Episode 77: The Veteran Series: Cold War Remembrance and the famous flight in the MiG-29 Part 2 - Bob Wade

In Part 2 of this Remembrance Day special, Major (Ret) Bob Wade - Cold War fighter pilot, instructor, and former CF-18 demo pilot - takes us into the jet age of the 1980s.

Wade describes the transition from the CF-104 Starfighter to the CF-18 Hornet, his time shaping Canada’s early Hornet tactics, and the challenges of bringing a new fighter into service. He recalls intercepting Soviet bombers during Arctic NORAD alert operations and running forward deployments in the far North with 441 Squadron.

Then, Wade tells the incredible story of the day he became the first Western pilot to fly a Soviet MiG-29, after escorting the aircraft through Canadian airspace to the Abbotsford Airshow. With insight, humour, and humility, Wade reflects on Cold War flying, the changing technology of fighter aviation, and what remembrance means to those who served in uniform. 

Episode Transcript

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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. With me today for the
second of our special two partRemembrance Day series is a
legendary figure 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, welcome once again
to the show and thank you somuch for being here today.

Bob (01:25):
Thank you, Brian. My pleasure.

Bryan (01:27):
Listeners can check out part one to hear about how Bob
joined the CAF and his days onthe Tutor and Starfighter.
Today, we will be talking aboutBob's time on the c f 18, his
adventure flying a MiG 29, andhis transition to civilian
flying, and how he stillconnects with his time in the
CAF. So at the end of part one,we had kinda left it at your
time flying CF one zero fours inEurope, in Germany. You did come

(01:51):
back to Cold Lake and startinstructing on CF one zero
fours. Correct?

Bob (01:55):
That's correct. When I I was five years in Europe, and my
posting after that was onto thestarfighter as an instructor at
four seventeen squadron in ColdLake.

Bryan (02:07):
And then eventually, the CF one zero four starfighters
were being retired with thearrival of the CF 18 Hornet.
Right? And you learned thatyou'd be instructing on these
new jets?

Bob (02:16):
That's correct. Yes. We were winding up the program as
the f 18 came in, and first twoairplanes arrived in October
1982. And we were getting twoairplanes a month after that. So
the initial stand up was justgiving the guys an opportunity

(02:38):
to learn how to fly theairplane.
And I was still instructing onthe last course of one of four
pilots in Cold Lake goingoverseas. And they told me I
would be moved over to instructon the CF-eighteen once the
squadron stands up. And so thatwe did that. At the end of the

(03:01):
one zero four program, weactually flew 12 airplanes, 12
104s to Europe throughGreenland, Iceland, over to
Scotland, then down to Bodden.So that was quite an adventure
to finish up a career on thatstarfighter.
And then when I got back fromthat mission, I went over to
four ten Squadron in Cold Laketo, instruct on that airplane.

(03:26):
Now initially, we didn't haveenough airplanes to, take on a
student course. So that firstyear, we, just developed tactics
to learn how to fight theairplane. The United States Navy
was receiving them at the sametime, so nobody had any tactical
experience as to how to employthat fighter. And, we developed

(03:46):
a syllabus.
I ran the, ground attacksyllabus. Other boys developed
the, air defense syllabus, andwe have various backgrounds that
were posted into four tensquadrons. So some of the guys
were off Voodoo's f fives and asa starfighter. And we didn't
have weapons that employed thesmart technology, so we're

(04:11):
actually dropping bombs the sameway we did with the one zero
four. The difference was theCF-eighteen had a CCIP,
continuous computing impactpoint, displayed in the heads up
display.
So that rather than having to,have the, pilot hit an exact
dive angle with an exactairspeed and exact release

(04:33):
point, on the ground at anoffset for wind when you release
the weapon, that airplane did itall for you. So that
considerably helped helped thestudents learn to do that ground
attack role. And once we'd gonethrough that, we wrote the

(04:57):
syllabus for the students. Wegot students a year later, and
we ran the first course. Nowthose courses were comprised of
a whole squadron.
So every nine months, we'restanding up a new squadron.
We're taking 28 pilots throughon a course at a time. It was a
busy busy time to be flying thef 18. And we were quite excited

(05:22):
to have that jet. I was a littledisappointed with its lack of
power after coming off astarfighter.
And so that, it didn't, wanna gohigh speed, low altitude,
because of the large wing. It,was very rough down low
altitude, whereas a starfighterwas like Cadillac down there. It
was so so smooth at high speedand low level. So that, there

(05:45):
were some differences, but, inreality, it did a better job
than the, than the starfighterdid because he could carry more
weapons. We could carry 10 markeighty two five hundred pound
bombs.
And in those days, all our mark80 twos were high drag. Because
we're releasing them from 200feet above the target, we didn't

(06:07):
want that bomb detonating rightunderneath us. So when the bomb
came off the airplane, finsdeployed on the back of the bomb
to retard it so that itdetonated well behind your your
aircraft. And nowadays, ofcourse, they don't have to do
that. Their smart weapons arelaser guided or GPS guided, and
so that you can release, thoseweapons from high altitude and

(06:28):
get great accuracy.
But back in the early days, wewere just employed like, we did
with the, starfighter and ffive. In the air defense role,
it was a huge jump in technologyfrom the earlier, CF one zero
one voodoo. And so that thoseboys did a remarkable job at

(06:50):
setting up that program to teachstudents how to do air
intercepts, air defense. And wewere gunfighters. We didn't
figure that we had enoughmissiles or the missiles were
good enough to avoid us havingto gunfight.
So that, in those days, theWarsaw Pact, outnumber nine to

(07:11):
one in the air, you know, sothat we didn't have enough
weapons to take them all outunless we used our gun. And that
f 18 was about the bestgunfighter in the sky because it
had no angle of attack limit. Sothat, the f fifteens, f sixteens
that came online before the f 18were limited to 25 degrees angle

(07:33):
of attack. So they couldn'tmaneuver at really low speeds
like an f 18 could. And so that,a good gunfight was, two f
sixteens against one of us andan f 18, you know, because we
had so much more turn capabilityand and the ability to operate
that high angles of attack.

(07:55):
We could do intercepts, and theboys set it up so they were,
doing stern conversions the sameas what they did in the voodoo,
where you would offset from thetarget and then at a certain
point, turn to roll out in thestern of that target. And that
came out to be a problem becauseif that radar is supposed to

(08:19):
drop a radar, if you got intothe beam on your target and it
didn't sense movement, well,then it went into prediction
mode. And we had we lost one ofthe students on that first
course because, he startedchasing this prediction of where
the target was, got into a steepdive, hit the ground. Oh. Know,

(08:42):
You so we had to revise thesyllabus from that to make it a
visual environment where they'redoing it.
They could no longer studentscould no longer do that in
cloud. And so that was a lessonwell learned. Unfortunately, we
lost a young fella while he wentthrough that transition.

Bryan (09:02):
How did it feel personally for you to transition
from the starfighter to theHornet after putting in so much
time on starfighters?

Bob (09:10):
I was, excited to fly the f 18 because it was new
technology. Everything's ran bya computer. We had no computers
on the, Starfighter. You couldtake your helmet off in in
flight, and it was quiet insidethe cockpit. Whereas the f 18,
you take your helmet off, it'snoisy because of all the
computers running all thesystems type of thing.

(09:31):
And it would do so much more. Icould track 12 targets at one
time, you know? And whereas thef or the Voodoo Boys couldn't do
that with their airplane. Soit's a huge jump in technology.
I love that about the airplane,but it didn't didn't go fast

(09:52):
like a starfighter.
You know, I've had it up to1.65, but it took forever to get
there, burned a lot of fuel toget there. But in reality, you
didn't have to go Mach 1.7, youknow, in that airplane because
you had missiles that did fourtimes the speed of sound. And I
didn't have to chase anybodydown. Those missiles would do

(10:13):
that job for me. And so thatthat was just awesome to see
that happen.

