Last summer and last fall, Canadian aircrews learning to fly our yet-to-be delivered Boeing C-17s were “seasoned” with some missions into Iraq. That would be same war Jean Chrétien said Canada wouldn't participate in. That's our first C-17 sitting at CFB Trenton in August on the day it first landed there.
I tore myself away from all the Conservative election scandal stuff to write this one up for tomorrow's papers:
OTTAWA – Canadian Forces personnel learned to operate Canada's newest military plane, the giant Boeing C-17, by training on American jets, including flying those planes into Iraq in support of the U.S. war, according to a memo written by Canada's top general and obtained by Canwest News Service.
Gen. Rick Hillier, the chief of Canada's defence staff, wrote to Gordon O'Connor, then-minister of national defence, in May 2007 that in the summer and fall of that year, Canadian military aircrew would fly into Iraq in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom. That decision was taken without informing Parliament.
“Canadians have been very clear from the beginning that they wanted no part of George Bush's war on Iraq,” said NDP MP Dawn Black, her party's defence critic, “and they certainly don't want to see Canadians getting involved through a back door.” [Read the rest…]
This is literally “business as usual”. No big deal.
The USAF is the world's largest operator of the C-17 type. They are the logical go-to people when it comes to C-17 training. Basic conversion / type qualification training is conducted at Altus AFB, OK. The aircrews then join one of many real live USAF C-17 squadrons and conduct operational employment. They even train on missions and profiles US squadrons use but their home nation does not (i.e. air refueling of the transports). And they go where the host squadron goes. That way the aircrew learns the full performance capabilities of the aircraft.
There are 130 airlift missions (employing various aircraft types) for OEF/OIF every single day. That is a lot of opportunities to gain flight hours in a short amount of time. There is frankly nowhere else on the planet that receives as many airlift missions. If you were to try and train aircrews and build hours without sending them into OEF/OIF, they would be spending many more months to get qualified and seasoned.