Episode 76: The Veteran Series: Cold War Remembrance and the famous flight in the MiG-29 Part 1 - Bob Wade
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Bryan:Alright. We're ready for departure here at the pilot project podcast, the best source for stories and advice from RCAF and mission aviation pilots brought to you by Sky's Magazine. I'm your host, Brian Morrison. And with me today for our special two part Remembrance Day series is someone who is fairly legendary in Canadian aviation circles, major retired Bob Wade, a former snowbird and cold war fighter pilot and the first Western pilot to fly in a MiG 29. Bob, it's such a pleasure to have you here today.
Bryan:Thanks for being on the show.
Bob:Thank you, Brian. I'm looking forward to this.
Bryan: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 tutors as well as his time on Starfighters. But before we get into any of that, let's go through Bob's bio. Bob Wade grew up West Of Edmonton and had his life changed in 1963 when the Golden Hawks aerobatic team roared overhead.
Bryan:That moment launched him on a thirty nine year aviation career spanning fighter jets, aerobatic demonstration flying, and commercial aviation. After joining the Royal Canadian Air Force through the Venture Training Program, Bob earned his wings in 1969 and became a tutor instructor. He was selected to join the Snowbirds aerobatic team in 1973 and 1974 flying over 100 shows a year. He then transitioned to the CF one zero four Starfighter in Europe, pioneering tactics like silent target, later instructing on the Starfighter and the CF 18 Hornet. In 1986, Bob became the CF eighteen air demonstration pilot, introducing high energy maneuvers never before flown in Canadian fighter demos.
Bryan:His career included alert operations in the Arctic during the Cold War and a famous escort in flight experience with the Soviet Air Force MiG 29 during their historic visit to Canada in 1989. After leaving the military in 1990, Bob flew for Canada three thousand Airlines and Korean Air on aircraft such as the Airbus A330 and the Boeing seven fifty seven. Now retired in Calgary, he remains active as deputy chair of the Air Force Museum Society of Alberta and honorary chair of the Royal Canadian Air Force Association for Alberta. So let's talk about your early life and inspiration, Bob. Set the stage for us.
Bryan:We know from your bio that your inspiration to pursue aviation began with the golden hawks. Can you tell us that story?
Bob:Yes. It it was interesting, you know, because when I was a young fellow, I was a good student, but I had always wanted to be a doctor, you know. And so by the time I was about eight or nine years old, I could name all 206 bones in the human body, knew all the functions of the organs, that type of thing. But one day when I was about 15, I was out in this field trying to catch a horse. I'd grown up with horses and I rode a lot.
Bob:And all of a sudden this huge noise came over top of my head. And who it was? It was the Golden Hawk aerobatic team. They were waiting to go on stage in Edmonton. And the town that I grew up in was about 60 miles, a 100 kilometers west of Edmonton along the Jasper Highway.
Bob:And that had such an inspirational effect on me that I just kind of decided right then, God, I want to do that. You know? I forgot all about being a doctor from there on in. I just wanted to be a fighter pilot. You know?
Bob:I wanted to do what those boys were doing. And in those days when you're 16, you can join the air force under the regular officer training program. And so my dad drove me into the city. I was just about to turn sixteenth. And I went to the recruiting center and talked to those fellows and wrote the exams and got through that.
Bob:And they said I'd have to wait to start pilot training. And so I did. And it was the next spring that they sent me to Toronto for aircrew selection. And I had been operating heavy equipment up in the Far North at that time. And so I was pretty good with my feet and hands.
Bob: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 dumb to be a navigator. So I was happy about that.
Bryan:Yeah. No doubt. Wow. In this early quest to become a fighter pilot, did you ever think about what serving your country meant?
Bob: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't really think that much about what it meant to serve your country and the role that you're playing. So that my dad was a bomber pilot in World War two. I kinda knew about the sacrifices that he went through. But it was mostly my motivation was just to have fun, fly that airplane.
Bryan:Yeah. That makes sense. How did that change over the years?
Bob:Once I got operational and, I could see how important it was, it meant a lot to me. You know, 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 could contribute the best way I could to making Canada, you know, a safe environment for everyone to live.
Bryan:Mhmm. Yeah. Once you get into the operational world, it all becomes a lot more real than when you're going through training and when you first join and everything's exciting and you're super pumped to get into that flight training world, and you're just thinking about that next making it through that next hurdle, but it gets more real once you get into the operational side.
Bob:Yeah. It was quite a challenge, You know? And so that, we found that, it was the boys that had a passion to do that job made it through the training system. It wasn't, guys that were had better educations or that type of thing that got some through, pilot selection and, training. It was, guys that had a passion, would do anything to do that job.
Bryan: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've also mentioned your dad was a bomber pilot in World War two, so it was kind of, something that ran in the family.
Bob:Yes. You know, when I went to school now this is back in the fifties. I think every kid in my class, their dad was in World War two. You know? So we were aware of what that contribution was and, the problems those fellas were dealing with.
Bob:And, my dad got shot down, and, they made it back to The UK. You know, he had a pretty good story, but he didn't talk about it very much. You know? He ran the cadet corps when I was a young fella as an army. It was an army cadet corps.
Bob:But he did that because the kids could have the most fun in a cadet corps that allowed you to shoot guns and go on schemes and build bridges and this type of thing. We you know, on November 11, every kid's dad marched down Main Street. You know, we kind of appreciated, you know, what those fellas did. Whereas nowadays very few people even know anybody in the military. You know?
Bob:So the kids it's not the kids' fault, you know, it's just the way things are, that the environment I grew up in was different.
Bryan: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' parents weren't in a major war is something to be thankful for.
Bob:It certainly is.
Bryan:And
Bob:that happened not by accident.
Bryan:That's right.
Bob:That happened by the contribution of those boys back in those days that guaranteed this way of life for us.
Bryan:Yes, absolutely. Another thing you mentioned was that you started working at a very young age. I think you said, in the write up you sent me, it was 15 years old in Fort McMurray. Is that right?
Bob: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 a train. And I think it was about seventeen hours from Edmonton on this little narrow gauge railway track, and they stopped at every logger's cabin along the way.
Bob:So it was a long haul to get in there. But Freddie Mannix at Mannix Construction had hired me as a 15 year old kid, and he was happy with that. But I was just there to show gravel trucks where to dump. And then one day they brought in these three huge earth movers or Euclids for hauling dirt, and they only had two operators. So I told the foreman that, hey, I could run one of those things.
Bob: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 it out. And I did, you know? And I became a buggy operator, that's what we call those earth movers.
Bob:And it was a great experience. You know, I loved that so much. You know, I'd rather work than take days off because you work thirty days in and they give you three days off, but when you can't get out except by that train, of course, you're stuck there on the job job site. But working with those those boys on those huge machines was quite a thrill.
Bryan:How do you think that early responsibility shaped your character?
Bob: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 all the other guys in there had, were in their thirties, forties, fifties. You know?
Bob:They're older men. And most of them had done time in jail, and they'd lived pretty rough lives. But they kind of looked after me. I don't know why. They just kind of adopted me and helped me out where they could.
Bob:And so that they didn't treat me roughly. You know, they could see that, you know, what I was doing, I enjoyed, and they just wanted to make sure that nothing happened bad to me. They took me to the bar. Like, Fort McMurray in those days had they had one hotel they had a bar in. And these boys would take me into the bars of 15, 16, or I guess I'd be 16 at the time.