Bryan (10:21):
You mentioned that you had to try to learn to use the
Hornet in combat before thestudents arrived so that they
could learn from you. How didthis process go, and do you
think that it's a similarprocess to what many instructors
will have to do in the comingyears as all these new fleets
come online?

Bob (10:37):
They'll go through the same process with the f 35 when it
arrives and because it'sdifferent technology again.
Mhmm. Now I don't know muchabout the f 35 because I don't
have a security clearance. Butone of the students on my first
course at four ten squadron wasBilly Flynn. Billy became the

(10:59):
chief test pilot on that f 35program.
So talking to Billy, you know,it's a pretty impressive
airplane, but it does so muchmore than what the f 18 would
do. And so that I don'tunderstand, what it does, and,
Billy, of course, couldn't tellme it's all classified. And so
that I take his word for it thatit's the best fighter in the sky

(11:23):
today. So those boys are gonnahave to go through that same
process to learn how to fightthat airplane, how to employ it
tactically.

Bryan (11:30):
Yeah. I do see I follow Billy Flynn on, Facebook. And
actually, one day, I'd love tohave him on the show. But, he's
obviously very, very, positiveabout the f 35, that it is the
jet for the job and thatCanada's doing the right thing
and sticking with it.

Bob (11:46):
Yeah. And, well, Billy's a company pilot, so naturally,
he's gonna promote the airplane.Yeah. But, you know, I look at
the last, what, 15 countriesthat have replaced their fighter
aircraft have all bought the f35. They can't all be wrong.
And the other factor is that,especially in NORAD, they don't

(12:08):
want you there with an f 18 ifthey're flying f 30 fives
because you're just highlightingtheir formations. You can't
communicate and, and work withthe f 35 because you don't have
that technology.

Bryan (12:20):
Yeah. That's right. Interoperability becomes the,
paramount concern.

Bob (12:24):
Huge. Yeah. And, most of, NATO and NORAD will be flying
the f 35.

Bryan (12:31):
That's right. So after a little while, you were selected
as the CF 18 demo pilot. Thatwas in 1986. What was the public
opinion like on the Hornet atthat time?

Bob (12:43):
We were getting a lot of bad press because we had been,
we paid a lot of money. And Ithink it was, 35,000,000 per
aircraft, that we bought. Webought a 138 of them. And the
media took the attitude that,well, you're buying an airplane

(13:04):
built for the United States Navyto fly off aircraft carriers,
and you're trying to make itapply to, our requirements, here
in North America. And, why wouldyou do that?
And, I did an interview, when Iwas doing air shows, and I did
an air show in Toronto, I did aCBC interview. And, that boy, he
just threw question afterquestion, you know, why why

(13:26):
would we buy an airplane likethat? You know? And we'd had
three accidents, fatalaccidents. You know?
Was it the airplane's fault? Youknow? And this type of thing
when it wasn't. Yeah. Those wereall pilot air accidents.

Bryan (13:39):
They usually are.

Bob (13:40):
Yeah. Yeah. And they, were very negative on that airplane.
But I was able to explain tothem that the government of
Canada gives the Air Force amandate that they are to achieve
in defense of North America andtheir commitments worldwide. And

(14:01):
the f 18 was the best jetavailable to meet those
requirements.
And, as it turned out, we neededthat carrier capability because,
I ran a forward operatinglocation out of Aduvik, which
had a 5,900 foot runway. Andit's icy up there in the

(14:21):
wintertime. And the only way wecould, operate safely was to
bring in mobile arrestor gear,which is cable across the
approach end of the runway withtrap on every landing like you
do on a carrier. A little biteasier than, going on a carrier
because the the landing pad isnot shifting up and down 20 feet
or so. But, we never had anairplane leave the runway, you

(14:43):
know, so, it was a good way.
And I could get all six of myjets down in about ten minutes.
So it was a very fast systemthat that worked for us. If we
didn't have an f 18, we couldn'thave operated in the in the
Arctic. There was noinfrastructure up north at that
time. So we're living in hotelsdowntown, and they flew in all
the infrastructure we needed tooperate every time we deployed

(15:06):
into a newbie.
So having a navy jet wasvaluable to us.

Bryan (15:11):
Yeah. How did you end up being the f 18 air demonstration
pilot? You were not the first,right, but one of the first.

Bob (15:19):
Then I had two pilots, do that before me in, '84 and '85.
Then, what they decided to dobecause these squadrons were so
busy, you know, four two fivesquadron down in Baggyville just
standing up, and they're tryingto get everybody combat ready.
And, us as four ten squadron inCold Lake, there were no other

(15:40):
operational squadrons in ColdLake then. We were busy pumping
out 28 students every ninemonths. You know?
It was a busy time. And so whatthey decided to do is they'd
have one pilot from four twofive squadron in Vacaville do
all the shows in Western Northor in Eastern North America,
and, Cold Lake would do all theshows in the Western Part of

(16:00):
North America. And so that theyasked me if I'd do that, and I
said, sure. You know, I I likedoing air shows. And Tristan
DeConnick was my partner out ofBag Endville that year.
And unfortunately, Tristankilled himself on, departure out
of, Summerside, on his firstshow.

Bryan (16:22):
Oh, no.

Bob (16:23):
Yeah. That was such a tragedy. And, again, you know,
pilot error, but, the f 18,because you fly through a HUD,
it gets really easy to getdisorientated when you're doing
aerobatics, he got into cloudand pulled it into the ground.
So what they did, what theydecided to do is they'd make me

(16:44):
the demo pilot for all of NorthAmerica that year. And I did 56
shows that year, and my show wasvery aggressive.
Because we were getting all thisbad press, I wanted the
demonstrate the total capabilityof that airplane. And because it
had such great turn performance,I could keep it on stage for the

(17:05):
whole show, twelve minute show.And all my turnarounds were done
in the vertical. So you watchguys at shows today, they're
doing their turnaroundshorizontal to the ground, and so
that they'll do their pass onstage, and then they'll have to
turn around, and there'stypically 40 to a minute before

(17:26):
they get back on stage again. Inever left center stage, you
know, because as soon as Ifinished that maneuver, I would
pull at six g up to 70 degreesnose up, do one and a half
rolls, top out at an altitude,and then pull it through back
out to center stage, you know,to do the next maneuver.
And when you're doing air shows,time on stage is what it's all

(17:50):
about. Okay. So that, thepublic's not watching you when
you're out there turning aroundfor that, you know, for over
half the time of the show,you're off stage. And so the the
public ate that up, but it wasvery aggressive. And early in
that spring, I did a show downin where was that?

(18:12):
I did show Trenton, Ontario iswhere it was. And, the chief of
defense staff was there. And hesaw my show, and he thought it
was too aggressive. It wasunsafe. And so he grounded me.
And so that commander of fightergroup didn't agree with him, and

(18:34):
he wrote me and said, hey. Giveme your margin of error on every
every maneuver. And so I did. Isent the message back down to
Fighter Group, and they said,well, go ahead. My next show was
in Vanderhoef, BC.
He says, go ahead and do thatshow unless you hear from us.
Well, I didn't hear anything, sothey changed Terrio's mind. The

(18:56):
CDS changed his mind. Said,okay. See, Theriot's big deal
was it wasn't politic to upstagethe f 15 and f 16 so badly.
But those boys didn't have a 25.They had 25 alpha limits on
their jets. They couldn't dowhat I could do.

Bryan (19:12):
And for the listeners, just a quick note on what alpha
means. Alpha stands for angle ofattack. And without getting too
technical, it's a keyperformance limitation, and it
is the angle between the wingand the relative airflow.

