Gander, NF

Introduction

Gentlemen, allow me to extend a most sincere welcome to you on your visit to RCAF Station Gander, which as you may or may not know supports one of the many Pinetree Line radar units.

Now that I have you here as a captive audience, in the true sense of the phrase, I propose to expose you to a briefing about the station with the hope that it will give you an insight into the extent of the station itself and most important, the actual purpose and function of the station. This briefing will be broken down into three parts. First, I will speak about Gander from a very general point of view, and then deal with Operations which is in truth the very reason for our existence. Second, F/L Campbell, our Chief Administrative Officer, will cover the housekeeping side. Thirdly, our Chief Technical Services Officer will deal with the technical support aspect. Before getting on with the brief and to show you that we are integrated with Newfoundland, here is a slide of our Station Mascot, a pure bred Newfoundland dog, Acting Sgt. Timothy MaGuire.

Now, as I said earlier, this station is part of the famous Pinetree Line radar network. We are, as you can see from this slide, the most easterly unit of this organization.

First a bit of background history about Gander. At the outbreak of the 1939-1945 war, Gander airport was completed and ready for operation. It was placed under military control, and played an important role in aircraft ferry flights to England and also as an operational base for anti-submarine operations. Another Maritime feature about Gander, probably not so well known, was the excellent direction finding radio station located here. It was this station that first picked up the Bismark on its ill-fated venture into the North Atlantic.

In 1949 when Newfoundland joined Confederation, the airport was taken over by the Department of Transport who continue to control it at present. As you may remember during the 1950’s, Gander was a very busy airfield with practically all Trans-Atlantic commercial flights stopping here. To give you some idea of the traffic during this period, I am told that there was an average of approximately 1,000 flights and 41,000 passengers passing through Gander per month. Unfortunately this heavy traffic period occurred before the present modern air terminal was completed. Here are two more slides showing the interior of the terminal. The mural which stands out in the concourse is entitled "Flight and It’s Allegories".

This terminal was officially opened by Queen Elizabeth II in 1959. As you have seen it is a most modern terminal, but since about 1960 with the advent of jet airliners, the volume of air traffic has decreased considerably to an average of 530 aircraft and 20,000 passengers per month – about a 50% decrease from the traffic during the 1950’s. The present air traffic results from some Trans-Atlantic chartered flights using Gander as a refuelling base and periodically, because of weather. The jet airlines use it as an alternate. In addition Trans-Canada Airlines and Eastern Provincial Airways have scheduled, domestic runs, through here. A point of interest is that Eastern Provincial Airways, with its headquarters here at Gander, is now the third largest airline in Canada as a result of a recent merger with Maritime Central Airways. It has a fleet of approximately 45 aircraft with the Dart Herald being its most modern aircraft.

The terminal and the airfield is not the whole story from the air side of the picture. Air Control is a very important function carried out from Gander with Gander Oceanic Control facilities here. This continues to be a very busy activity with the present amount of trans-Atlantic flying. To give you some idea, Gander Oceanic Control handled an average of 250 flights per day. Therefore, as things stand now, although Gander airport is not as active as it used to be, it continues to play a most important role in trans-Atlantic flying.

Now on to something a bit more domestic, namely the town of Gander which lies two miles from this unit. Here is an aerial photograph of the town. It is a new town and unique in that the majority of the construction was carried out by Central Mortgage and Housing Corporation, a Crown Company. The town, as we know it, was commenced in 1952, and during the past 11 years, has grown into a neat, modern, well ordered community. For example, this slide shows the shopping centre and here, we have a typical group of dwellings. There are approximately 1400 houses in the town and its population is approximately 7,000. I am told there are approximately 3,000 children, so you see Gander is young in more than one way.

There are no major industries as such in Gander. The major source of employment is the terminal, airfield, oceanic control service and weather facilities, all of which come under the Department of Transport. There are also a couple of aircraft ground support companies, one being Allied Maintenance of New York. Also, as I said, Eastern Provincial Airways has its headquarters here. I am told that the RCAF with its 180 service personnel and 80 civilians is the third largest industry in the area, with DOT number one and EPA number two.

Now a word or two about living in Gander. The cost of living is high (a quart of fresh milk costs around 45 cents) and fresh vegetables are practically non existent. None the less, I don’t want to paint too black a picture, because other than the scarcity of fresh vegetables and fruits, practically everything one wants can be procured as one might expect but the selection is very limited.

Now to the RCAF operations itself. This station as we know it today, commenced operation in 1954. It is a compact one as one can see from this slide, with our radar unit on the site. The buildings, with the exception of the Recreation Centre, were built by the USAF and many of them are converted USAF wartime buildings. Here is another aerial shot of the station itself, showing the airport in the background.

Our radar unit is number 226 Aircraft Control and Warning Squadron, the last AC&W Squadron in the RCAF as a result of the recent SAGEing of all other RCAF radar squadrons. We are a Manual Direction Centre and it appears that we are going to stay manual, again, the only one in the RCAF. We are a member of the Goose Air Defence Sector and as a point of interest, all units of this sector are also manual. Here is a slide of GADS Sector showing GAD, CONAD and USAF sites. The Sector Commander wears three hats as far as Air Defence is concerned.

