Saskatchewan Aviation Council

10/10/2026

Mark your calendars 🗓

Every year, the Snowbirds traditionally perform a private “home closer” airshow at 15 Wing in Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan, for family, friends, and alumni to close the season at their home base.

This year, for their final show, we invite you to watch via live stream as we say a heartfelt goodbye to the CT-114 Tutors.

When: October 16, 2026, 2 p.m. (EDT)

Watch it from any of these pages:
https://www.facebook.com/RCAF.ARC/
https://www.facebook.com/CanadianForces
https://www.facebook.com/CFSnowbirdsFC

10/04/2026

💙 Talk about bringing "take your family to work day" to new heights! ✈️

Imagine stepping onto a commercial flight only to realize your captain has spent 40 years in the clouds - and his entire family is flying the plane!

When Air Canada Captain Craig Anderson closed out a legendary 40-year career with a final flight from Rome to Toronto, he didn't just celebrate with colleagues - he celebrated with a full family crew:

👩‍✈️ Wife Brenda worked the cabin as a flight attendant (the very same career path where they first met decades ago!).

👨‍✈️ Sons Matthew and Taylor shared the cockpit as his first officers.

🎫 Son Curtis (himself a pilot for Porter Airlines) rode along in the back documenting every unforgettable moment.

👵 90-year-old mother Carole - a former flight attendant for Trans-Canada Air Lines - waited at Toronto Pearson with open arms.

The aviation legacy runs astonishingly deep: Craig originally followed his own father, Gary (a 40-year Air Canada veteran), into the cockpit back in 1987, even serving as second officer on his dad's retirement flight all those years ago. Carrying that tradition full circle, Craig kept a photo of his father right by the controls as his own sons flew beside him.

After 30,000+ flying hours, thousands of safe journeys, and a tearful passenger-cabin ovation sparked by an emotional announcement from his son, Captain Anderson is finally trading the cockpit for some well-earned golf and boating.

Here’s to a lifetime of safe landings and a family legacy that will keep soaring for generations to come! 🌤️

Happy retirement Captain Craig Anderson! 🥂

10/02/2026

November 3, 1902. Garden City, Minnesota. Edna Gardner Whyte was born into a world where women could not vote and flying was impossible.

But she wanted to fly.

She became a registered nurse to pay for it. She funded her own flying lessons. January 1, 1931, she soloed. May 1931, she had her pilot's license.

She was the country's first licensed female flight instructor. She instructed at airports around Washington DC while serving as a Navy nurse. She flew in aerobatic contests. She raced. She won.

Then she applied for an airline job in 1933.

No airline would hire her. Not one. Not because she couldn't fly. But because she was a woman. She was told women could not be commercial airline pilots. This wasn't a door closing. This was a door slamming.

But doors slamming can forge steel. ✈️

Edna did not accept the rejection. She transformed it into mission.

She founded the New Orleans Air College. She trained hundreds of military pilots during World War II at Meacham Field and the Spartan School of Aviation. She flew combat missions as an Air Corps flight nurse and co-pilot.

After the war, she taught returning servicemen how to fly under the GI Bill. She instructed at multiple flight schools. She married George Whyte, one of the flight instructors she had hired.

And she raced. For decades she raced across the country. She won 127 trophies in air racing competitions. She won the Women's International Air Race in 1953, 1958, 1960, and 1961.

At age 70, she and George planned to build an airport. Banks refused to loan them money. A woman in her seventies trying to build an airport alone—they said no.

She built it anyway. ✈️

Aero Valley Airport, Roanoke, Texas. 1972. Edna Gardner Whyte owned it. She flew out of it. She taught out of it. She lived there.

From 1972 until her death in 1992, she logged over 33,000 flight hours. She instructed nearly 5,000 student pilots. She was 89 years old when she stopped flying.

That's what happens when you reject the rejection. When you refuse to accept that a door slamming is the end of the story.

Airlines said no to Edna Gardner Whyte in 1933. She made them irrelevant. She became a legend anyway. Racing champion. Flight instructor. Flight school founder. Airport builder. Trainer of thousands.

