The Pilot Project Podcast is an aviation podcast that aims to help new pilots learn what it takes to succeed in the world of flight, to help people in the flight training system learn what they may want to fly, and to give Canadians and the world a peek into life on the flight deck in the RCAF. We want to help pilots succeed and thrive! We interview real RCAF pilots for their exciting stories as well as the lessons they've learned along the way. We'll learn their tips to develop resilience and the tools it takes to make it in flight training.
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All right, we're ready for departure. Here at the Pilot Project Podcast, the best source for stories and advice from the pilots of the RCAF. Brought to you by Skies magazine and RCAF today. I'm your host, Brian Morrison. With me today is my comrade from Aurora days, Paul Hodgson. Paul, welcome to the show and thanks so much for being here.
Thanks for having me.
Before we start, we'll go over Paul's bio. Paul graduated from flight training in 2017. After completing phase three on the Harvard. He was selected for a pilot project to send new wing grads direct from the Harvard to the C P 140 Aurora Bypassing, the multi engine conversion course. He was posted to 405 Long Range Patrol Squadron in Greenwood, Nova Scotia. He completed his Otu, or Operational Training Unit Training, in 2018 with 404 Squadron and returned to 405. During his short time at 405, he deployed and went on exercise in a number of locations around Canada and the world, including Hawaii, Scotland, Norway, and a callawit. In the fall of 2018, Paul's wife rejoined the military and was posted to Ottawa. Unfortunately, Paul suffered from a blood clot in one of his eyes in late 2019 and was medically grounded in early 2020. Paul and his wife were both posted to CFB Borden, where he was employed at Canadian Forces Recruiting Group, or CFRG headquarters in a number of roles including National Processing Officer, Officers and Post Enrollment Officer, and finally, as the Intake Management Officer. Today, we will be talking all things recruiting, thanks mainly to questions kindly submitted by listeners and the folks at the Canadian Forces Subreddit. So, before we start, we're going to clear up some acronyms that we'll be using heavily throughout the show. Deo is a method of joining the military, and it stands for Direct Entry Officer. ROTP is Regular Officer Training Plan and is a plan where applicants can join the military and have the military pay for their university education. UTP NCM is a university training plan for non commissioned members where non commissioned members can become officers. Ceotp is the Continuing Education Officer Training Plan and is a plan where members without a degree can join the military and work on it over time. So let's start with the standard question, where did aviation start for you?
For me, I think it's always been something that in the back of my mind, I've been interested in. When I was a young kid, I grew up in Thunder Bay, and my parents took me to see the air shows, uh, whenever the snowbirds were in town, that sort of thing. So that kind of sparked my interest. Before I moved away from Thunder Bay, I ended up doing a Year of Cadets and got to do an Intro to Flying where they took us up in, uh, an assessment and that kind of really piqued my interest. I ended up kind of putting it on the back burner and went to university. I ended up completing a Master's in Chemistry and partway through, I didn't really feel like it was right for me and that's when I made the decision to apply to become a pilot and luckily enough for me, about a year later, I got picked up and here we are. Wow.
So basically you just had that initial experience with flight at air shows and an introductory flight and that was enough to spark an interest that lasted.
Yeah, exactly. Uh, I think like a lot of young kids playing video games and all that, I always gravitated towards kind of like those flight SIM and flying jets, that sort of thing. So yeah, it was always there. I think I just kind of pursued a few other options before finally falling back on it and saying, no, you know what, this is for me, very cool.
How did you find your flight training experience in the forces?
Looking back on it, it was incredible. I had an amazing time through Portage and through Moustja, obviously, uh, in the moment and when you're kind of going through the training, it's extremely stressful and I think it's kind of designed that way, obviously right, to kind of put you in the situations that you're going to see with military flying. Yeah, for sure. Once I kind of got my rhythm in phase two and then staying on the Harvard for phase three kind of felt like it wasn't so much I was trying to prove myself anymore, kind of like pass the flights. Each individual flight became a lot less stressful. Obviously the tests are still ramp it up a bit, but I started to really enjoy that flying on those individual days and those individual flights. For me it was amazing.
That's such a key moment when you turn that corner and the stress dials down a little bit and the enjoyment comes up and you start to be able to sort of get into the rhythm of it and just enjoy each flight.
Absolutely. I think that makes such a huge difference and it kind of lets you see what kind of is in store for you once you get to Squadron, get to actually do this day in, day out. I think early on in those kind of early flights, you're sitting there going, oh my God, I can't believe how stressful this is. Am I going to be able to do this for another 1520 years? Or whatever your career ends up being?
How did you find skipping straight from the Harvard Two and moving up to the Aurora?
For me, uh, it was a fairly smooth transition. I think the biggest challenge for me anyways was going from that single pilot mentality and going to that crew environment and really kind of learning to be able to offload some of those extra responsibilities such as comms and reading checklists and those items. And it just really frees up some more bandwidth to really assess the situation and be able to make better decisions. Yeah.
And the Aurora is an aircraft where they really emphasize teamwork and using your crew and communication. So that must have been tricky at first.
Yeah, absolutely. And I think the thing that, uh, I really was able to lean on too is I had a pretty amazing moat partner. Sorry. The Otu partner. He's a very strong, very competent pilot and we were able to complement each other's strengths really well and bounce ideas back and forth and just study together. And that for me made a huge difference. That's great.