Bob:They're about to turn 16. And the bartender, he didn't care about that. He said, as long as you're not drinking, you can sit here with the boys. And so I did. And, you'll you grow up a lot faster than, what normal kids would because you're in that environment.
Bryan:Yeah. No doubt. I can only imagine I mean, 15 years old, I think by that point, was working at Tim Hortons. Yeah. You can't really compare.
Bryan:That's like to be at that far away from your family in such an isolated place and doing that kind of heavy labor, that must have been, very intense.
Bob:Yeah. You know, it but I was ready for that. I was a big kid, you know, so that I wasn't totally innocent and naive by the in those days. And I didn't get along that well with my old man. Know, I was happy to be away from home.
Bob:And he was a school principal, you know, so that I could stay up in McMurray until November and then go back to school. He'd let me back into class and start again. 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 more money than my dad did.
Bob:You know? Because I was working thirty days a month. After eight hours, we worked twelve hour shifts, and after eight hours, you pay the time time and a half, after 10 double time, and you had nowhere to spend your money. You know? So that, we were putting away a bunch of money back in those days as kids.
Bryan:Wow. That must have been another kind of odd thing to have that much money at 16.
Bob:Yeah. So naturally, you know, you run out and buy a car. Yeah. Right away, you had all the all the things you wanted to have, financially.
Bryan:Yeah. Of course. Now this is something I'm very curious to hear, especially with your dad's record of service in the second world war. What was your family's reaction when you said you wanted to be a fighter pilot?
Bob:Dad thought that was good, you know, because he thought I was a bit rough as a kid. He thought that military might streak me out a bit. And as a principal's kid going to school, you don't wanna be seen or observed as being a teacher's pet, that type of thing. So my brothers and I were pretty aggressive. We didn't take that abuse from the other kids.
Bob:You know? We played hockey, played baseball, and the kids, respected that. Nobody ever, you know, accused me of being a teacher's pet. You know? Mhmm.
Bob:I got the strap as many times as any other kid in school, you know?
Bryan:What did your, mom think of you joining up?
Bob:Mom was worried. And, they had a different story. Mom was a war bride. She grew up in Warrington, England, and from a very affluent family. And when she had met my dad in bombery command, their relationship got serious real quick.
Bob:She was just a 15 year old little girl, you know? And she got pregnant, and her dad got married overseas, and her family disowned her. You know, she was marrying this colonial, you know, and they had that kind of prejudice back in those days. But dad thought they would lose World War II, and they thought 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.
Bob:So she went there to live with my dad's parents for the remainder of the war. And then, after the war ended, dad came back. He went to, university in Saskatoon. And, that's where I was born, 1946. But mom, she wanted to go back to England, you know, as a young girl, you know, and, that was her home.
Bob:And so we did. And we moved to Henley On Thames, and dad lectured at the, Reading University. But her family still didn't want to accept dad. And it was a different time, I guess, but I was just a young fellow, I was only a few years old when we went back to England. So I couldn't really appreciate what was going on.
Bob:But I know we came back to Canada in 'fifty two, and my little brother was born over there. And that's when we moved to Evansburg, West Edmonton. Her parents never called her, never talked to her again, really. So it's a sad story, you know, for a little girl to go through that, you know, when she did nothing wrong.
Bryan:Yeah. And, I wonder if that sort of influenced her to hold on tight when you wanted to go and join the air force.
Bob: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, you know. And, I think mom was a bit, she felt good about me being in the air force where I'd I'd probably live a proper life.
Bryan:They'd keep you out of trouble a little bit?
Bob:Yeah. Exactly.
Bryan:Yeah. So let's talk we we started talking about this a little bit, but let's talk about joining the RCAF and pilot training. How was flight training structured in the sixties?
Bob:Okay. Back then, see, I I joined well, I shouldn't say I joined. I went through pilot selection when I was 16, but they never called me up for four years. And, so I was 20 when, I started pilot training. I was in McMurray.
Bob:I'd been operating heavy equipment all those years, mostly dozers. And, mom sent me telegram saying the air force wants to get a get a hold of you. So I, left the job site, came down south, got ahold of the military, and they said, yep. 02/01/1968, you're gonna start pilot training. That was the first day of the Canadian Armed Forces.
Bob:You know? And so I was, these boys that were down east, they joined before I did, but I I was swung in as the fifth, pilot that ever entered the Canadian Armed Forces. And I had a brand new Mustang convertible, all paid for. And so I drove down to Victoria where the initial pilot training was to take not pilot training, it was officer selection, think, boot camp back in those days. So we had 76 boys start that course.
Bob:None of us had a degree. We were all kids out of high school. But the rest of the kids maybe were a year or two younger than me had never left home. Know, their background experience was totally different than mine. But we lost on that pilot or on that basic training, we lost about half the boys on that course.
Bob:And so I would guess there would be 35 or so that at the end of that were sent to Camp Borden in Ontario for initial crew selection. And so that we went down there. Well, you'll find chipmunk airplanes back in those days. My instructor was the coolest guy. He was a Spitfire pilot during World War two.
Bob:And Oh, wow. He was always instructing in boarding on this chipmunk. And he was such a great influence on me. And I was pretty good with my feet and hands because I've been operating heavy equipment for the last four or five years. And he turned me loose to go solo.
Bob:And so that was the first time I was ever in an airplane. I've never flown commercial or any other way. The first airplane I got into, I was sitting in the front seat. And that was quite a quite a thrill. And I was so lucky to have Bill Fell, this old fighter pilot, as my instructor.
Bob:And so I went through that. They gave me twenty seven hours on a chipmunk, and we lost another half the boys there. Okay. So that half the course that left Borden went to Gimli, Manitoba. And in Gimli in those days, 1968, they did all the basic and advanced training.
Bob:And then Moose Jaw did the same thing. And so that was on the Tudor aircraft, which was brand new back in those days, and T Bird was used for advanced training. So that, we were joined in Moose Jaw at that time with, I think there was, seven or eight cross trainees on my course. And these were navigators and radio officers in the system that, they no longer required because of technology changes. You don't need a navigator on a lot of airplanes.
Bob:And so that, they were cross trained as pilots. And, so these boys were all captains, you know, senior in rank to us. We were all officer cadets back in then. But they just treated us like their own. It was a very easy relationship.
Bob:Whereas with the instructors, of course, it's all yes, sir, three bag full. And boys that went to Gimli, they had about the same experience as we had. I think we only lost two guys on our course from there. And we were also joined by eight Danish pilots, from Denmark in and another eight went to Gimli, Manitoba. So that our our course there, I guess we had eight Canadians, eight Danes, and eight cross trainees on our course.
Bob:So 24 guys at Gimli and 24 in Moose Jaw. I went to Moose Jaw. I'm happy with that. You know? And it was a thrilling experience to get to fly these jets.
Bryan:Now those were you said the tutors were new at the time. So was it pretty exciting to be on the state of the art jet trainer?
Bob:Yeah. You know, I knew nothing about airplanes, really. And so that the tutors came into service, I think, in 1965. So this is '68. They're three years old.
Bob:And back in those days, I think we had about a 160, a 180 aircraft on the line in both Gimli and in Moose Jaw. There was a lot of jets and a lot of instructors, you know? And plus they had the T Bird flights as well for doing advanced training. We were training, I think, nine courses a year in Wow. In Moose Jaw.