She flew for 60 years straight. Nobody in any airline could touch her record. ✈️ 💙

10/01/2026

What will happen to the Snowbirds Tutor Jet

CT-114 Tutor — Fleet Disposition Planning | Fall 2026

With less than two months remaining before the CT-114 Tutor fleet’s permanent retirement, Canada’s Department of National Defence has confirmed that a formal responsible development and disposal plan is underway for the remaining active aircraft.

A select number of Tutors are expected to be preserved for national aviation museums and as static displays at RCAF bases. The remaining airframes are being catalogued for long-term structural storage as 431 Air Demonstration Squadron prepares for its operational stand-down following its final private performance in Moose Jaw.

After decades of service, the iconic CT-114 Tutor and the Snowbirds era it represents are approaching the end of an extraordinary chapter in Canadian aviation history. 🇨🇦

09/27/2026

On May 10, 2022, Darren Harrison was flying back from a fishing trip in the Bahamas at 9,000 feet aboard a single-engine Cessna Caravan. He had zero flight experience - no flight school, no simulator time, nothing.

Suddenly, the pilot turned to him, went pale, and slumped over the controls. He had suffered a sudden aortic dissection.

The aircraft went into a steep, terrifying nose-dive toward the Atlantic Ocean.

Darren didn't panic. He unbuckled, crawled over the seats into the cockpit, pulled the pilot back, and took the controls. With the ground fast approaching, he slowly pulled back on the yoke, leveling the wings just in time.

He put on the headset, grabbed the radio, and pressed the push-to-talk button:

“I’ve got a serious situation here. My pilot’s gone incoherent. I have no idea how to fly the airplane.”

At Fort Pierce Air Traffic Control, controller Robert Morgan - a veteran flight instructor who had never flown a Cessna Caravan - happened to be on break. He immediately rushed to his console.

Morgan pulled up a diagram of the Cessna’s cockpit on his phone. Step by step, over a static-filled radio link, he guided Darren through the sky.

“Keep the wings level and just try to follow the coast... bring the power back very slowly...”

For 40 agonizing minutes, Darren held the yoke with one hand and prayed with the other. He wasn’t just keeping a plane stable; he had to figure out how to land a 4-ton aircraft traveling at over 120 mph - without crashing into a bustling international airport.

Morgan vectored him toward Palm Beach International Airport. As the runway grew larger in the windshield, Morgan gave him the final instruction: “Just ease the power back, let the airplane sink onto the runway.”

Darren touched down so smoothly that airport ground crew thought a veteran pilot was at the controls. Emergency crews rushed the runway. The pilot was rushed to the hospital and miraculously survived. Darren walked off the tarmac without a scratch.

When asked later how he stayed so calm, Darren gave a simple answer: “I knew if I panicked, I was dead. So I just chose not to.”

09/24/2026

09/24/2026

Canada has a very specific aviation problem. Enormous distances, almost no runways, and communities reachable only by air. ✈️

De Havilland Canada built aircraft for exactly that, and in 1965 they flew the DHC-6 Twin Otter.

It is not fast and it is not elegant. What it does is get in and out of places nothing else can manage. Wheels, skis or floats. Airborne in a few hundred metres. Gravel strips, ice runways, short mountain fields.

It ended up everywhere. Arctic communities, Antarctic research stations, island hops across the Caribbean, humanitarian work in Africa, and the tiny strip at Saba that is often called the shortest commercial runway in the world.

Production ended in 1988. Then the orders kept coming, and a British Columbia company bought the rights and restarted the line. 🤍

Sixty years on, you can still buy a new one.

09/22/2026

Explore historic aircraft and aviation exhibits.

09/22/2026

09/17/2026

Looking for an exciting new job?

NAV Canada is hiring air traffic controllers in cities across Canada, and the job pays up to $207,450 a year after training.

You don't need a university or college degree or any previous work experience, as paid training is provided. Training takes 12 to 27 months depending on the role, with trainees earning around $60,000 while they learn.

Spots are currently open in various hub cities from coast to coast, including Vancouver, Edmonton, Toronto and Montreal, and applications for this hiring round are open until September 30.

Find more details and how to apply in the comments. 👇

📸: Brad Calkins | Dreamstime