The Landing Aids Update Program (LAUP) occurred when the Canadian Air Force updated the Quadradar and the Precision Approach Radar (PAR) in the period of 1977 to 1980 approximately.
Two AirTCon personnel, CWO Alex "Mac" MacDougal and myself MWO JV Gray were selected and posted to Aerospace Maintenance Development Unit in Trenton, ON under NDQH DGCEEM/DEEM 3-7. We were the FIRST Air Traffic Control Personnel ever to be posted to AMDU (or if you are old fashioned - 6RD). Our left and right hands were Sgt Ross Hartwell and Sgt Ron Armstrong, brought in on TD from Shearwater and Edmonton respectively.
Our job was to learn about the equipment, Flight check the equipment and train the operators.
To do this Mac and myself travelled to the Gilfillen company in Los Angeles (along with some NDHQ personnel) to evaluate the equipment. All four of us took a course on the new SSR at Cardion in Long Island, New York.
Early in 1977 we took up residence at the Electronics Project Branch ("The Glass House"), AMDU and proceeded to learn about the equipment and produce training manuals for the new equipment. We ended up with four different manuals including theodolite flight checking, Quad Operation, Par Operation, SSR Operation and we were to conduct training courses on all of the equipment.
Ours was only part of the LAUP - there were the Technicians and the Technical Representatives. Theirs was the unenviable task of actually putting the equipment together so that it worked.
Note: Quite a few personnel show on both Quad and PAR Training. The main reason for this is that when the PAR was taken off the air a mobile Quad filled in and people had to be trained on both Quad & PAR.
Updated: March 15, 2005