Tyndall AFB and Onwards to Parent
The air weapons control course was interesting. In those days, fighter control was done manually from raw radar returns. The only tools we had were a grease pencil and a thin piece of Perspex on which the angles were inscribed to help us provide the correct intercept headings for the fighter aircraft. The radar screens had range lines to provide us with distance information and the outer rim was marked in degrees. As a target approached we used our grease pencils to mark on the screen its progress and after a period of time depending on how far it had traveled, it was possible to work out its ground speed and track. With the forecast winds for the specific altitude we were then able to work out the target’s heading and airspeed. This had to be done manually using a hand held circular slide rule.
Having spent hours on the CF 100 simulator providing intercept directions to training aircrew, I found that I could think three dimensionally without difficulty. I was also introduced to an early computerized system of interception but it was cumbersome and one needed to be a three armed paper hanger to operate the controls. I controlled one fighter for many trips before I realized that his call sign was Freedom Nine, not Freedom "Nan". No doubt this South American pilot found my London accent somewhat difficult to comprehend at times. I suspect that the instructors found our radio communications rather amusing!
All good things come to an end. The course finally ended and I was off back to Canada again. On my trip down I had left Montreal with snow on the ground and as I proceeded south, I went through spring, and by the time I got to Georgia, it was summer. On my way back I again took a different route and drove along the Blue Ridge Parkway. It was a beautiful drive but I was forced down to the thruways again, and I started again to run out of time.
I returned to my home in St. Bruno and then set off for Parent. There were no roads to the station and the only way to get there was by way of a twelve hour train journey from Montreal. It was a sad journey in many ways as it was the first time my wife and I had been separated for any length of time. In this situation I was not sure when I could return or when my wife and family could join me. The only accommodations available were Married Quarters, and only a limited number had been built at that time. During those early years Married Quarters were allocated on a points system and were based on years of service and number of children. Most quarters were filed with older servicemen who had large families. I was well down the waiting list and I finally had to wait until temporary Steelox buildings were constructed. It took until early into the following year before we finally moved into our own house.
Fortunately there were ways in which I was able to break up the period of our separation that was to last for nearly six months. Each yearly quarter I was given permission to go to St. Hubert to fly the mandatory 25 hours to keep my flying category and earn my flying pay of one hundred dollars a month. This meant that I was again close to home and could live at home during this one week foray. By judicial adjustments to my working shifts I was also able to tack on a few days off to these very welcome trips. For two periods of time I was also able to sub rent married quarters from vacationing families. One family went away for three weeks over Christmas so my wife and children came up to Parent and spent the three weeks with me there. In turn we sub-rented our house to a couple of school teachers based in Parent. Eventually though, the new temporary Steelox homes were ready for occupancy and my wife and children moved up permanently.
By then I was a fully established Ground Control Intercept Director or weapons controller. I eventually took command of a crew responsible for the operation of the radar station for eight hour shifts. The system of shift work was demanding. We used to work three day shifts (0800 to 1600) and either three midnight shifts (2400 to 0800) or three evening shifts (1600 to 2400). We then were able to enjoy three days off unless there was an alert or big training exercise. The shift system was hard on wives with young children as often husbands would have to sleep during the day.
In those days the air defense system was a manual one that was subsequently updated to the S.A.G.E. system; a Semi-Automatic Ground Environment system using huge computers buried in a complex deep under Cheyenne Mountain in Colorado Springs. Our manual system required large numbers of trained personnel. An airman or airwoman would sit at radar scopes and plot any returns they saw in their segment of the scope for which they were responsible. They would feed the information to plotters who would place a symbol on a big horizontal plotting board. As the target moved across the radar screen the operator would calculate its heading and speed and that too would be passed on to the plotter. The height finding section would simultaneously be aiming their special nodding antenna and calculating the target’s height. As soon as the target was plotted on the board the identification section would immediately try to identify the aircraft from known flight plans. If in two minutes they were unable to identify it, the target would be classed as unknown, and a section of fighters would be scrambled to undertake a visual identification or if necessary shoot the aircraft down. All unknowns and certain specific target tracks would be "forward told" to Sector HQs, then to Canada’s Air Defense Command and then on to NORAD HQs. Target tracks would also be "cross told" to neighbouring and overlapping radars so the traffic was fully coordinated. In those days, aircraft were beginning to use the Polar route and we had many civilian airliners entering our radar coverage. For the most part they entered on track and within specified time limit according to their flight plan. Sometimes they were outside these parameters and we had to intercept them to make sure they were indeed civilian aircraft.
I had about thirty personnel on my crew. Six were officers responsible for directing the fighters to the targets. We sat in a room with large windows overlooking the big plotting table behind which was a large vertical board on which weather, the alert status and airfield and fighter aircraft information such as call signs, etc. were displayed. All this information had to be kept up to date so we had personnel with headsets plotting on the board, others at radar scopes, and others talking on land lines to higher HQs and adjoining radars. The identification section was busy keeping updated on flight plans. Upstairs overlooking all this bustle, the officers would often be practicing intercepts with the fighters from Bagotville, St. Hubert, Ottawa and North Bay.
It was a complex operation dependent on well-trained personnel. The officers and senior NCOs were responsible for individual training. We were assisted by a system that generated artificial returns on our radar scopes to simulate fighters and targets. There was also a Canada and U.S. wide Synthetic Training Procedure that consisted of a film type input that could be played into our radar scopes to provide a simulated series of mass bomber raids on Canada and the U.S.A. The returns complete with attempts at electronic counter measures were reasonably realistic. They were started up at each radar station at a specific time so that the returns overlapped as they would in a real life situation. When the targets disappeared off our radar to the south they were picked up by more southerly radars in the same geographic area. It was a well thought out training aid and we gained a great deal of experience in dealing with high traffic loads that we would not have had the opportunity to do otherwise. We used our fighter target generators to simulate fighter intercepts and umpires to decide if we got a kill or not. The simulation did not provide for targets disappearing when they were shot down so it was somewhat unrealistic in that regard.
Once a year we had a big NORAD exercise that involved Strategic Air Command bombers and other aircraft simulating bombers making a full scale attack on North America. These proved to be very exciting and provided both the Weapons Controller and fighter pilots a great deal of valuable training. Fortunately we never had to exercise our skills for real. After these long exercises lasting for several days, there were times when I got very confused as to the time of day. We worked on GMT or Universal Standard Time so often that when a big exercise ended we were not sure what time of the day it was outside our windowless block house on the top of the mountain. I was often surprised when I left the building to board the bus for the Station below, to find it was day time when I expected it to be night.
This article was written by John (Jack) Jackaman and was provided to the Pinetree Line web site in December 1998. Jack was stationed at RCAF Station Parent between 1959 and 1961.