn'ttotally innocent and naive by
the in those days. And I didn'tget along that well with my old
man. Know, I was happy to beaway from home.

(13:04):
And he was a school principal,you know, so that I could stay
up in McMurray until Novemberand then go back to school. He'd
let me back into class and startagain. So having a dad as a
principal was a bit of a help.But I had a lot of money. You
know, when I was 16, I made moremoney than my dad did.

(13:26):
You know? Because I was workingthirty days a month. After eight
hours, we worked twelve hourshifts, and after eight hours,
you pay the time time and ahalf, after 10 double time, and
you had nowhere to spend yourmoney. You know? So that, we
were putting away a bunch ofmoney back in those days as
kids.

Bryan (13:42):
Wow. That must have been another kind of odd thing to
have that much money at 16.

Bob (13:47):
Yeah. So naturally, you know, you run out and buy a car.
Yeah. Right away, you had allthe all the things you wanted to
have, financially.

Bryan (13:57):
Yeah. Of course. Now this is something I'm very curious to
hear, especially with your dad'srecord of service in the second
world war. What was yourfamily's reaction when you said
you wanted to be a fighterpilot?

Bob (14:09):
Dad thought that was good, you know, because he thought I
was a bit rough as a kid. Hethought that military might
streak me out a bit. And as aprincipal's kid going to school,
you don't wanna be seen orobserved as being a teacher's

(14:32):
pet, that type of thing. So mybrothers and I were pretty
aggressive. We didn't take thatabuse from the other kids.
You know? We played hockey,played baseball, and the kids,
respected that. Nobody ever, youknow, accused me of being a
teacher's pet. You know? Mhmm.

(14:54):
I got the strap as many times asany other kid in school, you
know?

Bryan (15:00):
What did your, mom think of you joining up?

Bob (15:03):
Mom was worried. And, they had a different story. Mom was a
war bride. She grew up inWarrington, England, and from a
very affluent family. And whenshe had met my dad in bombery
command, their relationship gotserious real quick.

(15:23):
She was just a 15 year oldlittle girl, you know? And she
got pregnant, and her dad gotmarried overseas, and her family
disowned her. You know, she wasmarrying this colonial, you
know, and they had that kind ofprejudice back in those days.
But dad thought they would loseWorld War II, and they thought

(15:45):
the Germans would take Britain.And so he put mom on the Queen
Mary, sent her over to New York,and then she caught her on the
train and went to Regina,Saskatchewan where dad's parents
were.
So she went there to live withmy dad's parents for the
remainder of the war. And then,after the war ended, dad came
back. He went to, university inSaskatoon. And, that's where I

(16:09):
was born, 1946. But mom, shewanted to go back to England,
you know, as a young girl, youknow, and, that was her home.
And so we did. And we moved toHenley On Thames, and dad
lectured at the, ReadingUniversity. But her family still
didn't want to accept dad. Andit was a different time, I

(16:31):
guess, but I was just a youngfellow, I was only a few years
old when we went back toEngland. So I couldn't really
appreciate what was going on.
But I know we came back toCanada in 'fifty two, and my
little brother was born overthere. And that's when we moved
to Evansburg, West Edmonton. Herparents never called her, never

(16:55):
talked to her again, really. Soit's a sad story, you know, for
a little girl to go throughthat, you know, when she did
nothing wrong.

Bryan (17:04):
Yeah. And, I wonder if that sort of influenced her to
hold on tight when you wanted togo and join the air force.

Bob (17:12):
Yeah. Although, you know, I went to to Yellowknife as a 14
year old. I hitchhiked up there.And so she was kinda used to me
taking off for the summers, youknow. And, I think mom was a
bit, she felt good about mebeing in the air force where I'd
I'd probably live a proper life.

Bryan (17:35):
They'd keep you out of trouble a little bit?

Bob (17:37):
Yeah. Exactly.

Bryan (17:38):
Yeah. So let's talk we we started talking about this a
little bit, but let's talk aboutjoining the RCAF and pilot
training. How was flighttraining structured in the
sixties?

Bob (17:48):
Okay. Back then, see, I I joined well, I shouldn't say I
joined. I went through pilotselection when I was 16, but
they never called me up for fouryears. And, so I was 20 when, I
started pilot training. I was inMcMurray.
I'd been operating heavyequipment all those years,
mostly dozers. And, mom sent metelegram saying the air force

(18:12):
wants to get a get a hold ofyou. So I, left the job site,
came down south, got ahold ofthe military, and they said,
yep. 02/01/1968, you're gonnastart pilot training. That was
the first day of the CanadianArmed Forces.
You know? And so I was, theseboys that were down east, they
joined before I did, but I I wasswung in as the fifth, pilot

(18:36):
that ever entered the CanadianArmed Forces. And I had a brand
new Mustang convertible, allpaid for. And so I drove down to
Victoria where the initial pilottraining was to take not pilot
training, it was officerselection, think, boot camp back
in those days. So we had 76 boysstart that course.

(19:00):
None of us had a degree. We wereall kids out of high school. But
the rest of the kids maybe werea year or two younger than me
had never left home. Know, theirbackground experience was
totally different than mine. Butwe lost on that pilot or on that
basic training, we lost abouthalf the boys on that course.

(19:22):
And so I would guess there wouldbe 35 or so that at the end of
that were sent to Camp Borden inOntario for initial crew
selection. And so that we wentdown there. Well, you'll find
chipmunk airplanes back in thosedays. My instructor was the

(19:46):
coolest guy. He was a Spitfirepilot during World War two.
And Oh, wow. He was alwaysinstructing in boarding on this
chipmunk. And he was such agreat influence on me. And I was
pretty good with my feet andhands because I've been
operating heavy equipment forthe last four or five years. And
he turned me loose to go solo.

(20:07):
And so that was the first time Iwas ever in an airplane. I've
never flown commercial or anyother way. The first airplane I
got into, I was sitting in thefront seat. And that was quite a
quite a thrill. And I was solucky to have Bill Fell, this
old fighter pilot, as myinstructor.
And so I went through that. Theygave me twenty seven hours on a

(20:29):
chipmunk, and we lost anotherhalf the boys there. Okay. So
that half the course that leftBorden went to Gimli, Manitoba.
And in Gimli in those days,1968, they did all the basic and
advanced training.
And then Moose Jaw did the samething. And so that was on the

(20:51):
Tudor aircraft, which was brandnew back in those days, and T
Bird was used for advancedtraining. So that, we were
joined in Moose Jaw at that timewith, I think there was, seven
or eight cross trainees on mycourse. And these were
navigators and radio officers inthe system that, they no longer

(21:15):
required because of technologychanges. You don't need a
navigator on a lot of airplanes.
And so that, they were crosstrained as pilots. And, so these
boys were all captains, youknow, senior in rank to us. We
were all officer cadets back inthen. But they just treated us
like their own. It was a veryeasy relationship.

(21:37):
Whereas with the instructors, ofcourse, it's all yes, sir, three
bag full. And boys that went toGimli, they had about the same
experience as we had. I think weonly lost two guys on our course
from there. And we were alsojoined by eight Danish pilots,

(21:58):
from Denmark in and anothereight went to Gimli, Manitoba.
So that our our course there, Iguess we had eight Canadians,
eight Danes, and eight crosstrainees on our course.
So 24 guys at Gimli and 24 inMoose Jaw. I went to Moose Jaw.

(22:20):
I'm happy with that. You know?And it was a thrilling
experience to get to fly thesejets.

