Page 8 - November 2017

Air Command (1975-2011) On September 2, 1975, the efforts paid off and Air
Command was created. With its headquarters in
Although the Navy was
Winnipeg, Manitoba, and Carr as its first commander,
the service most opposed Air Command controlled all air assets within the
to unification, the Air
Canadian Armed Forces.
Force received the
shortest end of the stick The CF-1-1 Voodoo was Canada’s fighter jet after the
and lacked even a fall of the Arrow and it fought the Cold War armed
command structure. with nuclear weapons.
The Air Force was spread out amongst five
commands: Maritime (Navy), Mobile (Army), Air
Defence, Air Transport and Training. No. 1 Canadian
Air Division, which had been downgraded to 1
Canadian Air Group, became part of Canadian Forces
Europe. But the division of air assets along functional
lines just wasn’t working. Air doctrine wasn’t being
taught or upgraded. There was no central oversight of
flight safety, and Maritime and Mobile Commands
weren’t really “joint” but had become Navy or Army
with Air Force assets attached to them. Perhaps most
The 58 McDonnell CF-101 Voodoos, located at Air
seriously, there was no voice for the Air Force,
Force bases from Comox, British Columbia, to
especially when air assets were identified to take Chatham, New Brunswick, were the main strike
heavy hits during the 1973 budget cuts.
fighter against any incoming Soviet attack.
Lieutenant-General Bill Carr, Deputy Chief of the
The Voodoo initially carried the Falcon missile and
Defence Staff, was in a position to do something then the Genie nuclear missile. Flying at Mach 1.72,
about it. “Unification, when first announced, was, I
almost twice the speed of sound at 10,500 metres/
felt, a good idea,” he said in a 2005 interview.
35,000 feet, the Voodoo kept the peace.
“Within a few years it became apparent that the
amalgamation of all the services had particularly
impacted the aviation arm in a harmful manner…
Morale also suffered considerably, and one of the
main reasons was a lack of organizational identity.

“We really needed to create a consolidated
organization to properly administer all military
aviation in Canada.

“Two other key players were Major-Generals Dave
Adamson [Chief of Air Operations at National Defence Under Operation Peace Wings, Canada’s 56 surviving
Headquarters] and Norm Magnusson [commander of Voodoos were exchanged for 66 upgraded USAF
Air Defence Command]. We had to move carefully Voodoos; the cost difference was borne by using
and produce well-reasoned arguments that would be Pinetree Radar Line cost sharing credits.
acceptable to both the Chief of the Defence Staff
Information from RCAF
[General Jacques Dextraze], who had an Army
background, and the Defence Minister [James
Richardson] who, coincidentally, had served in the
RCAF during World War Two.”