International Security Assistance Force

Frequency (HF) communications were set up. In early March, a National Support Element was sent to Camp Mirage to expand its facili- ties, requiring more trailers and more com- munications. The growth of Camp Mirage was complicated by the insistence of the UAE gov- ernment that the Canadian presence was not to be disclosed. When it became clear that it would be a permanent facility, new communi- cations were installed in new buildings that kept the men from 14 WTIS at Greenwood busy until they were replaced by a team from 8 WTIS at Trenton in July 2002. Before they left, two of the Greenwood techs, realizing the need for a form of entertainment for the res- ident personnel and for those passing through to Afghanistan, set up an outdoor theatre against the side of one of the build- ings. In spite of its rudimentary set up the the- atre operated for years afterwards.

Prior to 1969, RCAF Station Trenton’s De- ployment Team and Air Traffic Control’s transportable Quad-Radar provided NavAids and radar control at unprepared airfields. In 1969, it became the Air Transportable Com-


munications and Control Team (ATCCT). In 1979, it became a formed unit (ATCCU) that changed its name in 1993 to 8 Air Communi- cations and Control Squadron (8 ACCS). A highly skilled, unique organization, it was pre- pared to be deployed on short notice to wher- ever air operations require transportable radar, NavAids equipment, control tower, air- field lighting, and auxiliary power. Its capabil- ities were proven in January 1978, when a Russian nuclear powered satellite reentered the earth’s atmosphere over Canada’s north and spread radioactive material over a wide area. To provide communications for the cleanup crews, a team from the ATCCT was dispatched from Trenton to Yellowknife and Baker Lake in the Northwest Territories. It es- tablished a temporary tented camp on the Th- elon River on 7 February. Communications were found to be difficult because atmos- pheric conditions in the north play havoc with HF transmissions. To assist with the communi- cation problem, 742 Communication Squadron erected a 900 metre long “droop- ing dipole” aerial but it still took 36 hours be- fore a message from the Thelon River site could be delivered to Edmonton. Air Com- mand delivered a satellite terminal on 4 March and better communications resulted. Similarly, establishing a beacon system as a NavAid for CH 135 helicopters proved diffi- cult until AN/TRN-30 solid state beacons with a range of 25 miles were installed. The entire operation lasted 84 days, during which the ATCCT used every conceivable means of com- munications: LF, HF, microwave, and satellite radio. Since then 8 ACCS has continued to perform stellar work, for example, to UN Mis- sions in 1992 in the former Yugoslavia, 1994 in Rwanda, and 2004 in Haiti. Operational for over 60 years, the organization has continued to be a first-response team for ATC capability and communications anywhere in the world. A team led by S/L A.E. Keddy studied ways in the 1960s to improve ATC. The culmination of the team’s work was the initiation of the Ter- minal Radar and Control System (TRACS) in 1977. A project team led by Col G. Smith worked for six years to put TRACS into six air

bases, it was backed up by a Training and Sup- port Centre (TASC) at CFB Trenton. At each airfield there were two main sites: the Radar Head and the Instrument Flight Rules Control Centre (IFRCC). The system was integrated with existing ATC equipment in the control towers and employed uninterruptible power backed up by auxiliary power units. The Radar Head housed an Area Surveillance Radar (ASR) with a range of 80 miles and a Second- ary Surveillance Radar (SSR) that provided

200 miles of coverage for transponder- equipped aircraft. The IFRCC held control consoles for the Radar Processing and Control Subsystem (RPDS), the Communication Con- trol Subsystem (CCS), and Navigational Aids Management Subsystem (NAMS). TRACS pro- vided recording of both audio and radar track data that proved useful in cases of accidents as it captured the exact flight path of the aircraft. In addition to providing the technical expert- ise in the design work, the TRACS team had to act as the prime contractor for the production and installation of the system. The first opera- tional TRACS site was CFB Trenton, which was officially opened by the CDS, General Ramsey Withers, on 21 May 1982. The others sites, Moose Jaw, Bagotville, Cold Lake, Comox, and Greenwood, were commissioned by June 1983. The TASC at Trenton was renamed the Terminal Radar and Control System Support and Training Unit (TRACS STU) and became part of Air Command in July 1983.