Bob (19:25):
I did a takeoff loop. I've never seen a takeoff loop done
by any aircraft before. And thatwas done because I wanted to
demonstrate the thrust to weightcapability of that airplane. And
because I was an instructor inMoosh Dong, I learned how to do
this stuff by having exactaltitudes, I never had any fear

(19:50):
of not being able to make apullout to miss the ground. So
that when I did the workup tothe show, I took the airplane
from 300 knots, rolled it on itsback, and pulled it through at
max pull through, and I lost1,600 feet of altitude on that
pull through.
So I decided then, okay, thetops of all my, looping

(20:13):
maneuvers will be 3,200 feet. SoI had an extra 1,600 feet to
play with. Plus, I made my loopsround. They weren't like we did
in Moose Jaw where you pull upand use the same amount of g all
the way through the thing sothat it looks more like a big l
shaped type of maneuver ratherthan a round loop. So I would

(20:34):
push that.
So I had the exact altitude onevery pull through. I had the
exact airspeed on every pullthrough. And so those
disciplines we learned back inMoose Jaw proved to be very
valuable. So they thought youknow, I've heard guys say it's
dangerous. There's nothingdangerous about that.
You know? I felt verycomfortable. And I designed my

(20:56):
show so that, I would never haveto do the level rolls into the
sun. Now because I was flying inF-eighteen, I was normally near
the end of the show or closingthe show where the Sun gets low
on the horizon. You never wantto be doing level rolls into
that Sun.
So what I did is I designed itfor an air airborne arrival

(21:17):
where I'd do a cloverleaf. I'drun straight at the crowd and
then pull up and then do acloverleaf one direction or
another, so that I knew my levelof roles would be away from the
sun. So that's another designcapability that kept it safe.
And the airplane will roll atseven twenty degrees a second,

(21:37):
but you're only allowed one rollat aileron deflection. So that's
what I would do is roll at 400degrees per second type of
thing.
So depending on the length ofthe show line and the crowd, I
would, do five or six levelrolls, and I never brought my

(21:58):
nose up to initiate the roll. Imaintained level flight by
pushing it each time I hit the,inverted position. So they were
actually level level rolls. And,you don't see that anymore
either. You know?
So and it's mostly a lack ofexperience from the kids
nowadays. And then I wanted toshow the maximum pitch rate of

(22:19):
that airplane, and so that wedid a square loop. And the boys
that did it two years before me,they were doing square loops as
well. But each corner is square,and I pull it right up to 70
alpha. You know, it had turnedlots of vapor onto the wings
that looked impressive.
But it showed you the maximumpitch rates of the airplane. And
then, I wanted to show the slowspeed capability of the airplane

(22:44):
so that, I did, actually, I dida high speed three sixty first.
That aircraft will turn at 32degrees per second, which I'm
sure the f 35 will do as well.But that meant that you can do a
360 degree turn in, about 11 ineleven seconds. You know?

(23:05):
And that was done at cornervelocity three twenty five
knots, and that was done ateight g. Okay? So it was pretty
impressive. You know, the thecrowd loved that, to be able to
see an airplane sustained eightg's through a 360 degree turn,
and do that in twelve seconds.Again, I haven't seen that done

(23:26):
now.
The guys demoing now are runningtwenty five, thirty seconds to
do that 360 degree turn. Andthen coming out of that, I would
wanna do a high alpha 360 degreeturn. And I knew from my one
zero four days, you never bringyour power back below 90 when
you're in that low levelenvironment. When you need

(23:47):
power, you need it fast.

Bryan (23:49):
Listeners might be wondering what needing power
fast has to do with notretarding your power below 90%.
On a jet engine, when you applypower from a low power setting,
there's a spool up time beforethe engine actually provides max
power. By keeping the engine ata higher RPM, you avoid the
spool up time.

Bob (24:07):
And so that I I got back to the 35 degrees angle of attack
by pulling g. Okay. So that'show I decreased airspeed, not by
reducing power. And what Idetermined was that from a 35
degrees angle of attack, if Ilose I'm doing that at 300 feet

(24:28):
above the ground. When I'm doingthat, if I lose an engine, I
have power available to climb upwith one engine.
And I practice that a lot oftimes where, you know, up at
higher altitudes, I'd shut downthe engine, I'd turn the engine
off, one of the engines off, andthen throw the other one into
the burner. And I'd only losemaybe 50 feet. I never lost more

(24:49):
than 50 feet. You know, so Ifelt very comfortable. If I lose
an engine doing that I AlphaPass, I can climb out.
And fortunately that neverhappened to me, so I never had
to use it. But it was a designfeature that was so adamant, you
know, and I see guys bringingback their power now and, you

(25:09):
know, that's a mistake. Youdon't do that loyalty too. And
then, out of that 35, alpha 360degree turn, I laid the burners,
and now I'm I'm better than oneto one thrust of weight. I could
climb up to 3,500 feet from that35 degree angle of attack and
accelerate going climbing up to70 degrees and all that stuff.

(25:32):
So it was pretty impressive tosee that. Then I just pull it
through and do a vertical roll.So, the air show was very
effective at demonstrating allthe capabilities of that f 18.
And when you compared it toother airplanes, it was by far
the winner.

Bryan (25:49):
So just a super high performance show, but with lots
of various safety gates built into make sure that while it was
showing off all the performancethe f 18 had, it was still safe.

Bob (25:59):
Very safe. You know, I'd I'd never had any anxiety. I
broke broke a flap drive, when Iwas in Vanderhoof so that all my
hard pulls were away from theground, and so that one flap
went down, the other flap stayedup, they're maneuvering flaps.
And I couldn't control the roll.I couldn't stop and roll with

(26:21):
full stick deflection.
Okay? And so that I've alwayswanted to make sure, and
especially in that last cornerof the square loop, I didn't
want to break a flat drivebecause I couldn't have
recovered from that. That wasthe only part that was
questionable. So what I would doon that backside of that square
loop, I would start to pullearly at low g letting so the

(26:43):
flaps would go down, and thenI'd bury the stick and make it a
square corner.

Bryan (26:48):
And that's part of, the early days of just getting used
to how the fly by wire magicworked. Exactly.

Bob (26:56):
Yeah. When you, put in a lateral stick to roll the
airplane, the computers theflight control computers decide
which flight controls they'regonna use. They could use
differential flap differentiallater on, to to meet your demand
for roll. But what they weredoing was giving you that roll
rate that you're demanding withthe least amount of drag. Mhmm.
It was a smart system.

Bryan (27:18):
So smart that it was hard to understand, I under from what
I've heard in the early days.

Bob (27:23):
Yeah.

Bryan (27:24):
So let's talk about some of your Cold War ops and NORAD.
You you talked about this alittle bit, but in 1987, you
were posted to the startup offour four one Squadron in Cold
Lake as the f 18 took on theNORAD air defense role. You were
the squadron ops officer and ranalert operations out of Comox
with forward operating locationsin Inuvik and Yellowknife. What
was life like running alertoperations out of Inuvik?

Bob (27:47):
You know, I loved it. We'd never operated in the Arctic
before, and we had noinfrastructure up there to
support us. In fact, we didn'teven have a hangar. We used the
atmospheric environmentalservices hangar up there, which
is a government hangar, and theyweren't using it much. So when I
deployed up there, I could getall six of my jets into that

(28:07):
hangar because it's a navy bird.
The wings folded up. So I hadenough room in that hangar to
get sick jets inside. What Ididn't have was a mule to tow
airplanes around. And they neverbrought one up on the Herc
because they're you know, theHercs were loaded with other
equipment, and they didn't havethe room to put in a mule. So I
went downtown and got a guy witha tractor, and he would deploy

(28:31):
with us whenever there was ascramble.
He'd be there before us, and hecould tow airplanes outside with
his tractor. So it was acommunity effort. One day, we
broke the, mobile arrestor gear,and the welder came out, from
town to do that work and repairthe system. He wouldn't take a
dime for that. He just wanted tohelp.

