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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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Bryan:Alright. We're ready for departure here at The Pilot Project Podcast, the best source for stories and advice from RCAF and Mission Aviation Pilots brought to you by Sky's Magazine. I'm your host, Brian Morrison. With me today for the first of our two part series are special guests, captain Matt Chretien and captain Dylan Gilje-Allan, Canadian SEEDCORN pilots currently posted to RAF Lausymouth and flying the P eight a Poseidon with the Royal Air Force. Matt and Dylan, welcome to the show, and thank you for navigating time zones to be here with us today.
Dylan:Yeah. I'm glad to be here.
Matt:Thanks for having us.
Bryan:So today, we will be talking about their early life training and Aurora operations as well as seed corn selection. But before we go through that, let's go through their bios. Captain Matt Chretien is a Canadian seed corn pilot currently posted to RAF Lausimuth where he is completing Poseidon conversion course 15 to qualify as a P8A Poseidon copilot. Originally from Quebec, Matt graduated in 2017 from Segep to Tetford with a diploma in mechanical engineering and entered the RCAF the same year under the continuing education officer training plan air environment affiliated degree or CEOTPAEAD. He later earned an honors bachelor of aviation technology from Seneca College in 2021.
Bryan:His flight training included primary flying on the g one twenty Grobe in 2018, basic flying training on the c t one fifty six Harvard two in 2020 during the height of COVID, and multi engine training on the CT one forty five King Air. He received his RCAF pilot wings and was promoted to captain in May 2022 before being posted to four zero five long range patrol squadron in Greenwood to fly the CP one forty Aurora. During his time with four zero five squadron, Matt deployed to Japan on Opneon, supported North Atlantic anti submarine warfare or ASW operations and participated in exercise RIMPAC. Following Canada's decision to procure the P8A Poseidon, Matt was selected for an outcan posting as part of SEEDCORN in January 2025. After completing the P8A conversion course in The UK, he will serve on an RAF operational squadron until his return to Canada in 2028.
Bryan:He currently lives in Bughead and enjoys woodworking, photography, hiking, and exploring Scotland. Captain Dylan Gilje-Allan is a Canadian SEEDCORN pilot posted to RAF Lausymouth where he currently serves as a P8A Poseidon copilot with two zero one Guernsey Zone Squadron. He holds a Bachelor of Aerospace Engineering from Carleton University and earned his private pilot license with the Ottawa Flying Club while completing his degree. Before joining the RCAF, he worked as a project engineer in the Calgary oil and gas sector while continuing to fly small piston aircraft in his spare time. Dylan joined the RCAF in 2017 and completed initial flying on the G120 Grobe followed by basic training on the c t one fifty six Harvard two.
Bryan:He was selected for multi engine training then progressed to the c t one forty five King Air before receiving his RCAF pilot wings and was promoted to captain in 2021. He was then posted to four zero four Squadron to complete the Aurora operational training unit course and subsequently to four zero five Squadron for operational flying on the CP one forty Aurora. While with four zero five Squadron, Dylan deployed on multinational ASW exercises, flew OP LIMPID missions in the Arctic, and participated in OP NEON in the Indo Pacific region. He flew extensively across the globe including missions to Norway, France, Hawaii, Guam, and Japan. In early two thousand twenty four, Dylan was selected for an outcan posting under SEEDCORN.
Bryan:He completed his P8A training on forty two Squadron before joining two zero one Squadron as an operational copilot. Dylan lives in Lausymouth with his wife Chelsea, their daughter Flora, and their golden retriever Lars. He enjoys hiking, skiing, and exploring the region's coastal landscapes. So let's start with some early life and aviation foundations. Matt, can you take us back to your early aviation roots in air cadets and how gliding in your private pilot license shaped your path towards the RCAF?
Matt:Yeah. Of course. So I joined the air cadets in 2010 when I was 13 years old, not really knowing what I was getting into. I just knew that I was interested in maybe joining cadets. I didn't know if it was the air cadets or the arm cadets where I was at.
Matt:So I joined, and then three years later, I did my glider pilot scholarship. And the year after that, I did my private pilot license. And then after having those two amazing summers flying gliders in an aircraft,
Dylan:I decided that I would want to pursue that as a career later on.
Matt:But at the age of 17, I wasn't really ready to leave home yet. And I was already enrolled to go to SEEDCORN in mechanical engineering. So I finished that. I did three years in mechanical engineering. And then my last year, I decided to join the air force.
Matt:I had stayed in cadets pretty much the entirety of that time, as an adult as a volunteer with them. So I I I decided to keep going with that and join the Air Force. And then a few months later, I was on basic training. And then a month later after that, I was on phase one starting with flight training.
