Talk:CFB North Bay/Archive 1

North Bay/Jack Garland Airport/CFB North Bay
Are these two close enough to be merged? I don't know enough about them to say. CambridgeBayWeather 16:05, 27 September 2005 (UTC)

No, the two are unrelated, although this was not always the case. Originally, the airfield was part of the base, however, after the cuts to CFB North Bay, the airfield ownership reverted to the City of North Bay. The two are geographically close, however, there are no CFB North Bay opperations taking place at the airfield which now operates solely as a civilian airfield. Hope that clears things up a bit. -Hauger 00:07 8 May 2006 (UTC)

Whoever wrote the information regarding Tudhope and the airfields, can you provide links or further information, especially regarding Diver? I used to go to the McConnell Lake area as a kid and knew Diver was an old air field, but there's absolutely no information regarding it.

Thanks. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.254.189.157 (talk) 03:15, 13 July 2009 (UTC)

WP:OR by User talk:22wingheritageoffice
You cannot use yourself as a reference. References must be reliable and verifiable, and should be properly cited. Anything else is considered WP:Original research, and under Wikipedia policy, must be deleted immediately. Your recent additions are still unreferenced, as you have merely cited yourself as a reference - print references such as books, journals and newspaper articles require the format AUTHOR – DATE – TITLE – PUBLISHER – PAGE – ISBN NUMBER, while online sources require a URL, Title, Author and Date (while noting that the source must still be WP:RS), all placed at the bottom of the article in a reference list, using the template. WP:Inline citations are preferred, so that each sentence can be verified by a footnote linking to a reference (through the use of the tag). A source is only WP:V if it is written in the proper format, so that others are able to verify it. Also consider learning to use WikiSyntax when writing articles, and ensuring that you are able to properly use templates. Additionally, it can be argued that you have a conflict of interest with the given article; Wikipedia prohibits users from editing articles that may have a direct relation with the individual person; given by your username, "22wingheritageoffice", which appears to show that this account is being used by an office of an establishment, such editing may be in violation with WP:COI. Also note that you cannot WP:OWN articles; if your edits have been reverted, there is most possibly a reason for it. --  李博杰   | —Talk contribs email 04:31, 9 September 2009 (UTC)

Note About The Above
The response was sent by Benlisquare after he was reamed by the 22 Wing Heritage Officer for allowing an unsubstantiated, uncited page to be created about CFB North Bay that was rife with mistakes, written by people who (a) were not from the base and (b) had made no effort to contact the base for information. The irony of his rant is that he upbraids the 22 Wing Heritage Officer for improper references, no citations, etc., when he, himself, let the page go without any references, citations, etc., and without checking the accuracy of the document. Twit. 22WHERO (talk) 15:16, 8 December 2011 (UTC)

RCAF may help me
Hi, I noticed this is an active article and you may be able to help one I am working on. I am looking for a better version of a video that the RCAF may have or be able to get copies of. You can see the video here: The luckiest man in Iraq. I can dub the sound in that I have, unless a copy exists with an original military soundtrack. Thanks in advance, V/r --Canoe1967 (talk) 20:41, 19 June 2012 (UTC)

Shortening the article
This article seems to be exceeding its scope a bit with all the interesting stuff packed into it now. It seems some of the information might be better placed in other articles, which this article could then link to. These would be information about things with greater significance that go beyond the base. For example (and there are no doubt more if one looks closer):


 * In the "Pre-Second World War" section, the details about the trans-Canada flight would probably be more at home in History of aviation in Canada; the war exploits of the pilots don't need to be here; the information about DND and Tudhope might be better placed in History of the Royal Canadian Air Force and/or Military history of Canada if it's not already there.
 * In the "RCAF Station North Bay" section, the exposition about Canada's geopolitical situation probably has been elaborated elsewhere already. And if not, seems like something that might go into North American Aerospace Defense Command or Canada in the Cold War.

Adding more links to other articles in general would go some way in reducing the amount of detail needed here. For example, in the "Fighter Squadrons" section in the paragraph starting with "North Bay's next fighter unit, 445 Squadron, was the first in the world armed with the Avro CF-100 Canuck interceptor", just linking to the CF-100 article would allow the elimination of the rest of the paragraph.