Bob:So it was a huge effort. I mean, those schools were big, and there's a lot of flying.
Bryan:Yeah. That's crazy to think about the numbers that they have now versus the numbers at that time. But it's a whole different scale of operation during, you know, just post World War two and then getting into the Cold War, different different times and different needs for sure.
Bob:Yeah. And, we were, I think, the last course that, went through. There might have been more, went to without the university degree. And so that, that was different too. The military wanted to have all their officers to be educated with a military degree, and if you wanted to get promoted, you wanted to speak French as well.
Bob:So us kids, we had no chance to get promoted because the promotion system worked out of 10 points. And one point was given to you to be French, and the other point was given to you to for having a degree. So we're working out of eight points, while the rest of these boys are working out of 10. Right. And so they told us, when we graduated that, we wouldn't get promoted, but what they would do is keep us in the cockpit.
Bob:And so you couldn't make me happier. You know? God, that's why I joined the air force. I didn't wanna be a general. I wanted to be a fighter pilot.
Bob:And so that that was good news for us. And the difference is that we could get combat ready by the time we're 20 years of age, you know, if the kid's starting at 16. But, young guys, you want to have a degree. Like, nowadays, kids are 30
Bryan:Yeah.
Bob:Before they get on bed ready. So I thought it was to the Air Force's advantage. Take kids out of high school like us and make us fighter prowls.
Bryan:Yeah. There's something to be said for getting people in early when they are young. They don't have a wife and kids yet. It's kind of a young person's game to really go out there, go into combat zones, deploy, have that crazy lifestyle where you're being posted all over the place. You can get some of that under your belt before you have a wife and kids or husband and kids or whatever the case may be.
Bryan:And it becomes a lot more complicated then.
Bob:Yeah, exactly. And our passion was just to fly. Know, nothing came ahead of flying back in those days. So that if you wanted to get through that course, you know, you needed to do that work a 100%, you know, and you put every effort you had into passing.
Bryan:Yeah. Yeah. Well, that hasn't changed. That's still true for sure. Yeah.
Bryan:I wanted to go back to get some explanation on, how you joined, like the program you joined under. You mentioned it was called the Venture program. Can you tell us about what that was?
Bob:Yeah. Venture was a program where they would take kids 16 years of age in grade 10, and you could join the air force as as an officer cadet. And I think they anticipated great attrition rates with those kids, but before they put a lot of money into you, they made those cuts of the people going through the system. And so that's the way it was designed. And I thought it was quite effective.
Bob:I was surprised to see as many kids as we did see get cut out of the system right out of basic training, that we lost half the course when they did that. And there's very little academics. What they wanted to know is what kind of a character are you? You know? Are you the kind of character that we want?
Bob:And that was basic. And then the pilot selection process down in Barrie, Ontario, is can you learn at the rate that we require you to learn to become a pilot? So they didn't want to invest a lot of money into you until they knew they had the person they wanted and they had the abilities to do the job.
Bryan:That makes sense. Trying to keep the cuts as early as possible to avoid the extra expense of getting people through flight training. They still do that now even with aircrew selection. Right? Like, that's where they try to cut the wheat from the chaff as much as possible.
Bryan:Because, like, with the last thing you want is to spend, I think it's half a million dollars by the time you're done phase two. Yeah. You know, spend half a million dollars on a pilot and find out, hey, this person doesn't have what it takes. Exactly. Yeah.
Bryan:So what were some of the most challenging parts of flight training in 1968, '69?
Bob:I found the officer development part as being the worst, because they they wanted you to act in in a certain way. We had to march everywhere we went. So when you went to the mess for lunch, you marched over, and then you marched back again. You know? And to me, that doesn't seem to have much value towards training, you know, to be a fighter pilot, you know, being a pilot, period.
Bob:And so that I had little little difficulty with that, I guess, because my friends were the cross trainees, the older guys, because that's the way you know, I was pretty mature by the time I started in there. So I was hanging out with these captains rather than you know, I was close friends with all the boys that, were on my course, the younger fellows. But, basically, my friends were, lacrosse trainees, close friends.
Bryan:So you would have gotten your wings in Moose Jaw. Correct?
Bob:That's correct. Yeah. 1969.
Bryan:So 1969, Moose Jaw, it's your wings parade. What do you remember most vividly from your wings parade?
Bob:I can remember, a general came out. I don't remember his name right now. And that's the first time I'd ever seen a general. And so that I was pretty, you know, awestruck by this fellow that came through. I didn't know his background or anything, but that was impressive.
Bob:My parents came down to see that parade. That meant a lot to me. And I think it meant something to them as well. They were pretty proud of what what I'd done. My brother had gone through that same system two years ahead of me, and he got seized trained.
Bob:And if you can believe it, he got seized trained for having a speeding ticket. No. Yeah. You know, what the hell has that got to do with, you know, pilot training? You know?
Bob:But that's the way they were back in the They said, no. No. You know, if, you're not gonna live 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:Yeah. Yeah. Speaking of that, how different was military flight training then compared to what you see today?
Bob:I think there was a lot of differences. We the course structure probably is very similar. I don't know. You know, I haven't talked to anybody that's gone through the pilot training system lately. But ours, we flew twice a day as a student.
Bob:I don't think they're doing that anymore. And when you go through a certain phase, whether it be navigation, instrument flying, or whatever, they were pretty intense. You know, it was a heavy duty train. How that goes through nowadays, I have no idea, you know, how hard the guys have to work to get through the system. But when we did it, you know, you had to, you know, you're doing dumb things like you have to clean and sweep your floors and wash the floors along the flight line.
Bob:We were doing stuff that had nothing to do with pilot training. But they were just checking, making sure the right character, I guess. Don't
Bryan:Yeah. I think there's less of that kind of like, they still do officer development and and those types of things, but I think they try to find out those things on basic training more now in terms of your character and whether you're gonna be fit to be an officer and those types of things. And there's less of that kind of chicken crap to deal with on on flight training. I know when I went through, now that was thirteen, fourteen years ago, we were still able to do two two a days, like flying double turning in a day. But that may have changed.
Bryan:I'm not sure. It's that's kind of funny, you know, I'm in a way, I'm just as removed as you are from the process because it can change so quickly.
Bob:Yeah. No. That that's true. You know? I I work at the military museums here in there for the Alberta aviation Force Museum of Alberta, and, we have a cold war exhibit there.
Bob:And I've got guys trying to join the air force. Two of them have been waiting for four years to start pilot training. Both of those boys have university degrees. They're the greatest kids. You know?
Bob:And, one is now 30 years of age. He's been waiting for over four years. And, I'm disappointed in that 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 at the South Pole now. And so that, I don't know, you know, if, he's gonna come back to the military.
Bob:You know? Yeah. He didn't get treated well by the military by them just telling him, nope. Not this course. Nope.
Bob:Not this course. You know? And so that, Ken Bork will treat him well.
Bryan:That's definitely one of the big differences now is the capacity for them to take on new trainees. It's so reduced right now and there's been such a bottleneck and it's resulted in such a large amount of training delays that you get these people. I get messages from people all the time from listeners asking, hey, you know, I hear the pilot trade is closed this year. Like, how long how long do you think that's gonna be be like that? Do you have any insights?
