Captain Kevin McLaren had been participating in international mission simulations at events in both Europe and the United States.
About two years ago, he asked if there was a possibility that the unique, innovative training could be done right here at CFB North Bay.
Now, fast forward those two years and McLaren’s bold idea has become a reality as the 22 Wing/CFB North Bay hosted a ribbon cutting to open the brand new Mission Training Centre in the David L. Pitcher Building.
“I have done some other multinational exercises with other countries so I have seen some of the things that they are able to do or they are working towards and I thought why not us,” he said.
“We plug into that on a yearly basis, so I thought why not more and why not from North Bay so that is essentially what kicked it all off.”
Major Brenda Tinsley was the one helped get things rolling with the idea which went from “would this not be awesome to, is this not awesome,” within two years.
Tinsley says they found the right location in the facility and worked hard to make it work.
“We have now connected to the world in terms of simulation,” stated Maj Tinsley.
“All of these exercises are either run through Europe or a place in the United States, so the central hub point for these large international scale exercises. So previous to this space existing we were sending people to the United States to play, to Europe to have to participate. Now with this space the controllers and all of the positions are going to come in here, they are going to play a massive synthetic and constructive large scale air battles with Australia, the U.S., New Zealand and Great Britain and they are going to go home at night.”
After the ribbon cutting, the operators ran a short simulation of two MIG fighters who were identified and four CF18 fighters were scrambled.
The new Mission Training Centre will come online when 51 squadron celebrates its 65th anniversary as a number squadron and 24th anniversary as a training squadron.
Colonel Mark Roberts, the Commander of 22 Wing/CFB North Bay and the Canadian Air Defence Sector, believes this now just increased the scope and magnitude and the reach of our training capability.
“We can’t face 21st century threats with 20th century technology so this is about innovation, about transforming the way we think and train to meet those new and current threats,” he said.
