NORTH BAY — It’s not even the middle of December, but one flight crew in the Sgt. David L. Pitcher Building at CFB North Bay is preparing for arguably the most important mission of the year.
The 21 Aerospace Control and Warning Squadron is training for Dec. 24, when they will play a critical role in assisting and escorting Santa Claus across Canadian airspace.
Canadian and American members of NORAD have been tracking Santa’s Journey for the past 69 years from various locations in both countries.
This year, the NORAD techs on duty will be tasked to locate and track Santa on Dec. 24 using radars, satellites and infrared sensors. Once he is located within Canadian airspace, Santa will be escorted by RCAF CF-188 Hornet aircraft from both 3 Wing Bagotville, Que., and 4 Wing Cold Lake, Alta.
Cpl. Colby Ramson, who grew up in Wasaga Beach, first experienced the major significance of this mission in 2018 when working at CFB Cold Lake where fighters are scrambled to escort Santa Claus through western Canada.
"I did not ever work over Christmas, but I do have friends who worked in the control tower over Christmas, and they were able to control the pilots as they departed Cold Lake to head north as they escort Santa Claus throughout Canada," he said. "And they all, they all loved it. The pilots, especially coming back from being able to say hi to Santa Claus. They all thought it was fantastic at such a great time, one of the highlights of their year."
Now, in 2024, Ramson will be part of the crew at the NORAD facility at CFB North Bay that will be tracking Santa.
Ramson says it is a complicated process because Santa Claus never files a flight plan.
"Every single aircraft within Canada does have to file a flight plan, and Santa Claus is a bit of a special exception," said Ramson.
"I think, in part because it would be a lot of work for him to file flight plans for every country around the world. But we have a system of radar called the North Warning System along Canada's northern areas that covers the entire Arctic. That's the system that initially detects his departure from the North Pole, and there's generally not a whole lot of air traffic up at the North Pole, so we have a pretty good idea that it's him. As soon as we detect the departure, we transition to tracking him through our satellites, and Rudolph's nose has a pretty distinct heat signature, so we have a good idea that it's him, but we can't be 100 per cent certain because he doesn't have a flight plan until we visually identify him. And that's one of the main reasons that we send up our pilots in the fighter jets to go greet him and say 'hi'. It's just to be100 per cent certain that is Santa Claus."
Ramson says their crew is excited about working on December 24.
"This will be our first time tracking Santa," said Ramson.
"So there's almost an aura of anticipation, I would say, in that we all know what's coming, and we're all super excited for this to happen. We're just kind of sitting on the edge of our seats looking at our radar scope so we can be the first one to see Santa."
This is not a new mission for NORAD as they have been tracking Santa since way back in 1955.
Anyone interested in tracking Santa’s journey on Christmas Eve can do so by going to the NORAD website.
