Face to Face | Mission IMPACT

Set against a black backdrop, Warrant Officer Sébastien Turgeon looks impassively at the camera. He has a beard and sports his blue Royal Canadian Air Force beret. — Warrant Officer Sébastien Turgeon
Deputy Commanding Officer, Camp Canada Signal Troop

Going outside the camp

Operation IMPACT was intense workwise for Warrant Officer Turgeon’s group. Given that Canadian CF-18s flew out several times a day, the soliders were obligated to work 12-hour days, six days a week. On the seventh day, they worked just six hours. This left them with a bit of free time: “Cultural activities were organized on a regular basis so that we could discover Kuwait. […] The then General let us go out to the shopping centre, restaurants and tourist attractions, like the aquarium,” he says. The only other activity was personal training sessions at the gym.

It often took a long time for equipment to be delivered from Canada, so the procurement members left the base to get hold of specific parts from local vendors. They also used US postal services: “Deliveries from Canada could take a month. Sometimes, it was easier to use US postal services, which only took five days.”

Set against a black backdrop, Captain DHG looks inscrutably at the camera. He wears the royal blue Royal Canadian Air Force beret and a beard. — Captain DHG
CC-150 Polaris Pilot

High-risk flights

To carry out enemy attack missions using CF-18 Hornets, there are several important steps involved. One step is in-flight refuelling, a process in which the fighter jet pilot must follow a tanker aircraft very carefully and obtain the fuel through a long pipe. This crucial maneuver is risky since very often the tanker pilot must fly over enemy territory and is exposed to artillery fire. When piloting an aircraft that cannot defend itself, this situation is cause for concern… Let’s listen carefully to Captain DHG’s account.

Three aircraft seen from below. A grey CC-150 Polaris refuels the two CF-18 Hornet fighter jets behind it. We see the two refuelling pipes reaching the two fighters in the cloudless blue sky.

SourcesAudio : Air Defence Museum, 2019 Image : Department of National Defence / Canadian Armed Forces, Corporal Vicky Lefrançois, August 28, 2013

Transcript

Audio duration: 2 min, 22 sec

[Captain DHG’s voice]

I was actually an Airbus pilot. For refuelling missions, I was Tanker Commanding Officer. The missions could last, I don't know, anywhere from four to seven hours… it varied a lot. The longer we flew, the less fuel we had to give, since our plane’s fuel is the same fuel we give the others too. If we’d been able to fly for two hours, we could have given away more fuel but since the theater of operations was more in Iraq and Syria, and we were taking off from Kuwait, we had to fly for at least an hour before getting there. A so-called hard deck is a national limit [minimum altitude] and we weren’t allowed to drop lower than that. The refuelling boxes were GPS coordinates in a square or rectangle configuration. We had to reach them and wait for the fighters inside. So, we were often close to those boxes.

But, there were areas we weren’t allowed to fly over because there was artillery fire or because they were known to be more dangerous. That’s why we didn’t go there. Generally speaking, that’s it. We flew over Iraq and Syria almost every mission. Once, we had to refuel six planes at the same time. We were over Iraq and when we refuelled, we slowed down so that… each fighter has an optimal refuelling speed so we slowed down to match that speed. We had just finished refuelling and were speeding up to fly away, or to move to another area, I can’t remember. One of the engines was still working but wasn’t producing thrust. So, we signaled an emergency and got back to Kuwait. There were no other incidents, but it was a bit frustrating… we were flying over Iraq… I didn’t feel much like landing there.

I must have flown… I flew more than a hundred flights. On average, we supplied 60,000 pounds of fuel per flight. All in all, that makes more than 6 million. And that’s just me… the plane itself made over a thousand flights. The ultimate mission was to refuel the jets so they could bomb El-Aziz, so that we’d always be helping the jets. If the jet said: “Well, I’d prefer we fly a bit lower down”, OK we’ll ask to fly lower down; I don’t mind or “Can you meet me there instead?”, Sure, no problem, we’ll make it happen”.

Set against a black backdrop, we see Corporal Cindy Bergeron’s tanned, oval shaped face. Her reddish-blond hair is pulled back. She wears the blue Royal Canadian Air Force beret. — Corporal Cindy Bergeron
Weapons Technician, Loading Crew

Beyond improbable

International cooperation is essential for modern-day operations to succeed. As a Weapons Technician with the 425 Alouette Squadron, Corporal Cindy Bergeron forged strong ties with members of the US Air Force and works closely with colleagues who share the same passion… operating an aircraft whose name has already gone down in the annals of military aviation history.

SourceImaging section, CFB Bagotville, Master Corporal Steeve Picard, May 2023

Transcript

Video duration: 4 min, 5 sec

(Shot of Sergeant Cindy Bergeron, a woman with light brown, braided hair, sitting in a brown armchair and wearing her blue Royal Canadian Air Force uniform)

Sergeant Cindy Bergeron: I’m Sergeant Cindy Bergeron. I’m currently a 433 Squadron Supervisor, but, at the time of Op IMPACT, I was a Corporal and was part of the loading crew.

There’s the 20 mm that goes into the cannon at the front of the plane. There are missiles, which go at the wingtips, on the sides and beneath the plane. And, there are bombs. The missions were airborne for long periods of time, sometimes up to six or eight hours. They refuelled in the air, using tanker aircraft that carried gas for refuelling the F-18s. They left for six to eight hours at a time. They left maybe twice a day. So, it was pretty long for the pilots. And, as for us, well, before they could get airborne again, the planes had to be loaded up. They had to be unloaded, cleaned and repaired.

(The words “A legendary aircraft” appear on-screen)

Sergeant Cindy Bergeron: It was run by the Americans, so, of course, there were NATO and other meetings going over the missions, so we worked with them. They had A-10s over there on the tarmac and we had F-18s. I think the Americans were really the ones who went out the most… then the Canadians. The Danish, their F-16s, we heard their engines running all the time. The sound of an F-16 is really loud. But they didn’t go out a lot in the course of a day. But the F-18s and A-10s, we’re the ones who went out most. We observed the soldiers going about their jobs. You know, we’re in weapons so, we watched the A-10s, and the US weapons crews. We watched them. They don’t have the same weapons system as us on the A-10 so it was pretty interesting to watch them and to see how they worked. One time when I was in Afghanistan a plane arrived, riddled with bullets, but it still managed to fly. All that remained was the little pilot’s bubble. I think the pilot was a woman and she landed, no problem. She was safe and in one piece. It’s a pretty amazing plane. It can go anywhere; there are lots of weapons on it… yeah it’s impressive… like a tank that can fly… that’s basically what they said about it.

(The words “A bonding experience” appear on-screen)

Sergeant Cindy Bergeron: There really aren’t many of us women. On the mission over there, there weren’t many women technicians either. Including the 425th, there were four or five of us. But it wasn’t any more challenging than usual. We’re part of the group. The guys are used to working with us. They know us and they know what we can do. We’d already proven ourselves with our squadron on the base. So, the guys knew us. We were just buddies, work partners, one of the guys. It was more on the psychological side. When we came back… we’d seen all kinds of things and that experience changes a person. You spend 24 hours with your co-workers, so you develop special bonds. When we came back to the base, the people I’d been on Op IMPACT with, my God, things were special between us. We had something in common that the others didn’t.

MISSION IMPACT

Going outside the camp

For peace in the Middle East

High-risk flights

Armed sky patrol

Aerial ballet

Farewell to a brother in arms

Beyond improbable

The tank slayer