Bryan (22:27):
Now those were you said the tutors were new at the time.
So was it pretty exciting to beon the state of the art jet
trainer?

Bob (22:33):
Yeah. You know, I knew nothing about airplanes, really.
And so that the tutors came intoservice, I think, in 1965. So
this is '68. They're three yearsold.
And back in those days, I thinkwe had about a 160, a 180
aircraft on the line in bothGimli and in Moose Jaw. There

(22:54):
was a lot of jets and a lot ofinstructors, you know? And plus
they had the T Bird flights aswell for doing advanced
training. We were training, Ithink, nine courses a year in
Wow. In Moose Jaw.
So it was a huge effort. I mean,those schools were big, and

(23:16):
there's a lot of flying.

Bryan (23:18):
Yeah. That's crazy to think about the numbers that
they have now versus the numbersat that time. But it's a whole
different scale of operationduring, you know, just post
World War two and then gettinginto the Cold War, different
different times and differentneeds for sure.

Bob (23:33):
Yeah. And, we were, I think, the last course that,
went through. There might havebeen more, went to without the
university degree. And so that,that was different too. The
military wanted to have alltheir officers to be educated
with a military degree, and ifyou wanted to get promoted, you

(23:53):
wanted to speak French as well.
So us kids, we had no chance toget promoted because the
promotion system worked out of10 points. And one point was
given to you to be French, andthe other point was given to you
to for having a degree. So we'reworking out of eight points,
while the rest of these boys areworking out of 10. Right. And so

(24:15):
they told us, when we graduatedthat, we wouldn't get promoted,
but what they would do is keepus in the cockpit.
And so you couldn't make mehappier. You know? God, that's
why I joined the air force. Ididn't wanna be a general. I
wanted to be a fighter pilot.
And so that that was good newsfor us. And the difference is

(24:37):
that we could get combat readyby the time we're 20 years of
age, you know, if the kid'sstarting at 16. But, young guys,
you want to have a degree. Like,nowadays, kids are 30

Bryan (24:48):
Yeah.

Bob (24:49):
Before they get on bed ready. So I thought it was to
the Air Force's advantage. Takekids out of high school like us
and make us fighter prowls.

Bryan (24:58):
Yeah. There's something to be said for getting people in
early when they are young. Theydon't have a wife and kids yet.
It's kind of a young person'sgame to really go out there, go
into combat zones, deploy, havethat crazy lifestyle where
you're being posted all over theplace. You can get some of that
under your belt before you havea wife and kids or husband and

(25:19):
kids or whatever the case maybe.
And it becomes a lot morecomplicated then.

Bob (25:25):
Yeah, exactly. And our passion was just to fly. Know,
nothing came ahead of flyingback in those days. So that if
you wanted to get through thatcourse, you know, you needed to
do that work a 100%, you know,and you put every effort you had

(25:46):
into passing.

Bryan (25:47):
Yeah. Yeah. Well, that hasn't changed. That's still
true for sure. Yeah.
I wanted to go back to get someexplanation on, how you joined,
like the program you joinedunder. You mentioned it was
called the Venture program. Canyou tell us about what that was?

Bob (26:02):
Yeah. Venture was a program where they would take kids 16
years of age in grade 10, andyou could join the air force as
as an officer cadet. And I thinkthey anticipated great attrition
rates with those kids, butbefore they put a lot of money
into you, they made those cutsof the people going through the

(26:26):
system. And so that's the way itwas designed. And I thought it
was quite effective.
I was surprised to see as manykids as we did see get cut out
of the system right out of basictraining, that we lost half the
course when they did that. Andthere's very little academics.
What they wanted to know is whatkind of a character are you? You

(26:49):
know? Are you the kind ofcharacter that we want?
And that was basic. And then thepilot selection process down in
Barrie, Ontario, is can youlearn at the rate that we
require you to learn to become apilot? So they didn't want to
invest a lot of money into youuntil they knew they had the
person they wanted and they hadthe abilities to do the job.

Bryan (27:11):
That makes sense. Trying to keep the cuts as early as
possible to avoid the extraexpense of getting people
through flight training. Theystill do that now even with
aircrew selection. Right? Like,that's where they try to cut the
wheat from the chaff as much aspossible.
Because, like, with the lastthing you want is to spend, I
think it's half a milliondollars by the time you're done
phase two. Yeah. You know, spendhalf a million dollars on a

(27:34):
pilot and find out, hey, thisperson doesn't have what it
takes. Exactly. Yeah.
So what were some of the mostchallenging parts of flight
training in 1968, '69?

Bob (27:44):
I found the officer development part as being the
worst, because they they wantedyou to act in in a certain way.
We had to march everywhere wewent. So when you went to the
mess for lunch, you marchedover, and then you marched back

(28:04):
again. You know? And to me, thatdoesn't seem to have much value
towards training, you know, tobe a fighter pilot, you know,
being a pilot, period.
And so that I had little littledifficulty with that, I guess,
because my friends were thecross trainees, the older guys,

(28:25):
because that's the way you know,I was pretty mature by the time
I started in there. So I washanging out with these captains
rather than you know, I wasclose friends with all the boys
that, were on my course, theyounger fellows. But, basically,
my friends were, lacrossetrainees, close friends.

Bryan (28:45):
So you would have gotten your wings in Moose Jaw.
Correct?

Bob (28:48):
That's correct. Yeah. 1969.

Bryan (28:51):
So 1969, Moose Jaw, it's your wings parade. What do you
remember most vividly from yourwings parade?

Bob (28:57):
I can remember, a general came out. I don't remember his
name right now. And that's thefirst time I'd ever seen a
general. And so that I waspretty, you know, awestruck by
this fellow that came through. Ididn't know his background or
anything, but that wasimpressive.

(29:17):
My parents came down to see thatparade. That meant a lot to me.
And I think it meant somethingto them as well. They were
pretty proud of what what I'ddone. My brother had gone
through that same system twoyears ahead of me, and he got
seized trained.
And if you can believe it, hegot seized trained for having a
speeding ticket. No. Yeah. Youknow, what the hell has that got

(29:40):
to do with, you know, pilottraining? You know?
But that's the way they wereback in the They said, no. No.
You know, if, you're not gonnalive within the rules, we don't
want you. That type of thing.Plus, I think they had too many,
too many cadets on his course,and they wanted to get rid of
some.

Bryan (30:00):
Yeah. Yeah. Speaking of that, how different was military
flight training then compared towhat you see today?

Bob (30:08):
I think there was a lot of differences. We the course
structure probably is verysimilar. I don't know. You know,
I haven't talked to anybodythat's gone through the pilot
training system lately. Butours, we flew twice a day as a
student.
I don't think they're doing thatanymore. And when you go through

(30:30):
a certain phase, whether it benavigation, instrument flying,
or whatever, they were prettyintense. You know, it was a
heavy duty train. How that goesthrough nowadays, I have no
idea, you know, how hard theguys have to work to get through
the system. But when we did it,you know, you had to, you know,

(30:53):
you're doing dumb things likeyou have to clean and sweep your
floors and wash the floors alongthe flight line.
We were doing stuff that hadnothing to do with pilot
training. But they were justchecking, making sure the right
character, I guess. Don't

Bryan (31:10):
Yeah. I think there's less of that kind of like, they
still do officer development andand those types of things, but I
think they try to find out thosethings on basic training more
now in terms of your characterand whether you're gonna be fit
to be an officer and those typesof things. And there's less of
that kind of chicken crap todeal with on on flight training.
I know when I went through, nowthat was thirteen, fourteen

(31:34):
years ago, we were still able todo two two a days, like flying
double turning in a day. Butthat may have changed.
I'm not sure. It's that's kindof funny, you know, I'm in a
way, I'm just as removed as youare from the process because it
can change so quickly.

