Canadian Forces Base Cold Lake , abbreviated as CFB Cold Lake, is a Canadian Forces Base in the City of Cold Lake, Alberta.
The facility is operated as an air force base by the Royal Canadian Air Force (RCAF) and is approximately south of the Cold Lake Air Weapons Range (CLAWR), which is used as practicing grounds by CFB Cold Lake's fighter pilots. The base is one of two in the country housing the CF-18 Hornet fighter, the other being CFB Bagotville. The base's primary RCAF lodger unit is 4 Wing, commonly referred to as 4 Wing Cold Lake.
Civilian passenger service was available through the Medley passenger terminal on the air base. The regularly scheduled air service between Calgary and the civilian terminal was cancelled in June 2011. Unscheduled civilian air traffic is usually directed to Cold Lake Regional Airport.
The facility is named Cold Lake/Group Captain R.W. McNair Airport. It is one of only three military aerodromes in Canada to be named after an individual, Valcartier (W/C J.H.L. (Joe) Lecomte) Heliport and Moose Jaw/Air Vice Marshal C.M. McEwen Airport being the others.
The airport is classified as an airport of entry by Nav Canada and is staffed by the Canada Border Services Agency; however, its use by international flights is currently restricted to military aircraft and personnel.
History
Construction of what would become known as RCAF Station Cold Lake began in 1952 at the height of the Cold War after a nearby site in Alberta's "Lakeland District" was chosen by the RCAF for the country's premier air weapons training base. The chosen location for the base was west of the former Town of Grand Centre (now part of the City of Cold Lake), and was based on factors such as low population density, accessibility, weather, suitable terrain, and nearby available land for air weapons training. Although the location of the range attempted to avoid First Nations reserves, it "encompassed traditional Aboriginal and treaty areas and the First Nations affected by the creation of the CLAWR were eventually compensated."
Personnel arrived at Cold Lake on March 31, 1954, with operations at RCAF Station Cold Lake beginning that day. The following year, the federal government signed an agreement with the provinces of Saskatchewan and Alberta for use of a tract of land measuring 180 km by 65 km covering an area of 11,700 square kilometres. This became known as the CLAWR and is the for the location of the base.
CLAWR is the northern equivalent to the United States Air Force's (USAF) Nellis Air Force Range and provides a different training environment with heavy boreal forest and numerous lakes more closely resembling European terrain. It hosts over 640 actual targets and 100 realistic target complexes, including 7 simulated aerodromes with runways, tarmac, aircraft, dispersal areas and buildings, as well as mechanized military equipment such as tanks, simulated radar and missile launching sites, mock industrial sites, and command and control centres.
Operations in the 1950s and early 1960s centred around training crews destined for the CF-100 Canuck all-weather interceptor, which was in operational use in Canada and Western Europe. From 1962 onwards, the arrival of the CF-104 Starfighter resulted in a change of task to the training pilots for Canada's NATO commitment in West Germany, which continued until the arrival of the CF-18 Hornet in 1982. Since then, the base has been the training focal point for this aircraft, in addition to operational squadrons being located here.
On February 1, 1968, the RCAF was merged with the Royal Canadian Navy and Canadian Army to form the unified Canadian Forces. RCAF Station Cold Lake saw its name changed to CFB Cold Lake and became the responsibility of Air Defence Command. ADC and several other CF commands transformed in 1975 to become Air Command (AIRCOM).