Can you tell us a little more about the path that led you to CFRG, which again is the Canadian Forces Recruiting Group?
Yeah. As you mentioned in the introduction, my wife had rejoined the military while I was on Otu. So kind of partway through we had been living apart and I was flying back and forth between Greenwood and Ottawa pretty much as often as I could. Whenever there was a long weekend or whatever, I could kind of get a day or two of leave to kind of tie into it, making that trip back and forth to see both her and we had a one year old daughter at the time. So we had, huh, managed to make the best of it as we could. And it was really looking like I was going to have to do kind of a normal length three, four years tour with the Aurora before I was going to be eligible to be posted. And just the occupation that she is, there weren't any positions available to her on the coast. So at that point our options were very limited. I was hoping that maybe we could get an instructor tour and both get posted to kind of a Winnipeg Portage area, something like that. But then everything kind of, ah, came crashing down when one morning I woke up unable to see out of one of my eyes. So obviously went into the Mir or the medical center there and started doing the kind of the ignitional diagnosis. Some of the vision had come back so really it was just the peripheral that I couldn't see out of and they didn't really know what it was at the time and so it had stabilized. So they're kind of looking like, oh, well, maybe we can get you back to flying. It might be a possibility, but losing flying and it's I don't know, kind of weird to say, I guess, in this sense, but it was really what I was holding on to and what was really kind of keeping it together for me mentally, in terms of being away from my family and so kind of losing that and not really having any reason anymore for being in Greenwood and not really feeling like I was contributing to Squadron, wasn't really contributing to the mission, I kind of started to feel, uh, down on myself. I ended up going and seeing the social worker a few times and talking to them about it, and it worked out in my favor because what ended up happening, they ended up talking to the flight surgeon on my behalf and they ended up extending my TCAT. Because they were just worried about sleep and how it was affecting me and how my mental state was for flying. But what that did, it grounded me for a period of time, and then the unit was more willing to let me go. And so that kind of forced their hand in posting me to a ground position. And where they found the spot was at, uh, CFRG in Borden, and my wife was also getting posted to Borden at the time to the Ain Forces Fire and CBRN Academy. But the interesting thing, and, um, looking back, it's kind of funny to me, is that the posting really ended up saving me in the long run and saving me from further medical issues when I showed up. They ended up sending me to see a few specialists in Toronto who discovered that, yeah, I had had a blood clot in my eye that some of the nerves were dead now, and so I'd have permanent kind of deficiency in the peripheral vision, but the cause of it was a hole in my heart. So they were able to find that and they did a procedure to repair it. And I'm about two and a half years out of that now. And so as of a year ago or so or something about that, I've gotten my air factor back, so I'm fit to fly again. And, um, yeah, we'll see kind of what the future holds, but hopefully kind of get back to the cockpit in another year or two.
That's a crazy story. Who would have thought that losing your peripheral vision was actually an end result of having a hole in your heart?
Yeah, I remember sitting there, I bounced around a few specialists, and I remember sitting there and this one doc basically going, oh, yeah, I've seen this before. This is exactly what it is. And I'm going, okay, if you know what you're doing.
Wow, that must have been really tough, uh, in that time where you were still in Greenwood, but grounded, like you said, kind of the whole purpose of being there was taken away, but you were still having to be far away from your family. It's great that they were able to, in the end, accommodate you and get you guys all back together again.
Yeah, I think it definitely had its struggles, and I think that's probably like, uh, in my mental state, the lowest I've been in my time in the military. And yeah, I think with, uh, the squadron was really good about how they handled me. And we had tried to kind of work out some solutions to being able to stay posted there. But I think at the end, when I was there, there was kind of a bit of a surplus of pilots. And so I think it was easier for everyone, including me, to kind of take a ground job that they would have had to fill with a more experienced pilot, kind of keep that experience at the squadron and reunite me with my family. So it definitely worked out for everybody.
Yeah, that's great. Okay, let's start talking recruiting. Can you tell us more about your roles at CFRG?
Absolutely. So I started my time at the recruiting group as the National Processing Officer, which really is a fancy title for everything that doesn't fit nicely into the standard application process. So what I mean by that is it includes all different kind of pieces. So Plars or prior learning, assessment, uh, recognitions. So that's kind of what the Caf does to assess an individual's education above and beyond what the minimum standard is. So let's say you're coming in and you're a mechanic, and you already have your Red Seal. So sort of the things like that. What training can we bypass? What incentives can we offer you to join the military? So that's kind of what makes up a PLAR applications from non citizens. So, early on in my time, we were looking at bringing in pilots from other air forces. We weren't going headhunting, but it was if someone gave us a call and said, hey, I flew for the RAF, can I come and join the like? Absolutely. Here's the steps. And we'd help them through the application with IRCC to become a permanent resident.
What's IRCC?