Bob (31:48):
Yeah. No. That that's true. You know? I I work at the
military museums here in therefor the Alberta aviation Force
Museum of Alberta, and, we havea cold war exhibit there.
And I've got guys trying to jointhe air force. Two of them have
been waiting for four years tostart pilot training. Both of

(32:09):
those boys have universitydegrees. They're the greatest
kids. You know?
And, one is now 30 years of age.He's been waiting for over four
years. And, I'm disappointed inthat because I know they would
be great officers, great pilots.In fact, I just got one of the
boys a job with Ken Borek Air,and he's flying Twin Otters down

(32:31):
at the South Pole now. And sothat, I don't know, you know,
if, he's gonna come back to themilitary.
You know? Yeah. He didn't gettreated well by the military by
them just telling him, nope. Notthis course. Nope.
Not this course. You know? Andso that, Ken Bork will treat him
well.

Bryan (32:50):
That's definitely one of the big differences now is the
capacity for them to take on newtrainees. It's so reduced right
now and there's been such abottleneck and it's resulted in
such a large amount of trainingdelays that you get these
people. I get messages frompeople all the time from
listeners asking, hey, you know,I hear the pilot trade is closed

(33:10):
this year. Like, how long howlong do you think that's gonna
be be like that? Do you have anyinsights?
And I I can't give them muchbecause this is almost
unprecedented right now with theamount of waiting that, either
either students or people whowant to join are doing. I
haven't really seen that before.And I've only been around the
military for around twentyyears, but, I've never seen that

(33:32):
before.

Bob (33:33):
Yep. You know, this is unprecedented. You know, I've
never known of this in thehistory of the air force that I
do. And, I talked to GeneralKenny when he was commander of
the air force, and I said, hey,You're gonna lose so many of the
older boys if you don't startgetting them in the cockpit and

(33:53):
flying them. You know?
And without the older boys, youdon't have instructors, And, you
need experience to be aninstructor. And, especially on
the operational squadrons, notso much in Moose Jaw and Gimli.
But, he says that's probably hisbiggest challenge as commander
of the air force, you know, hisretention and, getting the boys,

(34:19):
flying time. Now if you'reflying f eighteens when I flew f
eighteens, we had a 138airplanes. You know?
Well, we crashed a few. Wecrashed three or four by the
time, we got all the airplanesdelivered. But, you know, we had
a lot of flying time. Know?Mhmm.
God, I was getting, threehundred hours a year on

(34:41):
fighters. You know? And you'reonly supposed to get two forty,
but there's always those boysthat don't get their two forty.
So we fly their hours as well.And, it, is impossible for the
guys now.
We're down to about 40 Tudors, Ithink, or forty forty f
eighteens. And I was talking tothe boys at Cold Lake, and they

(35:03):
were telling me they're doingseventeen hours of maintenance
for every hour of flight. So howhow can the boys get any flying
time? You know? Mhmm.
It just doesn't work. You know?And so as a result, all the
senior guys are getting up andgoing to airlines. And that
happened to me as well. I gotout of the air force because we
went from six fighter squadronsdown to three.

(35:24):
And I could see they're writtenon the wall. Like, that's gonna
be the end of our flight attack.So we all went to airlines.

Bryan (35:31):
Yeah. And we'll get to that for sure.

Bob (35:34):
Sure. Yeah.

Bryan (35:35):
This definitely rounds out though, talking about kind
of all the differences in theair force and the flight
training system now versus whenwhen it was kind of you were
just getting through it. Butwhat I'd love to talk about now
is your first posting, which isyou wanted a posting as a
fighter pilot, but you wereposted to Moose Jaw to instruct
on tutors. So how did you adaptto that?

Bob (35:57):
I was disappointed. You know? There were no fighter
postings available when Igraduated pilot training in June
'69. And one of the boys fromGimmick got Voodoo's, but none
of us did. And so they posted usback to Booz Jaw or Gimmy as
instructor pilots.
You know, and we're justpipeliners. We just graduated.

(36:18):
And so they send you to PortageLa Prairie, and they teach you
how to be an instructor. Andthat was the most valuable
training that I think I've everhad on any one single course. I
learned how to instruct.
And that was probably a goodthing or a great you know, one
of the biggest benefits to mycareer is because I spent so

(36:43):
much time instructing. I wasgood at it because I've been
taught how to instruct. And sowhen I went to Moose Jaw, I was
still in love with flying, and Ijust wanted to fly airplanes.
But I think I was a pretty goodinstructor. I upgraded to an a
two within a a year and a half,as an instructor at Moose Jaw,

(37:03):
which was, not easy to do.
But in 1971, sixty eight hourson a Tudor aircraft.

Bryan (37:13):
Yeah. That is a lot of time in a in a little jet
aircraft. That's a lot.

Bob (37:19):
Yeah. And that was because I was single, you know, and
every weekend, I'd take anairplane away, you know, and so
that I was typically limited totwo hops away, but I could get
down to Toronto or Montreal or,you know, off to Vancouver. And,

(37:39):
I just flew my pants off, youknow, because, that's what I
love doing. If they needed anairplane taken someplace or
parts taken someplace or anairplane fixed, I would
volunteer to do it. Whereas themarried guys, of course, wanted
to stay home on weekends.
And, I thought, what atremendous opportunity. And I

(38:01):
don't know of anybody that's gottheir money out. I ended up
with, 2,996.8 hours on the Tudorairplane. So that is a I lot of
flew a lot. Yeah.
But I loved the lifestyle. Theywould give me an airplane every
weekend.

Bryan (38:22):
What was your flying tempo like during this period?
Like, how often were you flyingin a day, let's say?

Bob (38:27):
We would fly two trips a day, two student trips a day.
And in those days, it was mostlyall dual instruction and basic
training. You got very littlelead time except in the
formation phase, maybe where youdidn't have a student in the
cockpit with you. And that's,you know, a forty five minute
briefing before the flight. Youcan get out and do that hour

(38:51):
fifteen flight, and then comeback and do an hour of
debriefing with that student.
And then turn around and do thesame thing again in the
afternoon.

Bryan (39:00):
Long days.

Bob (39:01):
They were. They were long, hard days. Yeah. But I loved
them. I shouldn't say they'rehard days.
I loved every minute of

Bryan (39:08):
Yeah. I I've said this before on the show, but I had an
instructor who, when we werewalking back in from our flights
on the Harvard, would often say,beats working for a living.
Yeah. And Exactly. I thoughtthat was great.
That really stuck with me.

Bob (39:21):
Yeah. Yeah. I can't think of anything worse than having to
go to work every day and youhate your job. You know?

Bryan (39:29):
Yes. Yeah. That that was always a big fear of mine.

Bob (39:32):
You know, we were lucky in our careers. We loved every
minute. I'd rather go to workthan stay at home. Yes.

Bryan (39:41):
How did instructing change your flying skills or
leadership approach?

Bob (39:45):
That was really significant. You know, in
hindsight, I'm really thankfulthat my first tour was as an
instructor, because I learned tofly the basics extremely well.
And when I was doing air showsand things like that later, you
know, when I was doingmaneuvers, I hit exact airspeeds

(40:06):
and exact altitudes like we didin basic training. Like when
you're doing a loop in a tutor,you started out at two fifty
knots, they wanted 110 knotsacross the top of the loop, and
they wanted you exactly twofifty knots on pullout. You
know?
That type of discipline, youknow, towards flying, that

(40:26):
degree of accuracy was reallyvaluable to me. And I I
appreciate that. The other partof it was that with that
instructional background, Icould help others, you know, on
my squadron. You know? I knewhow to cheat.
And whereas a lot of the boysthat didn't go through initial

(40:50):
instructors in Moose Jaw andGimli, they had no idea how to
instruct. You know? So being afirst tour instructor, I think,
was probably a huge benefit tome.