Bryan:Wow. So your training pipeline was pretty quick.
Matt:It was. Yeah. I went through the SEEDCORN program, So it kind of fast tracks us for a lot of things through training.
Bryan:Yeah. I I thought that program was was pretty awesome in terms of just kinda the the pipeline and the way it it got people through. Like, I really think that's it's a shame that it it stopped because I think that's kind of the ideal way to train people. Like I knew a guy, Fred he's been on the show, Fred Roy.
Matt:Oh, yeah. He was on the first course, I think. Or one of the first courses.
Bryan:Yeah. And a great guy. I flew with his dad on Auroras. And, you know, watching him go through that compared to the the timelines that I went through was like, wow. You know, you were he was a winged captain at, like, 23
Matt:Yep.
Bryan:Or or younger, I think. And, and that's huge.
Matt:That was the whole point of the program, I think, was to get people through the training system faster.
Bryan:Mhmm.
Matt:And at a younger age before they start having families and so then they could stay longer.
Bryan:Yeah. And and, you know, we've kind of said this before in the show, but deploying is kind of a young person's game almost like anyone, you know, people of all ages of course deploy and, but it's easier when you're young and you don't have kids, you don't maybe have a spouse yet. You know, it's just kind of like, okay, no problem. I'll go. Like it's way way easier than when you have to be away from your family.
Matt:Exactly. I can only imagine what it's like going through flight training with a whole family and kids as well.
Bryan:Totally. I've thought about that many times. I'm very grateful that I only thing I had to focus on during flight training was flight training.
Matt:Yeah. I agree.
Bryan:So, Dylan, your journey started in aerospace engineering and civilian flying. What ultimately pushed you towards military aviation?
Dylan:Yeah. So I remember trying to go to a recruiting center at age 18 and just try to get an idea of what military aviation was like. I always thought flying might be a cool thing to do in my in my future, but I didn't really get much of an answer from them. They were just kind of like fill in this paperwork and you'll learn more and it kind of felt a little little uncomfortable. So I ended up applying to Carleton University for aerospace engineering and just kind of following that path through.
Dylan:After my third year of university, I had a period a year and a half where I was doing an internship essentially. And had a little bit of money coming in, had a little bit of time on my hands, I thought I'll get my private pilot license. And yeah, I just kind of let that kind of scratch that itch for aviation in general. So I finished my university and took an it took a an engineering job in Calgary. I thought I would use that to kind of finance and let me let me fly as a PPL, fly as a private pilot kind of in my spare time.
Dylan:And it just it just wasn't enough. Yeah. I wasn't I wasn't getting anywhere with it. I wasn't I wasn't doing a mission. I would, you know, take off, go fly to a small town, Alberta.
Dylan:I'd go fly to Wainwright, Alberta, do a touch and go, come back to Spring Bank, and that was about it. So it just I felt like I needed more in my life and the options were really get my commercial license, which when I'm working a full time job already is kind of a big ask and a big expense or put my name in for the RCAF. And after two years of waiting in the recruitment, they finally sent me a job offer, and I was happy to jump into it.
Bryan:That's awesome. Was flying then something that you kind of always wanted to do, or where did that start?
Dylan:I think so. I remember when I was probably six or seven back when they let you into the, the front of the jets when they're on a commercial jet to go say hi to the pilot. I remember being enamored with those guys and just, you they would, know, let me touch the throttle quadrant a little bit. And I remember thinking it was the coolest thing ever. Since then, I think I always had a little little inkling in the back of my head.
Dylan:I wanted to do something with airplanes, whether that be flying or something else. So, yeah, it definitely drove me in that direction.
Bryan:Awesome. What did each of you think military aviation would be like before joining, and how did training reshape those expectations? Let's start with Dylan.
Dylan:Yeah. I honestly, I'm gonna say that I had absolutely no idea what I was getting myself into. I, you know, I didn't have I have no family members that have ever been in the military. I knew nobody that had been in military aviation, and I didn't have the benefit of a Pilot Project Podcast that I could listen in on and kind of get an idea of what was happening. So yeah, I I I went in blind.
Dylan:I knew it would be a way to to fly more and to get some ratings that I otherwise couldn't afford or didn't have the time for. So I I think that's just the it was hope for the best.
Bryan:Yeah. How about you, Matt?
Matt:I knew it wasn't going to be easy. And having been through the CAT program and the two glider and, private pilot license scholarships, are on a timeline as well, so you can't just throw more money at it. So if you can't pass something, then you're pretty much out. So you have to keep up with the rest of the course, which is kind of like how the military flight system flight training system works as well. What I had realized, is that it goes much faster.