IRCC is immigration, Refugee and citizenship. Canada. Uh, so it's the government entity that's responsible for if you want to Immigrate to Canada, you have to apply through them to become a permanent resident. And then after so many years in Canada, you can apply to become a citizen. And the other piece of national processing is loading applicants onto CFast. So it's Canadian Forces Aircrew Selection Test, and for pilots, we would load them to be seen at Cfeme. So it's the Canadian Forces Environmental Medicine Establishment, and those are the doctors that assess pilot applicants to ensure that they meet the medical standard. So we work very closely with those two entities for our, uh, pilot applicants, getting them in the door about six months or so into the job, I was handed kind of a second portfolio, which is Intake Management, which is responsible kind of for managing the flow of applicants from your initial stages of your application. Like, you apply online, you've done your aptitude test to kind of those later stages where you're looking at being booked for your medical and your interview and doing some of these follow on tests. So that really involved setting kind of score thresholds for different occupations and for the more competitive occupations, kind of monitoring the overall applicant numbers and kind of just setting a threshold so that we would get enough people through. That it was a competitive process, but not letting applicants through that we knew were not going to be competitive down the line and kind of wasting their time and wasting our kind of limited resources. So we wanted to be upfront with applicants and say, hey, look, your test scores weren't really up to where our competition is sitting right now. So you're welcome to either retest and there's criteria on when and how long you have to wait to retest, or you can pick from a list of these other occupations that you qualify for. Okay, so then later on in my time at Recruiting, uh, group, I had handed off national processing as, uh, a new officer got, uh, posted in and I took over the Offers and Post Enrollment section, which is responsible for generating all the offers that CFRG sends out to the successful applicants and as well as dealing with any issues after enrollment. So that could be changes to things as simple as your address on enrollment, to things more complicated like, hey, I don't think that my college diploma was actually reviewed, and I think I deserve a higher pay or a higher rank on enrollment. So it varies all across the board about what issues come up after the fact.
Okay, and that's basically the outline of all your positions that you held?
It is, yes.
So we've talked about this a little bit at the beginning when I was defining some acronyms, but what are the different pathways someone can join the Caf as a pilot?
So there are a few different we call them entry plans. So ways of kind of coming into the forces for officers anyways. The first is a direct Entry Officer deo, as you mentioned earlier. So that is in the case where someone already has a university degree that meets the acceptable criteria for the occupation they're applying to. You have ROTP, so that's where you don't have a degree yet, or your degree doesn't match the requirement for the occupation, and you plan on attending university full time, and that's going to be subsidized by the forces. And then you have Ceotp, uh, or Continuing Education Officer Training Plan, so you don't have a degree and you plan on obtaining one on your own time. So kind of part time, evenings, weekends type thing, while being employed full time by the Caf, doing the job that you're hired to do. So, generally speaking, we've gotten away from hiring under the Ceotp program very few a year, maybe a handful, to be honest with you, across all the occupations. And usually what it's used now for is when we have someone who wants to re enroll in the Cap. So, take a pilot, for example, who enrolled under the Ceotp program 1015 years ago, left, and had already been at, uh, wing Standard, wants to come back in. We can use this program to kind of bring that talent back into the forces and give them the time, uh, to get their degree while employing them at a squadron.
And why have they cut down on hiring through the Ceotp program?
So really, the reason that they've cut down on Ceotp is because they don't need to use it. In all honesty, they're getting enough people applying through the Deo and the ROTP that taking on that extra risk of bringing someone in who's supposed to do a degree and may or may not ever actually complete the degree. It just seen as not really worth it, I guess, to the forces. When we're getting, for officers, we're getting the numbers that we need through the other two programs.
Okay, that makes sense. What are the requirements to join as a pilot?
The first requirement would be the degree type that you're coming in with. The degree requirement specifically to join as a pilot is fairly wide open. I kind of had taken a look before this chat just to make sure I wasn't, uh, giving out any wrong information, but basically, for pilots, we break down degrees into two categories. So you have ideal, which means that the Caf feels that it's directly related, uh, to the occupation that you're applying for, or acceptable, where there's enough overlap that you'll be able to complete the training successfully. So, for pilots, the ideal is a four year Bachelor of Science, Engineering, Aviation, or Arts degree. So basically, anything that, uh, comes from a Canadian university or equivalent. And by equivalent, what we're meaning is, if you've done your education outside of Canada, that it's been officially assessed to Canadian standards, and then acceptable for pilot is three year Bachelor's of Arts or Science. So essentially, anything for ROTP, the degree that you would be accepted into would be Engineering, applied Science, Aviation, Science, or Arts. So, again, pretty much whatever interests you, you'll be able to do a degree in, um, and join as a pilot. The other requirement would be for age and your contract length. So for Deo, the initial contract is 13 years, and for ROTP, it's 17. The thing to remember, though, is that there's a ten year restricted release period after you've graduated with your wings. And if you don't have ten years left on your contract by the time you get your wings, which, based off of some of the podcasts you've done and I've listened to, seems fairly likely. If the wait is more than three years to get your wings, you'll have to sign a new terms of Service and sign a new contract to ensure that it covers your entire restricted release period. So that actually happened to me. For example, I got my wings. My initial contract was ten years. I got my wings about three and a half years after enrolling. And at that point in time, it was a seven year restricted release period. So I had to sign new terms of service to make sure that it covered off those extra six months before they'd actually give me my physical wings. As for maximum age, you need to be able to finish that initial contract prior to your 60th birthday. So for deo, what that means is you have to be 47 less a day on enrollment, and for ROTP, it's 43 less a day. That being said, if you're coming back into the forces, so you've already been a pilot and you are already qualified, then the minimum contract length drops significantly to one and a half years. So at that point, you could join up to 58 and a half if you had already been a pilot.
Okay, that's very interesting to hear, because definitely one of the most common questions asked was, what's the maximum age? And a lot of the people worrying about that, funny enough, were in like their late 20s, mid 30s, wondering if they were too old. So I'm sure they'll be happy to hear that.