Bryan:And I I can't give them much because this is almost unprecedented right now with the amount of waiting that, either either students or people who want to join are doing. I haven't really seen that before. And I've only been around the military for around twenty years, but, I've never seen that before.
Bob:Yep. You know, this is unprecedented. You know, I've never known of this in the history of the air force that I do. And, I talked to General Kenny 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 start getting them in the cockpit and flying them. You know?
Bob:And without the older boys, you don't have instructors, And, you need experience to be an instructor. And, especially on the operational squadrons, not so much in Moose Jaw and Gimli. But, he says that's probably his biggest challenge as commander of the air force, you know, his retention and, getting the boys, flying time. Now if you're flying f eighteens when I flew f eighteens, we had a 138 airplanes. You know?
Bob:Well, we crashed a few. We crashed three or four by the time, we got all the airplanes delivered. But, you know, we had a lot of flying time. Know? Mhmm.
Bob:God, I was getting, three hundred hours a year on fighters. You know? And you're only supposed to get two forty, but there's always those boys that don't get their two forty. So we fly their hours as well. And, it, is impossible for the guys now.
Bob:We're down to about 40 Tudors, I think, or forty forty f eighteens. And I was talking to the boys at Cold Lake, and they were telling me they're doing seventeen hours of maintenance for every hour of flight. So how how can the boys get any flying time? You know? Mhmm.
Bob:It just doesn't work. You know? And so as a result, all the senior guys are getting up and going to airlines. And that happened to me as well. I got out of the air force because we went from six fighter squadrons down to three.
Bob:And I could see they're written on the wall. Like, that's gonna be the end of our flight attack. So we all went to airlines.
Bryan:Yeah. And we'll get to that for sure.
Bob:Sure. Yeah.
Bryan:This definitely rounds out though, talking about kind of all the differences in the air force and the flight training system now versus when when it was kind of you were just getting through it. But what I'd love to talk about now is your first posting, which is you wanted a posting as a fighter pilot, but you were posted to Moose Jaw to instruct on tutors. So how did you adapt to that?
Bob:I was disappointed. You know? There were no fighter postings available when I graduated pilot training in June '69. And one of the boys from Gimmick got Voodoo's, but none of us did. And so they posted us back to Booz Jaw or Gimmy as instructor pilots.
Bob:You know, and we're just pipeliners. We just graduated. And so they send you to Portage La Prairie, and they teach you how to be an instructor. And that was the most valuable training that I think I've ever had on any one single course. I learned how to instruct.
Bob:And that was probably a good thing or a great you know, one of the biggest benefits to my career is because I spent so much time instructing. I was good at it because I've been taught how to instruct. And so when I went to Moose Jaw, I was still in love with flying, and I just wanted to fly airplanes. But I think I was a pretty good instructor. I upgraded to an a two within a a year and a half, as an instructor at Moose Jaw, which was, not easy to do.
Bob:But in 1971, sixty eight hours on a Tudor aircraft.
Bryan:Yeah. That is a lot of time in a in a little jet aircraft. That's a lot.
Bob:Yeah. And that was because I was single, you know, and every weekend, I'd take an airplane away, you know, and so that I was typically limited to two hops away, but I could get down to Toronto or Montreal or, you know, off to Vancouver. And, I just flew my pants off, you know, because, that's what I love doing. If they needed an airplane taken someplace or parts taken someplace or an airplane fixed, I would volunteer to do it. Whereas the married guys, of course, wanted to stay home on weekends.
Bob:And, I thought, what a tremendous opportunity. And I don't know of anybody that's got their money out. I ended up with, 2,996.8 hours on the Tudor airplane. So that is a I lot of flew a lot. Yeah.
Bob:But I loved the lifestyle. They would give me an airplane every weekend.
Bryan:What was your flying tempo like during this period? Like, how often were you flying in a day, let's say?
Bob:We would fly two trips a day, two student trips a day. And in those days, it was mostly all dual instruction and basic training. You got very little lead time except in the formation phase, maybe where you didn't have a student in the cockpit with you. And that's, you know, a forty five minute briefing before the flight. You can get out and do that hour fifteen flight, and then come back and do an hour of debriefing with that student.
Bob:And then turn around and do the same thing again in the afternoon.
Bryan:Long days.
Bob:They were. They were long, hard days. Yeah. But I loved them. I shouldn't say they're hard days.
Bob:I loved every minute of
Bryan:Yeah. I I've said this before on the show, but I had an instructor who, when we were walking back in from our flights on the Harvard, would often say, beats working for a living. Yeah. And Exactly. I thought that was great.
Bryan:That really stuck with me.
Bob:Yeah. Yeah. I can't think of anything worse than having to go to work every day and you hate your job. You know?
Bryan:Yes. Yeah. That that was always a big fear of mine.
Bob:You know, we were lucky in our careers. We loved every minute. I'd rather go to work than stay at home. Yes.
Bryan:How did instructing change your flying skills or leadership approach?
Bob:That was really significant. You know, in hindsight, I'm really thankful that my first tour was as an instructor, because I learned to fly the basics extremely well. And when I was doing air shows and things like that later, you know, when I was doing maneuvers, I hit exact airspeeds and exact altitudes like we did in basic training. Like when you're doing a loop in a tutor, you started out at two fifty knots, they wanted 110 knots across the top of the loop, and they wanted you exactly two fifty knots on pullout. You know?
Bob:That type of discipline, you know, towards flying, that degree of accuracy was really valuable to me. And I I appreciate that. The other part of it was that with that instructional background, I could help others, you know, on my squadron. You know? I knew how to cheat.
Bob:And whereas a lot of the boys that didn't go through initial instructors in Moose Jaw and Gimli, they had no idea how to instruct. You know? So being a first tour instructor, I think, was probably a huge benefit to me.
Bryan:Yeah. A hidden blessing for you.
Bob:Yeah. It really was.
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Bryan:What made the tutor such a great platform to instruct on?
Bob:It was nice because it had sufficient power to do all the functions you required in training, and it was simple to fly. It was a very basic jet jet airplane, and you sat beside your student. So you could see what your student was doing, and so you could help him much more effectively by asking him to follow you through on the flight controls, 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 pressurized and got better legs.
Bob:You know, it goes farther.
Bryan:So at the time, it was quite a state of the art trainer.
Bob:It really was. You know? And, it was very effective, for the job that it was tasked to do.
Bryan:Mhmm. I'd like to talk next about your time on these snowbirds. But before we kind of get into that, how did the snowbirds come to be?
Bob:Yeah. Back in those days, colonel Obie Philip, he was the base commander. And Obie was the lead of the centenary not the lead, but he was the CEO of the Golden Centenary team in 1967, which was the hundredth anniversary of confederation in Canada. And so that had quite an impression on Obi. So when he became base commander in Booshaw, he got all these jets there, and he says, hey.
Bob:I want to continue with the aerobatic teams. And air command back in those days said, no. Don't we're too busy training students, and we don't have the jets for that. And OB being the kind of character he was, he says, well, I'll make the jets available for that. And so in 1971, he started up the team.
Bob:It was not authorized to do aerobatics. You know, air command wasn't sanctioning this. And the boys selected were full time instructors, you know, so that they developed a pretty good routine for being non aerobatic. Glenn Young, husband, was the lead of the team. He was the basic squadron commander in Moose Jaw back in those days.