(28:52):
You know? The people in Anubikwere outstanding. We stayed in a
hotel downtown. We rented carsfrom local, dealers. And, it was
a huge effort to make that workwithout any infrastructure, but
it worked so well.
You know? We had no problemsreally dealing with the roles

(29:13):
that we were assigned.

Bryan (29:16):
In March during the Cold War, the Soviet bear bombers
would practice cruise missileattack profiles against North
America. What was the atmospherelike during Soviet bomber
training flights, and weretensions high during these
flights?

Bob (29:28):
The Soviets were flying their bare bombers across on
cruise missile profiles as amatter of routine, generally in
the winter months that comethrough. And we would get
advised by NORAD typically a daybefore this was about to happen.
And, we had deployed to Wanuvik,and then they would scramble us,

(29:51):
at the appropriate hour so wecould do the intercept. Now we
were going up to eighty eightynorth, you know, so we're going
a long ways up there. We were400, 500 miles away from the
nearest airport.
And we had tanker aircraft thatgave us fuel. But because we
were so far away from thosesupport airfields, we had to

(30:12):
keep topped up in fuel all thetime. We flew with a three tank
configuration, and you were onthat tanker every ten minutes,
you know, to keep chalked upbecause you always had enough
fuel to make it to thatalternate, normally Elmendorf in
Alaska, if somebody ripped thehose off the tanker.

Bryan (30:29):
Right.

Bob (30:30):
You know? So that you always carried that amount of
fuel onboard the aircraft. Andsometimes those missions would
be four or five hours long, youknow, waiting for that bomber to
come through. And then, we'd goand intercept the bomber, dark
up there in those times of theyear for twenty four hours a
day. And, so that we just we hada 16,000,000 cannopower light,

(30:54):
on the side of the fuselage.
We'd throw that light on themjust to show them. You boys
wanna come for real, we'll getyou before you can launch your
cruise missiles. And they alwaysreacted by turning around. They
didn't continue on. But ourrules of engagement were that we
couldn't touch them unless theydropped troops or weapons.
Now if we went on their side ofthe border, they would shoot at

(31:16):
us. You know, their rules ofengagement were different than
ours. We didn't take fightersNorth Of 80 North, under an
agreement with this, Russiansthat they wouldn't bring
fighters North Of 80 Northbecause we start mixing up
fighters, you know, something'sgonna happen that you don't
want. So that's how thosemissions were conducted. You'd
recover back into Anuvik and goback onto Willard.

(31:40):
And sometimes you get twoscrambles in a day, but
generally not every two or threedays. You'd be into Anuvik for
about a ten, fifteen day period.And those temperatures outside
were about 50 below, you know,in in those days. You know? So
that it was a big demand on ourground crew.
And, you know, I have groundcrew working with me now that

(32:02):
flew with me out of Anuvik, youknow, and maintained our
airplanes. They always say thosewere the best three or four
years on four four one squadronof their whole careers. The guys
loved it, and they did such aremarkable job. And, you bet
your life on what they didbecause you eject up in the High

(32:22):
Arctic just twenty four hoursbefore search and rescue can get
up to help you. And, that's onlya 19 foot shoot, on the ejection
seat of an f 18.
You come down hard. So everybodythat's ejected out of the f 18
has been hurt. Yeah. So we knowwe're gonna be on the ice, and
we're gonna be hurt.

Bryan (32:39):
Wow. So some really, really high stakes flying.

Bob (32:43):
Yeah. But it was fun. You know, it was a challenge, but
you got a lot out of it.

Bryan (32:48):
Yeah. Now this November, we remember that Canadians have
a long history of serving inconflicts and will likely
continue to do so. What advicedo you have for Canadians who
are currently serving or willserve in future global
conflicts?

Bob (33:02):
I think when you know you're going into combat, you
wanna be the best version ofyourself that you can be, and
you don't wanna be afraid. Andthe way you stop being afraid is
to get confident in what you'redoing. All my time on fighter
aircraft, I never had any fearof going to war. You know? I

(33:24):
knew I was better than anybody Iwas gonna run up against.
You know? I had advantage. Nowif you get into a gunfight with
another airplane, one of you isgonna die. You cannot escape a
gunfight without getting killed.You know, if you run out of fuel
going into that gunfight, you'regonna get killed.
You know? So it, it was adangerous environment, but if

(33:47):
you felt good about what you doand you practice a lot and you
didn't fly afraid, you'd dowell. You'd be okay. Wow.

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us.

Bryan (34:49):
So I like to shift topics here and talk about a really
interesting story. Famously,Soviet MiG 20 nines visited
Abbotsford for the air show in1989. Can you walk us through
the day the MiG 20 ninestransited Canadian airspace?

Bob (35:02):
Yeah. Before that started, Brian, the Soviets towards the
end of the cold war nineteeneighty nine were going broke,
and they recognized that as aproblem. And, the West knew that
they were having financialdifficulties, but what they
decided to do was startmarketing their MiG 29 to the
rest of the world. That wastheir latest fighter technology.

(35:25):
You know?
And towards accomplishing thatmission, they decided that they
would do the, air show in, Ithink it was June 1989 at Paris
in France. And Anatoli Kubochawas our demo pilot, and, he
ended up ejecting at really lowaltitude from his airplane after

(35:45):
an engine failure. And so that,that, of course, wasn't a very
good demo of a MiG 20 nine'scapability. And, Anatolia, you
can still see that video of hisejection on, YouTube. And it's
remarkable.
A remarkable demonstration ofthat seat capability. This
shooter hardly opened when hehit the ground. And, he throws

(36:09):
his shoot off. He stands up. Thefireball's only a 100 feet away
from you.
He reaches into a pocket, grabsa cigarette, and lights watches
airplane burn. You know? He's afighter pilot. You know? I love
that.
And the Soviet Soviets thendecided, okay. The next show is
gonna be in North America. AndAbbotsford is one of the bigger

(36:30):
shows in North America,especially for military
equipment. And so they decidedthat they demoed the airplane in
Abbotsford. And, what theywanted was they wanted one of
their pilots to either fly the f15 or the f 18, and in return,
they would allow a western pilotto fly their MiG 29.

(36:52):
And the Americans said, no way.You're not getting near our
airplanes. You know? They hadnothing to nothing to win. They
figured and, so they wereadamant.
Nobody's getting near an f 18 oran f 15. And the Soviets
deployed to through Alaska tocome down to Abbotsford. And the

(37:12):
Soviets were really upset thatthey couldn't get that
reciprocal agreement, but weregonna participate anyhow. And so
that, they were to, they spentthe night in Elmendorf, and then
they were gonna deploy the nextmorning, down to Abbotsford. Now
I was the alert force commanderin Comox at that time.
I normally kept four jets outthere, but this day, I only had

(37:35):
three jets serviceable. And soone of them was a duo. So I took
all four pilots with me, andNORA had told me that I was not
to go any closer than a thousandfeet to these MiG 29s and make
no attempt to communicate withthem. This was simply an escort
mission. You know?