Matt:And by something like your third or fourth sim on phase two, you're already doing instrument approaches and instrument departures, which is unheard of in the civilian world. Yeah. And then that just keeps going for pretty much the rest of the courses. You're just expected to learn things quickly and stay on top of things.
Bryan:Yeah. It's, it's definitely a a whole different world. I also went through the cadet flying program, both glider, private pilot, and then instructing on gliders. And, know, there are similarities in the way that they're structured. The grading system is the same.
Bryan:They work on the same principles, but it's it's that program but on steroids.
Matt:Like Exactly. Yeah. It's just much faster and more advanced stuff that you have to to know.
Bryan:Yeah. Yeah. For sure. Matt, can you walk us through joining under the CEOTPAEAD and remind us what that stands for and how COVID reshaped your education and flight training experience?
Matt:Yeah. So, basically, it stands for continued education officer training plan. Basically, it's known as SEEDCORN program in the air force. It no longer is a thing, but it was when I joined. And the point of it was to get pilots, trained quicker from the moment they joined in till the moment that they had their degree and their wings was about a total of four years.
Matt:So you could get a fully qualified pilot who is 21, 22 years old, which was quite good. So I didn't have a degree at the time. I also didn't wanna go to military college, So that was the route that I chose. You basically alternate between flight training and academics in university. So I did basic training, and then the week after a week later, I was on phase one.
Matt:And then I went to Trenton as an OJT for about two, three months. And then from September to April, I did my first two semesters of university before moving on to Moose Jaw to get my phase two done. Ideally, we would normally also get our phase three done before going back to school, but this was 2020 and COVID hit halfway through phase two. So everything was put on hold for a few months. They shut down the school.
Matt:I went back home. By the time I finished course in October, it was too late to get my phase three done. They sent us all back to school for the last three semesters of university. So I went back to my parents' place and did it from home. They didn't wanna send anyone back to Toronto again because of COVID, so we did everything online, which was not easy when you're used to being with your friends, and now your whole course is just scattered around the country, and you're doing everything online.
Matt:And then once that was done, I went back to Moose Jaw, did a couple of refresher sims before moving on to phase three in Portage, which was something that they normally don't do as well because normally you go from phase two to phase three pretty quickly. But since we had a gap year, they gave us a couple sims. And then in May, I had my wings. I was all done, and I was posted to Greenwood.
Bryan:Wow. So I wonder how are those refresher sims after a year off, like, getting back into the Harvard cockpit? Because that's, like, not the same as getting back into, say, a Cessna or something after a year. Like, did you find you had retained much?
Matt:So the whole point of those sims weren't to get us to be back to a 100% what we were after phase two. It was kind of just to get a bit of the rust off and have us back into thinking like a pilot. So we didn't really have much prep beforehand. We didn't know what these sims were gonna involve. They just threw us in the sim and asked us to do a couple of things.
Matt:Interestingly enough, some of the procedures came back to mind pretty quickly even after a year, But there was definitely some rust. It was just to get your hands and feet back into the into the game before moving on to the next course.
Bryan:Yeah. It gets you a little confidence on an aircraft that you're familiar with.
Matt:Exactly.
Bryan:Yeah. Dylan, how did your engineering background shape the way you approached flying systems thinking and problem solving?
Dylan:Yeah. So I I think having an engineering degree was was valuable for sure. I I have entire courses on how jet engines work, on how pneumatics and hydraulic systems work, things like that, that just gives you a bit of a leg up or just makes it a little easier to grasp some of those concepts. As well working in oil and gas, surprisingly enough, in my time working in Alberta. I mean, my whole job was designing pneumatic and hydraulic pumping systems.
Dylan:And you see those systems on aircraft in different forms, of course, but they're there nonetheless. So it's just a little easier to grasp, think. And math and performance calculations as well come intuitive to me, intuitively to me as well. So just I think it helps shape your way of thinking for sure.
Bryan:Do you think I ask engineers this sometimes. Do you think it changes the way you approach actual like flying decision making? And are you more systematic about things or how do you think it affects you in that way?
Dylan:I'm not even sure if it really does. I it has a lot of benefits on the ground, but all the actual flying in the air stuff, I think it just comes with comes from the training system.
Bryan:I Yeah.
Dylan:I I could be wrong, but yeah.
Bryan:That's fair.
Matt:I'd agree with that.
Dylan:Yeah. Yeah.
Bryan:Let's talk a little more about your guys' flight training. For each of you, what stands out most from your time on the g one twenty Grobe during primary flight training?