Bob:He didn't have an aerobatic background, but he was a good pilot. And so that he got those boys doing pretty good work in ninth plane formation. And but not they're non aerobatic. And, they got to do maybe 20 shows, 25 shows a year. And, then in 1972, again, air command wouldn't, authorize the team.
Bob:Know, being OB, he said, well, we're still doing this, and they got more air shows because they became very popular with the public. And so their pressure was coming on to air command. And then in 1973, air command finally resents and said, okay. We're gonna make this a national aerobatic team. And, they brought in George Miller.
Bob:He was a one zero four pilot overseas. But George had been on the on the Golden Centenaries on the f p d six, and he had a really excellent background in formation and aerobatic flying. And so George was brought in to run this team, and they had tryouts, you know, as to who the pilots would be. And so they took, half the pilots from the 1970, two team and just transferred them over. And it became a full time job for those boys.
Bob: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 these guys, and they did assessments on our abilities. I tried out for the team that year, and I was successful. They took three of us, or four of us, I think it was, that were instructors there, had different backgrounds. The guys came from all different backgrounds.
Bob:Yogi was the 104 pilot when he came on the team type of thing. It became a national aerobatic team when we were allowed to do aerobatics, you know, so a huge jump. You know? And George was very aggressive. You know?
Bob:And so that, you're gonna fly with George, you're gonna have to tuck it in tight because he's gonna fly that airplane, very aggressively, and if you're gonna have enough power, hang on. Our formations, were running four or five feet of overlap. And you can see pictures from back in those days, and it's hard to believe, you know, that's the way it was. But we were doing nine plane, takeoffs, nine plane landings on 150 foot wide runways. And we'd do it as a matter of routine.
Bob:You know? We did that all the time. And to learn how to do that stuff, I was the only lieutenant on the team, George would use me because I had so much student time to figure out how to do a four plane takeoff. Well, he'd flamed me out twice while we tried to figure out where to put that airplane in behind his. And we did.
Bob:We got a position there. And every maneuver, he wanted to do a five plane line of rest roll. That never been done by any team before. George figured out how to do that. You know, he was adjusting his power as lead just to give us enough to give me enough power in the left wing and speed brakes and idle with the guy on the right side, you know?
Bob:So it was quite a challenge. And that team got so popular in '73. It was just amazing. And George was the kind of guy, if Air Command didn't authorize an air show, George would call it a practice in front of a crowd, and go do the show anyhow. So we were doing over a 100 shows a year.
Bob:And, you know, like this year, think the snowbirds did 24, 25 shows. I forget. You know? So back in those days when we had the jets, and we only had nine pilots and two, I guess they're administrative, young announcers, PA guys, PR guys, on team. So 11 pilots and 11 Gronk.
Bob:That was all that was assigned to the team. There was nothing else. We did all our own maintenance. The ground crew flew with us from site to site. And it was a great group of boys, you know, and we had fun.
Bob:And, it was like being a rock band, you know, because you're on the road continuously, and, you're everywhere you go, there's a party. And so that, we had a lot of fun back in old fashioned.
Bryan:How did you handle the schedule of flying a 100 shows a year? That sounds really intense.
Bob:Yeah. It was, but, we were doing what we wanted to do. That was great. You know? And I don't think we you know, we were married.
Bob:I got married, yeah, just before I joined the Air Force, or joined the Snowbirds. And my wife, she had no trouble with that at all. Know? She wasn't working, looked after the kids. But she was a widow.
Bob:Like her first husband was my student in pilot training who was killed. Oh, wow. And so we ended up getting married. I adopted her kids, and, you know, it was a good thing. You know?
Bob:She settled me down a whole bunch.
Bryan:Yeah. They tend to do that. It's It's a good thing all around for sure. Yeah. What was the team culture like in the early nineteen seventies snowbirds compared to now?
Bob:You know, I don't know. I I listened to it, what they're doing now, And their challenges nowadays are so much different than ours were back in our day. You know, if we needed to change engines, there were lots of engines available. You know, we're running 160 airplanes on that flight type of thing. And so parts weren't a problem, where they are now.
Bob:And the age of the airplane is a factor because they brake more often than what know, airplanes were fairly new. And so we had very few system failures. Whereas nowadays, I think they experience that a lot more. You see a lot more of eight plane air shows. They're doing a lot more fly pass type shows rather than full aerobatic displays.
Bob:It's easier on the airplanes. So that their challenges are huge. Plus, they can't find pilots. You know? Guys don't wanna do that, you know, for some reason.
Bob:And I think one of the boys is on leave from WestJet to go back onto the team. Where when I was there, we had a 150 guys every year trying out, trying to get on that team. You know? So today's challenges are huge for them. They needed a different airplane, but they're doing a remarkable job.
Bob:You know? I really gotta commend them. I was out in Abbotsford at the air show this year, and, I was very impressed with their show. Now it's different than the shows we were flying. You know, we had two solos in a seven plane formation.
Bob:They're doing a lot of nine plane work now. And when we were doing it, boy, if those solos were more than ten seconds between our smoke off with the formation and their smoke on with the solos, they heard about it, you know? That was unacceptable. Nowadays, it's not unusual to go, you know, thirty seconds, forty five seconds between smoke on, smoke off. You know?
Bob:So different environment. But, I was impressed with them. I think, they're doing a remarkable job with the problems they have.
Bryan:Well, there you go. For any, Snowbird listeners we may have, you've got one of the original Snowbirds saying he's impressed with what you guys are doing. So I think that's, high praise.
Bob:Yeah.
Bryan:So at the end of the first season, you found out that they were removing you from the team. Can you tell us this story?
Bob:Yeah. The Ralph old beat Philp had been, posted out, and, Ralph Annes, he's an old Sabre one zero four pilot. Rotten Ralph was his nickname. And he got posted in as a base commander. And he loved Ralph.
Bob:He was one of the old old school boys. You know? He does love to fly. He's a great guy. Really supportive of the team.
Bob:But in '74, just before the air show season started, Ruff comes in to us and he says, hey. I got bad news for you guys. We're gonna have to, remove Bob Weed from the film there or from the team. And the problem is that air commanded I I supported that we can't have a lieutenant on the National Aerobatic team. And boys got pretty upset at that, of course.
Bob:We're a pretty close bunch of guys. Why are they kicking me off the team because I'm still a lieutenant? You know, I knew I wasn't getting promoted, you know, so that didn't seem to be right. But that was on a Monday morning. And so we complained all week.
Bob:George was supportive of us and that 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 sing where you have to drink a drink, and now it's, I guess, politically unacceptable. And Ralph says, he says, well, we got a problem. They want to throw Bob Wade off the snowboard aerobatic team. He says, but I got a solution.
Bob:Bob, you're now a captain. He promoted me. So I got to stay on the team. But I think it was all a joke, you know, that was just Ralph's idea. That's the way he's gonna tell me I got promoted.
Bryan:Oh, you think that the whole thing was him pulling your leg?
Bob:Oh, I think so. Yeah. That was Ralph. You know, he was that kind of a guy.
Bryan:That's pretty funny.
Bob:Everybody loved Ralph. He was a he was a good boy with lots of fun.
