Major (Ret) Duane K. Boosamra was born to a military family in Winnipeg, MB in November 1966. Being a military family, they moved about until his family arrived in CFB Summerside, PEI in June 1980 where Major Boosamra’s interest in aviation was first acted upon. Through his time with the 53 Squadron Royal Canadian Air Cadets in Summerside, Major Boosamra attained his Glider Pilot and Private Pilot’s license and went on to become an instructor in both Gliders and Powered aircraft with the Air Cadets. When he aged out of Air Cadets, Major Boosamra’s love for flying had taken hold. He attempted to join the Royal Canadian Air Force as a pilot directly out of high school, but this entry program was not available at that time. Not to be discouraged, after graduating high school, Major Boosamra joined 420 Air Reserve Squadron and was right at home with them, learning to fly the CP-121 Tracker in CFB Summerside, PEI. Shortly into that venture, an opportunity came up to go to and conduct all of the Regular Force training as a pilot and then return to his home unit in Summerside upon completion.
Major Boosamra left Summerside in April 1988 to conduct all of this training over the next 2 years. During the Canadian Forces Flying Training Course at CFB Moose Jaw SK, 420 Squadron would fall victim to the government’s defence budget cuts as did CFB Summerside and both were to be closed. Again, not to be discouraged, Major Boosamra joined the Regular Force immediately upon completion of his Flying Training in Moose Jaw. As the top graduate on his course, he was offered his choice of assignments and he was off to fly the CF-5 and CF-18.
First posted to 416 Tactical Fighter Squadron and then 410 Tactical Fighter (Operational) Training Squadron in CFB Cold Lake, Major Boosamra completed an extended Initial Service Contract (due to the War in the Balkans) and then left the RCAF to fly as a Contract Fighter Instructor Pilot in the Middle East in late 1997.
Returning to Canada in the spring of 2000, Major Boosamra joined Air Canada as a pilot. After only 3 short years at Air Canada, and after several events that were very difficult on the airline industry at large (Sep 11th, SARs epidemic, Airline mergers and the Canadian economy), Major Boosamra took a leave of absence from Air Canada and returned to the RCAF once again as a CF-18 Pilot / Instructor.
In the summer of 2007, the airlines having recovered from the several years of bad times, Major Boosamra retired for the final time from the RCAF and returned to Air Canada where he still flies today as a Captain on Air Canada’s newest aircraft, the Boeing 737MAX.