Bryan (41:05):
Yeah. A hidden blessing for you.

Bob (41:07):
Yeah. It really was.

Advertisement (41:09):
Yeah. KF Aerospace, Canada's largest MRO
and founding partner in Skylinefor the future aircrew training
program, is proud to be theexclusive North American dealer
for the Grove one twenty TP. TheGrove one twenty TP is a world
class training aircraft,combining turbine power,
advanced avionics, side by sideseating, and full aerobatic

(41:31):
capability. Already trusted bythe German Air Force, Canada's
Future Air Crew TrainingProgram, and militaries
worldwide, it's built to deliverperformance and reliability.
With its versatility, the GROBE120TP is the ideal platform for
both military training andcivilian programs, including
upset recovery training.

(41:51):
Go to kfairro.ca, that'skfaero.ca, to learn more and get
in touch with us.

Bryan (42:00):
What made the tutor such a great platform to instruct on?

Bob (42:04):
It was nice because it had sufficient power to do all the
functions you required intraining, and it was simple to
fly. It was a very basic jet jetairplane, and you sat beside
your student. So you could seewhat your student was doing, and
so you could help him much moreeffectively by asking him to

(42:27):
follow you through on the flightcontrols, and he can see how
you're accomplishing that task.And I think it was probably the
best trainer in the system,better than the American t 37.
At least the Tudors pressurizedand got better legs.
You know, it goes farther.

Bryan (42:44):
So at the time, it was quite a state of the art
trainer.

Bob (42:47):
It really was. You know? And, it was very effective, for
the job that it was tasked todo.

Bryan (42:55):
Mhmm. I'd like to talk next about your time on these
snowbirds. But before we kind ofget into that, how did the
snowbirds come to be?

Bob (43:04):
Yeah. Back in those days, colonel Obie Philip, he was the
base commander. And Obie was thelead of the centenary not the
lead, but he was the CEO of theGolden Centenary team in 1967,
which was the hundredthanniversary of confederation in

(43:24):
Canada. And so that had quite animpression on Obi. So when he
became base commander inBooshaw, he got all these jets
there, and he says, hey.
I want to continue with theaerobatic teams. And air command
back in those days said, no.Don't we're too busy training
students, and we don't have thejets for that. And OB being the

(43:48):
kind of character he was, hesays, well, I'll make the jets
available for that. And so in1971, he started up the team.
It was not authorized to doaerobatics. You know, air
command wasn't sanctioning this.And the boys selected were full
time instructors, you know, sothat they developed a pretty

(44:12):
good routine for being nonaerobatic. Glenn Young, husband,
was the lead of the team. He wasthe basic squadron commander in
Moose Jaw back in those days.
He didn't have an aerobaticbackground, but he was a good
pilot. And so that he got thoseboys doing pretty good work in
ninth plane formation. And butnot they're non aerobatic. And,

(44:34):
they got to do maybe 20 shows,25 shows a year. And, then in
1972, again, air commandwouldn't, authorize the team.
Know, being OB, he said, well,we're still doing this, and they
got more air shows because theybecame very popular with the
public. And so their pressurewas coming on to air command.

(44:58):
And then in 1973, air commandfinally resents and said, okay.
We're gonna make this a nationalaerobatic team. And, they
brought in George Miller.
He was a one zero four pilotoverseas. But George had been on
the on the Golden Centenaries onthe f p d six, and he had a

(45:21):
really excellent background information and aerobatic flying.
And so George was brought in torun this team, and they had
tryouts, you know, as to who thepilots would be. And so they
took, half the pilots from the1970, two team and just

(45:42):
transferred them over. And itbecame a full time job for those
boys.
And then they had a competition,and they got about a 150
applicants, to join the team,and they took 50 of them to fly.
And so they flew off with theseguys, and they did assessments
on our abilities. I tried outfor the team that year, and I

(46:04):
was successful. They took threeof us, or four of us, I think it
was, that were instructorsthere, had different
backgrounds. The guys came fromall different backgrounds.
Yogi was the 104 pilot when hecame on the team type of thing.
It became a national aerobaticteam when we were allowed to do
aerobatics, you know, so a hugejump. You know? And George was

(46:27):
very aggressive. You know?
And so that, you're gonna flywith George, you're gonna have
to tuck it in tight because he'sgonna fly that airplane, very
aggressively, and if you'regonna have enough power, hang
on. Our formations, were runningfour or five feet of overlap.
And you can see pictures fromback in those days, and it's
hard to believe, you know,that's the way it was. But we

(46:50):
were doing nine plane, takeoffs,nine plane landings on 150 foot
wide runways. And we'd do it asa matter of routine.
You know? We did that all thetime. And to learn how to do
that stuff, I was the onlylieutenant on the team, George
would use me because I had somuch student time to figure out
how to do a four plane takeoff.Well, he'd flamed me out twice

(47:13):
while we tried to figure outwhere to put that airplane in
behind his. And we did.
We got a position there. Andevery maneuver, he wanted to do
a five plane line of rest roll.That never been done by any team
before. George figured out howto do that. You know, he was
adjusting his power as lead justto give us enough to give me

(47:33):
enough power in the left wingand speed brakes and idle with
the guy on the right side, youknow?
So it was quite a challenge. Andthat team got so popular in '73.
It was just amazing. And Georgewas the kind of guy, if Air
Command didn't authorize an airshow, George would call it a

(47:56):
practice in front of a crowd,and go do the show anyhow. So we
were doing over a 100 shows ayear.
And, you know, like this year,think the snowbirds did 24, 25
shows. I forget. You know? Soback in those days when we had
the jets, and we only had ninepilots and two, I guess they're

(48:18):
administrative, youngannouncers, PA guys, PR guys, on
team. So 11 pilots and 11 Gronk.
That was all that was assignedto the team. There was nothing
else. We did all our ownmaintenance. The ground crew
flew with us from site to site.And it was a great group of
boys, you know, and we had fun.

(48:40):
And, it was like being a rockband, you know, because you're
on the road continuously, and,you're everywhere you go,
there's a party. And so that, wehad a lot of fun back in old
fashioned.

Bryan (48:53):
How did you handle the schedule of flying a 100 shows a
year? That sounds reallyintense.

Bob (48:59):
Yeah. It was, but, we were doing what we wanted to do. That
was great. You know? And I don'tthink we you know, we were
married.
I got married, yeah, just beforeI joined the Air Force, or
joined the Snowbirds. And mywife, she had no trouble with
that at all. Know? She wasn'tworking, looked after the kids.

(49:22):
But she was a widow.
Like her first husband was mystudent in pilot training who
was killed. Oh, wow. And so weended up getting married. I
adopted her kids, and, you know,it was a good thing. You know?
She settled me down a wholebunch.

Bryan (49:42):
Yeah. They tend to do that. It's It's a good thing all
around for sure. Yeah. What wasthe team culture like in the
early nineteen seventiessnowbirds compared to now?

Bob (49:52):
You know, I don't know. I I listened to it, what they're
doing now, And their challengesnowadays are so much different
than ours were back in our day.You know, if we needed to change
engines, there were lots ofengines available. You know,
we're running 160 airplanes onthat flight type of thing. And
so parts weren't a problem,where they are now.