Dylan:Yeah. So, I mean, I I had a I had flown about a hundred hours in Cessnas before I before I joined, and flying the grove was fairly similar to that. It was another basically another twenty hours in a single engine piston aircraft. But you get to do some cool stuff like aerobatics that I've I've never touched before. Yeah.
Dylan:And kinda kinda similar to to Matt's point earlier. You know, if I'm if I'm paying for hours in the Cessna, I can I can keep paying until I get my private pilot's license in The Grove? You get x number of hours of refresher or redo training. And if you don't succeed after that, your time is over. So it definitely puts the pressure on, and it was a good intro to to military aviation, I suppose.
Bryan:How about you, Matt?
Matt:Yeah. I would I I would agree with everything that Dylan said there. I'd also mentioned that the emergency training is further ahead than what you would do in the civilian world Yeah. For a private pilot's license. So even if it's a small single engine plane, we go through more emergency scenarios and emergency handling than we would in the civilian world.
Matt:And I think that that was one of the biggest differences for me as well.
Bryan:Yeah. And the whole emergency handling philosophy that is runs common through throughout air force flying, I would imagine begins in phase one. I I didn't do phase one, but I assume it's the same as you do in phase two and all the way through.
Matt:Yeah. It does. And to see how you've gone from day one of phase one on how you handle your first emergency to now is vastly different.
Bryan:Yeah. Same philosophies, but much much more evolved thinking process probably. Exactly. Yeah. How did the Harvard two challenge you and what clicked for you on that aircraft?
Dylan:The Harvard was just fast. It was the fastest thing I'd ever flown. Yeah. And and I mean, that's that's fun, but it all can also mean you can get behind the aircraft very, very quickly. I remember one of my of my prog cards from Joel Ellis, one who did a lot of my instructing at the end.
Dylan:I have some quotes from that. It says, going fast is fun at a swank 300 knots. But but try and try and calm it down a little bit. I got a little excited on a rejoin one time and that's essentially what came out in my progress card there. So, yeah.
Bryan:You were going 300 knots on a rejoin?
Dylan:Yeah. I kept the power.
Bryan:Should be two twenty. Right?
Dylan:I think I was coming out of the area. So it was it's kind of a free for all,
Matt:but I
Dylan:left the power in and I just got a little excited. The the non exceed speed, I can't believe I remember this number, was 316 knots on it.
Bryan:So I got I got close.
Dylan:Yeah. No no no no limits were breached.
Bryan:Yeah. That's awesome. And how about you, Matt?
Matt:I would say that, again, it's a quick aircraft. Everything happens fast on it. I could just remember my first circuit downwind, everything happening at the same time being way behind the aircraft.
Bryan:Yeah.
Matt:But at some point, you kind of find your place in the aircraft and start feeling a little more comfortable, I guess you could say. And by the end, you just have a flow of how you do everything, and it's quite satisfying when you actually have some time to look outside and realize where you're at.
Bryan:Yeah. Yeah. It's it's definitely a nice feeling because, like, your first, yeah, your first downwind, you're like, okay. I gotta do I gotta get traffic lookouts. I gotta do a radio call.
Bryan:I gotta do my downwind checks. I I gotta do this. I gotta do that. And then all of a sudden, you're like, I haven't done any of that, and it's time to turn.
Matt:Exactly. And I remember my instructor, I think it was on the first one, he's like, you missed the new altimeter setting. It's like, I do not know what's going on right now.
Bryan:Oh, man. Dylan, can you walk us through the hydraulic failure you experienced on your nav solo?
Dylan:Yeah. So, yeah, the nav solo is I think it's your last or second last solo on the course. So, like, you're fairly comfortable with the aircraft at that point. You are fairly far along. But, yeah, it was it was my last solo on the course.
Dylan:And so you think probably nothing's gonna happen on the solo. It's fine. Yeah. It was a it was a smoky hazy day in Moose Jaw that day. It was right on the edge of the weather limits for they wouldn't even let me go solo, but I was just yeah.
Dylan:The smoke had cleared off just enough that I could go take off. Flew my flew my nav route. No problem. No no signs that anything was wrong and came and flew the rejoin. Truly, the only time I first time I noticed something was when I tried to put the gear down and nothing happened.
Dylan:So, yeah, so at that point, I'm like, that's not good. Look down at my at my hydraulic gauge, see nothing on the pressure. So breakout, and the the harbor two has a, basically, a gear blowdown system that uses stored hydraulic pressure or pneumatic pressure. It's actually been a long time. One of those two.
Dylan:Some kind of pressure to push the gear down for you for an emergency like that. So I was able to push that down, go for, declare an emergency, rejoin, and I ended up landing and stopping on the runway because I thought maybe I was spewing hydraulic fluid out the back of my aircraft. So I just thought, stop the aircraft here, shut it down, and they'll tow me in. And Yeah. Good call.