(37:55):
And so I said, yeah, we can livewith that. And at the
appropriate hour, they scrambledus. So I scrambled all three
jets, and, we went up and, weintercepted the these, two MiG
20 nines on the bottom of theAlaska Panhandle. And, they're
still f fifteens escorting themat that point. So we took that
opportunity to get some picturesof all the airplanes flying

(38:17):
south.
And then the f fifteens wavedoff, and they went back into
Elmendorf. And so that wecontinued along. I stayed about
a thousand feet behind them. Wewere 35,000 feet. And then they
they climbed up to 37, so we goup 37,000 feet with them.
And I noticed that they weresitting about 40 degrees right
of what I thought they should begoing. You know? And we're all

(38:39):
undercast. You can't see theground below you. So they had no
idea whether they're going outto sea or not, I guess.
And I became curious about that.So I called up NORAD and said,
hey, where are these boysheaded? They seem to be about 40
degrees right at track. NORADcomes back to me and says that
we have no idea. You know?
We have no idea where they'reheading. So then on my second

(39:02):
radio, I go over to VancouverCenter, and I asked them. I
said, got two MiG 20 nine'sheading south. We're escorting,
and I'd like to know wherethey're heading. And Vancouver
Center comes back to me andsays, hey.
We can see this whole package ofairplanes heading south, but we
haven't talked to anybody. Sothen I I became a little
concerned, I said, well, I gotthese rules, but I'm gonna break

(39:25):
them. And so I drove up besidethe lead MiG 29. And he's
pointing at his headset andgiving me a thumbs down, telling
me he's got a radio failure. Andthen, so I pointed at him, and I
pointed about 40 degrees to theleft.
And, he turned immediately, bothairplanes turned immediately
over to that direction. Then Iasked him how much fuel he's got

(39:47):
on board by hand signals, youknow, just a drinking motion.
What's your thumb? And he comesback with three fingers. And so
that means he's got thirtyminutes of fuel left.
Well, if we go direct toatmosphere, it's gonna take us
about thirty minutes. So I can'treally concern now. And so that,
I patted my shoulder, which mayjoin up close formation on my

(40:07):
wing, so I put the two MiG 20nines on my right wing and I got
clearance from Abbotsford totake this package direct to
Abbotsford. And the VancouverCenter was more than happy to
see this happen. I never talkedto NORAD again, even though it
was the science of them.
And we started NORAD never saida word to me. And then at the

(40:30):
appropriate point, I started anen route descent. I broke my two
f eighteens on my left wing, hadtwo MiG 20 nine's on my right.
We go through 30,000 feet ofcloud. I had no idea whether
these guys could fly formationor not.
They're test pilots. And, theydid a remarkable job. They were
tucked right in with overlap, onthat right wing. So there's no
reason to be concerned. We brokeout a cloud about 1,500 feet

(40:53):
above ground, maybe 10 milesshort of the runway.
And so I did a low approach intoAbbotsford, turned the downwind,
I waved off the two MiG-29s toland. And we came by once we
were on the runway, did a flypass over top of them, and then
went back to Comox. And now Iwanted to land in Abbotsford.

(41:14):
You don't talk to these boys,but of course, I'm armed. I
can't can't land in Abbotsford.
And so we head back to Comox.And after I landed in Comox, the
crew chief comes up the ladderbefore I got out of the cockpit,
he says, hey, mate. He says,that phone's been ringing off
the wall for you. And I figured,no kidding. I just broke every

(41:35):
rule that NORAD had given me.
So this commander NORAD wantedto talk to me. And after I got
into the office, the phone ringsagain, I answered. And it wasn't
NORAD calling me, it was theambassador from The Soviet Union
that was calling me and justwanted to thank me for helping

(41:55):
the boys get into Abbotsford.And I said, well, you're very
welcome. It's our pleasure.
And he says, well, I'd like youto be our guest of honor at the
Abbotsford Dura Show. And Isaid, okay. Yeah. I'm taking two
airplanes over there anyhow forstatic display. I'd love to be.
I'd love to meet you guys. Andso we did. We deployed to on the

(42:16):
Friday, we deployed over to theshow in Abbotsford. I went over
to the Soviet Pavilion andintroduced myself to the guard
that was outside. He goesinside, and he comes out and he
says, Ned, go away.
So I try to laugh, you know,what's going on? I'm supposed to
be their guest of honor. And soon the Saturday, I go back and

(42:39):
see him again. And this guardgoes in, comes back out, and he
says, yeah, go away. And whatwas happening was that they were
really working hard and tryingto get this exchange of cockpits
between their pilots and ourpilots on our airplanes.
And, they couldn't get it, sothey were so upset. So on the
Sunday, towards the end of the,show in the afternoon, they

(43:03):
changed their mind. They said,okay. We'll allow Western pilots
to fly the MiG 29 without areciprocal agreement. What
they're really after is theywant somebody to go public as to
how great this airplane was.
And it was. It was prettyimpressive to watch it do its
air shows. And the general,Scott Eichel, he was two star,

(43:23):
he was a senior general at theshow. He comes over to me and he
said, Bobby, he said, would youfly that MiG-twenty nine? And I
said, yeah, I'll do that.
And so they took me over tothat. Mary Collins was a deputy
defense minister at the time.She was at the show as well. I
was this thing was getting lotsof attention, both politically

(43:44):
and militarily. And I'm sittingthere putting on Romans.
He's a demo pilot becauseAnatolia was still hurting. He
was a demo pilot at Abbotsford.He was maybe five ten, you know,
quite a stocky built guy. But hegives me his g suit because my g

(44:04):
suit won't adapt to their theiraircraft. And so it kind of fit.
You know? I could tell it wasn'tgonna work very well, but, you
know, I put it on. And then hegives me his helmet. You know?
Because my helmet doesn't adaptto his airplane.
And so, Jesus, it was about twosizes too big. I could take this
helmet, turn it around on myhead. You know? And I didn't

(44:27):
care. I was getting to fly.
This is a MiG 29. And while Iwas doing this, it was funny.
Mary Collins comes up to me. Shesays, major wage. She says,
don't screw this up, or we'reboth looking for work.
You know? And I just kindalaughed. You know? And she
walked away. That's all shesaid.
She just she was scared becauseshe'd been told by the minister
of national defense that thiswouldn't happen. And the same

(44:49):
with Scott. He was he was toldby the chief defense staff that
this wouldn't happen. You know?So these guys stuck their necks
way out, you know, to allow thisto happen.
It wasn't really what they weretold as a reciprocal exchange,
but they you know, we weren'tsupposed to be getting in their
airplanes. So they were scared.And, they took me in. I climbed

(45:10):
up into the front seat of that,dual MiG 29. Valerie Meniski got
in the back seat, and Valeriedidn't speak a word of English.
And so the translator taught himhow to say Bob pilot and Valerie
pilot. And I start strapping inthere, and there's a ground crew
there helping me strap into thejet. He shows me how to start it
up. And, you know, it's typicalfighter cockpit, but all the

(45:34):
instruments are in Cyrillic. Icouldn't read any of them.
You know? I didn't know what theg meter was, the airspeed
indicator or something. I had noidea what the flap speeds were,
the gear speeds, none of that.So I just assumed that, you
know, Valerie was gonna fly itfrom the back seat. The back
seat's got such poor visibility,he's gotta fly it through a
periscope, you know, that theyhad in the back seat.

(45:54):
You know? So he's got verylimited ability, but I'm sure
they're they're confident indoing that. And we get it fired
up and start taxing out. Sticksabout three or four inches
higher than what they are in thef 18. You know?
So it felt a little bit awkward,but, you it was comfortable
enough. And just as soon as westarted taxiing out, Valerie

(46:17):
says, Bob Pilot. Jesus, okay.Couldn't I had to use
differential braking, I didn'tknow whether there was nose
wheel steering on this thing ornot. You know?
So I taxi out. I got encouragedto take off, and Valerie wants
me to take off. No idea whattakeoff speed was. Now on the f
eighteen show, I did a takeoffloop. And, I'm sure the MiG 29

(46:39):
could have done it, but I wasn'tgonna try that.
So I did a roll off the top. Thedifference between the f 18 and
the MiG 29 was when I wentthrough the vertical after
takeoff, with the f 18, theairspeed would stagnate or maybe
roll back a few knots. I waswatching the airspeed indicator
in this thing, and they're inkilometers per hour, so it
didn't mean much. But it stayedthe same or maybe even kept

(47:02):
increasing a wee bit. You know?
So I knew the thrust of weightwas better than what I had in
the f 18. What I didn't know washow much fuel he had on board.
You know? Maybe he was onlygoing with a quarter tank, you
know? So that's why the thrustof weight was so good.
So I did roll off the top, and,I did another, roll off the top
after that gain some altitude,and then went into some hard

(47:23):
maneuvering. I did what Ithought was about a seventy,
three sixty degree turn. AndJesus, that airspeed remained
stable throughout that wholeturn. So I was really impressed,
you know, with the thrust,weight, and turn capability of
that airplane. And I would guessit was about the same as an
F-eighteen.