(50:15):
And the age of the airplane is afactor because they brake more
often than what know, airplaneswere fairly new. And so we had
very few system failures.Whereas nowadays, I think they
experience that a lot more. Yousee a lot more of eight plane
air shows. They're doing a lotmore fly pass type shows rather

(50:37):
than full aerobatic displays.
It's easier on the airplanes. Sothat their challenges are huge.
Plus, they can't find pilots.You know? Guys don't wanna do
that, you know, for some reason.
And I think one of the boys ison leave from WestJet to go back

(50:57):
onto the team. Where when I wasthere, we had a 150 guys every
year trying out, trying to geton that team. You know? So
today's challenges are huge forthem. They needed a different
airplane, but they're doing aremarkable job.
You know? I really gotta commendthem. I was out in Abbotsford at

(51:17):
the air show this year, and, Iwas very impressed with their
show. Now it's different thanthe shows we were flying. You
know, we had two solos in aseven plane formation.
They're doing a lot of nineplane work now. And when we were
doing it, boy, if those soloswere more than ten seconds

(51:38):
between our smoke off with theformation and their smoke on
with the solos, they heard aboutit, you know? That was
unacceptable. Nowadays, it's notunusual to go, you know, thirty
seconds, forty five secondsbetween smoke on, smoke off. You
know?
So different environment. But, Iwas impressed with them. I

(51:58):
think, they're doing aremarkable job with the problems
they have.

Bryan (52:02):
Well, there you go. For any, Snowbird listeners we may
have, you've got one of theoriginal Snowbirds saying he's
impressed with what you guys aredoing. So I think that's, high
praise.

Bob (52:13):
Yeah.

Bryan (52:14):
So at the end of the first season, you found out that
they were removing you from theteam. Can you tell us this
story?

Bob (52:20):
Yeah. The Ralph old beat Philp had been, posted out, and,
Ralph Annes, he's an old Sabreone zero four pilot. Rotten
Ralph was his nickname. And hegot posted in as a base
commander. And he loved Ralph.
He was one of the old old schoolboys. You know? He does love to

(52:42):
fly. He's a great guy. Reallysupportive of the team.
But in '74, just before the airshow season started, Ruff comes
in to us and he says, hey. I gotbad news for you guys. We're
gonna have to, remove Bob Weedfrom the film there or from the
team. And the problem is thatair commanded I I supported that

(53:05):
we can't have a lieutenant onthe National Aerobatic team. And
boys got pretty upset at that,of course.
We're a pretty close bunch ofguys. Why are they kicking me
off the team because I'm still alieutenant? You know, I knew I
wasn't getting promoted, youknow, so that didn't seem to be
right. But that was on a Mondaymorning. And so we complained

(53:28):
all week.
George was supportive of us andthat type of thing. And then we
went to beer call that Friday,and Ralph, he gets up there and
we had a song we used to singwhere you have to drink a drink,
and now it's, I guess,politically unacceptable. And

(53:49):
Ralph says, he says, well, wegot a problem. They want to
throw Bob Wade off the snowboardaerobatic team. He says, but I
got a solution.
Bob, you're now a captain. Hepromoted me. So I got to stay on
the team. But I think it was alla joke, you know, that was just
Ralph's idea. That's the wayhe's gonna tell me I got

(54:11):
promoted.

Bryan (54:13):
Oh, you think that the whole thing was him pulling your
leg?

Bob (54:15):
Oh, I think so. Yeah. That was Ralph. You know, he was that
kind of a guy.

Bryan (54:20):
That's pretty funny.

Bob (54:22):
Everybody loved Ralph. He was a he was a good boy with
lots of fun.

Bryan (54:26):
That's awesome. So next, we're gonna talk about your time
on the starfighter. Your nextposting was to the CF one zero
four starfighter in Europe. I'dlike to give the listeners some
context about the Cold War andthen ask you a question. The
Cold War was a tense decadeslong standoff between the
western allies led by NorthAtlantic Treaty Organization or
NATO and the Eastern Bloc led bythe Soviet Union or USSR that

(54:48):
followed the end of the secondworld war.
Rather than a direct shootingwar, it was a global competition
of military power, ideology, andinfluence. In Europe, NATO
pilots trained daily to respondto a potential Soviet attack
that could come at any time,often flying low level, high
speed missions close to the ironcurtain. For Canadian fighter
pilots like Bob Wade, this meantliving and flying on the front

(55:08):
lines of a geopolitical standoffthat shaped global security for
nearly half a century. So whatwas it like flying in this tense
environment?

Bob (55:16):
Oh, when I got off the snowbirds, they didn't post me
on starfighters right away. So Iwent back instructing. I became
an A1 instructor. Was the onlyA1 on base back in those days. I
was very proud of that because Ispent more time instructing
instructors than I did students.

(55:36):
You know? But what I wanted toensure was that students that
are getting failed are beingfailed for the right reasons.
It's not by lack of effort ofinstructors. And I I changed a
couple of those CTs back gotthose kids flying. In fact, the
young fellow that's he's not ayoung fellow anymore, but the

(55:57):
guy that's chair of the HamiltonMuseum called me a couple weeks
ago, and he says, Bobby Wade, hesays, I wanna thank you.
You're the reason I got to flyin the air force, because I
saved his butt when they CT'dhim. I'm gonna get him released,
and I knew it was his instructorthat was the was the problem.
You know? So I was very proud ofthose days, and then they

(56:19):
finally did get me posted in '75onto the starfighter. I was so
excited about that.
Married, three kids, and thefamily could all come overseas
with me. But you had to go toCold Lake first to learn how to
fly that starfighter. And beforeyou got on to the starfighter,

(56:41):
you had to put in seventy fivehours on the f five. And that
was four nineteen Squadron. Andfour nineteen Squadron just
stood up, so it was the firstF-five Squadron that we used
just simply as a trainingsquadron.
And I was happy to go there. Thef five was a beautiful little
airplane to fly. Tactically, itdidn't have a lot to contribute

(57:03):
because of its size and power,but fun to fly. It was a great
jet. And so I learned a bit,made that transition coming out
of a tutor into a more highperformance airplane with an
afterburner.
And, it was fun. In fact, I wonthe General Marcel's, trophy,
for topping the course, and thatwas the first, award of that

(57:26):
General Marcel's trophy. So I'mwas pretty impressed with that.
And then got on to the one zerofour course, which again was in
Coal Lake and on four seventeensquadron back in those days. And
that was just an amazing changein performance, flight
performance of an airplane thatI couldn't even imagine before

(57:48):
that.
And on your first flight, you'rein the front seat, you got an
instructor in the back seat, andyou already know how to start it
up. There wasn't simulators toteach you that stuff, but you
did it in ground school, andsitting in the cockpit trying to
figure out where all theswitches go and what they meant.
But you get into that firstairplane, you taxi out to the

(58:09):
end of the runway. When youlight that afterburner, it's an
experience you'll never forget.You know, it was towed in heavy.
It was a four stage afterburner.So you select full military
power, then you select outboardwith the throttle, and then
forward. And you get a kick inthe pants that you can't
believe, you know, when itstarts accelerating. And then

(58:32):
about three or four secondslater, you get another kick in
the pants, not quite as strongas that first one, and then the
third one. It was a huge kick inthe pants, you know?
And then you're reallyaccelerating. Takeoff speed in
the tip tank configuration wastwo twelve knots. Wow. And yeah,

(58:53):
with that little wing on thatairplane, it didn't want to go
slow. And the faster you went,the faster it accelerated.
And so that your time betweenthree hundred and four hundred
knots took longer than what itdid between four hundred and
five hundred knots. So you don'tstop accelerating, you know,

(59:14):
even though the airplane's stillgoing through 400 knots, you
know, it's just incredible. Andinitially, you have a hard time
getting that landing gear upfast enough so you don't
overspeed it. You You had to usenose wheel steering on the
Starfighter right up to a 150knots on takeoff. Then once you

(59:35):
get airborne, switch thatconnects your rudders to your
nose tire changes into a micbutton.
And a lot of the kids on theirfirst takeoff, they're squeezing
that stick so hard they don'tlet go of the nose wheel
steering. So they get airborne,you can hear all this heavy
breathing over the microphones.It's kind of funny. But it was

(59:58):
an experience that you neverforget. You know, I I've got two
thousand hours on that airplaneand every every takeoff was
something you enjoyed so much.
It was just so much fun.

