For 55 years, the red-and-white Tutors of 431 Air Demonstration Squadron have been as much a part of Moose Jaw as the prairie horizon. On Friday, Oct. 16, that chapter closes. The Canadian Forces Snowbirds will stage their season-ending home closer at 15 Wing Moose Jaw, a performance the Royal Canadian Air Force is promoting as a farewell to the CT-114 Tutor — the aircraft the team has flown since it was formed in 1971.
The home closer is, by tradition, a private affair. It is held at the Snowbirds' home base for the families, friends and alumni of the squadron, a way of thanking the people who support the team through a long flying season that runs from May to October. This year, though, the RCAF is throwing the gates open virtually. The airshow, scheduled for noon, will be livestreamed on the Facebook pages of the Royal Canadian Air Force, the Canadian Armed Forces and the Canadian Forces Snowbirds, so that anyone with an internet connection can watch the Tutors fly one of their last formations together.
The Tutor's story is inseparable from the team's. The Canadair CT-114 Tutor first entered service with the RCAF as a jet trainer in 1963, a Canadian-built machine designed to bring new pilots up to speed. Eight years later, in 1971, it was pressed into a very different role: the mount of Canada's new military aerobatic team. The Snowbirds' first public performance came on July 11, 1971, in Moose Jaw, and the occasion was, by all accounts, a sensation. Nearly 60,000 people descended on the city, jamming highways 1 and 2, and organizers ran out of food by 11 a.m. Nobody had expected a crowd like that.
Over the decades that followed, the Tutor became one of the most recognizable aircraft in Canadian aviation. Its distinctive red-and-white paint scheme and the team's precision formation flying made it a fixture at airshows and community events across North America. The Snowbirds have performed nearly 2,900 official shows, with another 1,000 fly-bys, and have regularly flown overseas as ambassadors of the Canadian Armed Forces.
The decision to retire the Tutor did not come easily. On May 19, 2026, the Department of National Defence announced that the Snowbirds would be grounded after the 2026 season, with the fleet replaced by the CT-157 Siskin II — the Canadian designation for the Pilatus PC-21 — a turboprop trainer that will serve both pilot training and the future air demonstration role. The announcement was made at 15 Wing Moose Jaw alongside Lieutenant-General Jamie Speiser-Blanchet, Commander of the RCAF. The new capability will also be based at 15 Wing and is expected to be operational in the early 2030s, meaning a pause of roughly five years before the team flies again.
The grounding was driven by engineering realities. The Tutor's airframes, engines and escape systems had reached a point where, according to a DND statement, further life-extension work was "no longer technically feasible or practical." That conclusion came despite a $31.2 million modernization program over five years, and a 2019 RCAF assessment that had judged the airframes and engines viable. Defence Minister David McGuinty, visiting 15 Wing to explain the decision, framed it as both a preservation of tradition and a preparation for the future, calling the move to the PC-21 "one of the most significant investments in military aviation training in history."
Not everyone accepted the pause quietly. A grassroots "Keep Them Flying" campaign gathered more than 25,000 postcards to Parliament Hill, urging the federal government to keep the team operating through the transition. The pushback reflects how deeply the Snowbirds are woven into the identity of their home city — and how much the sight of nine Tutors in formation means to the people who have watched them for generations.
That attachment was on full display earlier this season. On July 11 and 12, the Snowbirds staged what was billed as their final hometown show, a drive-in style event at the Moose Jaw Municipal Airport. Tickets — 2,000 seats — sold out in 18 minutes, a record that stunned organizers. "We were just blown away," said Roger Blager, president of the Moose Jaw Flying Club. "I was surprised that the website didn't crash." The date was no accident: July 11 marked the exact 55th anniversary of the team's first public performance. The Canadian Forces SkyHawks parachute team opened the show before the Snowbirds took the sky at 1 p.m. Among the crowd was Harry Chapin, a retired pilot who flew the No. 7 jet with the team from 1974 to '76 and had not seen them perform in years. "Awesome," he said afterward. "It just gave me goosebumps all over. It brought tears to my eyes." He described the Tutor as "the nicest sports car you've ever wanted to fly in or drive."
Another attendee, Gordon Stopanski of Regina, had been present at the very first show in 1971, when he was commanding officer of a cadet squadron from Indian Head. "That first year was absolutely wild," he recalled. Saturday's event, the 2,889th show in the team's history, carried a weight that the numbers alone could not capture.
Now the season moves toward its end. The Snowbirds' 2026 schedule lists 24 confirmed appearances between May and October, spanning six Canadian provinces and three U.S. states. The final aerobatic performances are set for Sacramento, California, on Oct. 10 and 11, with a non-aerobatic appearance at the Grey Cup in Calgary on Nov. 15. The Oct. 16 home closer at 15 Wing Moose Jaw is the team's farewell to the aircraft at the base where it all began — a last chance to see the Tutors in their home sky before the fleet is retired and the team goes dark for the better part of a decade.
For the people of Moose Jaw, and for the aviation enthusiasts across the country who will be watching the livestream, the performance is more than a season finale. It is the closing of a 55-year run, flown in an aircraft that became a Canadian icon. The Tutors will fly again in the hands of a new generation, in a new airframe, in the 2030s. But they will not fly like this again.