(47:44):
You know, I'd get around thethree sixty in about twelve
seconds. And then Valerie, theback seat, he says, Valerie,
pilot. So he has control. Andthen he gets into a corner that
I'm guessing was two g abovewhat I was pulling, you know? He
was about nine g.
I had no idea that he was gonnago and do that, of course, so
I'm buried in the cockpit atnine g. I didn't gray out, but

(48:11):
you know, I couldn't move. I waspinned down in the seat, know.
And Valet rolls out of that. Andthen he takes the airplane,
we're about 3,000 feet above theground, and he goes pulls into
the vertical, pulls boththrottle style.
The airplane stops going up andstarts into a tail slide. Now if

(48:31):
you did that in an f 18, you gotbailout, because you can't
recover. It takes about 5,000feet to get your nose down if
you go into a tail slide with anf 18. Valerie lit both burners.
Both burners lit off at exactlythe same time, which the f 18
didn't.
You know, it one had lit offbefore the other. And, so that
was different technology aswell. But Valerie just pushed

(48:55):
the stick forward and the nosedropped. And I kind of had a
problem with that, because ifyou're going backwards and you
push the stick forward, yournose should throw you on your
back, you know, because youryour elevators work in the
opposite direction. But itdidn't.
Your nose came down perfectlyand flew right out of you only
lost about 200 feet, you know,after he put the power in the

(49:17):
burner. And so I started sayingBob pilot a lot, then, and I
wanted to try that. And so Idid. He said Bob pilot. And so I
went into it, And I the firstone, I just duplicated what he
did.
I didn't learn anything fromthat. So I did another one. And
this time on the recovery, whenI lit the burners, I didn't let

(49:39):
the nose drop. I went to about70 degrees nose up and just left
it in the burner. And this thingjust stopped going down or just
battled its way out of it into aclimb again.
I was so impressed with the highangle of attack capability of
that airplane. You know? I wouldsay it was better than an f 18,
but, it's hard to make thosecompares. I couldn't do the

(50:01):
exact maneuvers I did with theair show and the f 18, but, I
was pretty impressed. Then hesays, Bob landing.
Means, I guess we're out of gas.I don't know. And so I go back
and pitch it up, land it, and itlanded real nice and smooth.
Valerie pulled the drag sheetfrom the back seat, but because
I didn't know it had a dragsheet. Anyhow, slowed her down,

(50:22):
and he taxied it in, and we shuther down.
Well, Jesus, you know, once weshut down, there was a crowd of
people there you couldn'tbelieve, you know, and lots of
military voice from us and themedia. But the Soviets, they
they didn't allow me to talk toanybody. Okay? They said, come

(50:44):
with us, and they took me overto their pavilion. And I go into
their pavilion, and, they pourthese tumbler glasses half full
of, vodka.
And, they toast the, MekoyanCompany. So yeah. Those boys,
when they drink a shot, theydrink it all, all in one shot.

(51:05):
And so that, you know, I was afire pilot. You know, I can do
that.
And I'm not a drinker, you know?So I fired this glass back,
being okay, that's okay. Thenthey fill these tumblers up
again. Now I'm guessing there'sthree ounces, four ounces of
liquor in each glass.

Bryan (51:22):
Wow.

Bob (51:23):
This time they, toasted the Soviet Union. Oh, I guess they
gotta toast that as well. So Ifired that thing back the same
as they did. And my tonguestarts tingling and, you know,
I'm starting to feel the effectsof all this alcohol right away.
And then they toasted me.
Well, it's okay. Again, numbershave fallen. I fired that back.

(51:46):
Well, god, that was the nextthing to passing out at that
point. I stayed for maybeanother ten, fifteen minutes.
I don't know. I can't remember.I was too drunk. And I come out
of their pavilion, I go outside,and the media is there in their
droves. They wanna talk to me.
Well, I'm shit faced. You know?And so interviews are on

(52:07):
YouTube, they used to be.Anyhow, I haven't seen it for
years. But, it's kind of funny.
Yeah. But I painted them 10 feettall. You know? I said, I'm
really impressed with this jet.You know?
They did a great job. And theSoviets really appreciated that.
So that, I got out in '91, Iwent airlines, but and it was

(52:30):
about '96, I guess, they calledme, from Langley Air Force Base,
which CIA voice. And, they said,Bobby, the Soviets want you to
fly their two thirty. And Isaid, god.
I'm I'm an air show airlinepilot. I'm not a fighter pilot
anymore. We know who you are.And the Soviets want you to fly,

(52:52):
and they'll pay you 15,000 to doit. And it's in Farmborough, at
the Farmborough air show.
And I said, yeah, I'd do that.So I called my boss, he said,
yeah, go do that. And I wassupposed to leave on about 08:00
on a Monday morning. I get acall about 03:00 in the morning
from these same boys in Langley.He says, Bobby, it's all off.

(53:14):
The Soviets aren't coming withtheir Su-thirty. And you know,
nobody saw that Su-thirty forabout another five years. I
don't know what happened. Itnever happened. But I'm really
disappointed I never got achance to apply that thing.

Bryan (53:27):
Yeah. That would have been amazing.

Bob (53:29):
Oh, It's vector thrust. Yeah. So, yeah, I wanted to fly
it, but oh, well.

Bryan (53:38):
So what was the international reaction to that
flight? Like, was it a big deal?Did you hear from a lot of
people?

Bob (53:43):
Or It got media attention around the world. I got letters
from Hong Kong all over Europeand all this stuff. Guys I knew,
you know, I'm flowing with,right to me and said, yeah. It's
in the newspapers here. Yeah.
How did that happen and all thisstuff? So yeah, it got
international attention. And Igot a call from Ottawa, said the

(54:06):
chief defense staff wants totalk to me. And so I flew down
to Ottawa, and the next morningI go to their I don't want they
do this every day or weekly orwhatever, but all the Army, Navy
commanders, Air Force commandersare at this conference. And so I
go over to the NDH Secoo toattend this thing in the
morning.
And the colonel that's there,he's kinda coordinating all this

(54:29):
stuff. And he's telling me, hesays, okay, no more than five
minutes. You only answerquestions, you know, and, you
know, give me all kinds of rulesI have to obey. So I went in
there. And Paul Manson's a chiefof defense staff.
And so he was my boss when I wasin Lahr in Germany, and I knew
Paul well. And so I walk inthere, he says, well, he says,

(54:52):
good to see you. He says, howwere the kids? How's David? What
grade's he in now?
And all this stuff. The rest ofthese guys are all staring at
How the hell does he know this?He said, I heard you had quite a
weekend. And I said, Yeah. Andit was a lot of fun, and I
learned a lot.
And he says great. And he askedme the story. I told him the

(55:12):
story. And I was in there aboutforty minutes. And so it got a
lot of attention.
And then when I got out ofthere, the CIA boys were in
there. They wanted to talk tome. So I talked to them for an
hour maybe. And I went back toCold Lake, for one, and they

(55:33):
come back out of fighter groupand said, okay, you're going on
tours. So I traveled around NATOfor the next year as a twenty
minute expert on a MiG 29.
You know? So it it got a lot ofattention. Yeah. All of a
sudden, Canada had a secret thatthe rest of the world didn't
have. And in those circles, whatthey do is they trade
information.
Okay? And so that we had asecret that other people wanted

(55:55):
to know, and so, okay, you tellus this and we'll let you know
about that, you know, that typeof stuff.

