A mission to preserve Canada's Cold War air force history
Episode Stats
Summary
Join us for a special edition of The Hannover Show, a weekly politics show on the Western Standard, featuring two former Canadian Air Force pilots and current Air Force Museum Society of Alberta Director of Exhibitions and Display Ed McGilvery and Major retired Brigadier general Bob Wade.
Transcript
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Good evening, Western Standard viewers, and welcome to a special edition of The Hannover Show,
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a weekly politics show on the Western Standard. Today is May the 28th, and our guests are major
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retired Bob Wade, a former snowbird and Cold War fighter pilot. He is also currently the director
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of exhibits and displays for the museum. Also joining us today is Ed McGilvery, retired
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brigadier general and vice chair of the Air Force Museum Society of Alberta. Okay, so thank you
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again for joining us today, guys. So I hear you are currently doing a fundraiser for the Air Force
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museum but before we get into that i kind of want to hear your guys's like history because you both
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were pilots during the cold war so why don't we start with you bob yeah tell us a little summary
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of like what it was like during that time charlie i joined the air force in 1968 because i'd seen
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the golden hawks fly over top of our farm west of edmonton and i wanted to be a fighter pilot
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and so that i went through pilot training they made me an instructor because there's no fighter
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jobs available I instructed for three years and then they started the snowbird aerobatic team
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so I flew with the team two years and then I finally got my snow or my starfighter posting
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sent to Germany for five years and then I instructed for a couple of years in Coal Lake
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on the starfighter when we bought the F-18 they just moved me over to be an instructor on the F-18
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so I did that for four years and then I was posted to 441 squadron which was in charge of air defense
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for Western Canada from the West Coast to Winnipeg to the North Pole.
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And so that we ran alert operations, flew out of Benuvik,
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intercepting Russian bombers coming across the North Pole.
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I graduated a little earlier than Bob in the 60s.
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And actually, Bob was one of my students when I instructed on the T-33
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And then I also went on 104, so a little earlier than Bob, and served in Germany for five years,
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from 72 to 77. Came back and instructed on the CF-104 in Coal Lake as well. Then went to various
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staff jobs. Then I came back as a squadron commander on the CF-18 and was posted to
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Germany. Whereas Bob stayed in Canada instructing on the CF-18, I went back to Germany for another
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four years and then came back uh pushed back to coal lake as a base grounder there so uh i guess
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it's safe to say that part of my responsibilities was in norad at that time both bob and i had
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originally started in the nato business and then we ended up in the norad business so that's uh
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that's a a thumbnail sketch of my career in the military okay well um why don't we talk a little
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bit about the history of the air force museum and your guys's involvement in it as well okay
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Okay. Well, just a brief history. It used to be the museum at Crow Trial Trailed used
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to be an army museum of the regiment, strictly army. And around the year 1999, Air Force
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veterans and Navy veterans were approached to see if they would join to make it a military
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museum with all three services, Army, Navy, and Air Force. The Navy was lucky. They had
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a museum already at their reserve facility in Calgary. The Air Force had nothing. So
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We fundraised and we built in addition to the main museum there and started a small
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virtual, mainly virtual history, Air Force Museum in the main building.
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And then in early, I guess it would be early 2010 or so Bobby, we started raising the funds
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We have an F-86 Sabre 104 and F-18 in the Cold War exhibit, and it's covered.
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It's a complete facility for the Cold War exhibit for the NATO aircraft, okay?
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And then we decided we had to build a Cold War exhibit,
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covered Cold War exhibit for the NORAD aircraft.
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So we procured three aircraft, a T-33 trainer, a CF-100, a CF-101.
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and we built um we built the foundation the concrete foundation for those three aircraft
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and that cost a little over two million dollars for that and now we we're short of funds to
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purchase we don't have enough money to build an overall facility of sprung shelter to cover these
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aircraft and that's what that's what we're uh really funded fundraising right now about we've
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Yeah, we spent $2.1 million putting in that foundation floor.
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It's got underfloor heating, so I can move airplanes around on top of the cement,
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And we'll probably need about $4.1 million to complete the structure.
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But we need another $4.1 million to finalize the overall sprung shelter of the of the final Cold War exhibit for the NORAD.
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I should point out, this is very important, I think, Leah, is that it's a it's a quite an interesting tourist attraction in Calgary.
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And I like to quote from from TripAdvisor, the Air Force Museum Society of Alberta ranks as the second overall attraction out of over 400 things to do in Calgary.
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based on consistently high travel ratings on TripAdvisor.
