83 stand at the fence for hours in hopes of seeing one land or take off; changing scenery, he would scamper across the surrounding fields to hang on the fence at Dorval watching commercial airliners land and take flight. When a flight of three B-25 Mitchells overflew his house during a particular air defence exercise while cold-war contrails from B-36s and the like were marking the sky overhead, he was hooked: Tom joined the RCAF Reserve. It was 1956 and he was at the ripe old age of seventeen. Signed onto the RCAF Reserve at 3001 Technical Training Unit as an aero-engine technician, he was instructed on the Goblin engine which powered the DeHavilland Vampire. After one summer there, he transferred to 401 (City of Westmount) Squadron which saw much of his time spent out at RCAF Station St. Hubert where it was retiring the Vampire and introducing the Sabre. TOM: I remember thinking that the barostat on the Goblin (precursor to the modern fuel control unit) was complicated. Did I have a lot to learn! Although I enjoyed mathematics, history, and physics, it was obvious I wasn’t going to finish high school, and I’m sure my parents breathed a sigh of relief when I joined the air force full-time. Enlisting in the RCAF permanent force in February 1957, Tom first went to St. Jean, Quebec for basic training, and then to Camp Borden, Ontario, for engine technical training before being posted to Claresholm, Alberta, in December 1957 for maintenance of Harvard aircraft. When the Training Command base at Claresholm closed in the summer of 1959, Tom was among those slated for the Avro Arrow course; however, because that program was
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