Bryan (56:01):
Wow. That's and that's probably that's a very unique
circumstance to have happen.

Bob (56:07):
Yeah. Really. Yeah. You're just time and place. Yeah.

Bryan (56:11):
Yeah. So you talked a little about this earlier, but
eventually you decided totransition to civilian aviation.
What made you decide it was timeto leave the military in 1990?

Bob (56:22):
Yeah. When the Soviet Union collapsed, it was really, '91
before that flag came off theKremlin, you know, that, our air
force decided that, we're gonnadownsize. And so we went from
six fighter squadrons down tothree. You know? And I could see
that, hey.
The Britain's on the wall.There's not gonna be much flying
time. And I'm not doing groundjobs. So a bunch of us boys got

(56:46):
out and we went airlines. And Iwent with a company called
Canada three thousand.
And the previous CEO from fourforty one Squadron had already
gone down there to Canada threethousand. So he gave them my
name and they called me up andasked me if I'd do it. So I
said, yeah. And so my wife hadalready moved to Comox, because
I was spending most of my timein Comox on Cold Lake. So that I

(57:09):
promised her that once I got outof the Air Force, I'll be home
all the time because I wasalways away.
And first thing I do, of course,is join an airline. And so I'm
down in Toronto and learned howto fly this seven fifty seven.
They make you a first officer.The company only had 27 pilots

(57:29):
or 28 pilots at that time. Itwas a brand new startup.
And so I down in Toronto, I takethis course flying seven fifty
seven. Civilian training to flyan airplane is not anything like
military training. So God, itwas real gentleman's course. Was
out there a couple of days andinto the airplane. And you're a

(57:52):
first officer, know, when you'redoing what you're told.
And then after about six months,the company buys these Airbus
330s. And I was selected to becaptain on these Airbus 330s. So
I flew them with Canada threethousand until ninety seven,

(58:12):
ninety eight, ninety seven, Iguess it was. And it was a great
airplane, great job. Not reallychallenging much.
When you're a captain in thecivilian industry, they're
paying you for what you know.You do very little flying. You
know, everything's done onautopilot, and especially that
three thirty. I mean, to god, itwas all all flown by a computer.

(58:34):
Well,

Bryan (58:36):
Airbus are kind of renowned for that. Right? Like
being extremely computerizedeven when how they handle
emergencies and things.

Bob (58:41):
Exactly. Yeah. And it has created a problem, because
nowadays, guys don't know how tofly airplanes. Everything's done
on the computer. Everything'sdone on autopilot.
You know? And so they don't getany opportunity to to hand fly
the airplane. And, I used tomake my first officers
disconnect the autopilot onapproach going through 20,000

(59:03):
feet and hand flies, you know,because that's the only
opportunity they're gonna get todo that. And I guess it helped,
but they don't do that anymore.

Bryan (59:15):
Did you find that anything from fighter flying
carried over to the airlinecockpit?

Bob (59:20):
Well, fighters, going a to b was a very small part of your
job. You know? It you foughtthat airplane. That was your
job. Whereas, in the airline,that's your total job going a to
b.
And they put a lot of effortgoing into going from a to b.
You know? There are lot of rulesand regulations in the airline
industry, but you've got 350passengers back there. You know,

(59:43):
it's important that you do thatsafely and comfortably. So that
that was your primary job as acaptain of an airplane.
It's keep it safe, keep itcomfortable for the passengers.
And, there's always challenges.The companies are in this
business to make money. Youknow? So they don't give you a
whole lot of extra fuel, youknow, and stuff like that.
So you gotta decide as captain,hey. I need more, or, you know,

(01:00:06):
I should live with what you'regiving me, that type of thing.
And, weather. With the threethirty, initially, we were
limited to cat one, so 200 feet,half mile on approach. And so
that, once you started thatapproach, you're pretty much
committed to landing.
But later on, as the technologyimproved, I went over to Korean

(01:00:29):
Air and flew a h three thirtiesfor them, and you'd run into
zero visibility, but that airthat they had was cat three
Charlie, so there was novisibility limits. I could land
zero zero.

Bryan (01:00:42):
Oh, wow.

Bob (01:00:43):
Yeah. And I did that three or four times, I guess, in my
career. And, the big problemwhen you land off a zero zero
approach is finding a place toturn off that runway. You can't
see anything. So that was a bitof a challenge.
You can't taxi in because youdon't know where you're going.
You know? So they'd normallysend out a vehicle with flashing
lights on it, and you couldfollow the vehicle back into the

(01:01:04):
rip.

Bryan (01:01:05):
Wow. I I can't imagine flying a zero zero approach.
That just sounds I know. Kindasounds scary, to be honest.

Bob (01:01:12):
But, you know, you monitored, throughout that
approach. You know, youmonitored, all the
instrumentation. You made surethat, your two ILSs were hooked
up at the same time, and they'reboth reading the same. So and
the airplane calls out youraltitudes, that type of stuff.
So it's not that complicated athing to do, but you were always

(01:01:35):
there ready to take control ifany of those systems started
lying to you.

Bryan (01:01:39):
Yeah. Of course. I'd like to take a moment and do some
reflecting on your career.Looking back, what's the
proudest moment of your flyingcareer?

Bob (01:01:49):
I think my biggest contribution to the military was
as an instructor. You know,that's so important in the
military that you haveexperienced guys that can teach
the younger fellas, you know,that job and keep it safe. And
that's part of my PTSD, I guess,is that when we lost people, was

(01:02:13):
that because of something Ididn't teach them? You know? And
I know that.
I know when OP was killed up ina newbie, you know, and I felt
bad because he just got into anunusual attitude and pushed him
in the ground. You know? And ifhe hadn't been taught better how
to do unusual attitude recovery,he would live, you know. And so

(01:02:34):
I felt bad that I didn't do thatfor him. And, you know, once you
get operational training,there's so many other things
that they have to learn.
Mhmm. Sometimes you forget aboutthe basics. And so, I think that
was my biggest singlecontribution was as an
instructor.

Bryan (01:02:52):
Now I think you said this in part one, but, which aircraft
would you most love to fly againand why?

Bob (01:02:57):
Yeah. Starfighter. You know? And if you think all the
boys that flew Starfighter wouldgive you the same answer. You
know?
And it was such an incredibleairplane. It was it flew like a
missile. You know? And you hadso much power. And we weren't
limited by power.
We were limited by heat. So thatwhen your inlet air temperature
hit a 120 a 121 degreescentigrade or whatever it was,

(01:03:19):
you got a slow light in thecockpit. They told us not to
mess with that. That would eatthe, engine up. But, god, you
still had power to go way fast.
Yeah. So I think that was partof it, and all your flying was
done right on the trees. Youknow? Yeah. So that's exciting
in itself.

Bryan (01:03:35):
Yeah. What do you miss most about operational flying?

Bob (01:03:39):
I miss the guys. You know? Squadron life was incredible.
You know? And those boys wereall so good.
You know? They cared about doingthat job as much as I did. You
know? They wanted to be the bestthey could be. You know?
Their skill levels wereincredible, and I was so proud

(01:04:02):
to be with them. So, yeah, if Imiss anything, I miss the boys.
And luckily, I'm at the, ColdWar exhibit now where we have,
70 vets in there. And it's kindalike a squadron environment.
That helps me more thananything, I think.

Bryan (01:04:18):
Mhmm. Having brought the f 18 online as a new aircraft,
politics aside, what challengesdo you think the RCAF will face
bringing the f 35 to the flightline?