Oh, yeah, absolutely. And I think that nowadays, at least when I went through my Bmoq, I think I was kind of in my mid, late twenty s, and I was kind of the young guy there. And the average age, I'd say, was at least 30. Yeah.
And just for the listeners, Bmoq is.
Basic training, and the final requirement to join as a pilot would be your medical standards. So this is kind of broken down into two different categories. So you have your basic medical standard, which is called Common Enrollment Medical Standard, or Sims is how you might hear it referred to at the recruiting center. So that's the standard that everyone joining the Caf must meet. And this is assessed at the recruiting center by the medical staff there. And they'll take some basic medical information, do some very rudimentary movement to make sure your joints kind of move the way they're supposed to move, and then a medical history. And if there's anything of concern, they may send you to see your family doctor to have them fill out a few forms. And then, um, all that history. And those assessments are sent to Ottawa, to the recruit medical office, where the doctors there will make the final assessment on your medical category. And as long as that medical category meets the standard, then you're fit to enroll in the Caf. For air crew trades. There are more rigid, trade specific standards that need to be assessed by, uh, the Canadian forces environmental Medicine Establishment, or Cfeme. And they include having additional blood work done and a vision test, which is called the cycloplegic refraction exam, where they put these lovely drops in your eyes and freeze them so that they can look behind the pupils. Yeah.
Everybody's favorite.
Yeah. So that's just looking for, uh, other issues with your eyes, we'll say. And then for pilot specifically, you'll also go to Toronto to physically go to Cfeme, where they'll do further assessments. They do a lung function test. They do an ECG and a few other items to make sure that your heart and lungs are good to go as well.
Since we're on the topic of medical requirements, you mentioned the psychoplegic exam. Can you briefly answer one of our most common questions? What are the rules for eyesight and corrective surgery?
So, I'll do my best to give, uh, the listeners some basic information about this, but I'm going to throw out the caveat there that I'm not a doctor. So if you have very specific questions, always go to your recruiting center and talk to the medical staff there, because they're experts in this, and they'll be able to tell you inside out, uh, what the rules are. But as far as getting corrective surgery or laser eye surgery, it is allowed, depending on the type of procedure that you get done. There are different kind of waiting periods, post op that you have to be stable for and let your eyes kind of adjust before the medical staff will let you come in to do the rest of the assessment. So, again, those timings, your medical staff will be able to, at the recruiting center will be better able to tell you exactly what they are as for whether or not you need it. So, I dug up the visual Acuity standards for pilots. So, the military uses a grading system for all the different types of medical items. So you'll hear people say your vision is a V one or a V two, et cetera. So, pilot is considered a V two occupation. What that means is, using the metric scale V two, your eyes need to be called 618. So the conversion to what most people are familiar with will be roughly 2060 eyesight. So most people will actually qualify without needing corrective surgery, as long as both eyes meet that standard. If one eye is worse than the other, you need one eye to be at a minimum, um, of 2040 vision. And then you can also do the test corrected with glasses, so that your better eye would be at 2020 vision, and then your slightly worse eye would be at 2030. Okay.
Those rules are more lenient than I would have expected. Probably more than most audience members would expect as well.
Yeah, and I was surprised, actually, when I kind of dug it up, uh, to look into it. My recommendation anyways, is anyone considering getting laser eye surgery because they think they need it to become a pilot. Just go get assessed by the medical staff first before you kind of commit the money and the time to get it done, when you might actually not need it.
Yeah, 100%. You mentioned a degree requirement. Is there a way to get your preference between either civilian university or Royal Military College if there's one or the other that you prefer and you're joining under ROTP?
Absolutely. And this is going to sound silly, but it's basically tell your recruiting staff what you're interested in, and that's all you need to do. In the like, when I first showed up, uh, at the recruiting group, there weren't very many spots, if any, allocated to civilian university, and pretty much everyone was going through RMC. In the last two years, there's been a pretty drastic shift and an increase in the number of applicants that were accepting under ROTP. And so what that means is every year there's a significant number now of civilian university spots available. And so historically, say, three plus years ago, where we weren't accepting applications only to a civilian university, we are now. And so if that's all you want to do, is your heart set on going to whatever university you want, then when you go to apply, you just tell the recruiting staff that I'm applying to this civilian university and I'm not interested in going to Armseap. And they'll continue your application under that kind of sub entry plan, if you will. That being said, the one caveat and the one thing I'll throw out there for listeners is that the selections do happen for RMC before they happen for civilian universities. So if all you care about is joining the forces, then apply to both and put down RMC as a choice. And then at least as long as you make it to the competition list to be seen at the selection boards, you'll have a better chance because you'll be looked at at multiple boards rather than kind of hoping that the occupation that you're applying to is still available when RMC fills up and we move over to civilian university applications.
Okay, that's solid advice.
The thing that I will say, though, with pilot applications to ROTP, and I'll throw this out there now, is that because there's extra steps involved, it's actually harder to get applicants to RMC for pilot than it is for other occupations. Why is that? Uh, just with the extra tests, so having to send applicants to Trenton to do the aircrew selection test and then getting all their medical done through Cfeme, it takes a couple months longer than the normal ROTP application. And we are trying to be more competitive with civilian universities and getting our offers out kind of on the same timeline that they are. And so we don't have a lot of recruiting time to try to get people through the process. So unless you apply early and stay on top of your application, chances are you may miss those RMC selection boards and you may only have civilian university as your option.
