Flying high

Canada’s Defence Minister Peter MacKay with his wife Nazanin Afshin-Jam open the new Central Gliding School at CFD Moutain View on Friday.

Canadian Forces build $16 million gliding school facility at Mountain View

Meghan Watts stood silently and rigidly alongside her fellow cadets in front of one of two gliders displayed before the new glider training facility at Canadian Forces Detachment Mountain View—sturdily waiting for the speeches to end and the last photograph to be snapped. She didn’t flinch when she learned the former beauty queen standing opposite had once been an air cadet too, rising to become a squadron leader and pilot. Nor did Meghan betray her training when Nazanin Afshin-Jam blushed as a reporter congratulated her and her husband, Defence Minister Peter MacKay on the news the couple is expecting their first child.

Meghan’s sights are set on this Sunday.

Meghan has never been in an aircraft before. She joined the Air Cadets last November— training, learning and making new friends. But Sunday is the day Meghan has been waiting for. She, along with several other cadets, are set to fly.

She will get on board one of the glider training craft. Then they will be towed by a Bellanca Scout two-seater a few thousand feet into the air column and then released—allowed to soar gently back to earth. This is what Meghan has been working a year to do.

She isn’t yet sure she will pursue the glider pilot program in which Ms. Afshin-Jam and astronaut Colonel (Ret’d) Chris Hadfield, as well as 11,000 other young cadets, learned to fly. But that might change after Sunday.

MacKay and his wife, along with CFB Trenton Base Commander Sean Friday, were joined by Mayor Peter Mertens and MPP Todd Smith in the official opening of a new $16 million Central Region Cadet Hangar at CFD Mountain View.

Air Cadets Elson and Meghan Watts stand at attention during ceremony to open new Air Cadet glider training facility.

Cadets have learned to fly gliders over the skies of Prince Edward County for more than 45 years. Each summer thousands of teens participate in two, three or six-week programs conducted by the gliding school—operated as a partnership between the Canadian Forces and the Air Cadet League of Canada. Each year about 320 cadets receive their glider pilot licence from one of five regional gliding schools across Canada.

Ten years ago, CFD Mountain View seemed destined to follow the fate of CFB Picton into post-war redundancy. But in recent years investment in CFB Trenton has spilled over into development on the Mountain View base. In 2006 Canadian Forces spent $2 million developing a gravel runway to train Hercules and C-17 pilots in austere landing conditions—conditions in which they may find themselves in supply missions in many remote parts of the world.

It is now a common sight to observe behemoth aircraft rumble on and off the 5,000-foot runway atop the Mountain View plateau. The facility is also heavily used for parachute training and exercises.

“This is an important facility for us,” said Colonel Sean Friday, 8 Wing Commander at CFB Trenton, which includes CFD Mountain View. “We use it almost every day. Earlier this morning we landed a brand new Hercules CC-130J for the first time on this austere runway.”

The new 5,000-square-metre Gliding School facility features a 5,000 square foot hangar—enough space to house 18 gliders—two classrooms and 18 offices and meeting spaces.

Mayor Mertens welcomed the most recent investment as well as the Canadian Forces’ growing commitment to the Prince Edward County facility. The development brought construction jobs and supply contracts. Further, the investment at Mountain View means increased payments in lieu of taxes, said Mertens. In the bigger picture the Canadian Forces in Trenton and Mountain View lead increased economic activity with the arrival of new families in the region.

Little of this matters much to Meghan—she is dreaming of flying.