Bryan (01:00:12):
Wow. It sounds amazing. The power of that thing just
sounds incredible.

Bob (01:00:17):
It was. It was just an incredible airplane to fly. I
flew for thirty nine years. If Ihad to go back and fly any jet,
it would be that Starfighterthat I'd pick.

Bryan (01:00:26):
Yeah. And I've heard that, you know, I've talked to
some guys when I was I wasvolunteering in the air museum
in Winnipeg for a little while.

Bob (01:00:35):
Oh, yeah.

Bryan (01:00:36):
And, you may know Bob Patrick, who still volunteers
there.

Bob (01:00:40):
Oh, yeah.

Bryan (01:00:40):
Yeah. Who was also a Starfighter guy and he he was in
love with that plane. It seemslike anyone who's flown that
plane absolutely loves it.

Bob (01:00:48):
Yeah. And we have a society now and, we do cruises and, you
know, we communicate together,but we're getting old. You know,
I'm 79 and I'm one of the youngfellas.

Bryan (01:00:58):
Yeah. Because Bob's 88 or or I suppose 89 now.

Bob (01:01:03):
Yeah. Yeah.

Bryan (01:01:06):
So what was it like flying in the environment of the
Cold War with all the thetension and the standoff? Like,
what was that like?

Bob (01:01:12):
Yeah. The Canadian contribution to NATO, which was
our contribution towards theCold War, was very significant.
At the end of World War two, wehad the fourth largest air force
in the world. We were a countryof 11,000,000 people. Now if you
talk to Churchill, you'd say theCold War started in 1945, you

(01:01:36):
know, when World War two ended.
The Russians wanted to or theRussians, Soviets wanted to keep
coming west. They wanted to takeall of Germany and then press
into Netherlands and France andBelgium. And the West didn't
really know how to react forthose first few years. And by
1949, they decided that they'regonna form an organization to

(01:01:59):
become a cooperative defensesystem against that Soviet
aggression. And, that was calledNATO.
And, the first member nationswas included Canada and The
United States. But what's reallyinteresting is that after World
War two, they divided the WestGerman sector into three

(01:02:20):
regions. And the North was ranby the Brits, the Central part
was ran by the Americans, andthe southern part was given to
Canada. You know? And that is sosignificant.
When you consider all the alliednations that fought in World War
two, Canada gets the the numberthree section, or we get put in

(01:02:40):
break with the top threeorganizations. But our,
contribution was huge. We had 12squadrons of f 80 sixes that we
put into Europe in those years,300 fighter aircraft. And they
were good. They were f 80 sixes.
And so the Canadian role was airdefense back in those days. But

(01:03:01):
daytime air defense only. That f86 never had a radar. So it was
a a daytime dogfighter. And theboys loved it because they're
coming out of spitfires fromWorld War two jumping into this
saber jet that you can getsupersonic in a dive.
You know? So it was a huge jumpin technology. Then the Korean
War comes up, and some of theboys went over to Korea on the

(01:03:23):
F-eighty six. And that was a bitchallenging for the boys because
it was a United Nations effort.And they they did learn a lot,
but they were lucky that they'rerunning against pilots flying
MiG 15s that had no combatexperience.

(01:03:44):
And so the kill ratio was aboutfive to one for the f 86 against
the MiG 50 or against the, yeah,the MiG 15. And then in '62,
well, we sent four squadrons ofthe c f one hundreds over there
too to replace some of thesquadrons of sabers. And they
give them an all weathercapability, which is pretty

(01:04:04):
significant. That CF onehundred's got quite a story. We
had 11 squadrons of CF onehundreds at one time.
And then in '62, they decided toreplace the saber and the CF one
hundreds with the c f one zerofour starfighter. Now the
background on the starfighterwas that the only time it had
been deployed was in Vietnam ina combat role. And it was really

(01:04:29):
huge on performance. In 1956,they set the world speed record
to Mach 2.76. That was ChuckYeager.
And he was a 120 some thousandfeet, you know? So it was a huge
jump in technology. But thethinking back in those days was
speed was life. You know, thefaster you go, the better off
you are. And which was true to apoint.

(01:04:51):
It made you hard to shoot down,but you couldn't turn. You know?
The corner velocity on one zerofour was 510 knots before you
could get seven and a half theother you know? So it was a a
hot bird, but they got no killswith it. Nobody got shot down,
but they got no kills.
So they pulled the f fourreplaced the starfighter in the

(01:05:13):
Vietnam war. And Lockheed wantedto market it as a ground attack
airplane. And so that Canada,Denmark, Norway, Italy, Belgium,
West Germany, they all boughtthat airplane as a ground attack
airplane. And the role thatCanada was given was as a

(01:05:36):
nuclear bomber and recce. Soreconnaissance was the other
role.
And instead of having 12squadrons over there, we had
nine initially. And their jobwas to carry a nuke, big one,
one point one megaton. And so itwas 50 times bigger than the

(01:05:57):
bombs they dropped on Nagasakiand Hiroshima. But the problem
was is we could not survive thethreat if we got up high. So
that all our flying was doneright on the trees at really
high speeds.
We used 540 knots as a run-inspeed. And then that was inbound
because of weapons carriage,that was the limit on your

(01:06:18):
weapon. And then coming offtarget, you come off supersonic.
The Starfighter would gosupersonic with an afterburner
in low level. Wow.
It had a ton of power downthere. And no other fighter
could catch you in thatenvironment. So we didn't worry
about fighters, because younoticed, like, did you fly the f

(01:06:38):
18?

Bryan (01:06:39):
No. I was an Aurora pilot.

Bob (01:06:41):
Yeah. Yeah. Okay. You didn't get any fighter time. But
on a fighter, your gun is notmounted level.
It monitors about three degreesnose up. So if you're gonna
shoot at somebody, you gotta getthat three degrees below the guy
you're shooting at. Well, ifthat guy's down at a couple 100
feet, you're not getting threedegrees below. So we didn't
worry about fighters. What weworried about was surface to air
missiles.

(01:07:02):
And the old SAM six and thosethose type of weapon systems,
that were out in those days backin the sixties were very
effective. So we knew that if westayed down a couple 100 feet
above the trees, they couldn'tpick us up in time to get a
missile launch on us. And theAmericans owned all the nukes,

(01:07:22):
but they wanted us to carry thembecause we had the best shot of
getting through to a target. Soand the boys did recce as well,
you know, where they could takecameras over the targets and
take do battle damageassessment, that type of thing.
So it was a very viable role forthe starfighter, to be in that

(01:07:42):
nuclear role.
And I never flew that. I knowI've got a lot of friends that
did. And what's interesting isI've heard some of those
missions were in so deep thatthey didn't have enough fuel to
get home. So what they would dois they'd give you script money
for some country that you couldbail out over. And then once you

(01:08:05):
get on the ground, you buyyourself a friend and wait out
the war.
They said they could launchevery, nuke they had within
seventy two hours. So the warwouldn't have lasted any longer
than seventy two hours. But itwould have been a very different
world after those seventy twohours.