Bob (01:04:29):
There's gonna be a lot. Infrastructure is gonna be the
initial problem. They're aboutthree years behind now
developing the infrastructure tobring the, f 35 to Canada. And
how they're going to accomplishthat? I don't know.
The support that that airplanewill need is not in place. So

(01:04:50):
maybe the guys are gonna fly outof The States. I don't know. Or
maybe they throw enough money atit that they can increase that
capability. And then, I don'tthink training's gonna be a big
issue because they're trainingin The States on the f 35.
And so there's lots ofexperience down there, on that
airplane. Although, I waswatching the the young lady

(01:05:11):
doing the air show inAbbotsford, and, she's the air
show pilot on the f 35. She'sgot less than a thousand hours
total flying time and 350 on thejet.

Bryan (01:05:22):
Wow.

Bob (01:05:23):
So, hey, there's obviously a shortage of personnel down
there as well. Yeah. And I knowa lot of our boys have less than
a thousand hours when they'redoing shows as well. So I think
experience levels is gonna be ahuge challenge. You know?
Who's there to do theinstructing? You know? And I
know that's the big problem inCanada. All our training's gone

(01:05:46):
off offshore, you know, becausewe don't have instructors. And
that was a huge mistake by themilitary to allow that change in
personnel where you lost thepeople with experience.
They all went airlines. Youknow? Mhmm.

Bryan (01:06:05):
So this episode will air on Remembrance Day. Given that,
I'd love to spend a little timeon the topic of Remembrance Day.
What will you be doing this yearto mark that special day?

Bob (01:06:16):
Well, this year, I'm the honorary chair of the, Air Force
Association. And, we have fivewings in Alberta. And so I'm my
honorary chair of those fivewings. And so that typically I
go to one of the wings onNovember 11 to talk or present
reefs and stuff like that. Sothis year, I'm I'm in Calgary.

(01:06:40):
But I spent a lot of time beforeNovember 11 talking to students
in schools. And the message youwanna give is what life is like
in the air force and why it'simportant. You know? Because
those kids have never learnedthat lesson. Now the kids in
Europe are different.
They, we never brought thebodies back to Canada until

(01:07:02):
after '71. So there's lots ofcemeteries in Europe, and those
cemeteries are maintained byschoolchildren. And so those
kids understand the price thatwas paid to maintain this way of
life we have, and Canadian kidsdon't have that luxury. Now we
are fortunate in the sense we'regetting a lot of people out of
Ukraine coming into Albertaright now, and those people do

(01:07:25):
understand what it's like to bein war. And so I encourage those
kids to talk to the rest of thekids, to tell them what it's
like, hey, to live in thoseconditions.
And, I think that's effective.But the more we can get the
young people to understand theimportance of the military and

(01:07:47):
the sacrifices that have beenmade up to this point, the
better it will be for Canada.Canadians will start to vote in
elections for parties thatsupport the military.

Bryan (01:08:01):
Many people associate Remembrance Day with the world
wars. What would you wantCanadians to remember about
those who served during the ColdWar?

Bob (01:08:09):
I want them to know about the sacrifices we made to win
that war and the challenges thatwe faced and the threat that
occurred so that they understandthat that wasn't won by
accident. That was won through atremendous commitment. And so

(01:08:31):
I'm hoping you know, the WorldWar II, World War I, they were
very important, reallysignificant. The Canadian
contribution was recognizedaround the world. But the Cold
War was a threat bigger thanboth those other wars.
You know? That could havechanged the world forever. And
the media never covered it. SoCanadians never felt a threat.

(01:08:55):
Canadians didn't think, well,there's just more going on in
international politics.
It wasn't. It was a real threat.

Bryan (01:09:03):
When you think back to your time in uniform, who or
what do you find yourselfremembering most?

Bob (01:09:09):
I remember the good times. I remember the flying. You know?
That was so incredible. Youknow, I love the flying.
But I remember, you know, justdifferent adventures with
different guys. You know? Usdeploying down to Rome or, you
know, someplace on a squadronexchange and stuff like that and
all the fun you'd have is thatwe partied just as hard as we

(01:09:32):
flew. You know? It was a it wasa time in in the evolution of
the military where we weren'tprobably politically correct,
drank too much, and partied longhours.
You went to beer call on Fridaynight. You were there until
03:00 in the morning. You know?And they did that every every

(01:09:52):
week. You know?
You didn't wanna go home. Youknow? You were just having too
much fun. You know? So I missthat.
You know? I miss the boys. Yeah.

Bryan (01:10:02):
Yeah. I can understand that that feeling, having just
gotten out of the military. Wetalked earlier about what's the
thing you miss most aboutoperational flying. And and for
that and for this, your answeris I miss the boys. And, yeah, I
I miss the folks I flew with.
That's the thing I miss the mostis sitting around. I miss the
flying, but I really misssitting around and connecting
and talking about the flight andjust kinda shooting the crap in

(01:10:25):
the in the ready room and andand connecting. I really miss
that.

Bob (01:10:30):
Yeah. Yeah. And, you know, it's not common in industry for
that to happen. I think the thedefense industry is unique in
that way, where you have thatcomradeship with the people you
work with.

Bryan (01:10:45):
I think so. I think if anyone else manages to get
something close to that, they'revery fortunate because it's a
very unique thing.

Bob (01:10:52):
It really is. Yeah.

Bryan (01:10:53):
Yeah. How can everyday Canadians best show remembrance
or gratitude for militaryservice beyond the poppy and the
ceremony?

Bob (01:11:02):
I think supporting the military is such a huge issue in
Canada. Canadians don't feel thethreat. We live next door to
uncle Sam. You know? Why shouldwe have a big military?
You know? They really don'tunderstand why it's necessary.
And the political parties don'tput much money into the

(01:11:23):
military. It's been decreasingin size, you know, ever since
the end of World War two,because they're going after
votes. If the if the Canadianpublic doesn't feel that we need
the military, the governmentcertainly won't support it.
Mhmm. They they're going aftervotes. And so somehow we have to
educate the Canadian public sothey know how important it is to

(01:11:48):
maintain this defensive posturewe have.

Bryan (01:11:51):
Yeah. I agree. I think probably that being said, some
of the best things they can dois visit museums like the one
that you volunteer at, bring thekids, help educate the the
youth, I'll say, on on kind ofour past and our present and and
the threats that we face.

Bob (01:12:07):
Yeah. Yeah. We're kinda looking at another cold war
right now, you know. There's alot going on in the world.

Bryan (01:12:14):
There really is. Yeah. Well, Bob, that wraps up our two
part Remembrance Day interview.I'm truly grateful that you took
the time to share your storieswith us. And again, I wanna
thank you for your service andfor being here today.
So thank you so much.

Bob (01:12:27):
Thank you, Brian. I appreciate the opportunity.

Bryan (01:12:30):
Okay. That does it for our two part series on
Remembrance Day with majorretired Bob Wade, former Cold
War fighter pilot, and the firstWestern pilot to fly in a MiG
29. Tune in next week as we dosomething very special and have
our first American guest on theshow, author and retired aerial
gunner, Anthony Dyer. He wrotethe book Moonchild and was a

(01:12:52):
aerial gunner on the famous ACone thirty h Spectre gunship, as
well as the HH 60 g Pave Hawkrescue helicopter. So tune in
for that one.
It's gonna be very exciting, andyou do not wanna miss it. Do you
have any questions or commentsabout anything you've heard in
this show? Would you or someoneyou know make a great guest, or
do you have a great idea for ashow? You can reach out to us at

(01:13:13):
[e-mail] or
on all social media pod pilotproject. And be sure to check
out that social media for lotsof great videos of our RCAF and
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As always, we'd like to thankyou for tuning in and ask for
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(01:13:33):
five stars wherever you get yourpodcasts. That's all for now.
Thanks for listening. Keep theblue side up.
See you. Engineer, shut down allfour. We're shutting down all
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