Canada’s Snowbirds perform final show in CT-114 Tutors before multi-year hiatus
The demonstration team will go on hiatus as Ottawa looks to replace the aged Canadair jets with new Pilatus PC-21 turboprops by 2030.
Canada’s air force aerobatic display team, the Snowbirds, have performed their final show flying Canadair CT-114 Tutors.
The 16 October display took place at the team’s home base of CFB Moose Jaw in Saskatchewan and was open to military personnel and their families and friends.
“Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, welcome to one last ride. Start them up,” lead pilot Major Maciej Hatta, bearing callsign “Snowbird 1”, intoned over the intercom from the flightline where the red-and-white Tutor jets were staged.
The turbojet engines of the nine primary display aircraft whined to life before the Tutors taxied away and took off for their farewell performance over the Canadian prairie.
Retirement leads to indefinite hiatus
The closing show of the team’s 2026 season is to be the Snowbirds last public display for the foreseeable future. The unit is set to go on what Canadian officials have described as a temporary hiatus, as Ottawa works to replace the CT-114s, which Canadair originally called CL-41s.
In May, Canadian defence minister David McGuinty announced the Swiss-made Pilatus PC-21 turboprop as the successor to the Snowbirds’ 21 CT-114s, which have been flying for more than 60 years and now face significant maintenance challenges.
The single-engine Tutor was Canada’s primary trainer jet from the 1960s until 2000. It has flown with the Snowbirds throughout the demonstration team’s 55-year history since forming in 1971. The jets had been scheduled to fly through the end of the decade, but rising sustainment costs and competing budget priorities pushed Ottawa to retire them early.
“There are some engineering challenges because of the age of the aircraft that have changed that situation, and this is why it will be retiring in 2027 instead of 2030,” RCAF commander Lieutenant General Jamie Speiser-Blanchet said in May.
The CT-114 Tutor fleet was experiencing significant maintenance challenges, particularly related to the engine and ejection system. Source: Royal Canadian Air Force
The Department of National Defence (DND) says the military faces parts-obsolescence issues with the jets’ GE Aerospace J85 turbojets, which have been out of production for decades. The DND says it has been cannibalising decommissioned engines to obtain spare parts that are no longer commercially available.
Safety concerns with the Tutor’s Weber CL-41 ejection seat were another factor.
In 2020, RCAF public affairs officer Captain Jenn Casey died when a Snowbirds CT-114 crashed in Kamloops, British Columbia. Engine failure resulting from a bird strike induced a stall shortly after take-off, leading the jet’s pilot to order an ejection from the side-by-side cockpit.
The low-altitude scenario was later found to be outside safe ejection parameters of the aged escape system, according to an investigation, with the parachutes not having enough time to function as designed.
Jet versus turboprop
The CT-114 grounding leaves the Snowbirds temporarily without a ride.
While Pilatus is already delivering PC-21s to the RCAF as part of the service’s sweeping trainer modernisation effort, Ottawa needs to reach a separate agreement covering aircraft for the Snowbirds.
“We’ll obtain them as quickly as we can,” McGuinty said in May.
The existing Future Aircrew Training (FAcT) programme covers 19 PC-21s, which the RCAF has designated the CT-157 Siskin II, for the intermediate trainer role. The first two examples were delivered to Canada in September.
The DND plans to separately acquire up to 17 PC-21s under the Snowbird Aircraft Replacement Project (SARP). Those aircraft are expected to enter service by 2030, according to McGuinty’s office.
Interestingly, just one month after McGuinty announced the PC-21 as the Snowbirds’ next aircraft, Ottawa separately opened negotiations with Italian aircraft manufacturer Leonardo to acquire M-346 jets as a lead-in trainer for pilots assigned to frontline fighter squadrons.
The RCAF is seeking a new advanced fighter trainer following the retirement of its BAE Systems CT-155 Hawks in 2024. Since then, Canadian new fighter pilots have been receiving their jet certification in the US and other NATO allies.
Canada already plans to field 19 PC-21s as an advanced flight trainer. The government says 17 more will be added to that order to recapitalise the Snowbirds demonstration team. Source: Royal Canadian Air Force
However, an M-346 deal has not yet been finalised. It appears that the combination of an active PC-21 procurement programme, lower acquisition and operating costs, earlier production slot availability and competing modernisation priorities led Ottawa to opt for the turboprop.
Speiser-Blanchet has defended that decision in the face of criticism that a turboprop will not be able to adequately replace a jet in the aerobatic stunt role.
“It is extremely manoeuvrable and capable and powerful, actually. More so than… other propeller aircraft from the past,” the RCAF commander said in September at the CT-157 delivery ceremony in Gatineau, Quebec.
Speiser-Blanchet acknowledges the Siskin II is both slower and less deafening than the Tutor but argues the turboprop will still “really wow Canadians”.
“It’s not a quiet aircraft,” she says.
Remembrances across Canada for retiring CT-114s
Although the country is looking to the future of both the Snowbirds and the RCAF more broadly, tributes to the venerable Tutor have been pouring in from around Canada.
Canadian aerospace company Top Aces, which uses privately owned fighter jets to drill Canadian and allied pilots on combat tactics, congratulated past and present Snowbirds members on “an incredible 55 years”.
“We look forward to welcoming you back to the skies in the years to come,” the Montreal-headquartered company said ahead of the 16 October final flights.
Rob Martin, a retired RCAF officer who flew with the Snowbirds, says the Tutor has been a “symbol of Canadian pride, precision and excellence” for more than five decades.
He attended the Snowbirds’ final US performance with th
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