Bryan (01:08:20):
No kidding. That's partly why I added a little bit of
context at the beginning of thissection for our younger
listeners who just didn'tunderstand who may not
understand, that's what theworld was looking at at this
time. They were looking at a warthat would last twenty four to
seventy two hours of nuclear warand then a whole different

(01:08:41):
planet after that.

Bob (01:08:42):
Yeah. Yeah. Now we were all encouraged to, build bomb
shelters. They called them bombshelters, but they weren't built
for blasts. They were built forradiation.
So you had these radiationbunkers in your backyards, bur
buried underground or in yourbasements. And that's because
that was the only way you wouldsurvive after that, nuclear

(01:09:04):
exchange. The radiation would goaround the globe for about
fifteen days or so. Wow. So thata lot of Americans did.
Not many did in Canada. Butlikely, we wouldn't get any
nukes here. They didn't haveenough nukes to, hit Canadian
cities and stuff like that. Itwas a we weren't of any value.

(01:09:24):
You know?
They'd be going to America orEuropean countries with their
nukes. And that almost went towar a number of times. Now
DEFCON, defense conditions, theynumber from one to five. DEFCON
five is peace. That's wherewe're at right now.

(01:09:45):
We went to DEFCON two in 1962during the Cuban Missile Crisis.
You're one step away from beingat war. Yeah? And there were
several other times thathappened throughout history. And
then in 1971, the Trudeaugovernment, this boy did, he
takes us out of the nuclear roleand made us go conventional

(01:10:07):
ground attack, because it's notnice to carry nuclear weapons.
It's kind of his rationale. Youknow, Canadians don't do that
kind of stuff, which was totalgarbage. He denied that we had
any nuclear weapons after '71,and that wasn't true. The
Voodoo's carried the G and Emissile, which had nuclear
warhead. So it was all politics.

(01:10:31):
But the repercussions of thatwere that we had to with the
little wing on the Starfighter,we could only carry four bombs.
So sometimes I'd have to take upto 12 airplanes just to get
enough weapons onto a target tomake that mission worthwhile.
You know? So the job becamereally complicated.

Bryan (01:10:50):
Yeah. Because with those small wings, it was really only
as a nuclear ground attackfighter that it could carry
enough explosives to actually doa meaningful job.

Bob (01:11:01):
Yeah. And so now he's he's put us into this role for
conventional ground attack wherewe can carry four bombs. And we
were carrying napalm clusterbombs. Napalm was not allowed to
be used anymore by the GenevaConvention in '82. We carried

(01:11:23):
cluster bombs, which I thinkhave been banned as well, and
high explosive, and CRV sevenrockets, that type of thing.
And we thought we'd beeffective. The NATO elected to
employ us about taking outmissile sites, you know, because
we were so hard to shoot down.We could get weapons on them
before they could get a missilein the air against us. We'd run

(01:11:45):
against Hawk Sites, which is theAmerican missile defense system.
And those boys would tell usthat they couldn't get a shot on
us before we were over top ofthem.
So we felt pretty good aboutbeing able to do that. But doing
jobs like close air support, weweren't very effective.

Bryan (01:12:05):
Know? No, too fast. I would imagine.

Bob (01:12:07):
We couldn't turn. You know?

Bryan (01:12:08):
Yeah.

Bob (01:12:09):
We could go fast, but this kind of laugh as they didn't say
it'd take you two countries toturn that thing around. It
wasn't much of an exaggeration.

Bryan (01:12:16):
Now, would this be about the time that you developed the
silent target tactic? Yeah. Canyou tell

Bob (01:12:22):
us a

Bryan (01:12:22):
little about that?

Bob (01:12:23):
Yeah. When I got there, I was posted to Baden and I was on
four four one squadron. And Iget over there, and they're
testing us on these close airsubmit support missions. And,
that's where a controller on theground is trying to tell you to
turn left, turn right to hit atarget that you can't see yet.
And if when you do pick it up,it's too late for you to turn

(01:12:44):
and hit it.
And so our success rates onclose air support missions were
less than 5%. And it was just atotal waste of time employing us
that way. And as we weren'teffective, we'd probably get
shot down doing it. And so Ithought of a system, we called
it silent target, where what Ihad was the controller would

(01:13:05):
tell me the distance from aknown navigation point to the
target. And it had to be over aminute long.
And so I designed attackprofiles from one minute back
from the target, deploying allkinds of different weapons. I
could do pop attacks, where youpull up and go into a five
degree or 10 degree dive. Icould do curvilinear attacks

(01:13:27):
where you pull three g to acertain proof heading. Those
were the tactics we were usingin the interdiction rooms, you
know? So we were good at thatstuff.
So all we needed to do wasidentify a whole bunch of sites
across Western Germany that wecould use as these initial
points, these IPs. And Ipresented that to one Canadian

(01:13:51):
air group. One Canadian airgroup got excited to put it and
send it to the fourth Alliedtactical air force, and then it
went to AFSI, Allied Air Forceof Central Europe. And they all
adopted these procedures, thesesilent target procedures. And
our success rates went frombelow five percent to over 50%
on first round attackcapability.

(01:14:11):
So it was a very effectivesystem. But, tactically, a 10
did a better job.

Bryan (01:14:19):
Yeah. Well, you can't compare for ground attack almost
anything against an a 10.

Bob (01:14:24):
That's true.

Bryan (01:14:25):
Yeah. That's the I mean, that thing is the ultimate
ground attack aircraft. It'sit's you can't beat it.

Bob (01:14:32):
Yeah. Yeah. I think so.

Bryan (01:14:35):
So as this episode is releasing, the week before
Remembrance Day and our part twowill release on Remembrance Day,
I'd like to bring this around toa couple questions, about
Remembrance Day as we come to aclose for this one. Are there
any particular moments from yourcareer that remind you of the
cost or responsibility ofwearing the uniform?

Bob (01:14:55):
Yeah. And we all we all suffered from that a wee bit,
know. We lost nine hundred andthirty seven people in the RCAF
due to operational accidentsfrom 1949 until 1991.

Bryan (01:15:14):
Wow.

Bob (01:15:15):
937 boys. Say boys because we didn't have women in combat
roles back in those days. Andthose accident rates or
accidents were not due tocombat. Those were just day to
day operations. You flew everyday like you're gonna go to war
the next day.

(01:15:35):
You know? So because of changesin technology, you know, the
jump from a Spitfire to a Sabre,guys were hitting each other. In
ten years on the f 86, they losta 107 pilots. Now that's
incredible.

Bryan (01:15:52):
Yeah.

Bob (01:15:53):
We lost 37 on the Starfighter. We had two thirty
eight airplanes, but we sold 23to Denmark and 23 to Norway at
70 '3. So out of about 190airplanes, we crashed 110 on the
Starfighter. And most of thatwas bird strikes, because you're

(01:16:13):
flying in the same environmentas birds, you know, and so that
a lot of boys bailed out forthat. Some of the guys went
through the trees.
And I lost 38 friends that Iflew with every day over my
twenty three year career.