On 29 June 1995, TRACS STU was amalga- mated with the Aerospace Maintenance Devel- opment Unit (AMDU) to form the Aerospace Telecommunications Engineering Support Squadron (ATESS). The AMDU, part of the Trenton community for over 50 years, was an outgrowth of 6 Repair Depot (6RD), which had been formed on 18 March 1940 at Tren- ton. Following the Second World War, 6RD modified aircraft to new roles and acted as a storage depot. In October 1967, it was reor- ganized as the AMDU to provide third-level en- gineering, maintenance, and supply services to aerospace operations. It also developed maintenance schedules for aircraft and tech- niques for non-destructive testing. The TRACS

The ATESS currently provides personnel and equipment on short notice to support do- mestic and global contingency and flying op- erations. Its capabilities were used to find the location of Swiss Air Flight 111, which went down in the Atlantic off Peggy’s Cove, Nova Scotia in September 1998. A cockpit fire had damaged the aircraft’s transponder and the civilian ATC lost critical aircraft location infor- mation. Using ATC tapes from the primary radar at 14 Wing at Greenwood, Nova Scotia, ATESS analyzed the tapes on the TRACS Taped Radar Analysis Program. It was able to calcu- late the precise latitude and longitude of Swiss Air Flight 111 when it entered the water.

One of the ATESS’s roles is to train ATIS technicians, particularly on new equipment and whenever equipment is upgraded. The 2011 replacement of the AN/FPN-503 (V)-1 Precision Approach Radar (PAR) by the PAR 2000 is one example. The new equipment in- corporated the latest in digital technology for voice-guided precision, approach landing services during poor visibility. The AN/FPN- 503 (V)-1 had entered the service in the late 1970s and had undergone several modifica- tions all by ATESS technicians.

The Canadian Quad-Radar began its service in the 1950s. It became the main radar for 8 ACCS in Trenton and was deployed globally and all over Canada. It was also used at Kingston’s Vimy Barracks after 1970 to teach the principles of radar theory to student tech- nicians. After over 50 years of service, the Quad-Radar was finally retired with the instal- lation of the PAR 2000 in CFB Shearwater.

As a follow-on to TRACS, the Military Auto- mated Air Traffic System (MAATS) project was initiated in the early 1990s in conjunction with Transport (now NAV) Canada to auto- mate air traffic services, and to ensure that military air operations continued to function effectively with the national and international

civilian ATC systems. MAATS was intended to provide the infrastructure, systems, and auto- mated capabilities to interface with all Air Traffic Management Systems and to consoli- date the IFR operations from seven bases to two Military Terminal Control Centres that were to be collocated at the NAV Canada Area Control Centres in Montreal and Edmonton. In June 2006, it was declared that the objec- tives of MAATS could not be coordinated with the civilian Canadian Automated Air Traffic System. It was decided to proceed with an “in- house” solution called Phoenix.

The Phoenix project focused on the re-vi- talization and integration of ATC information sources at each of the seven major Air Wings: Comox, Cold Lake, Moose Jaw, Bagotville, Trenton, Greenwood, and Goose Bay. It was designed and built with standard, commercial off-the-shelf hardware and open source soft- ware based on the proven Radar Processing Display System II (RPDS II), which was certi- fied for Operational Airworthiness. Phoenix successfully upgraded the Air Traffic Manage- ment System capability including the Radar Processor, the Navigational Aids and Meteor- ological Sub-System, the Air Movement Statis- tics Package, and the Flight Data System. With the successful installation of the Phoenix equipment at 8 Wing Trenton, a Provisional Operational Airworthiness Clearance was granted in October 2007. The Phoenix proj- ect was successfully completed at all seven major Air Wings in 2011.

