At noon Moose Jaw time today, Friday 16 October, nine red-and-white jets will taxi out at 15 Wing Moose Jaw for a show that has no paying crowd and no grandstand. It is the last “home closer” the Snowbirds will ever fly in the CT-114 Tutor, the little jet trainer that has carried Canada’s aerobatic team since 1971.
The performance is private, flown at the team’s home base, but the Royal Canadian Air Force is livestreaming it so the whole country can watch. In the words of the RCAF’s invitation, it is a chance to say “a heartfelt goodbye to the CT-114 Tutors.”
Informations clés
- Quoi: Final Snowbirds “home closer” in the CT-114 Tutor
- Quand: Friday 16 October 2026, livestream from noon Moose Jaw time (2 p.m. EDT)
- Où: 15 Wing Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan (private show)
- Watch: Facebook pages of the RCAF, the Canadian Armed Forces or the Canadian Forces Snowbirds
- Tutor in RCAF service: Since 1963; flown by the Snowbirds since 1971
- Last appearance: Grey Cup in Calgary, 15 November 2026
- Remplacement: CT-157 Siskin II (based on the Pilatus PC-21), demonstration capability expected in the early 2030s
The Last Lap of a Long Farewell
This is the end of a season-long goodbye. On 19 May, Defence Minister David McGuinty announced at 15 Wing that 2026 would be the Tutor’s final air show season. The team then set out on a farewell tour across North America.
The milestones came one after another. On 11 July, a sold-out public show at Moose Jaw Municipal Airport was the team’s last public hometown performance with the Tutor, and it also marked 55 years since the Snowbirds’ first official public show. The last public show in Canada was Aero Gatineau-Ottawa. The final shows in the United States were the Pacific Airshow at Huntington Beach on 3–4 October and the California Capital Airshow in Sacramento on 10–11 October.
A 1963 Trainer That Became a Star
The Canadair CT-114 Tutor entered RCAF service as a jet trainer in 1963. It was never designed as a display aircraft. It is small, slow by jet standards and seats its two crew side by side. Yet that modest size is exactly what made it perfect for close formation work in front of a crowd: nine jets could stay tight, low and in sight of the audience for an entire show.
For 55 years the team’s purpose has stayed the same. Snowbirds public affairs officer Capt. Philip Rochon described it at the July hometown show:
Today’s show also falls in the middle of the Snowbirds Alumni Association’s 55th Legacy Reunion, which runs from 15 to 18 October in Moose Jaw. Many of the pilots and technicians who flew and fixed the Tutors over the decades will be there to see the jets fly at home one last time.
One More Flypast, Then a Long Pause
Today is not quite the very last flight. The Tutors retire after the Snowbirds’ appearance at the Grey Cup in Calgary, scheduled for 15 November. As the team put it on social media in September: “But it’s not goodbye just yet.”
After that, Canada will be without its national jet team for several years. The government plans to buy the CT-157 Siskin II, based on the Pilatus PC-21, and the new demonstration capability is expected to be ready in the early 2030s. It will stay at 15 Wing Moose Jaw, as McGuinty promised. It will also be a turboprop, so today’s show closes more than five decades of Snowbirds jet noise over the Saskatchewan prairie.
The Snowbirds’ final public performance in the Tutor, filmed by AirshowStuffVideos.
Sources: National Defence advisory via MooseJawToday/Castanet; CTV News; Royal Canadian Air Force; Canadian Forces Snowbirds
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