Residents of the Comox Valley and qathet regions can see military aircraft perform night training this week.
In a social media post, Captain Bradley Little says that 19 Wing Comox is doing night training over the Texada range to make sure Search and Rescue Crews from the Royal Canadian Air Force can do night rescues safely.
The range is located over the water between Comox, Hornby, Lasqueti and Texada Islands.
CC295 Kingfisher pilot, Captain Greg Harris, says while they’ve always done night training, the volume of training they’re now doing is much larger than it was in the past.
“That’s due to the fact that the Air Force brought a new aircraft for Search and Rescue online and the actual school for that aircraft is based in Comox,” said Harris.
“All the courses for the pilots, sensor operators, tactical coordinators and maintainers are now in Comox. Not only do we have operational crews trying to stay current with doing night operations, but we also have all the students in the school knowing how to do these operations.”
Harris says during this training, residents will see smoke in the water dropped from the airplane, as well as flares dropped from 3,000 feet and above. The flares will burn for 5 minutes and each exercise will run between one and three hours.
The training started Monday night and will continue until Thursday, running between 8:00 p.m. and 2:00 a.m. each night.
*With files from Hussam Elghussein*
