By Chris Thatcher | February 14, 2024
Estimated reading time 1 minute, 25 seconds.
The path to becoming a fighter pilot in the Royal Canadian Air Force (RCAF) is about to become a much warmer year-round experience.
The RCAF has long been sending pilots for fighter lead-in training (FLIT) to the Euro-NATO Joint Jet Pilot Training (ENJJPT) program at Sheppard Air Force Base — since 2010 when the multinational program first launched. Each year, one or two selected pilots packed their bags at 15 Wing Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan, and headed south to the warm weather on the Texas-Oklahoma border, rather than north with the rest of the candidate class to 419 Tactical Fighter Training Squadron at 4 Wing Cold Lake, Alberta.
But what was once considered an exclusive learning opportunity for ab initio fighter training and, according to a former commanding officer of 419 Squadron, an important way to maintain a connection with how other nations conduct FLIT, has now become a vital building block in the RCAF’s fighter pilot progression…
Continue reading this feature in the latest issue of RCAF Today magazine.
