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Air cadets celebrate 75 years in Nanaimo

Parade to take place Nanaimo Airport on Sunday (May 28)
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Air cadets march in the Nanaimo Heritage Days parade last Sunday on Commecial Street. (GREG SAKAKI/The News Bulletin)

For Nanaimo-based realtor Ken Welte, the air cadets program has been a part of his life for the better part of two decades.

“I was a cadet when I was a teenager and I did my time until I graduated from high school,” he said.

But that wouldn’t be the last of the Nanaimo Air Cadets for Welte. A few years later, following the completion of university, he returned to the program as an instructor, where he helped students learn the basics of flying.

“I was asked to come back in my mid-20s to help teaching the academics for what we call the flying scholarship, which is the foundation towards getting your pilot’s licenc…” he said. “I helped out with familiarization flying. I would take cadets up for their first flight and all that stuff.”

Today, Welte is a key volunteer for the Nanaimo Air Cadets program.

“Right now I am what is called a civilian instructor, so I am contracted by cadets to come in and help with certain specialities and my speciality is obviously aviation,” he said.

On Sunday (May 28), the Nanaimo Air Cadets will celebrate their 75th anniversary with a ceremony and parade at the Nanaimo Airport at 12:30 p.m. The event will feature members of CFB Comox’s 19 Wing, who will be bringing along Lockheed CP-140 Aurora and CC-115 Buffalo aircraft and a CH-124 Sea King helicopter.

“It’s spectacular,” Welte said. “It’s going to be a mini airshow. The Buffalo is going to do a mini fly-by for us.”

Nanaimo Air Cadets was formed in 1942. The program was designed as a way to build a reserve force of aviation during the Second World War.

“The core of cadets has always been around aviation,” Welte said. “It was created to create a reserve pool of people trained in aviation for the invasion of D-Day. Our squadron started to get young men interested in aviation so that there was another reserve pool to go into the military.”

However, the emphasis today isn’t on joining the military. Instead, students learn about leadership, citizenship and survival skills, which are tested during annual camping trips.

“It’s a youth leadership program that is heavy on the leadership, our 16- and 17-year-old cadets are responsible enough that in an emergency situation you can task a cadet with something do and they will take it care of it,” he said. “We encourage them to volunteer in the community and we encourage them to develop a skill.”

Of course, cadets still offers those interested in flying or a career in aviation the opportunity to learn about aeronautics and obtain their pilot’s licence. Welte said few air cadets actually go into the military anymore and that those cadets who obtain their licence, only half go on to have careers in aviation, either in civilian or military settings.

“There isn’t a requirement for cadets to go on to the military, it is simply a youth program promoting leadership and physical fitness and citizenship,” Welte said. “That being said, what is the military looking for? All those things. But then again, that is what any employer looking for.”

Cadets takes place on Thursday nights at 6 p.m. from September to May at the Nanaimo Military Camp. The program available to anyone between the ages of 12 and 19 and that students can join at any time.

nicholas.pescod@nanaimobulletin.com