Dylan:Yeah. We and I yeah. And that was pretty much it. I got in. People I think the person working the ops desk was like, what's going on over there?
Dylan:I told him and he's like, okay. Go fill in your flight safety reports. And that was pretty much all I heard about it. So I thought there was going be I was still a student on a solo. I thought I would be hearing a lot more about it and maybe marched into the CEO's office to explain myself as to what happened.
Dylan:But no. It it was literally a hydraulic pump failure that that prevented me from having hydraulic pressure. So apparently, I did everything right.
Bryan:Okay.
Dylan:Yeah.
Bryan:Matt, how did the COVID era disruptions affect your confidence heading into multi engine training?
Matt:As I mentioned earlier, I had a big gap because of COVID between phase two and phase three. So, obviously, now you have to get back into the books where the procedures just like normal, like, rules, orders, instrument procedures, and stuff like that that are common to all aircraft. You just have to get back into it and refresh yourself on all of them. So you start the course feeling like you're already behind and you have to do some catching up. But at the end of the day, it's all perfectly fine, and you just learn as you go.
Bryan:Were you stressed out about that at all, like, going into it?
Matt:A little bit. Yeah. After, again, after not being in there for a year. But everyone else on my course was in the same situation as well. And I think the instructors realized it and they pretty much start from scratch anyways.
Bryan:Yeah. Yeah. That was I was so I was a new instructor candidate at that time and it was a weird time. Everyone was trying to figure out the rules, figure out how to mitigate risk and how to fly safely together and all that kind of stuff. And I think I think everyone was sort of feeling it out.
Bryan:And I imagine on the instructor side, there was a good deal of understanding for the gaps that you folks had experienced.
Matt:Exactly. And luckily enough though, I think my course was the first one to actually be able to do proper cross countries after COVID. Yeah. So we were able to go out and do something, which was quite nice.
Bryan:Yeah. That was a sad time where no one was allowed to actually do cross countries, which is, like, the most exciting part of multi engine training and also where you really kind of develop as a pilot Yeah. The first time you leave the area, go somewhere new, see new things, go to a different country. Or I guess you guys probably weren't allowed to do did you go to The States?
Matt:Yeah. We went to Albuquerque and Nashville for
Bryan:Awesome.
Matt:A night in each place. So, yeah, that was, again, eye opening because even though they're just our neighbors down south, they still have a couple different procedures or different ways of saying things on the radio. So you just have to know that and experience it to actually learn something.
Bryan:Yeah. For sure. What were the biggest lessons each of you took from the CT one forty five King Air?
Dylan:Yeah. So I mean, the King Air is, it's first time you're flying as part of a crew. And I mean, going forward in our careers, it's all we've known for a long time now. But, before that, you're flying at the Harvard, which has that jet mentality. So, you know, it's you're essentially always a solo or acting solo or the instructor in the back is evaluating you as if you're a solo.
Dylan:So having the instructor sit beside you and contribute to be part of the crew. I think that think that was an interesting change of mindset. Yeah, they're still evaluating you, but they're they're also part of the team.
Matt:I would agree with the crew concept as well. It's your first time actually flying with another student. Well, not necessarily flying, but you're you're in the simulator with another student, and then you're a part of a crew with instructor as well when you're flying. And you're part of the decision making process. They don't just make decisions for you anymore, if that makes sense.
Bryan:Mhmm.
Matt:So I remember on my cross country,
Bryan:we
Matt:were somewhere in Alberta. I can't remember exactly where it was. Mhmm. And something we got a flicker of a fire engine firelight on a touch and go.
Bryan:Okay.
Matt:Turns out it was just reflection, but we thought that it was something else. So so when we landed, the instructor had a whole conversation with us and tried to get us involved in the decision as to do we keep going for the day or do we just stop here? And I think that was my first time where I actually felt a little more involved in the decision making process.
Bryan:And what was the decision in the end?
Matt:We called back home again. They looked and they said, yeah. It was probably just the light that hit the right direction. It never happened again. We tried testing it and it didn't offer anything.
Matt:We just kept going for the day.
Bryan:Yeah. Yeah. And that's a good lesson. You know, you can always call home. Right?
Matt:Like Exactly.
Bryan:You can always call the standards pilot for advice. You can always call maintenance to double check on a system issue. Like, that's a big lesson to learn.
Matt:Yeah. And I think the fire detection loop on the King Air used infrared or something like that. So depending on how the plane was angled with the sun, it could have just gone in there and hit it. It was an actual, like, an overheat detection.
Bryan:Okay. I can't even recall anymore how that one works.
