22 Wing History

In 1992, 414 Squadron left the base, and airfield structures were sold or demolished. This made Canadian Forces Base (CFB) North Bay our only air base with no aircraft or airfield.

In 1993, we renamed the installation 22 Wing/Canadian Forces Base North Bay, commonly referred to as 22 Wing.

In October 2006, the new Sgt David L. Pitcher Building replaced the Underground Complex. It had state-of-the-art, 21st century air defence computers and electronics.

In 2014, 22 Wing began space surveillance. The system connected to Sapphire, Canada’s first military satellite. Sapphire is a contributing sensor to the United States Space Surveillance Network. It launched in February 2013, and was operational in January 2014.

Sapphire looks for objects (called “Resident Space Objects”) orbiting between 6,000 and 40,000 kilometres altitude. It transmits the data to the Sensor System Operations Centre (SSOC) in our Sgt David L. Pitcher Building. The SSOC, in turn, coordinates with the Joint Space Operations Centre at Vandenberg, California. In its first year of operation, 22 Wing saw 1.2 million space objects.

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