You're saying that RMC wants to get its offers out at the same time as civilian. Universities so they don't lose applicants who get an offer first from a civilian university and just go there.
Exactly. That makes sense.
So we've been talking a little bit about applying. What are the steps for an application?
Yeah, so the steps to apply to the Caf are, uh, to first go to the Forces CA website, and on there you'll find a ton of different information about occupations. There's videos about what each of them are like a day in, um, the life of all of those sorts of things, and what the training is going to be like. So it's a great resource for anyone even just considering it. But on there, you'll be able to apply and you'll fill out that online, initial online application. And once you kind of hit submit, within three days, you should hear back from the recruiting center. And historically, it's been a phone call. Now we're trying to kind of get more with the times and incorporate things like text messaging and email into the way that recruiters are going to start to reach out to people. So this may change in the near future, but yeah, within a few days, you should hear from the recruiting center. They'll book you kind of for an initial call and a chat with somebody just to make sure that you understand what you're applying to. You put in the information correctly, and that you're eligible for what you're applying to. Once they kind of confirm those pieces, they'll book you in for an in person CfAT. So that's the Canadian forces aptitude test So you'll come in and write that along with the TSD, which is a trait Self Descriptor Test, which is a bunch of questions on how you would act in certain situations and things like that. And it'll assess how you make decisions and kind of your morality and all those sorts of pieces that go into it. Don't worry too much about that because a lot of it isn't actually used, and it's more for research down the line. Once you complete those two, they'll do a very brief medical screening where they're just making sure that there isn't any glaring issues that they're going to need to send you to see a, uh, more medical specialist to get any forms filled out. So they're just kind of trying to catch that early in the process. We'll say for pilot specifically at this point, once you've passed and qualified through.
The CfAT, and remember, CfAT is the.
Canadian Forces Aptitude Test, you'll be loaded to go to Trenton to complete the AirCruise Selection Test, or the CFast. It consists of two four hour sessions spread over two days. And it's a series of computer based aptitude tests that are supposed to kind of assess your abilities to be a pilot, as well as an Air Combat Systems Officer or an Air Space Control officer. It's a very grueling series of tests, and it's one that for pilot anyways. Has a fairly high failure rate. So it's really important that applicants study and prepare going into it.
What's the best method that they can use to do that, to prepare and to study?
So, I've heard of a few different ones. There's, um, some cognitive training apps and things like Luminosity. The one that I use was called Sporkle, which is just a series of online kind of tests that you can kind of pick what subjects you want. So memory, math, uh, those sorts of things are really important. Systems management, so being able to multitask is really important. There the other one that I've heard of more recently. I haven't really checked it out, but I kind of looked at the description of it, and I've seen it kicked around on reddit a few places. It's called CBAT, so the computer based aptitude test, it's an app. I think it's about $5, but based off of the little description that I saw on it, it looks very similar to the type of tests that you would be doing on this. So it might be worth checking out. Okay, so once you complete the CFast and you're found successful, you'll be booked in back at the recruiting center to do your medical and your interview. So the medical, like, uh, I'd mentioned earlier, is just kind of your basic medical history, basic movement kind of testing, which will then be confirmed by the recruit medical office in Ottawa. And the interview will be with a military career counselor. So that's, generally speaking, it's a captain who works in the recruiting center. All different trades and occupations kind of fill that billet. And they'll ask you some questions about what you think life in the forces is going to be like, what you think a job is going to be like, and kind of it's also an opportunity for them to make sure you understand what you're applying for and what you're getting yourself into. Once you've completed your medical and you are deemed fit, your file will be sent to Cfeme. Um, and for pilots, we'll book you in to physically go there. So you'll get your plane ticket, you'll go to Toronto, you'll show up, and they'll run you through another battery of medical tests.
And that's those ones you talked about earlier, right?
Yeah, exactly. So then you go back home, and then at that point, really, it's just a waiting game. So the last pieces are done through the recruiting center staff themselves, and that's to get your reliability status. So it's your security screening, basically, before joining the forces. And once that, uh, last piece is completed, you're, uh, on the competition list and you're ready to be seen at a selection board.
So at this point, they've assigned you a score, right. And what makes up that final score?
So the majority of the score, at least for pilots and for those other two air crew trades, comes from your air crew selection test score. So it's about ballpark. 50% of your final score comes from how you did on that test. Another 25% or so comes from your CfAT NTSD results, and then the last little bit comes from your interview.
Okay. So two of them are basically based on a test score, and then the last part is from your interview. So I guess that means that it's important for applicants to make sure that they kind of brush up on their interpersonal skills or their interviewing skills if they haven't done much of that before.
Yeah, exactly. A lot of the times you're looking at very small differences between applicants. So kind of any little advantage you can give yourself is important.
We discussed this in a recent episode, but what impact have you seen from the current hiring freeze for Deo officers?
