CAF Story | Pilot Major (Ret’d) Bob Wade remembers the Cold War
Video / November 11, 2025
Transcript
We lost 937 RCAF personnel during the Cold War. None of that was combat. That was just day-to-day operations.
I’m Bob Wade. I joined the Air Force in 1968, to start pilot training. But actually, when I recruited, I was only 16 years old, under the Venture training program. The Cold War was well established, back in those days. And so, I wanted to be a fighter pilot when I graduated, and got my wings, but they didn’t have any Starfighter postings available, so they made me an instructor at Moose Jaw. I joined the Snowbirds aerobatic team the first two years – it was a national team – in ’73, ’74. And then, I finally got my Starfighter.
The Russians wanted to keep pressing west, and take West Germany, and take France, and the Netherlands, and Belgium, and all those countries. And so, NATO was formed in ’49 to stop that from happening.
Tensions got really tough at times. ’62, the Cuban Missile Crisis; most people remember that. We actually got to a DEFCON 2. There are five DEFCONs, Defense Conditions: 5 is where we are at peacetime, and 1 is war, you know. So, it shows you, you know, how concentrated the effort was in maintaining that status and stopping the Soviets.
This airplane held the world speed record, Mach 2.76. Considering that it’s 11 years after World War II ended, that’s very significant. You know, the jump in technology was huge. But because the Starfighter was so fast, and all the flying was done right under 3, our only threat was the surface-to-air missile system. If you stayed low enough, the surface-to-air missile system couldn’t take us out.
And when we purchased the Starfighter in 1962 to replace the Sabre jet, they put it into the nuclear role. So, this airplane carried nuclear bombs from sixty... well, ’63, before they got it operational, up until 1971. And it was very good at that role.
In ’71, the government takes us out of that nuclear strike role, and we were forced into that ground attack role. And it was a very demanding job. It became much more complicated than what the nuclear strike role was. And when you’re flying at high speed in that low-altitude environment, there are birds down there. You hit a bird, doing 540 knots, and it goes down that engine intake, it’s going to take that engine out.
There are 60-foot trees there. You’re only 40 feet above the trees, doing 510 knots, to release a weapon.
So, it was a bit of a challenge; lots of fun, but you had to pay attention to what you were doing.
And generally, when you were flying, you held a map in your left hand, so that you’re navigating off of that map. And so, at every point along the route, you can check whether you’re on time or whether you’re not, because you had to be able to hit that target plus or minus 3 seconds. And that was critical, because when there’s another Starfighter behind you, if you were late, your weapons would take them out; and if you’re early, you’re going to go through the other guy’s weapons. And you never miss that. I can’t remember missing the target for any more than a second or so. And it just got to be normal day-to-day ops. Nobody missed.
We weren’t dogfighters. We were bomber pilots. But they couldn’t catch us. We got good at it, really good at it. And your pilot skills were better than what had ever had to be required before, in my estimation. And we’ve had a lot of accidents. And out of 190 airplanes that went through Europe, we crashed 110. And 1 out of every 9 pilots had to eject out of the airplane; 1 out of 19 were killed. And it was just to maintain the lifestyle we have in Canada. And I want Canadians to appreciate it. Peace is not the absence of war, but it is a maintenance of those hard-won freedoms.