Air cadets prepare move to new digs

Lt. John Archer, Janice Knabb, Brian Zetts, Capt. William Dornan, Ian Smith and Sarah Smith check out the new home for air cadets.

Neil Horner photo

This summer, cadets with the 893 Beaufort Squadron will be able to look out the window of their new home and see their future.

That opportunity, says Captain William Dornan, comes as the cadet program prepares to move into their own home at the Qualicum Beach airport after years of meeting in one school gym after another.

The 446 sq.m. (4,860 sq. ft.) hangar currently houses Ascent Helicopters, which is moving its operation to Errington.

The $415,000 facility will be ready for the cadets to move in by early July and Dornan said it’s about time they had a home of their own.

“We were going to build a hangar, but it became a question of what’s the most cost-effective option,” he said. “We’ve been sort of living out of cardboard boxes and having to rely on officers’ vehicles to bring all the paperwork and so on, but now we will have a place to hang our hat.

“This facility provides us with everything we need, and it’s right beside the runway, so we have a huge visual stimulus for the cadets. They will be able to look out the window and see their future.”

Dornan said he hopes the new facility coming online will serve as a recruitment tool to the program, which has seen the number of cadets drop over recent years.

“Right now we have 22 cadets and I would like to see that bumped up to between 50 and 60,” he said. “The cadets will know where to come and, rather than meeting in different schools all the time, this will make it far easier to find us.”

The cadets have been raising money steadily for the project and are about halfway towards paying off the building, thanks in large part to a generous donation from the late Doreen Cooper, who left a sizable donation in her will.

The new hangar isn’t the only big news stirring amongst the cadets these days however. Another important piece of the excitement involves some of the equipment to be housed inside it.

Brian Zetts is a former 737 pilot who recently acquired three sophisticated flight simulators that will make the 893 Squadron a leader, not only on Vancouver Island but also in Canada.

“We were able to acquire the simulators because Transport Canada came up with a new requirement that required them to have oscillators, which make them move like you’re in a real plane,” Zetts said. “Because of this, these didn’t meet the standard and were considered outdated. All these flying schools across Canada had all these twin engine simulators and no use for them.”

When Zetts got wind of two simulators gathering dust in storage at Boundary Bay, he began making enquiries and was told to come and get them.

“We thought there were only two, but it turns out there were three,” Zetts said. “I wasn’t going to say anything. We loaded them on the truck and brought them up here.”

Some of the cadets dropped by Zetts’ house to look at the new equipment and they were pleased with what they saw — to say the least.

“Their eyes just lit up as soon as they came in,” he said. “They are used to looking at computer towers and computer monitors, with flight controls and rudder pedals made of plastic. We still have that, but now we have something much, much better.”

Dornan hopes to be able to get some oscillators for the new equipment some time in the future, at which point all stick time on the simulators will be considered stick time in a real aircraft — which is as good as gold to those youngsters who are trying to learn how to take to the sky.

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