So for us, when we're looking at the hiring freeze, the only entry plan that is currently frozen where we're not taking anybody is through Deo. So there's a lot of discussion right now on how we're going to handle current applicants and what we're going to do with individuals wanting to apply to Deopilot kind of in the near future. The problem is we don't have, uh, a clear end date for this hiring freeze. And so that really puts us in a tough position on making the decisions on whether or not we should send individuals applying only to Pilot to Trenton to do that aircrew selection test. We have very limited number of seats available and we still have to fill Axo and AEC. So we really don't have a lot of capacity to spare to kind of be speculative, if you will, and send individuals who only want to be pilots. It's kind of an unfortunate position that we're in. But really what that's going to mean is that if they open the tap back up next year, it's going to be kind of a slow process to get the ball rolling again. The good news for applicants is that means that you aren't missing out by not testing right now. So if we don't test anyone, then you're no further behind once we start testing again next year, let's say if it opens back up. Okay. The other problem that we have really does revolve around administering the AirCruise selection test, and it's very seasonal in terms of what entry plan we're sending at any given time. And so what I mean by that is in the fall is generally when we're doing all of the in service selection folks, so the folks that are trying to occupationally transfer so go from a different occupation into pilot. So that generally happens in the fall and then all winter and early spring is when we're really focusing on the ROTP applicants, which really only leaves the summer for Deo applicants. And the problem is we don't really have clear direction on what's coming up right now. So we're really having to just assume that it's going to continue for at least the short term in terms of the freeze. Exactly, yeah.
I think they're saying for this next fiscal year, basically.
Yeah.
Has, uh, the freeze made other joining methods such as ROTP more competitive?
So we haven't really seen that yet. And in terms of recruiting timelines, the freeze is still fairly new. When we're talking about applications, usually we're talking on the order of like, eight plus months to get someone through the process. So a change kind of in April. We still haven't really seen all of the impacts that it'll cause as we move forward. Okay, fair enough. But one of the other things to consider is that if you already have a degree, you're not eligible for ROTP. So even if you wanted to apply for that program, you can't.
Oh, really?
Yeah. So I think, in my opinion anyways, where we might see a shift is those folks who are kind of in their second or third year of university, where they're kind of on the fence of whether or not they're going to apply through ROTP, or if they're going to wait to finish their degree. Well, now there's kind of a bit of, um, incentive to apply sooner rather than later and apply through the open program of ROTP rather than waiting and hoping that deo opens up. And then you're also applying with the kind of flood of applicants who've been waiting for it to open up to. Yeah, absolutely.
If I was in that position in third or fourth year and trying to decide between ROTP and deo, I'd be applying right now for ROTP.
Yeah, exactly. So would I.
The next question we had was, how does having previous flight experience get factored into an application?
So it does get factored in, but unfortunately not a lot. And so what I mean by that is you'll get extra points in your interview when you're talking about experience related to the field, and you will be able to bypass some of the training. And generally speaking, what we're talking about is a, uh, phase one bypass. So you would skip phase one portage and go straight to the Harvard on phase two. I had been doing a fair bit of work on trying to get more recognition for individuals coming from the commercial world, those folks who have their ATPLs or coming from the airlines. But at least with the contacts that I had in the RSAF, there wasn't a ton of buy in, or at least there wasn't a lot of capacity to kind of go through the process of getting it approved. And it's kind of unfortunate and funny at the same time because I listened to your podcast a few weeks back with Morty and Colonel Peak and thought to myself, you know what? If I had been able to listen to this, like, six months ago, I could have reached out to them and had better contacts to kind of get the ball rolling on this. But now I'm on my way out, so it's unfortunately probably not going to happen, but I'll have to kind of reach back in and let a few people at, uh, CFRG know who to reach out to to kind of get this going. Because I think there's a lot of experience that we're missing out on by not kind of assessing folks against parts of the phase two course. So what I mean by that is you could look at people who have their multi IFR and say, hey, maybe we don't have to do the full IFR phase. Maybe we can just do a couple flights, do the final test, and if you pass, great, you're done that phase and save all those hours. And save all that time.
Well, I could tell you something interesting. I just did an interview the other day with Brigadier General Alexander, the commander of Tucad, and actually, by the time this episode comes out, that episode will already have aired. We were talking about the Deo hiring freeze, but this subject came up and he said they're looking into it very earnestly about ways to do PLR and to get people, uh, skipping various phases of training over and above just the, uh, phase one that we've seen so far.
Yeah, that'd be great.
I think you'll be pleased. When I was talking to him about it, I was thinking about you as I was asking the question, and it seemed like a lot more actually, I think it was your question that you offered to pose about what would happen if someone had IFR exactly the example you just gave. And it sounds like they're looking much more into doing those kinds of things.
Yeah, that'd be awesome.
What are some realistic expectations people should have about the application process?
