The New Normal: Victoria-born Canadian fighter pilot spending Christmas deployed in Romania

Being away from our families will be tough for many of us this Christmas, but one Victoria-born fighter pilot isn’t just across town, he’s on the other side of the world.

In this episode of The New Normal, Stacy Ross speaks with Lt.-Col. David McLeod, commander of the Royal Canadian Air Force, is currently deployed at the Mihail Kogalniceanu Air Base in Romania, where he will be spending his first Christmas away from home.

“Deployments can be tough on the members and the families at the best of times. This year has been particularly challenging and I am exceptionally proud of the team here and everybody that is supporting us back home,” he told CHEK News.

McLeod explained that 150 members and six CF-18 fighter jets are stationed at the base, which is located north of the Romanian city of Constan?a — near the Black Sea and about 226-kilometres east of Bucharest. He said the RCAF members are conducting air patrol missions for NATO and doing bilateral training with the Romanian and Hungarian air forces.

“[It is] kind of like what we do at home, where we hold aircraft on alert just in case there are any problems, any aircraft that are unidentified that come into the airspace,” McLeod said. “We do something very similar here with NATO, so we work closely with Romania and other NATO allies in the region.”

“Really, just responding to aircraft that are not following the rules that are coming into the airspace here,” he added.

Watch the full interview in the video above.

Lt.-Col. David McLeod, commander of the Royal Canadian Air Force, is currently deployed at the Mihail Kogalniceanu Air Base in Romania, where he will be spending Christmas. (Google Earth)

McLeod, above, who was born in Victoria but lives in Quebec with his wife and two children, says being away from home is tough but his kids are tough and resilient (Photo contributed).

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