CAF Story | UK Sub Hunter Finds New Home in Canada!
Video / December 16, 2022
Transcript
(AH) I remember the announcement to this day: over a hundred flyers, at Kinloss, corralled together and 60 were made redundant.
The years of experience of Maritime Patrol flying, on that day, that the Royal Air Force lost, was immense. On the announcement of 2010 of the UK Strategic Defence and Security Review, the decision was made to cancel the Nimrod aircraft, which was my aircraft. I remember my aunt saying to me:
"Does that affect you, Andy?"
And I said: "It certainly does, because my aircraft had gone." I was facing a difficult decision, whether I was going to stay in the military or go and try something else in the civilian life. And I remember a signal that came across my desk from the Royal... Canadian Forces recruiting, asking for experienced personnel to join the Canadian Air Force. That evening, I went home, talked to my wife and told her what had happened.
She said to me: "Why don't you practice what you preach?"
And I said: "You're right. I'll apply on Monday." A month later, I was accepted by the Canadian Air Force. I had assured employment opinion, citizenship waiver. The day after that, I put my paperwork into Canadian Immigration for permanent residency. I think coming to Canada is... it's very similar to the UK. And I've always been made welcome in Canada. My wife and I spent seven years in Greenwood, 14 Wing in Greenwood, on various units there. And when the opportunity arose to come to the West Coast, I took it. And I've been in Comox since 2019.
I joined the Royal Canadian Air Force at a time when the Maritime Patrol fleet was converting from an older Block II aircraft to a Block III aircraft with the new sensors that we have today. Working with the Aurora is when Canada gave me an opportunity to come back flying.
I thought: "Yes, I'm back home." And we do the same job with... fly, deploy sonobuoys, listen for submarines, doing searches with radar. It's a multicrew environment on the Aurora, and we work as a team. The biggest thing the Royal Canadian Air Force gave to me was the opportunity to go... come back flying in a Maritime Patrol aircraft, in a role that, yeah, I love doing.
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