Bryan:That's awesome. So next, we're gonna talk about your time on the starfighter. Your next posting was to the CF one zero four starfighter in Europe. I'd like to give the listeners some context about the Cold War and then ask you a question. The Cold War was a tense decades long standoff between the western allies led by North Atlantic Treaty Organization or NATO and the Eastern Bloc led by the Soviet Union or USSR that followed the end of the second world war.
Bryan:Rather than a direct shooting war, it was a global competition of military power, ideology, and influence. In Europe, NATO pilots trained daily to respond to a potential Soviet attack that could come at any time, often flying low level, high speed missions close to the iron curtain. For Canadian fighter pilots like Bob Wade, this meant living and flying on the front lines of a geopolitical standoff that shaped global security for nearly half a century. So what was it like flying in this tense environment?
Bob:Oh, when I got off the snowbirds, they didn't post me on starfighters right away. So I went back instructing. I became an A1 instructor. Was the only A1 on base back in those days. I was very proud of that because I spent more time instructing instructors than I did students.
Bob:You know? But what I wanted to ensure was that students that are getting failed are being failed for the right reasons. It's not by lack of effort of instructors. And I I changed a couple of those CTs back got those kids flying. In fact, the young fellow that's he's not a young fellow anymore, but the guy that's chair of the Hamilton Museum called me a couple weeks ago, and he says, Bobby Wade, he says, I wanna thank you.
Bob:You're the reason I got to fly in the air force, because I saved his butt when they CT'd him. I'm gonna get him released, and I knew it was his instructor that was the was the problem. You know? So I was very proud of those days, and then they finally did get me posted in '75 onto the starfighter. I was so excited about that.
Bob:Married, three kids, and the family could all come overseas with me. But you had to go to Cold Lake first to learn how to fly that starfighter. And before you got on to the starfighter, you had to put in seventy five hours on the f five. And that was four nineteen Squadron. And four nineteen Squadron just stood up, so it was the first F-five Squadron that we used just simply as a training squadron.
Bob:And I was happy to go there. The f five was a beautiful little airplane to fly. Tactically, it didn't have a lot to contribute 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 high performance airplane with an afterburner.
Bob:And, it was fun. In fact, I won the General Marcel's, trophy, for topping the course, and that was the first, award of that General Marcel's trophy. So I'm was pretty impressed with that. And then got on to the one zero four course, which again was in Coal Lake and on four seventeen squadron back in those days. And that was just an amazing change in performance, flight performance of an airplane that I couldn't even imagine before that.
Bob:And on your first flight, you're in the front seat, you got an instructor in the back seat, and you already know how to start it up. There wasn't simulators to teach you that stuff, but you did it in ground school, and sitting in the cockpit trying to figure out where all the switches go and what they meant. But you get into that first airplane, you taxi out to the end of the runway. When you light that afterburner, it's an experience you'll never forget. You know, it was towed in heavy.
Bob:It was a four stage afterburner. So you select full military power, then you select outboard with the throttle, and then forward. And you get a kick in the pants that you can't believe, you know, when it starts accelerating. And then about three or four seconds later, you get another kick in the pants, not quite as strong as that first one, and then the third one. It was a huge kick in the pants, you know?
Bob:And then you're really accelerating. Takeoff speed in the tip tank configuration was two twelve knots. Wow. And yeah, with that little wing on that airplane, it didn't want to go slow. And the faster you went, the faster it accelerated.
Bob:And so that your time between three hundred and four hundred knots took longer than what it did between four hundred and five hundred knots. So you don't stop accelerating, you know, even though the airplane's still going through 400 knots, you know, it's just incredible. And initially, you have a hard time getting that landing gear up fast enough so you don't overspeed it. You You had to use nose wheel steering on the Starfighter right up to a 150 knots on takeoff. Then once you get airborne, switch that connects your rudders to your nose tire changes into a mic button.
Bob:And a lot of the kids on their first takeoff, they're squeezing that stick so hard they don't let 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 an experience that you never forget. You know, I I've got two thousand hours on that airplane and every every takeoff was something you enjoyed so much.
Bob:It was just so much fun.
Bryan:Wow. It sounds amazing. The power of that thing just sounds incredible.
Bob:It was. It was just an incredible airplane to fly. I flew for thirty nine years. If I had to go back and fly any jet, it would be that Starfighter that I'd pick.
Bryan:Yeah. And I've heard that, you know, I've talked to some guys when I was I was volunteering in the air museum in Winnipeg for a little while.
Bob:Oh, yeah.
Bryan:And, you may know Bob Patrick, who still volunteers there.
Bob:Oh, yeah.
Bryan:Yeah. Who was also a Starfighter guy and he he was in love with that plane. It seems like anyone who's flown that plane absolutely loves it.
Bob: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 young fellas.
Bryan:Yeah. Because Bob's 88 or or I suppose 89 now.
Bob:Yeah. Yeah.
Bryan:So what was it like flying in the environment of the Cold War with all the the tension and the standoff? Like, what was that like?
Bob:Yeah. The Canadian contribution to NATO, which was our contribution towards the Cold War, was very significant. At the end of World War two, we had the fourth largest air force in the world. We were a country of 11,000,000 people. Now if you talk to Churchill, you'd say the Cold War started in 1945, you know, when World War two ended.
Bob:The Russians wanted to or the Russians, Soviets wanted to keep coming west. They wanted to take all of Germany and then press into Netherlands and France and Belgium. And the West didn't really know how to react for those first few years. And by 1949, they decided that they're gonna form an organization to become a cooperative defense system against that Soviet aggression. And, that was called NATO.
Bob:And, the first member nations was included Canada and The United States. But what's really interesting is that after World War two, they divided the West German sector into three regions. And the North was ran by the Brits, the Central part was ran by the Americans, and the southern part was given to Canada. You know? And that is so significant.
Bob:When you consider all the allied nations that fought in World War two, Canada gets the the number three section, or we get put in break with the top three organizations. But our, contribution was huge. We had 12 squadrons of f 80 sixes that we put into Europe in those years, 300 fighter aircraft. And they were good. They were f 80 sixes.
Bob:And so the Canadian role was air defense back in those days. But daytime air defense only. That f 86 never had a radar. So it was a a daytime dogfighter. And the boys loved it because they're coming out of spitfires from World War two jumping into this saber jet that you can get supersonic in a dive.
Bob:You know? So it was a huge jump in technology. Then the Korean War comes up, and some of the boys went over to Korea on the F-eighty six. And that was a bit challenging for the boys because it was a United Nations effort. And they they did learn a lot, but they were lucky that they're running against pilots flying MiG 15s that had no combat experience.
Bob:And so the kill ratio was about five 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 of the c f one hundreds over there too to replace some of the squadrons of sabers. And they give them an all weather capability, which is pretty significant. That CF one hundred's got quite a story. We had 11 squadrons of CF one hundreds at one time.
Bob:And then in '62, they decided to replace the saber and the CF one hundreds with the c f one zero four starfighter. Now the background on the starfighter was that the only time it had been deployed was in Vietnam in a combat role. And it was really huge on performance. In 1956, they set the world speed record to Mach 2.76. That was Chuck Yeager.
Bob:And he was a 120 some thousand feet, you know? So it was a huge jump in technology. But the thinking back in those days was speed was life. You know, the faster you go, the better off you are. And which was true to a point.
Bob:It made you hard to shoot down, but you couldn't turn. You know? The corner velocity on one zero four was 510 knots before you could get seven and a half the other you know? So it was a a hot bird, but they got no kills with it. Nobody got shot down, but they got no kills.
