For some years now CASARA have been asssisting 424 Squadron in their training of our northern Canadian members. The training varies but usually includes CVT (CASARA Visual Trainer) as well as spotter training onboard the CC-130 Hercules and Twin Ottter aircraft. On this mission to Nunavut, they were fortunate to have a gentleman by the name of Dylan Clark, a CASARA member and McGill University Arctic researcher present. Dylan gave a SAR awareness presentation to the community of Pond Inlet. Many SAR partners were invited to participate including Parks Canada, Rangers, RCMP, CASARA and the RCAF. This mission was extremely successful and given the rigors of working in the far north, it is a testament to the skill, courage and commitment by all involved. CASARA members from Niagara, London, Ottawa, Sault Ste Marie, Montreal and Iqaluit in partnership with RCAF members from 424SQN and 413SQN participated this year. This SAR training mission visited several communities including Resolute, Rankin Inlet, Pond Inlet, Hall Beach, and Iqaluit. Below are some photos to help give you a sense of their accomplishments.

The people involved in this particlular mission are from Left to Right: Dylan Clark (Niagara), Ken McAuley (Sault-Ste-Marie), Bill Laur (London), John Vander Velde (Iqaluit), Jean-Louis Turcotte (Montreal), Capt Claude Courcelles (424SQN), MCpl Gabriel Ferland (413SQN).

I had the opportunity last week to visit CFB Trenton where a version of Canada’s new SAR platform was on display for the media and members of the SAR community at large. CASARA was of course invited to see the new aircraft and members from National, Quebec and Ontario were represented.
The aircraft, an Airbus 295 was on loan from the Brazilian Air Force. It had many of the new features that the Canadian version will have but the most striking was its suite of advanced EO-IR (electro-optical infra-red) cameras. An MX-15 camera turret mounted on the front of the aircraft made by Burlington, Ontario’s WESCAM was front and centre. In the aircraft itself were two stations which takes all the data from the cameras and makes sense of it.
I have included a few photos below. As you can see this is pretty advanced technology. The aircraft itself is a very mission specific platfrom whereas our current legacy aircraft, the CC-130 Hercules is really a multi-mission platform that can be configured as the scenario requires. As such, it is a much smaller aircraft and is powered by two engines vs. the mighty Herc’s four engine powerplants. The first delivery is scheduled for sometime around 2020 and the fleet could be online by mid 2025.