One of the nicest part of visiting CFB Borden for their open house, is the base is very much like a large park with lost of open space and trees. While driving through the base you will find many gate guardians popping up from tanks and artillery pieces to planes and ship anchors. And if you are not quick enough you will slow down to see a MP car parked at the edge of the main road on the base and as you pass it you realize it is up on blocks as a gate guardian.

  CFB Borden is Canada’s largest training base and many of the trades’ from these schools were on display. Every year that the open house is done, they come up with something unique to display the talents of the base. From rides in APC’s a few years ago to a FOB (Forward Operating Base) set up showing what it would be like in places like Afghanistan.

  One of the biggest draws for the kids and adults was the Kiddy Commando Obstacle Course. The course was set up by the Army and the covered over a half acre of fun. The participants were put through the paces and if they were falling behind, they fired upon by super soakers, water balloons and push-ups.

  There were formations from the ground to sky through out the day. The Royal Canadian Mounted Police Musical Ride started the day providing the mastery of horsemanship and precision riding.  They were followed by the formation of free fall flight of the SkyHawks and the day ended with the close formation aerobatics of the Snowbirds.

  To celebrate the 50^th anniversary of the first flight of the Avro Arrow they had a 8 foot long scaled RC model flying before the show. The commentator made a remark that this airplane has flown 56 times without incident and shortly after the comment, the plane hit a wind shear and crashed.

  The airshow was airbossed by no stranger to formation flight Lyle Holbrook, a former Snowbird pilot. With ever changing weather on the Sunday, thunder heads passing to the north and west of the airfield and showers to the east. Lyle brought his skill and commanded to skies Gene Soucy and Teresa Stokes, Canadians Pete McLeod in his Giles G-200 and Manfred Radius in his Salto glider. Kent Beckham flew the Vintage Wings Spitfire through the skies of Borden and Dave Hadfield, brother to Canadian astronaut Chris, flew another Vintage Wings planes, the de Havilland Tigermoth. Borden is also known as 16 Wing and is the home for the 400 Squadron and the CH-146 Griffon, of which took part in the show as a camera platform and showed off it versatility. And for the noise wow factor, Captain William “Billy” Mitchell came screaming in from behind the crowd and set up to do his show in the CF-18 Hornet. Creating history in Canadian airshows, Captain Mitchell was joined in formation flight with a second Hornet at the end of his routine. The second ship was piloted by his wife Kareem, making it the first husband and wife CF-18 demonstration team. The weather pattern did change near the end of the show with a rain storm coming right through the airshow box, leaving the Snowbirds to hold off there portion of the show. With the rain gone, but low clouds remaining the S’birds perform several low level tight formation flying.