Bob:So they pulled the f four replaced the starfighter in the Vietnam war. And Lockheed wanted to market it as a ground attack airplane. And so that Canada, Denmark, Norway, Italy, Belgium, West Germany, they all bought that airplane as a ground attack airplane. And the role that Canada was given was as a nuclear bomber and recce. So reconnaissance was the other role.
Bob:And instead of having 12 squadrons over there, we had nine initially. And their job was to carry a nuke, big one, one point one megaton. And so it was 50 times bigger than the bombs they dropped on Nagasaki and Hiroshima. But the problem was is we could not survive the threat if we got up high. So that all our flying was done right on the trees at really high speeds.
Bob:We used 540 knots as a run-in speed. And then that was inbound because of weapons carriage, that was the limit on your weapon. And then coming off target, you come off supersonic. The Starfighter would go supersonic with an afterburner in low level. Wow.
Bob:It had a ton of power down there. And no other fighter could catch you in that environment. So we didn't worry about fighters, because you noticed, like, did you fly the f 18?
Bryan:No. I was an Aurora pilot.
Bob:Yeah. Yeah. Okay. You didn't get any fighter time. But on a fighter, your gun is not mounted level.
Bob:It monitors about three degrees nose up. So if you're gonna shoot at somebody, you gotta get that three degrees below the guy you're shooting at. Well, if that guy's down at a couple 100 feet, you're not getting three degrees below. So we didn't worry about fighters. What we worried about was surface to air missiles.
Bob:And the old SAM six and those those type of weapon systems, that were out in those days back in the sixties were very effective. So we knew that if we stayed down a couple 100 feet above the trees, they couldn't pick us up in time to get a missile launch on us. And the Americans owned all the nukes, but they wanted us to carry them because we had the best shot of getting through to a target. So and the boys did recce as well, you know, where they could take cameras over the targets and take do battle damage assessment, that type of thing. So it was a very viable role for the starfighter, to be in that nuclear role.
Bob:And I never flew that. I know I've got a lot of friends that did. And what's interesting is I've heard some of those missions were in so deep that they didn't have enough fuel to get home. So what they would do is they'd give you script money for some country that you could bail out over. And then once you get on the ground, you buy yourself a friend and wait out the war.
Bob:They said they could launch every, nuke they had within seventy two hours. So the war wouldn't have lasted any longer than seventy two hours. But it would have been a very different world after those seventy two hours.
Bryan:No kidding. That's partly why I added a little bit of context at the beginning of this section for our younger listeners who just didn't understand who may not understand, that's what the world was looking at at this time. They were looking at a war that would last twenty four to seventy two hours of nuclear war and then a whole different planet after that.
Bob:Yeah. Yeah. Now we were all encouraged to, build bomb shelters. They called them bomb shelters, but they weren't built for blasts. They were built for radiation.
Bob:So you had these radiation bunkers in your backyards, bur buried underground or in your basements. And that's because that was the only way you would survive after that, nuclear exchange. The radiation would go around the globe for about fifteen days or so. Wow. So that a lot of Americans did.
Bob:Not many did in Canada. But likely, we wouldn't get any nukes here. They didn't have enough nukes to, hit Canadian cities and stuff like that. It was a we weren't of any value. You know?
Bob:They'd be going to America or European countries with their nukes. And that almost went to war a number of times. Now DEFCON, defense conditions, they number from one to five. DEFCON five is peace. That's where we're at right now.
Bob:We went to DEFCON two in 1962 during the Cuban Missile Crisis. You're one step away from being at war. Yeah? And there were several other times that happened throughout history. And then in 1971, the Trudeau government, this boy did, he takes us out of the nuclear role and made us go conventional ground attack, because it's not nice to carry nuclear weapons.
Bob:It's kind of his rationale. You know, Canadians don't do that kind of stuff, which was total garbage. He denied that we had any nuclear weapons after '71, and that wasn't true. The Voodoo's carried the G and E missile, which had nuclear warhead. So it was all politics.
Bob:But the repercussions of that were that we had to with the little wing on the Starfighter, we could only carry four bombs. So sometimes I'd have to take up to 12 airplanes just to get enough weapons onto a target to make that mission worthwhile. You know? So the job became really complicated.
Bryan:Yeah. Because with those small wings, it was really only as a nuclear ground attack fighter that it could carry enough explosives to actually do a meaningful job.
Bob:Yeah. And so now he's he's put us into this role for conventional ground attack where we can carry four bombs. And we were carrying napalm cluster bombs. Napalm was not allowed to be used anymore by the Geneva Convention in '82. We carried cluster bombs, which I think have been banned as well, and high explosive, and CRV seven rockets, that type of thing.
Bob:And we thought we'd be effective. The NATO elected to employ us about taking out missile sites, you know, because we were so hard to shoot down. We could get weapons on them before they could get a missile in the air against us. We'd run against Hawk Sites, which is the American missile defense system. And those boys would tell us that they couldn't get a shot on us before we were over top of them.
Bob:So we felt pretty good about being able to do that. But doing jobs like close air support, we weren't very effective.
Bryan:Know? No, too fast. I would imagine.
Bob:We couldn't turn. You know?
Bryan:Yeah.
Bob:We could go fast, but this kind of laugh as they didn't say it'd take you two countries to turn that thing around. It wasn't much of an exaggeration.
Bryan:Now, would this be about the time that you developed the silent target tactic? Yeah. Can you tell
Bob:us a
Bryan:little about that?
Bob:Yeah. When I got there, I was posted to Baden and I was on four four one squadron. And I get over there, and they're testing us on these close air submit support missions. And, that's where a controller on the ground is trying to tell you to turn left, turn right to hit a target that you can't see yet. And if when you do pick it up, it's too late for you to turn and hit it.
Bob:And so our success rates on close air support missions were less than 5%. And it was just a total waste of time employing us that way. And as we weren't effective, we'd probably get shot down doing it. And so I thought of a system, we called it silent target, where what I had was the controller would tell me the distance from a known navigation point to the target. And it had to be over a minute long.
Bob:And so I designed attack profiles from one minute back from the target, deploying all kinds of different weapons. I could do pop attacks, where you pull up and go into a five degree or 10 degree dive. I could do curvilinear attacks where you pull three g to a certain proof heading. Those were the tactics we were using in the interdiction rooms, you know? So we were good at that stuff.
Bob:So all we needed to do was identify a whole bunch of sites across Western Germany that we could use as these initial points, these IPs. And I presented that to one Canadian air group. One Canadian air group got excited to put it and send it to the fourth Allied tactical air force, and then it went to AFSI, Allied Air Force of Central Europe. And they all adopted these procedures, these silent target procedures. And our success rates went from below five percent to over 50% on first round attack capability.
Bob:So it was a very effective system. But, tactically, a 10 did a better job.
Bryan:Yeah. Well, you can't compare for ground attack almost anything against an a 10.
Bob:That's true.
Bryan:Yeah. That's the I mean, that thing is the ultimate ground attack aircraft. It's it's you can't beat it.
Bob:Yeah. Yeah. I think so.
Bryan:So as this episode is releasing, the week before Remembrance Day and our part two will release on Remembrance Day, I'd like to bring this around to a couple questions, about Remembrance Day as we come to a close for this one. Are there any particular moments from your career that remind you of the cost or responsibility of wearing the uniform?
