Page 6 - June2018

90-degree angle to the launch aircraft's path or
night "games of skill and cunning" and was therefore
capable of flying, received orders to fly to Quebec City.
A visit by members of Bagotville's 440 Squadron to
North Bay climaxed the disappearance of 419's
venerable mascot, a huge stuffed moose head thought
unstealable because it was wider than the mess's door.
Lyons, who had missed the Saturday night "games of
skill and cunning" and was therefore capable of flying,
received orders to fly to Quebec City. With army help,
Lyons and his bilingual navigator, Gerry Lepine, staked
out the main highway to "Bagtown". for two days,
checking every military vehicle that came through. No
moose -- Whereupon, Lepine had a brainstorm: he had
his father call every taxidermist in town, asking if a
moose head had just been brought in. When one turned trajectory of the rockets. A fun-loving armament
up, the matter was duly reported to 419 Squadron brass. officer thought it would be interesting to give his pal,
"Fine, we'll look after it from here." And it was.
**There was serious work, too. Crews practiced a tactic
code-named "Harlequin", designed to allow multiple
aircraft to attack targets in a electronic countermeasures
(i.e., jamming) environment. Put very simply, it saw CF-
100s take off at short intervals and fly in a strung-out
line-astern formation until a ground radio operator gave
them a simple signal to turn at a similar angle and
attack. "We never had to do it, but we knew we could,"
said Lyons, who also went with his squadron in 1956 on
a deployment to the RCAF's Weapons Practice Unit at
RCAF Station Cold Lake; in fact Lyons was loaned to the
WPU for two months. It was in March of the following
year that he and his nav were motoring through
northern Ontario toward Cold Lake when they were
stopped by police and told to go back to North Bay. 419
Squadron (and three other CF-100 units) was being sent
to Germany to bolster NATO's all-weather interception
capability. Lyons, whose three-year tour on 419 was
nearly up, was being permanently posted to the WPU.
Accepting this with equanimity, Lyons retraced his route
-- stopping in Regina to get married! "I thought that this
might end my flying," he laughed. "But my wife was
tolerant and let me continue. It took another five years
for her to get me under control." WPU business trips
took him to Colorado Springs and the USAF air weapons
range at Yuma, Ariz. Closer to home, the new range
adjacent to Cold Lake saw CF-100s using the new air-to-
air Folding Fin Aircraft Rockets, dubbed the "Folding Fin
Fails-to-Fire Aircraft Rocket" because of its ability to
malfunction, with rockets either zipping off at a
enscribing huge spirals ahead of a CF-100. "Until
they got it worked out, it was a real hair-raising
experience because you ever knew what was going
to happen".
Then, as now, the air force was highly cash-
conscious, with a launch of the 100 FFAR rockets in
the CF-100s' wingtip pods restricted to once every
three months. More usually, only three rockets
would be loaded.
Particularly memorable for Lyons was the first time
he launched a full load of rockets at night. Usually,
one of every 12 rockets carried a magnesium
"spotter charge" that helped pilots track the
Lyons, about 20 spotter charges at the same time.
"When I fired my full load, it just lit up the sky and I
was blind," Lyons winced. "Fortunately, I was at
40,000 feet."
___
Lyons's air force career took some intriguing twists
from there, including an ground controller's course
at Tyndall AFB in Florida, a stint at St. Sylvestre,
Quebec, as a controller, a course at Eglin AFB, Florida
and a tour with the RCAF's 447 Squadron (equipped
with BOMARC surface-to-air missiles) at La Macaza,
Quebec. He got back into the air for a year as the
pilot for a one-Otter military "airline", shuttling
between military radar bases in northern Ontario.
He instructed on T-33s at CFB Moose Jaw, attended
staff college, then returned to "the Jaw", retiring
about 15 years ago as base operations officer. But of
the 1950s,he says: "It was probably the best time for
aircrews and ground crews, to have served their
country."
**spare data: With a total of 390 flying hours (more,
Lyons noted, than some Second World War airmen
logged in their entire training AND operational
careers) Lyons was now ready to be assigned to a
squadron. He drew No. 419 "Moose" Squadron, also
at North Bay, joining it on Sept. 1, 1954. The
average age of its pilots was between 20 and 25 with
one only 19. Of the 36 pilots and navigators on the
squadron, only four were married.