Matt:If I remember correctly, that's how it worked. So
Dylan:Yeah. We flew, what, thirty hours on that
Bryan:thing at most. So Yeah. And years ago.
Matt:A long, long time ago. Yeah.
Bryan:You both had fairly different pathways to earning your wings. How did earning your wings feel after all that time?
Dylan:Yeah. I had kind of a I was I was still mid COVID when I got my wings. So I wasn't allowed any guests at my parade. I wasn't allowed any any guests at the after celebrations, and we didn't have a mess dinner. So in some ways, it was a little anticlimactic in that way.
Dylan:But even still, it felt a lot more exciting than getting my private pilot license, for example. And finally got to fill that big wing shaped hole on my, on my flight jacket, looming over me for four years up to that point. So yeah. Good. It felt great.
Dylan:Yeah.
Matt:Yeah. I think it, felt great as well. It was a bit of a relief after being in for so many years. I think it was five years in at that point. So it's just a nice relief to finally get to a point where you can actually move to squadron and actually do your job, which I think is what makes it worth at the end of the day.
Bryan:Yeah. Absolutely. We we all join to do the job. Right?
Matt:Like, training
Bryan:is part of the job, but you're you're really there to become an operational pilot and go out and fly operationally.
Matt:Exactly. And it's nice to be in school and do all the flight training and all that. But at some point, you just want to do something in the real world.
Bryan:Yeah. I really feel for you guys who graduated during COVID. It's tough because, like, you know, getting your wings my memories of that day, my family was there. My best buddy from high school happened to be the lead bagpiper in Winnipeg, so he was there. All my loved ones were there, and it was like this really special thing.
Bryan:And you guys just had this totally different experience. At least neither of you had the Zoom wings ceremony. Right?
Dylan:No. No. We did at least have an in person wing ceremony. So
Bryan:that's good. Nice.
Dylan:Yeah.
Bryan:I I have had a guest who who had got his wings via Zoom.
Dylan:Yeah. That's snow. No. Thank you.
Matt:I was actually lucky because I was on the tail end of COVID for phase three. So my family was able to come down, we did have full parade and the dinner at the end and all that. Nice. So yeah. Think I was second course after COVID to be able to do that, which was quite nice because I think this was the first time I was actually able to show my parents what I did, and they could see the aircraft and the sim and all that.
Bryan:Yeah. I always thought that was, like, kind of a weird part about this job is, like, people have kind of a nebulous idea of what you do and where you work and the machines you're operating. And those take your family to work day kind of experiences are really special because finally, they can, like, see what you do.
Matt:Exactly. And I put my dad in simulator and he tried to land it.
Bryan:Yes. And then they learned how hard it really is. Exactly. So were you guys both hoping to get selected Auroras?
Dylan:No. I'd say yes for me. Yeah.
Bryan:Okay. So we've got two two different answers. So, Matt, why don't you hit us with your hopes and dreams and and the story there?
Matt:So initially, I want to fly c seventeens. I want fire mobility. It was something that was appealing to me, and the Aurora was never really on my radar. Didn't really know exactly what the fleet did. I wasn't super educated on the on the subject.
Matt:But my last week on phase three, the course director met with me and another guy and said, hey. There's only one guy that's able to go to Trenton who wants to go to Greenwood to fly the Auroras. And both of us said no. Then on the last and now the boat and the last day on graduation day is when I found out that I was going to Greenwood to fly the Aurora. So I decided to stay positive and keep an open mind to it.
Matt:And then I would see what they actually did and how Yeah, I would see how what the aircraft actually did and how they flew it and I ended up enjoying it. And my other friend that ended up going c seventeens, only got qualified about two years later than me.
Bryan:Oh, wow.
Matt:And yeah. And I think that Diora is a good mix of transiting, but also flying and doing stuff. And it's an interesting mission set, and it's very diverse.
Bryan:Yeah.
Matt:So it all ended up working in the end.
Bryan:Yeah.
Matt:It just goes to show that if you keep an open mind, there's no real bad aircraft to fly in the air force. I don't think so.
Bryan:I I totally agree. I asked to go Aurora's, but all the things you're saying are the reasons why I wanted Aurora's. Like I knew it had a diverse mission set. I knew that there was a good mix of like relaxing time and hands and feet flying. I also was attracted to like the large crew.
Bryan:I also wanted a aircraft with a bathroom and coffee on board. So there were a lot of reasons for me to pick the Aurora. Dylan, you had asked for the Aurora. What's the story there?
Dylan:I mean, I I don't think I would have until I had a Motovex come by into Moose Jaw once. Same. Yeah. Same for you. Yeah.