Bob:Yeah. And we all we all suffered from that a wee bit, know. We lost nine hundred and thirty seven people in the RCAF due to operational accidents from 1949 until 1991.
Bryan:Wow.
Bob:937 boys. Say boys because we didn't have women in combat roles back in those days. And those accident rates or accidents were not due to combat. Those were just day to day operations. You flew every day like you're gonna go to war the next day.
Bob:You know? So because of changes in technology, you know, the jump from a Spitfire to a Sabre, guys were hitting each other. In ten years on the f 86, they lost a 107 pilots. Now that's incredible.
Bryan:Yeah.
Bob:We lost 37 on the Starfighter. We had two thirty eight airplanes, but we sold 23 to Denmark and 23 to Norway at 70 '3. So out of about 190 airplanes, we crashed 110 on the Starfighter. And most of that was bird strikes, because you're flying in the same environment as birds, you know, and so that a lot of boys bailed out for that. Some of the guys went through the trees.
Bob:And I lost 38 friends that I flew with every day over my twenty three year career.
Bryan:Wow.
Bob:And they were all pilot error accidents, but when I'm talking pilot error, that's not much of a mistake when you get killed. You know?
Bryan:Not at those heights and speeds.
Bob:Yeah. And so, those boys meant a lot to me. We were close on squadron. You know? They were your brothers.
Bob:And, they died doing a job that they thought they needed to do that well. And on f '18, I lost some two, I lost three guys on my four year tour. You know? So I want people to know that, that that Cold War wasn't cost free. We paid a very big price.
Bob:That's we lost more people in just the air force than they've lost in the Korean War, Afghanistan War, and Kosovo, and all the wars we've had since then. Just in the air force, you know. So that the losses were really significant and the media never covered it. You know? So that's why we have a Cold War exhibit here in Calgary.
Bob:We wanna tell that story. We want the public to understand, you know, that peace is not the absence of war, but the maintenance of those hard won freedoms. That's a story we wanna tell. How
Bryan: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:No. It's about making people understand that the freedoms they enjoy today come at a big cost. And so I, work for the memory project out of Ottawa where I go to schools. They assigned me different schools to go to to speak before November 11. I think I've got eight booked now.
Bob:Wow. And we on November 11, generally, I go to the ceremony at the military museums, but we go inside the Cold War exhibit to host people, and we'll get over 5,000 people through that exhibit on November 11. And that's the story we tell them is that, hey, You enjoy this freedom today because of the price paid by a lot of good men. And I think they do. Canadians are very receptive to that, but they don't necessarily feel a threat living in Canada.
Bob:You live next door to uncle Sam. He'll look after you. You know? Mhmm. But now we've got Trump there.
Bob: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 wonderful thing. But Canadians all understand that, hey, our military is not where it should be.
Bob:Mhmm. They've not done the job they should be doing. And so those are the kind of messages I want people to understand, you know, that you need to keep a military, like you need a lock on your door. And, at the present time, China has three of the largest icebreakers in the world. They don't have a lot of ice in China.
Bob:They're coming through the Canadian Arctic. And that's why you hear politicians nowadays talking about defense of the Arctic. They know that threat exists. And so that, we gotta pay attention to that, and we gotta provide the equipment so those boys can do that job. I ran air defense, for, the alert forces for Western Canada my last four years.
Bob:And we'd get, Russian bombers, bear bombers coming across the North Pole four or five times a year, normally in the wintertime. We'd go up and intercept him. It's dark in the wintertime up there, so we had a light on the side of our cockpit that we could light those boys up. Just show them. You guys want to come for real?
Bob:We'll get you before you can launch your cruise missiles. And they said, think they're still doing that. I don't know. They're down to so few airplanes, maybe the Americans are taking over that. I hope not.
Bryan:No. We still intercept. Yet we're still doing those those duties, the QRF duties. So I wanted to ask, you said that you've lost dozens of peers. How do you cope with that?
Bob:Well, the boys were doing what they wanted to do. So I'm not saying they died happy, but they were doing a job that they loved to do. You know? So their death wasn't in vain. You know?
Bob:They paid that ultimate sacrifice, but they didn't need to die, but that was just a consequence 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 take sertraline and stuff like that. You know?
Bob:I found my biggest benefit is working at that Cold War exhibit. I've got 70 volunteers there, 95% are veterans. And, working with those boys, caring for those boys, it's kinda like being on squatter. You know? Mhmm.
Bob:Kind of that same relationship. And, that helps me deal with those issues. But, yeah, 38 boys, a lot of boys. Every every year, you're burying somebody. You know?
Bryan:Yeah. First of all, thank you for being open about that. I think it's really important that people are, we discuss those things and I think it helps people to come forward and get help. I also see a therapist regularly for similar diagnosis. I'm also on medication for a similar diagnosis and I think it's a good thing to acknowledge that and sort of put that out in the open.
Bryan:Okay. So we're going to talk quickly about SIFMAP or the Canadian Forces Member Assistance Program. This program is for regular force members, reserves who are on duty during an incident and parents and siblings of CAF regular and reserve force members who are injured or who die while in service. The program provides direct access to telephone counseling services twenty four hours a day, seven days a week. From my own personal experience, you can call or use their online chat feature to make an appointment.
Bryan:They then set you up with a professional and I believe you get 10 free mental health sessions. For more details, I highly encourage you to Google CFMAP, that's C F M A P, and click on the canada.ca link. The beauty of this program is it's free and confidential, so no one in the CAF will know you used it, not your supervisor or chain of command, and not your doctor. I don't say that to encourage people hiding their conditions from their doctor. I personally think it's important to be open with your doctor about what you're going through, but if you're afraid to ask for help, it's a great way to dip your toes in the water confidentially.
Bryan:So how do you contact them? Listen closely everyone, take out your phone and save this number because you or someone you love may need it one day. The number is +1 802687708. Again, that's +1 802687708. And now on with the show.
Bob:It's not something to be ashamed of, Brian.
Bryan:No. Not at all.
Bob:It's just a consequence of doing what you did.
Bryan:Exactly. That's exactly right.
Bob:Yeah.
Bryan:Okay, Bob. That's gonna be it for part one of our Remembrance Day episodes. I wanna thank you so much for your time and for sharing your experiences with us. And I wanna also thank you for your service. So thank you so much for being here today.
Bob:It's my pleasure, Brad.
Bryan:Alright. That wraps up part one of our special two part episode for Remembrance Day with major retired Bob Wade, a Cold War fighter pilot. Tune in next week as we check back in with Bob to hear about his time on the CF 18 Hornet, his transition to civilian life, but most excitingly, the fascinating story of how Bob became the first westerner to fly in a MiG 29. Do you have any questions or comments about anything you've heard in this show? Would you or someone you know make a great guest, or do you have a great idea for a show?
Bryan:You can reach out to us at the pilotprojectpodcast@Gmail.com or on all social media at at pod pilot project. And be sure to check out that social media for lots of great videos of our RCAF and mission aviation aircraft. As always, we'd like to thank you for tuning in and ask for your help with the big three. That's like and follow us on social media, share with your friends, and follow and rate us five stars wherever you get your podcasts. That's all for now.
Bryan:Thanks for listening. Keep the blue side up. See you. Engineer, shut down all four. Shutting down all four engines.