So, the first and biggest one is it's a very long process. There are a lot of steps being taken to try and speed it up. But on average, for a pilot to make it through the early stages to the competition list is about 300 days. Okay. And then from there, you're waiting for a selection board. And so with officers, those selection boards happen a lot less frequently than for non commission members. There are bmqs. So your basic training for your NCMS running all the time. Right. But your basic officer qualification doesn't happen as frequently. It's more training resources. There's less requirement because the numbers of officers that we're bringing in each year is smaller, so there's just less courses. So it could be 300 days to make to the competition list. But if you're waiting there for a couple of selections, you could easily be over a year from the time you apply to when you're seeing an offer and the reality. And unfortunately, most of the issues that cause the delays are outside the applicant and Cfrg's control. So we do the best we can to speed things up. But there are a lot of times where, say, for example, we need more medical information from an applicant and the applicant tries to get an appointment with their family doctor or with a specialist. Sometimes. Everyone knows trying to get an appointment can take months, right? So now you're adding time to that application process. You're waiting for your security clearance, you're waiting for a lot of things. So, again, we're doing the best to work with the outside agencies to try to speed all those processes up. But the things that are within our control and within the applicant's control are the pieces that we and the applicants can really focus on to try and bring that timeline down. And those include things like when the recruiting center sends you documents to fill out, that you return them promptly when they ask you for your transcripts or your birth certificate or whatever other documents they need that you're bringing them in when they're asked for. And again, getting those medical assessments done as soon as you can get in. Again, understanding that sometimes that's not really possible, and when it isn't reaching back to the detachment so that they're aware of it and that they don't think you're just kind of ghosting them, so to speak. The other thing that you can do to kind of help yourself out is to follow up with the recruiting staff kind of fairly regularly, I would say, early on in the process, when there's a lot of kind of pieces that you're involved in, reaching out kind of every two to three weeks to your recruiter is kind of a good timeline. And then as the process goes on and you're really kind of just waiting for the pieces to fall in place, then you can kind of stretch that back, uh, out to like the three, four, five weeks kind of in between calls or emails.
Okay, so basically, as the applicant, the best thing you can do is just make sure you're responding to all requests for information ASAP and then staying on top of it yourself and regularly checking in.
Yeah, absolutely. As much as we want to say that. And I mean, the staff that works at the recruiting centers are excellent, don't get me wrong, but they are handling thousands of files. So it is possible that they haven't opened your file that day. And maybe something just came in that, hey, you gave them a call and now they see it. And now that you can jump to the next step. Right. By doing that follow up, you're kind of taking your application into your own hands.
Yeah, for sure. I mean, that's a habit that's going to serve you well throughout your time as a pilot. Right. It's like taking the initiative and taking ownership of the process of getting trained as a pilot. That's something you'll have to do all along that journey.
Yeah, absolutely.
What percentage of people who apply actually make it as a pilot?
Uh, so that's a hard question to answer. I'll give you some numbers and then I'll say why. It's kind of misleading. So across the entire process, roughly 10% of people who apply as a pilot make it to the competition list. So that sounds kind of daunting. And if you're listening to this, please don't let that discourage you. So the reason that that number is lower than it kind of seems is that we do receive a significant number of applications for people who aren't actually serious about joining. And so normally they get weeded out fairly early. So once you kind of get past that aptitude test phase, we'll say that number goes up significantly in terms of how many people make it to the finish line. Okay. For the aircrew selection test itself, the pass rate for pilot is somewhere in the range of 30% to 40%. So that's going to be where your biggest attrition is through the process.
That's the big hurdle to jump over, for sure.
Yeah, exactly. If you can make it past that, and assuming you don't have any medical issues that screen you out, you have a good shot of kind of making it through the process.
We've answered most of the specific questions from our audience, so we're going to get into a few extras. What was your best day at CFRG?
The best day for me at CFRG, I'm going to kind of use a bit of a cop out because it counts as one day, but leading up to it was more than one day, we'll say. So my best day was briefing commander of two CAD, which was the culmination of a ton of work and coordination that I did in developing Cfrg's COVID risk response. And so that was how we intended to safely continue to operate in that COVID environment and bring applicants from all across Canada, fly them on airplanes, bring them into CFB Trenton, and not get anybody sick. Right. So we had done a ton of work, and luckily, through contacts that, uh, my wife actually had, we were able to get some of the leading experts in the Caf to advise us and to help us to kind of come up with the plan and how we could assess the risk. And I'm happy to say that we were able to continue to bring in, let's say there's hundreds of applicants into Trenton without bringing any cases of COVID onto the base and without causing any outbreaks when they returned home.
That's awesome.
Yeah.
What was your hardest day at CFRG?
All right, so I'm going to go full cliche here and say my hardest day was probably my last day, uh, in recruiting. And so my reason behind that is, first off, it's been, for me, anyways, it's been a very rewarding, very challenging job. But the real reason that I'm saying that is because there's a number of projects that I've been working on that I put a lot of effort into to make the process better both for the caf but more specifically for the applicants applying. And I don't get to see those come to completion like we talked about earlier with pilots, commercial pilots and getting them recognition for their experience and pieces like that. So there's a lot of kind of projects that I'm leaving unfinished and it just kind of feels empty in a way. Just kind of to hand them off.
Like anticlimactic?
Yeah, exactly. Like not knowing where they're going to go or how it's going to end or really being involved in that anymore.
The cool thing is that hopefully a lot of the people listening right now will benefit from those programs. I think that's pretty neat.
Yeah, exactly.
You mentioned that you found that job really rewarding. What do you think was the most fulfilling part of that job?
For M me, it was always finding ways to solve problems and really getting people started on their careers on the right foot. So what I mean by that is there's always in the military and I mean in the government in general, there's always a lot of red tape and a lot of policy that is there for good reason. But then you have that kind of outside the box case where you have to figure out how to apply it in a logical sense and find where the policy allows you some flexibility to make decisions that are best for the organization as well as for the person coming in. So I always enjoyed doing the research into it and trying to find ways to kind of get people the benefits or the pay or the rank that they deserved and kind of getting things off on the right foot so that they have a great career rather than kind of starting off and not feeling like the system is helping them.