Something else that might be done is to tighten up the writing. For example in the "Pre-Second World War":

"They arrived without warning, approaching out of the east, catching residents unaware. Few had seen an airplane before; the effect was electrifying, akin to the Space Shuttle appearing suddenly over the city today."

would be better as

"They arrived without warning from the east and caused a sensation; few residents had seen an airplane before." - RovingPersonalityConstruct (talk, contribs) 08:04, 13 January 2013 (UTC)

Recent edits
Bearing in mind that Wikipedia is, at times, subject to a "too many cooks" syndrome, a recent effort has been made to edit the article to more closely follow the MOS (Manual of Style) in use by the Aircraft Projects Group. To allay any fears, the editor is an Air Force Historian and currently the editor of the online "History Newsreel" of the Canadian Aviation Historical Society and is also a published author, former reference librarian and currently the Chair of the board of a public library system. Every effort will be made to preserve "the author's voice" while realigning some of the issues necessitated by following bibliographic protocols. FWiW Bzuk (talk) 19:05, 10 May 2013 (UTC)

This needs serious trimming
Major parts of the article are unsourced and the ones that are use material which I'm not sure is easily (or at all) available to civilians. In fact, note 2 states that "referenced documents cited in this and following sections are from the air base's archives and active files, which have file numbers, publication numbers and registration numbers that may be unfamiliar to those without a military background, although the information's accuracy is assured."

I've stumbled upon this article after seeing [//en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:Plasma_east&diff=533229452&oldid=527077251 a message on a user's talk page] posted by 22WHERO, who was a major contributor to this article. It contains stuff like "While we (the base) appreciate your interest in our page we request that you contact me [..] before attempting more edits" which rather sounds like intimidation to me.

The article contains bits like "North Bay was rattled like a jar of pennies by an earthquake" and "With nuclear extermination hanging over the continent, liable to spring at any instant, there was no room in the Cold War NORAD for anything less than the best trained, most able personnel."

I'm not going to touch it because 1) I have no clue what it's talking about; 2) I'm not comfortable with the subject and 3) I'd need a week full-time to do something that makes sense.pm (talk) 04:21, 7 July 2013 (UTC)
 * I've just tagged this OR, primary and refimprove, although I have a feeling they won't stay up long.pm (talk) 02:21, 8 July 2013 (UTC)
 * I don't think the article level tags are necessarily required in this article. I think using in-line tags or section level tags to note specific areas where you've got concerns plus listing those concerns here may help get your concerns addressed.
 * On your initial comment in this section with your concerns about verifiability, it's a concern but I think it still meets WP:SOURCEACCESS if an editor is able to access or request those sources. 22WHERO, are those files (and I'm assuming this is referencing the base historical files) available to civilians in some manner?  Regretfully, the statement in the article that "accuracy is assured" is NOT enough to meet the verification requirement.  It's not that we don't trust you, it's that we can't trust any editor to say "The information is right ... trust me!".  Ravensfire ( talk ) 16:54, 9 July 2013 (UTC)

Tightening the lead
The lead can due with some tightening to reduce the length, improve readability and better follow WP:MOSBEGIN. To start, the main article title should be in the first sentence if at all possible. There's no reason for that not to be possible here. Articles on geographic locations usually have information about where the subject is in the opening paragraph, laying out this is what the article is about and where it's located. Next would be the importance of the location and summary of the article. Here's what I would propose


 * Canadian Forces Base North Bay, also CFB North Bay, is an air force base located at the City of North Bay, Ontarioabout 350 km north of Toronto. It is the centre for North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) operations in Canada, under the Canadian NORAD Region Headquarters, in Winnipeg. The base is subordinate to 1 Canadian Air Division, Winnipeg, Manitoba and is also home to the  1 Air Force, Detachment 2 of the United States Air Force


 * The Royal Canadian Air Force Station North Bay was established in 1951 despite North Bay's civilian airport being used by the Canadian Air Force and the Royal Air Force during World War II. In 1959, construction on a large undergound complex that would be used for the next 40 years to manage air defence operations.  In 1966, the base was renamed Canadian Forces Base North Bay as part of an effort to merge Canadian armed forces into a single entity.  In 1993, all air bases in Canada were designated as wings so the name was changed to 22 Wing/Canadian Forces Base North Bay, or simply "22 Wing".


