The UK Royal Air Force is withdrawing from a vast training range in Canada next year, ending a 50-year relationship with the base at Goose Bay, Labrador, writes Brian Dunn.
The RAF's departure, announced a year after the German and Dutch air forces also chose to pull out of Goose Bay, has prompted a local mayor to seek a major reform of the Canadian military's fee system for using the base.
Mayor Leo Abbass, of Goose Bay, has asked Canadian military officials to put a new system in place whereby the RAF and other NATO allies would pay as they go to use the range.
Current users now pay a yearly fee even though they may only use the facility for a few weeks at a time.
Abbass hopes the new system would not only encourage the RAF to return, but also entice other countries to use the base with its 130,000km2 (81,000 miles2) of airspace and ground infrastructure worth millions of dollars.
Source: Flight International