Bryan (01:16:26):
Wow.

Bob (01:16:27):
And they were all pilot error accidents, but when I'm
talking pilot error, that's notmuch of a mistake when you get
killed. You know?

Bryan (01:16:34):
Not at those heights and speeds.

Bob (01:16:36):
Yeah. And so, those boys meant a lot to me. We were close
on squadron. You know? They wereyour brothers.
And, they died doing a job thatthey thought they needed to do
that well. And on f '18, I lostsome two, I lost three guys on
my four year tour. You know? SoI want people to know that, that

(01:17:03):
that Cold War wasn't cost free.We paid a very big price.
That's we lost more people injust the air force than they've
lost in the Korean War,Afghanistan War, and Kosovo, and
all the wars we've had sincethen. Just in the air force, you
know. So that the losses werereally significant and the media

(01:17:25):
never covered it. You know? Sothat's why we have a Cold War
exhibit here in Calgary.
We wanna tell that story. Wewant the public to understand,
you know, that peace is not theabsence of war, but the
maintenance of those hard wonfreedoms. That's a story we
wanna tell. How

Bryan (01:17:48):
does this affect how you approach Remembrance Day now?
For you, is it about the dead,the wounded, all who served in
their families?

Bob (01:17:57):
No. It's about making people understand that the
freedoms they enjoy today comeat a big cost. And so I, work
for the memory project out ofOttawa where I go to schools.
They assigned me differentschools to go to to speak before
November 11. I think I've goteight booked now.
Wow. And we on November 11,generally, I go to the ceremony

(01:18:24):
at the military museums, but wego inside the Cold War exhibit
to host people, and we'll getover 5,000 people through that
exhibit on November 11. Andthat's the story we tell them is
that, hey, You enjoy thisfreedom today because of the
price paid by a lot of good men.And I think they do. Canadians

(01:18:45):
are very receptive to that, butthey don't necessarily feel a
threat living in Canada.
You live next door to uncle Sam.He'll look after you. You know?
Mhmm. But now we've got Trumpthere.
You know, he's saying, hey.American taxpayer is not gonna
pay your defense bill anymore.You know? So build your
military, which is a wonderfulthing. But Canadians all

(01:19:07):
understand that, hey, ourmilitary is not where it should
be.
Mhmm. They've not done the jobthey should be doing. And so
those are the kind of messages Iwant people to understand, you
know, that you need to keep amilitary, like you need a lock
on your door. And, at thepresent time, China has three of
the largest icebreakers in theworld. They don't have a lot of

(01:19:29):
ice in China.
They're coming through theCanadian Arctic. And that's why
you hear politicians nowadaystalking about defense of the
Arctic. They know that threatexists. And so that, we gotta
pay attention to that, and wegotta provide the equipment so
those boys can do that job. Iran air defense, for, the alert

(01:19:49):
forces for Western Canada mylast four years.
And we'd get, Russian bombers,bear bombers coming across the
North Pole four or five times ayear, normally in the
wintertime. We'd go up andintercept him. It's dark in the
wintertime up there, so we had alight on the side of our cockpit
that we could light those boysup. Just show them. You guys
want to come for real?

(01:20:10):
We'll get you before you canlaunch your cruise missiles. And
they said, think they're stilldoing that. I don't know.
They're down to so fewairplanes, maybe the Americans
are taking over that. I hopenot.

Bryan (01:20:21):
No. We still intercept. Yet we're still doing those
those duties, the QRF duties. SoI wanted to ask, you said that
you've lost dozens of peers. Howdo you cope with that?

Bob (01:20:35):
Well, the boys were doing what they wanted to do. So I'm
not saying they died happy, butthey were doing a job that they
loved to do. You know? So theirdeath wasn't in vain. You know?
They paid that ultimatesacrifice, but they didn't need

(01:20:57):
to die, but that was just aconsequence of all those boys
flying those missions. You know,so that you kind of rationalize
it that way. I've got PTSD. Oh,I've I talked to a psychiatrist
once a month, and I takesertraline and stuff like that.
You know?
I found my biggest benefit isworking at that Cold War

(01:21:19):
exhibit. I've got 70 volunteersthere, 95% are veterans. And,
working with those boys, caringfor those boys, it's kinda like
being on squatter. You know?Mhmm.
Kind of that same relationship.And, that helps me deal with
those issues. But, yeah, 38boys, a lot of boys. Every every

(01:21:41):
year, you're burying somebody.You know?

Bryan (01:21:43):
Yeah. First of all, thank you for being open about that. I
think it's really important thatpeople are, we discuss those
things and I think it helpspeople to come forward and get
help. I also see a therapistregularly for similar diagnosis.
I'm also on medication for asimilar diagnosis and I think
it's a good thing to acknowledgethat and sort of put that out in

(01:22:04):
the open.
Okay. So we're going to talkquickly about SIFMAP or the
Canadian Forces MemberAssistance Program. This program
is for regular force members,reserves who are on duty during
an incident and parents andsiblings of CAF regular and
reserve force members who areinjured or who die while in
service. The program providesdirect access to telephone
counseling services twenty fourhours a day, seven days a week.

(01:22:27):
From my own personal experience,you can call or use their online
chat feature to make anappointment.
They then set you up with aprofessional and I believe you
get 10 free mental healthsessions. For more details, I
highly encourage you to GoogleCFMAP, that's C F M A P, and
click on the canada.ca link. Thebeauty of this program is it's
free and confidential, so no onein the CAF will know you used

(01:22:48):
it, not your supervisor or chainof command, and not your doctor.
I don't say that to encouragepeople hiding their conditions
from their doctor. I personallythink it's important to be open
with your doctor about whatyou're going through, but if
you're afraid to ask for help,it's a great way to dip your
toes in the waterconfidentially.
So how do you contact them?Listen closely everyone, take
out your phone and save thisnumber because you or someone
you love may need it one day.The number is [phone].

(01:23:14):
Again, that's [phone]. Andnow on with the show.

Bob (01:23:21):
It's not something to be ashamed of, Brian.

Bryan (01:23:23):
No. Not at all.

Bob (01:23:24):
It's just a consequence of doing what you did.

Bryan (01:23:28):
Exactly. That's exactly right.

Bob (01:23:30):
Yeah.

Bryan (01:23:32):
Okay, Bob. That's gonna be it for part one of our
Remembrance Day episodes. Iwanna thank you so much for your
time and for sharing yourexperiences with us. And I wanna
also thank you for your service.So thank you so much for being
here today.

Bob (01:23:43):
It's my pleasure, Brad.

Bryan (01:23:45):
Alright. That wraps up part one of our special two part
episode for Remembrance Day withmajor retired Bob Wade, a Cold
War fighter pilot. Tune in nextweek as we check back in with
Bob to hear about his time onthe CF 18 Hornet, his transition
to civilian life, but mostexcitingly, the fascinating
story of how Bob became thefirst westerner to fly in a MiG

(01:24:07):
29. Do you have any questions orcomments about anything you've
heard in this show? Would you orsomeone you know make a great
guest, or do you have a greatidea for a show?
You can reach out to us at [e-mail] or
on all social media at at podpilot project. And be sure to
check out that social media forlots of great videos of our RCAF
and mission aviation aircraft.As always, we'd like to thank

(01:24:29):
you for tuning in and ask foryour help with the big three.
That's like and follow us onsocial media, share with your
friends, and follow and rate usfive stars wherever you get your
podcasts. That's all for now.
Thanks for listening. Keep theblue side up. See you. Engineer,
shut down all four. Shuttingdown all four engines.