Dylan:Yeah. So, I mean, I I didn't know what the aurora was either, much like most people in the in the in the armed forces. Let's be honest. It's we do so many random little things that it's it's hard to lock us down. Like, it's easy to say Globemaster goes and does transport, search and rescue, searches and rescues.
Dylan:So, you know, saying that we go and hunt submarines, but also do drug interdiction and area patrols and search and rescue as well. It's a I think it's a lot to wrap your head around and to get excited about until you're actually in it. So, they came, they showed us around the aircraft at this mode of x and they gave us a PowerPoint presentation and that was enough to hook me in at least. And my she would have been my my girlfriend at the time, soon to be a fiance, or was she my fiance at the time? Either way, she is from East Coast from PEI.
Dylan:And so Okay. So Greenwood was a pretty logical step, I think, for getting her a little closer to her family and me on the Aurora. So, it was it was a perfect posting for me. Awesome.
Matt:I think the Aurora is like this hidden gem in the Air Force as well Totally. That no one really knows about, And it's because there's a lot of stuff that we just can't talk about.
Bryan:Yeah. Yeah. It's it half of what the Aurora does or more is secret.
Matt:So Exactly.
Bryan:You can't get really too into the weeds. Exactly. But it is it is a a hidden gem. I agree with that. Absolutely.
Bryan:What were your early impressions of actually flying the Aurora?
Matt:First impressions were that's a much larger crew than what I am used to flying. You're used to flying on the King Air with another person in there, and now you're adding a third person to the flight deck as a flight engineer who is heavily involved in operating the aircraft as well and brings a different perspective to everything.
Bryan:Mhmm.
Matt:And then when you're on a mission, you also have all the mission crew in the back who are trying to get the mission done. And it's the communication between the two of them that becomes quite challenging. I remember the first sim with the whole crew. Everyone's trying to talk at the same time, passing along information. It just becomes super hectic.
Matt:But, yeah, it's super fun aircraft. First flight, lots of power, very maneuverable for the size of it. Just a joy to fly.
Dylan:Yeah. I was gonna say much the same about the just how overwhelming the radios are when you first get onto the aircraft with an untrained crew. Nobody really knows when to talk or what to say. So Yeah. It's it's overwhelming for sure.
Dylan:Yeah. When I got to four zero five squadron after training, I was on I was holding a ready 12, which is basically twelve hours notice to move to go deploy or go respond to something. First day first day on the squadron, I was on Ready 12. And then the second day, I got activated on Ready 12 and told, you're going to Whitehorse for an unknown period of time. Oh, wow.
Dylan:Yeah. So I think it was like a pretty big kick in the pants and a pretty big wake up call for what this fleet is, I guess. And that's, you know, you don't know where you're gonna end up. You don't really you don't know what's what's gonna happen one day to the next sometimes. And I think it keeps it interesting for sure.
Matt:Yeah. We have people on twenty four hours notice to move, and then they deploy for an undetermined amount of time come back two months later sometimes. Yeah. Keeps it interesting for both the member and the family.
Dylan:Yeah. Absolutely.
Bryan:Yeah. Yeah. For sure. Matt, how would you say an FO contributes on the flight deck of the Aurora? Like, what is the job of an FO?
Matt:So an FO is first officers, basically just a pilot. And just like the AC, they're responsible for the safe operation of the aircraft, really. They're just not the ones making the final decisions, but they still have to know how to do things and how to make decisions. But they're also responsible for most of the flight planning and taking care of all, like, the little preflight stuff. That's important, but that the AC shouldn't have to worry about too much.
Matt:Mhmm. Whereas they can focus on the bigger picture. So getting flight plans sorted, getting diplomatic clearances when you're going to a different country, looking for PPRs.
Bryan:PPR is prior permission required and is something that needs to be sorted out before you land in a busy airport?
Matt:Doing the pre flights of the aircraft and stuff like that. So the AC can take care of dealing with putting out all the fires instead. And I also, from my experience, FOs, especially when they're fresh off the course, bring a different perspective because they aren't as experienced. So they stick to the books a little more and the procedures, whereas some of the older guys might try and not necessarily deviate, but might forget some stuff a little more, if that makes sense.
Bryan:Well, they're also used to they've been operating for so long, so they're going off of
Matt:Their experience.
Bryan:Yeah. A huge pool of experience. Right?
Matt:Yeah. Exactly. So sometimes it just takes someone who's a little more fresh to come and say, wait a minute. We're forgetting this. Yeah.
Matt:Even if something super simple like, hey, have we done this checklist?
