Fighters

 As mentioned yesterday, Canadian servicemen who were posted in Europe during the Cold War could bring their families along. It became a four year stay- quite a way to grow up for the kids. Artifacts and photographs speak to that time.

The F-86 Sabre was part of the RCAF fighter deployment in the early years of the Cold War.

The Warsaw Pact had its own counterpart, part of the collection here now. The WSK Lim-2, also known as the MiG-15, was the Soviet fighter of those early years. MiGs would in the decades to follow be in heavy use throughout the East Bloc.

They were years of perpetual tension. The RCAF, as part of NATO commitments, had to be ready for anything.

Canadian companies were making war planes going back decades, but this is the only fully designed in Canada line of fighter jet to have served. The Avro Canada company created the CF-100 at their factories, well chosen for the vast and inhospitable Canadian landscape.