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And right now, we've got dozens and dozens of volunteers
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that access docents and fundraising and maintaining
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So we're very fortunate that we've got, like I say,
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dozens of veterans and people that are interested in aviation
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and keeping the museum running day to day that's good yeah it's important to us uh because that
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cold war never got much attention really to the canadian public kids aren't taught about the cold
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war in school and we wanted to tell that story because there were 937 air force people lost
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during that cold war and none of that was combat those were just day-to-day operations
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and eddie and i both did you know i lost 38 boys i flew with every day in 23 years you know so it's
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important to us to tell that story we both did yeah exactly you know and uh it's important for
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canadians to understand that you know peace is not the absence of war but the maintenance of
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those hard-won freedoms that we uh we served to accomplish back in that cold war right that's why
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we want to tell that story i think it's worthwhile pointing out that last year we had over 50 000
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visitors to our museum and dozens and dozens and hundreds of school children and we believe that
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is very important because the motto of our museum is preserve remember and educate so if we can talk
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to the school children about uh what the core was all about the sacrifices that canadians made
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uh to preserve the pieces bob said then that's important to us but we've got literally thousands
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of school children visit our museum every year that's pretty good well um also i'd like to know
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once you do raise these funds how long do you think it'll take to finalize the building's
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completion let's take about five months yeah yeah yeah and uh sprung structures are the is a
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manufacturer of the buildings themselves and they're uh world renowned you know for how well
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they do at that and phil sprung the owner of sprung structure is really excited about getting
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the structure built and getting these airplanes on display they've been a very very solid supporter
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of our museum for years because they built the first sprung shelter now they're they're waiting
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for us to find the money so they can build the second sprung shelter so we really want to get
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those airplanes uh undercover because uh yeah you know if you leave mountain elements with the
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weather in Calgary with the snow and ice and whatnot, it's not conducive to preservation of
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those historic aircraft. And those historic aircraft are very important. There's not many
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of them around, so we want to make sure we look after them. That makes sense. Well, I would also
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like to know, would you be able to get any snowbirds also into the exhibit once it's built?
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Yeah. We're currently waiting for the delivery of two snowbird airplanes
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from back in the earlier days not the ones the teams flying today but back from earlier times
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that retired 20 years ago and were sent to a school for training down in Borden Ontario so
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I'm waiting to take delivery of those and we'll put them on pedestals facing each other just like
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the head-on pass that the snowbirds do during their air shows well that's cool so it's going
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to be cool yeah yeah oh do you when do you think you're gonna get them like I shouldn't get them
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this summer now uh i'm sure everybody's heard that the snowboard team's shutting down after
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this season you know so there'll be more airplanes available uh unfortunately but uh it's a it's a
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story that's uh had 55 years of history you know i flew on the team in 70 years 73 74 you know 55
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years ago you know so that's a lot of air shows and uh it's kind of got a canadian reputation
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yeah now people identify with the strawberry aerobatic team well i also like to know where
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you guys like storing the airplanes right now without the building being constructed
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we have this the concrete pad and as bob's already pointed out the concrete pad was uh
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we needed desperately needed that uh uh and we need to do it right because uh you know to
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and it's interesting, we procured the airplanes.
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We needed two aircraft to make one, if you will,
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So we've got the T-33 trainer, the CF-100, the CF-101,
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they're sitting on the concrete foundation now oh okay so they're so but it's still they're open to
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the air so there's a little bit more work that has to be done on the aircraft uh so uh the concrete
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foundation is a is a good place for the work to be done yeah yeah bobby no yeah because i have to
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uh rebuild the cockpits uh of both those airplanes and also paint them you know and so we want to
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paint them in colors that they served in during the uh cold war or that era of our history
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does it also you said like painting and all that stuff but does it cost money to maintain
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the aircraft oh yes it costs money to maintain the whole operation you know the lights the water uh
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uh the electricity uh maintain the aircraft itself because we do have to paint them uh you know every
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couple of years especially the one if you notice of crow child trail there's an f5 on a pedestal
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there that has to be painted what every three or four years yeah yeah it's 50 000 if you paint
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better but yeah we're talking about fundraising for a capital project here but we also have funds
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but we do have funds to maintain operations and maintenance those as well yeah yeah that's good
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to know well why don't you guys also tell the audience where they can donate i'd love to tell
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them uh we have a website and you can um you can donate through the website uh when you go to visit
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at the museum we have a a paypal touch facility but you can also send any donations by mail
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into the air force museum society and i'll just give you the address if i may
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and it's four five two zero road trial trail southwest calgary t2t5j4 and you can make
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attention ed mcgill over your bob wade and we'll get it and we'll get it okay sounds good it'd be
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very nice if people would would help us out for sure definitely okay and once you do raise funds
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for this when's a timeline for it to be built when we get the money okay yeah we prefer to do
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in the summer but we can't move until we get the money we like i say we we have some money on hand
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but not nearly enough okay yeah that makes sense okay guys so if you want to donate definitely
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recommend that we'll also put the address on the screen if you guys need it and the website as well
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to donate um hope you guys enjoyed this video if you are at all interested in more of our videos
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you can check out our youtube channel and our website which has a bunch of news on it so it's
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westernstandard.news where it's ten dollars a month or a hundred dollars a year
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$100 a year. And thank you very much everyone. Have a good night.