 * North Bay's air force base is the centre for the air defence of the entire country, and works in concert with the United States via NORAD for the air defence of Canada-U.S. portion of the North American continent. Activities are wide ranging, from identifying and monitoring all aircraft entering Canada from overseas, to guarding VIPs flying in the country (e.g., the Pope), to assisting aircraft suffering airborne emergencies, to aiding law enforcement versus smugglers, to participating in NORAD's Christmas Eve Tracking of Santa Claus for children. From the mid-1970s to the mid-1990s it took in Unidentified Flying Object reports from across the country on behalf of the National Research Council of Canada, relaying the reports to a study at the Herzberg Institute of Astrophysics, British Columbia. In 2000, it resumed UFO reporting, provided to researcher Chris Rutkowski at the University of Manitoba.


 * In 2010, North Bay's operations centre took the first steps towards transitioning from air to aerospace defence, commencing preparations for SAPPHIRE, Canada's first military satellite. SAPPHIRE will function as a contributing sensor in the United States Space Surveillance Network (SSN), performing surveillance of objects orbiting at 6,000 to 40,000 kilometres altitude, and delivering data on those objects (called Resident Space Objects, or RSOs) to the Space Surveillance Operations Centre (SSOC), in North Bay's operations centre. The SSOC, in turn, will coordinate with the Joint Space Operations Center, in Vandenberg, California.  On 25 February 2013, SAPPHIRE was launched from a site in India, and is undergoing technical testing and checks, expected to begin its duties in July 2013.
 * 22 Wing/CFB North Bay has two unique properties among air bases in Canada. It is the only Canadian air base that does not have flying units (as of August 1992, when the last flying squadron departed), and the only air base in the country that does not have an airfield (base assets such as control tower, fuel depot and hangars were demolished or sold following the 1992 departure).


 * It is also home to one of the most unusual military installations in North America, the NORAD Underground Complex, a bunker the size of a shopping centre, 60 storeys beneath the surface of the Earth. Begun in 1959, this bunker was the center of air defence operations for the base and provided protection from nuclear attack.  While no longer actively used, the bunker is kept in "warm storage" and various alternative uses have been proposed.

To be honest, I'm not really happy with the overall flow and there's details that can (and should) be moved into the main article. It's something to start with that might spark some ideas. Ravensfire ( talk ) 18:54, 9 July 2013 (UTC)

Improving the article focus
While going through the article as I was working on the lead, I kept coming across paragraphs that were quite informative but really not related to this article. Some of these paragraphs should be moved to other articles.
 * Pre-Second World War - probably should be moved to the North Bay article or an article on the history of flight in the area. A brief summary might be included here, but I'm not totally sold on that.  From what I can tell from the article, the early runway seems have been incorporated into the base
 * Second World War - again, move and condense. In particular, the paragraphs about the the ferrying aircraft experiment are not directly related to this article.  Likewise on the training - see British Commonwealth Air Training Plan and List of British Commonwealth Air Training Plan facilities in Canada, although the latter doesn't list North Bay and we'd need a WP:RS source to include North Bay in that list.
 * RCAF Station North Bay - too much time on the Cold War background, just link to the Cold War article
 * Fighter squadrons - Can remove the blurb about the Avro Arrow, sorry but it's just not relevant here. Likewise, we can replace the details of TACAN with a link to the article.

I'll stop here, as similar comments apply to the other sections. We want this article to be focused on CFB North Bay as much as possible. We don't want to NOT mention other things (like TACAN) but when possible, it's a mention with a wikilink so the interested reader can explore. If needed, include some explanation/details but the goal is to keep it brief. Focus on how that CFB North Base is involved/uses/relates to that other topic. Ravensfire ( talk ) 19:35, 9 July 2013 (UTC)

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External links modified
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