Moose Jaw and the Golden Centennaires’ leftovers

The Snowbirds grew out of CFB Moose Jaw in Saskatchewan, where the base commander, Colonel O.B. Philp, a former leader of the Golden Centennaires, pushed from 1969 for a new demonstration team using Tutors left over from that 1967 centennial team. The name came from a contest at a local elementary school and was adopted in June 1971; the first show under it was flown at the Moose Jaw Homecoming ’71 air show on 11 July 1971. The team stood in a tradition of Canadian military display flying going back to the RCAF Siskins of 1929 and the Golden Hawks.

One aircraft for 55 years

Unusually among the major teams, the Snowbirds have never changed aircraft. The Canadair CT-114 Tutor, a side-by-side jet trainer that first flew in 1960 and entered RCAF service in 1963, served as the primary jet trainer until 2000 and has been kept on purely for the team ever since. The unit was given squadron status on 1 April 1978 as 431 Air Demonstration Squadron, reviving the number of a Second World War bomber squadron. The team operates eleven Tutors, nine in the display and two spares.

A nine-ship show, close to the crowd

The display is built around a nine-aircraft formation flown close to the crowd line, with formation changes, opposing solo passes and large set pieces; red smoke was added to the routine for major shows from 1990. The team flew its 1,000th official show at CFB Edmonton on 20 May 1990, performed in the United States from its first season (Arizona, November 1971) and toured Mexico in 1993. The RCAF Association credits it with close to 2,900 official shows by 2026.

Losses and the Tutor’s age

The team has paid a heavy price for close formation in a light, ageing jet. Military investigations have attributed fatal accidents to midair collisions (1972, 1989, 1998, 2004), a stabiliser failure (1978), a harness malfunction (2007) and pilot error (2008). On 17 May 2020, during the Operation Inspiration tour, a Tutor ingested a bird on take-off at Kamloops; Captain Jennifer Casey was killed and the pilot was injured, and the investigation also examined the ejection seat sequence. An October 2019 crash near Atlanta was traced to a fuel delivery failure.

The 2026 farewell

On 19 May 2026 Defence Minister David McGuinty announced that the 55th anniversary season would be the team’s last on the Tutor and that the Snowbirds would be grounded afterwards, with the Tutor retiring in 2027 because of engine and escape-system engineering concerns. The team name is to be kept, and a new display team on the CT-157 Siskin II, the Pilatus PC-21 turboprop being bought for RCAF pilot training, is expected in the early 2030s.