It's really nice to hear about people who are working in recruiting, being passionate about it and about I loved hearing earlier that you mentioned that the staff are fantastic. I think that's got to be really encouraging to anyone who's applying to know that the people working in recruiting, they know that it's tough and that they're doing their best to make it a better process.
Absolutely.
So I usually ask people in 30 seconds or less to convince the audience why it would be great to fly their aircraft. But right now you've been flying what we call the mahogany bomber or a desk. So what I want to say is in 30 seconds or less, why would a pilot ever want to do a ground tour? This is for our pilots who are already out there and qualified. What did you find the pros were to being in that situation? And are people forced to take ground tours?
So I definitely believe that ground tours aren't for everybody. You have to really be okay working in more of a support or behind the scenes role rather than being the pilot in the cockpit. The biggest, and I think the most obvious and what people kind of lean towards as the pro to a, uh, ground position is career progression. But I think what's really more overlooked, and to me a fairly big advantage, is really learning how the military machine works. And it's really your chance to take the lessons you've learned from your squadron from flying and affect real change on the future for pilots and as well for the institution as a whole. As for the last question, I don't feel anyways, like pilots are really forced into ground tours unless they want to progress in rank. If you want to become a major colonel or be the Co, uh, well, you're going to have to take a ground job at some point. But if all you want to do is fly and you want to keep flying, I think the opportunities are there and they exist to do that, to kind of take those instructor positions and to take the standards kind of roles rather than do the ground jobs right.
It just may involve a little bit of flexibility in terms of what flying jobs you're taking.
Exactly.
We're down to our last three questions. What is the most important thing you do to keep yourself ready for your job?
So I find it, uh, a lot of similarities in terms of keeping myself ready for this job and ready in a flying role. It's, uh, staying in the books, keeping up to date on the policies and what changes are being made, and making sure you do your research before making a decision. I think that kind of mirrors a lot of what you do on the flight line, whether it's kind of reading through the NOTAMs or reading through any of those other publications or documents and that sort of thing. It's the same idea. It's just applying it in a different area. Okay, what do you think makes a good pilot? I think for me, there's definitely a lot that goes into it. I'd say you need to have a strong desire to improve with each flight, but with that you need also the confidence to be able to make decisions when they need to be made. And I think the humility to take advice from those who are more experienced.
Yeah, I really like that answer a lot. One of the big ones there is that desire to improve with every flight, because that's what's going to give you that hunger that drives you to go through your last debriefing and remember, okay, last flight, I did this. I got to fix that for this next one. And that's what keeps you giving meaningful debriefings. Once you're in the operational world and you do a training flight and you're not just going through the motions, you're actually trying to help each other get better and better and better yeah, exactly.
It's easy to kind of let yourself get complacent and be like, oh, well, I'm, um, 1020ft off whatever. I'm close enough that drive to be perfect and on the numbers. Perfect is a strong word, but always that desire to get back to that ideal kind of right. I think you need that drive.
All right, this is our last question and normally I ask, what would your advice be to a new pilot? But what I want to ask you is, what is your advice to a new pilot who is about to apply to join the caf?
So I thought about this, and I think I got three points. So the first one is to be patient, accept that it isn't going to be a quick process. Unfortunately, it's not apply today and be flying tomorrow like we're talking, expect to be in the process for a year. Unfortunately, that's just kind of the way it is. Again, we're making strives to improve it, but if you don't go in with the mindset that it's going to take some time, you're going to get frustrated and probably not going to stick with it. Secondly, uh, stay on top of your application and follow up with your recruiter. Like we said, the recruiting staff is excellent and everybody that I've worked with has been passionate about it. But there are times when people get swamped with work or get overwhelmed and maybe that phone call or that email from you kind of reminds them to take a look and, oh, hey, we can book this person for the next step or we can start working on something else concurrently. And when you stay on top of it, I feel like there's less chance that your process is going to get dragged out. And, uh, lastly, I say remember, it's worth the wait. The training that you get in the caf is kind of unparalleled. You're not going to get that anywhere. Civic side. And even for me, and I'm sure you can attest to this too, becoming a pilot in the caf, it really leads to kind of countless adventures and friends that you're going to have for life.
Yeah, I couldn't agree more with that last point. The training is just a whole other level from what you'll get anywhere else. And yeah, I have friends that I'll be friends with forever from flying in the RCAF. So that's a great point. Well, Paul, that does it for the show today. I just want to thank you so much for taking the time to be on the show. I know you're actually in the middle of a move right now as we speak for your next posting. So I truly appreciate you taking this time and joining us today.
Thank you very much for having me.
All right, that's going to wrap up our episode with Paul answering all your questions about recruiting. For our next episode, we'll be sitting down with one of my. Instructors from Moose Jaw days. Blake McNaughton. Blake taught me on the Harvard Two, but has also flown the Hawk and was a member of the Snowbirds demo team for several years. Now he's on the Phase Three helicopter course, so we'll be talking about his experiences along the way in his career, as well as his time on this course. If you have any questions or comments about something you've heard or would you or someone you know make a great guest on the show, you can reach out to us at thepilotprojectpodcast@gmail.com or on all social media ah at at podpilotproject. Finally, we'd like to thank you, as always, for your help with growth and leave you with a request to help us with the Big three that's like and follow us on social media. Share with your friends and follow and rate us five stars wherever you get your podcasts. That's all for now. Thanks for listening. Keep the blue side uh up, you engineer. Shut down all four shutting down all four engines.