RCAF long-range HF aeronautical commu- nications sites were located at ten stations after the Second World War. In 1959, a new concept of air ground communications was imple- mented at Trenton, called the Military Aero- nautical Communications System (MACS). It began with the opening of a new air/ground/ air station. In 1964, the radio room was re-lo- cated to Carrying Place, a short distance from Trenton. In the beginning the radio room was a noisy workplace filled with constant radio static, Morse Code, continuous traffic with air- craft, telephone patches made by both aircraft and ground units, and weather reports. Slowly, the noise levels dropped with the cessation of

shoot down the intruding bombers. There was also a need for a central command and con- trol agency, if the response to a threat was to be coordinated and timely. This strategy de- pended not only on the deterrence of radar sites and fighter aircraft but also on an offen- sive retaliatory nuclear strike capability pro- vided by the USAF’s Strategic Air Command.

As most of the industrial heartland of North America was near the east coast, the majority of the radar sites were planned to be located in Eastern Canada. As early as 1949, plans were made to position radar sites along the 50^th parallel in Eastern Canada and along the 53^rd parallel in British Columbia. The Pinetree Line consisted of 26 sites erected by 1953 and 11 more sites by 1957; in the 1960s another seven were built. Canada built and manned 24. The USAF built and manned 20 sites but even- tually 12 of them were taken over by the RCAF. Four of the sites doubled as Air Defence Con- trol Centres, as the system was divided into four sectors. During the final years, 1985- 1990, all 24 remaining sites were manned by the Canadian Forces. The total cost was $450 Million; Canada’s share was $150 Million.*

A typical Pinetree site consisted of a long range search radar (LRR), usually an AN/FPS- 3 or AN/CPS-6B; a lower power, shorter range, back-up search radar, usually the AN/FPS-502; and one or two height finder radars. It also had ground-air-ground radios and a domestic facility large enough to accommodate three to

Many of the Pinetree sites were self-con- tained communities complete with single and married quarters, mess halls, schools, chapels, and sports and entertainment facilities. Al- though many were semi-isolated, often there were villages not far away, and there were op- portunities to develop a good military-civilian rapport. In addition, athletic and social com- petitions developed among the sector stations. In Canada, the radar sites provided target tracking and control for fighter interceptor squadrons at Ottawa and North Bay, ON; St- Hubert and Bagotville, QC; Comox, BC; and deployment sites. The units initially flew the F-86 Sabre, and then the Canadian-designed and built CF-100 all weather interceptor. Air Defence Command HQ was established in 1951 in St-Hubert, which was linked to most of the radar sites and all fighter bases by the RCAF Communication System and by leased commercial voice circuits. The pilots and fighter controller at each radar site were con- nected by RCAF ground radio sites co-located

with the radars.

At the same time as the Pinetree Line was becoming oper- ational in the mid- 1950s, it was known that the system pro-

warning time and limited low-level radar cov- erage. The solution was the development of two more radar systems: the Mid-Canada Line proposed by Canada and the Distant Early Warning (DEW) Line advocated by the USA.

The Mid Canada Line was a “doppler fence” consisting of 90 unmanned stations and 8 sec- tor control centres sited along the 55^th parallel. It became operational on 1 January 1958. The sector control centres were manned 24/7 by 11 RCAF personnel and up to 150 civilian con- tractor staff. Sightings of operational interest were passed to an air defence control centre. The west half of the Mid Canada Line closed in January 1964 and the east half in April 1965. The construction cost was $225 Million. The DEW Line construction was begun in April 1955, and it was fully operational on 31 July 1957. It was built along the 70^th parallel from Alaska to Greenland and consisted of search radars and gap-filling Doppler bi-static radars. Manned primarily by US contractor personnel, there were 21 Intermediate, 18 Auxiliary sites, and 4 main stations in Canada. There were four RCAF personnel in each main station, primarily for sovereignty reasons. The DEW Line was manned 24/7 with each site re- laying aircraft tracks of interest to its main sta- tion data centre by teletype. The various traffic tracks were consolidated and relayed by a main data centre to an air defence control centre. In Canada, the data centres were staffed primarily by RCAF Fighter Con- trollers/Operators, however, a Telecommuni- cations Officer was assigned to command one of the data centres each year. The DEW Line continued to operate until the early 1990s, when it was replaced by the North Warning System (NWS). The total construction cost of