As I mentioned the sector is divided into a northern complex composed of Saglek, Hopedale, Cartwright and Melville at Goose Bay being the Control Centre, and a southern complex composed of St. Anthony, Gander and Stephenville about 14 miles from Harmon on the west coast being its Control Centre. Therefore we find ourselves the only RCAF unit operating in the Goose Sector as all the other units are USAF formations who are assigned to NORAD. Naturally, we are administratively responsible to RCAF ADCHQ at St. Hubert.

The primary mission of our radar squadron is surveillance and the control of fighter aircraft within our area of responsibility. This slide gives you a picture of our area and adjacent areas covered by St. Anthony and Stephenville. To do this job we have a FPS-20A search radar and a FPS-6B height finder with the associated air ground air communication. The CTSO will go into these equipments more thoroughly during his brief. From the surveillance aspect we are kept quite busy with the large number of trans-Atlantic flights, approximately 250 per day, through our area however, we do not have the identification responsibility, this is carried out by Stephenville. From the control of flights aspect, we receive our fighters, in the majority of cases, from Detachment 1 of the 59t^h Fighter Interceptor Squadron located at Harmon. This detachment has a standing complement of six F-102’s. The parent squadron is located at Goose Bay.

In the event of the dispersal or deployment of aircraft from the mainland we can be expected to be called upon to control F-101’s, F-106’s and F-89’s. Here we have a slide of the F-101, F-106 and F-102 together. All of these aircraft would have a nuclear capability. I should point out at this stage that fighters are assigned to us by the control centre at Stephenville.

To carry out our surveillance function we have three scopes, one for the eastern sector of our area, one for the western, and one for the Air Surveillance Officer. The overall surveillance picture is displayed on a vertical plotting board and is told to the Control Centre at Stephenville and also to St. Anthony when tracks are applicable.

For our control role we have three scopes. One for the Weapons Assignment Director whose job it is to take control of the fighters when they are assigned and they are within radio/radar range. He then identifies them and hands them over to the two Intercept Directors who get on with the intercept. Naturally the WADS monitor will intercept and advise the Intercept Director of tactics and most important, he maintains flight safety.

We also have a scope for our Electronic Warfare Officer and Safe Passage Officer. Speaking of Electronic Warfare, recently we have installed an ECCMKIT (0A-2325) on our FPS-6 and an ECCM kit is programmed for our FPS-20. We are equipped with a camera attachment so that when deemed necessary by the Duty Director, photographs of the Surveillance Scope can be taken.

From the training aspect, we are equipped with a T-2 so that we can carry out simulated training exercises and also a T-4 which permits us to simulate intercepts.

Our operations staff comprises of 10 officers and 50 other ranks. All our Operations personnel are well qualified and experienced, for example we have 8 expert and skilled controllers.

This then is a brief rundown on the Operations side of the house which as you can gather is a bit unique as we are the last of the RCAF manual radar squadrons, the most easterly Pinetree Line unit and the only RCAF unit in the Goose Air Defence Sector.

However, in as much as I appreciate that you are particularly interested in Operations, I am going to take a few more moments of your time to deal with this subject in a bit more detail. Since 1 Jan 64 to the present time, we have participated in ____ live exercises, ____ synthetic exercises, or STMs as they are known, and ____ ECM exercises. Our controllers are getting more than their required minimum number of live intercepts. In truth they have been getting in the GADS requirement which for this unit is 204 intercepts per quarter. This is about twice the RCAF requirement of 90 intercepts per quarter. Since 1 Jan 64 our controllers have carried out ____ live intercepts.

Referring to exercises I must comment that very frequently our participation is negligible. I can appreciate that in many cases this is to be expected when you consider the broad picture but I can assure you it is certainly dull and very hard on morale for our Operations personnel. As you might expect, we want and need more and more ECM training. While on the subject of training a word or two about our T-4 equipment which is used for conducting simulated intercepts. This equipment has been a plague to us during the last year but recently after much effort it is now serviceable, therefore we are carrying out simulated intercepts during all applicable exercises. We have carried out ____ of these intercepts since 1 Jan 64.

Before turning the stage over to our Administration Officer, I want to make mention of the fact that now that Torbay has closed, this station has taken on numerous additional administrative, accounting, and logistic responsibilities. Since we are the only RCAF unit on the Island of Newfoundland, we have the responsibility for the 12 Air Cadet Squadrons on the Island, the Memorial University Squadron at St. John’s, Recruiting Office at St. John’s, and a Communications Unit also located at St. John’s.

The station organization is the normal RCAF three prong organization, namely operations, technical and administration. I will now pass the ball to F/L Campbell who will give you a few details from his side of the house.

Before closing, I would like to draw to your attention a few points which I feel sure you will note in your tour of this unit. You will find the condition of our roads very poor and also our buildings require repainting. This boils down to just a question of dollars and cents. This year we received for pri 14 $70,000 and 82 $12,000, and these amounts just barely keep the wolf away from the door. For larger projects, such as the repair of our roads, we continually experience difficulty in obtaining a contractor to do the job. The project normally is just not large enough for him to come to this area. This has been the case as far as our road repair is concerned and now we are running into the same difficulty in respect to roof repairs. This is just a difficult location to get work done.