How Londoners can track Santa Claus this Christmas Eve

Tonight's the night that Santa Claus will enter Canadian airspace to deliver toys to children across the London region.

Excited kids and their parents can track Santa's movements through the NORAD Santa tracker online starting Tuesday as they eagerly await for him to enter North American airspace between 9 p.m. and midnight.

Corporal Colby Ramson, an aerospace control operator, weapons assistant and data link operator at 22 Wing CFB North Bay, spoke to London Morning's Travis Dolynny about his mission of tracking St. Nick.

The following has been edited for length and clarity.

London Morning: What have you been doing to prepare to track Santa this year?

Cpl. Ramson: Here at the 22 Wing at the Canadian Air Defence Sector as part of NORAD, we provide 24/7 surveillance and control of Canadian airspace through a variety of means year round.

So it's not really that much different when it comes to Santa Claus. But because it's Dec. 24th and we know he comes every year, [it's] just a little bit more exciting for us.

London Morning: Did Santa do a test flight this year?

Cpl. Ramson: He did do a test fight a little over a week ago now I think, which was pretty exciting. I was working for that as well.

London Morning: What is the system that you're using to track Santa?

Cpl Ramson: We use a wide variety of systems that track Santa. We actually see his departure out of the North Pole. We see that is through a system of radars along the northern part of Canada called the North Warning Radar system, and they maintain continuous coverage of the Canadian Arctic. So that's how we initially see his departure.

Coming out of the North Pole, there's not a whole lot of air traffic there. So we have a pretty good idea [that it's] Santa Claus. And from there we transition to tracking him through a global system of satellites.

We've been tracking him for over 69 years now and Rudolph's nose has a very distinct heat signature that we've learned to identify, so we use that to track him as he flies throughout the world. Once he enters Canadian airspace to be 100 per cent certain that it is Santa Claus, we actually send up our fighter jets to visually identify and give him a wave and say hello.

London Morning6:41Here's how the air force tracks Santa Clause and his reindeer on Christmas Eve

Canadian and U-S NORAD members have been tracking Santa for the last 69 years. Corporal Colby Ramson is an aerospace control operator with the Canadian Air Defence Sector at 22 Wing Canadian Forces Base North Bay. He joined London Morning to talk about how they track the big man in red.

London Morning: So he gets an escort?

Cpl Ramson: He does for a little bit, but as I said, he's a very busy man, so we can't escort him all the way throughout Canadian airspace. So our pilots go up, give him an escort for a little bit, say hello, and then he goes along his way.

London Morning: What does Santa's route typically look like on Christmas Eve?

Cpl Ramson: He starts out at the International Dateline out near New Zealand, the Pacific Islands. Then he kind of makes his way toward the West in a bit of his zigzag pattern, so [he] goes through Southeast Asia and then the rest of Asia, Russia, Middle East, Africa, Europe and then North America. And then he seems to end his trip in South America before returning back to the North Pole for a well deserved rest.