On Wednesday October 12, 2005 members of both the Toronto and Ottawa Airport Watch groups came together to attend tours of CFB Trenton and CFD Mountainview.  YYZ Airport Watch member Steve Cos sent us a nice summary of the days events.

After some planning from the Ottawa and Toronto Airport Watch Groups we paid a combined visit to these two airbases on the 12th of October 2005. Special thanks goes to National Airport Watch Coordinator Cpl Jacques Brunelle of the RCMP, who managed to get the entire tour organized. Also honorable mention should go to Donald Buness and Peter Ivakitsch, of the Ottawa and Toronto Airport Watch's respectively for their assistance in the arranging of the two Watch Groups together. At the official meeting place at CFB Trenton, the Parade Grounds we met with Brian Dunn who stepped in for Peter as the YYZ Airport Watch Ambassador. After our briefing in one of the auditoriums we were handed off to Capt McPhee, 2Lt Morrain & Sgt Dennys. After dividing up in groups and handing out our visitor’s badges we were off to the ramp where the Polaris CC150’s are parked and a Hercules CC-130 was made available for our tour. We proceeded to visit 15001 the Official aircraft of the Prime Ministers Office. We were introduced to Capt Twa & Sgt Swyers, who gave us a marvelous tour. Every question was answered and the information was beyond what most of us expected. Some sat in the PM’s seat onboard and even in the flight deck. We even had a short tour of 005 in a Combi configuration, 56 seats and about 12 pallets when on assignment. Two of the aircraft are being retro fitted into aerial refueling aircraft to assist in the movement of Canadian Forces aircraft. Certification is still underway. Next stop was with Capts MacKwen & Tufenkdjian & Sgt Flemming and their CC-130 130337.  Again many questions and very thorough answers from this crew.

Our morning tour ended with a short walk to the base cafeteria and actually a great meal, we all enjoyed our stay at CFB Trenton. After lunch we headed to our cars for the 30 minute drive to CFD Mountainview. We were met by MWO Petit who is in charge of the operations at CFD Mountainview. He provided a quick overview of what goes on at this base and we entered the one hanger that is use for this operation. We were allowed free access to all aircraft on the ramps and many tour members took photographs as others were logging the aircraft. This took us about two and a half hours to complete. We completed our walk about and concluded with many thank you’s and handshakes showing our appreciation for our tour guides hard work. It was nice to see how much these folks in our Armed Forces enjoyed showing us around and I think many of us left with a greater respect for them, I know I did!

Photos by Brian Dunn & Ken Keen - For additional photos please see this site

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