DAVIDSON—Wanted to buy: one strip of flat land in the Davidson area to serve as the headquarters of the Saskatchewan Air Cadets’ flying and gliding program.
An ad similar to this is in the Leader Classifieds this week, placed by Gord McRae on behalf of the Saskatchewan Air Cadet League.
The Air Cadet League is looking at relocating their gliding and flying centres, currently located at Moose Jaw and North Battleford, to south central Saskatchewan at Davidson.
“Davidson is the choice of the Department of National Defence (DND) and the Air Cadets because it is central,” said McRae, who is a director of the Saskatchewan Air Cadet League. The Air Cadets have satellite locations at Prince Albert and Yorkton that will remain in their current location.
McRae said he and Wayne Morrison have been trying for about 15 years to get the air cadets motivated to centralize the gliding and flying program so they can “put the air back into air cadets”.
McRae said under the current situation, members of Saskatchewan’s 36 air cadet squadrons, hoping to soar, instead spend four to six hours riding buses to either Moose Jaw or to North Battleford. On some occasions, once they arrive they find the weather isn’t suitable for gliding. The dejected air cadets then have a long bus ride back home.
“What’s happening in Moose Jaw is NATO is doing more (flight) training on weekends (at 15 Wing Moose Jaw), so we get less flying time,” McRae said.
If the gliding program moves to Davidson cadets will spend less time on the road.
“Out of 36 squadrons at least 25 of them would be under three hours driving time to Davidson,” McRae said.
The relocation proposal needs support from the pilots who are based in Moose Jaw, Regina and Saskatoon. It also needs some land.
They hope a landowner will agree to sell a strip of land 200 feet wide and 5,000 feet long. They also need room at the end of the runway for a hangar.
The land needs to be flat, have road access, and ideally, would be within 5 miles of Highway 11. The airstrip would be seeded to grass.
McRae said the Air Cadet League would purchase the land and build a hangar to house four gliders, two airplanes and a winch truck.
“We’ve got to start some place,” McRae said. “It has to happen with the intention we can relocate it and it will be our strip, our land.”
He said having the gliding centre at Davidson would be good for the community and its businesses.