Note: To prepare for the Annual Inspection the next three cadet training parades will be held in the -
"Harmon Park Arena"
Which is located on Douglas Street in South Oshawa.
Check the map for the exact location.
Parade time as usual 1900 hrs

The Squadron took time out last Monday to take a formal picture of all the Squadron's cadets and staff. Not only were photos taken of the whole Squadron but there were other photos taken of the Drill Team, the Squadron band and the Squadron Shooting Team.
We expect that a larger print of this photo will shortly be made available to cadets and parents.

If you have been following the Dispatch you will realize that we have now had a number of our senior cadet's age out in recent months including the Squadron Warrant Officer WO 1 J. Franssen. At Monday's Parade Major Puglisevich announced that WO 1. C. Jackson has been promoted to the position of SWO and that WO 2 B. Trepanier has been promoted to the position of Deputy Squadron Warrant Officer. Warrant Officer Jackson also managed to get a vote of support from her younger brother F/Cpl B. Jackson.

We try each year to ensure that all new cadets get issued, sometime during the year, an ID card as shown below. This is not a requirement of the Canadian Forces or the Air Cadet League of Canada, it is just something that this Squadron chooses to do for it's cadets. The goal is to give each cadet a card to encourage a sense of belonging and at the same time it gives them something that they can show to friends and others who may not know about the air cadet program.

Honorable Members

Squadron Cadets

As the Squadron rummaged around for all the items needed for the tagging operation a large bundle of old photos were turned up. This coupled with the fact that level two cadets had a class on Squadron history last Monday convinced us that it was a good opportunity to take a look back at some photos from the Squadron's past.

This the Squadron as it was in 1943. The photo was taken in the Oshawa Armouries and we actually have all the names of all the cadets and officers in the photo.

Few cadets today would recognize this as the inside of Rotary Hall. It was dark, well used and soundly battered by too many basketball and floor hockey games. The activity shown in these photos was an inspection by the then commanding officer of the Ontario Regiment.

Everyone should recognize the the cadet on the left as Dr. Richard Gimblett, our guest speaker at this years Mess Dinner.
The photo on the right was taken outside a Quonset hut at the summer camp at RCAF Station Clinton in 1954. Air cadet camps in those days did not have all the niceties such as washing machines so if washing something was in order it could be handled this way. We will let you figure out who it was washing out his socks.

Before the Squadron started using the Ganaraska Forest Centre for its yearly fall trip to the woods the traditional outing was held in a valley at the west end of the forest where there were no buildings only a pond. This photo was taken sometime in the 1970's and as you can see things were a little different then as every cadet had a rifle and we even had a uniform of sorts.

The left hand photo was taken in 1953 at a cadet summer camp held at RCAF Station Aylmer now the home of the Ontario Police Training College. This photo goes back a long way but one of the cadets in the photo, Grant Stonehouse is currently on the mailing list for this email. Cadets today should realize how easy it is today to make a summer camp bed compared with the standard set up you see above.

With college out a number of retired senior NCO's from the Squadron dropped in for a visit at the Monday evening parade. They can be seen here with the Squadron's current senior NCO's.

Last Saturday 22 Cadets from the Squadron competed in the annual Pickering sports competition. There were some 8 teams from other squadrons in the area in the competition and our Squadron placed 4th overall.

One of the most famous aircraft that keeps popping up in our inbox is the SR 71 Black Bird.
Now they can only be found in museums. Unbeknownst to most of the country, the plane flew over North Vietnam, Red China, North Korea, the Middle East, South Africa, Cuba, Nicaragua, Iran, Libya, and the Falkland Islands. On a weekly basis, the SR-71 kept watch over every Soviet nuclear submarine and mobile missile site, and all of their troop movements. The Blackbird had out run nearly 4,000 missiles, not once taking a scratch from enemy fire. On her final flight, the Blackbird, destined for the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum, sped from Los Angeles to Washington in 64 minutes, averaging 2,145 mph and setting four speed records.

SR 71 Pilot Chatter

"One day, high above Arizona, we were monitoring the radio traffic of all the mortal airplanes below us. First, a Cessna pilot asked the air traffic controllers to check his ground speed. 'Ninety knots,' ATC replied. A Bonanza soon made the same request. To our surprise, a navy F-18 came over the radio with a ground speed check. I knew exactly what he was doing. Of course, he had a ground speed indicator in his cockpit, but he wanted to let all the bug-smashers in the valley know what real speed was, 'Dusty 52, we show you at 620 on the ground,' ATC responded.
The situation was too ripe. I heard the click of Walt's mike button in the rear seat. In his most innocent voice, Walt startled the controller by asking for a ground speed check from 81,000 feet, clearly above controlled airspace. In a cool, professional voice, the controller replied,' Aspen 20, I show you at 1,982 knots on the ground.' We did not hear another transmission on that frequency all the way to the coast."

The SR 71 Black Bird.