Bryan:Yeah. That makes that makes total sense. And I I remember, like, when you're really fresh out of the books or when you have an FO who's really fresh out of the books and they're like, hey, what about this? Have you thought about this? Or have you ever thought about this rule or this part of the system?
Bryan:And you're like, what? Where did you get that?
Matt:Yeah. Exactly.
Bryan:Yeah. Dylan, what did you appreciate about the leadership and mentorship style within the Aurora community?
Dylan:I felt like it was there was definitely a desire to teach and learn. And there was there was always always somebody that was wanting to teach you something. You could show up in your standards and training office just with a quick little question and standards and training officer might sit you down, might have an hour long chat with you about x y zed things. You know, maybe off on a tangent, but you're you're a junior first officer and all you want and all you need is as much knowledge as you can get at that point. So just the fact that they're willing to, you know, take an
Matt:hour out of
Dylan:an already probably busy day to to teach you something is is really great, honestly. Yeah. So yeah. Just just happy to help, I think.
Bryan:So just for the listeners, in case you're hearing some tapping noises every now and then, that's just the heating in the houses in Scotland.
Dylan:Yep. Baseboard heaters out of hot water hot water radiators.
Matt:No problem.
Bryan:No problem. Yeah. You know, life is an FO on the squadron. You're a sponge. Right?
Bryan:And everybody around you is a is a systems expert and has so much knowledge to give. And there's so much to learn about not just your job, but everyone else's job. There's there's a ton of stuff to
Dylan:learn. Absolutely.
Matt:Yeah. And I think the Aurora community is really good for this where everyone likes to learn and talk about the aircraft systems and stuff like that. If there's a long transit in the plane and you're just waiting quietly, there's gonna be a flight engineer that's gonna start quizzing you on what this button does and how the system works
Bryan:Yeah.
Matt:Which I think is very interesting because everyone else starts listening and starts participating in it at the same time. So.
Bryan:Yeah. I really enjoyed learning about the Aurora, learning the systems, having those chats as you cross the Atlantic. Yeah. You know, you talk about other stuff too. Right?
Bryan:You have there's relaxed time, but I like that there was some mentorship happening during flights, which there has to be because there's just so much to learn. Like, it takes years to to really get to a point where it starts to click. And and, you know, with that being said, when did each of you feel you had truly found your footing as long range patrol pilots?
Matt:It's a good question.
Bryan:Or have you?
Dylan:Do you ever find your footing? The only the one thing that I think stood out to me is just, you know, we do we do these area patrols on operational in bid where you are essentially just going around looking at boats, seeing if you see anything suspicious, and you're basically just trying to cover as much ground as you possibly can. So as a first officer, my part of my job is looking at the fuel and making sure we have enough fuel to do the whole mission. So running those calculations and then arriving back in Greenwood with exactly the amount that I expected we would was pretty rewarding, I'd say. So I I don't know if that's the exact moment I found my footing, but that was a moment where I felt like I'd kind of figured something out anyways.
Bryan:How about you, Matt? Did you have a moment where things seemed to click a bit for you?
Matt:Yeah. I would say so. Where it really clicked, I would say, especially the for the tactic portion of the flying, clicked on my last few months on Squadron, actually. It was my first real life ASW mission out in North Atlantic, and I was actually deployed there with the Squadron from Comox
Bryan:Okay.
Matt:And set from Greenwood. So different crew as well. But that's when I started really understanding the tactics a little more and getting involved. And now you're actually flying on a real submarine, and you have to find the guy. And no one wants to lose him or go cold on a on a search.
Matt:See, I'd say that that's probably where it clicked is when I was able to understand fully what was going on, and I had this bare mental capacity to be able to even help the other first officer that was on the detachment with us that was more junior and fresh off the course.
Bryan:Yeah. That's awesome. I loved ASW, anti submarine warfare, in case the listeners are not sure what that stands for. It's just like a this really interesting cat and mouse game. The tactics are obviously we can't get into the tactics, but they're very interesting.
Bryan:It's just and once you finally have the brain space to follow along and you're not just following directions from the the crew commander or the taco, you're actually, oh, I think I think this is what we'll do next. Like, you're starting to anticipate what's gonna happen and that's really cool.
Matt:Yeah. And you know where to position the aircraft to be more efficient and to be able to drop buoys Yeah. In a good amount of time.
Bryan:Yeah. Let's get into some of those operational experiences. Can you each share with us the story of your first operational deployment?
Dylan:Yeah. So, I I don't know if it it must have been your first as well. Right, Matt? So, of Neon? Yeah.
Dylan:Yeah. So me and Matt were on the same crew in Greenwood for most of our time in Greenwood. So, you know, we flew we flew for OpNeon together. For the again benefit of the listeners, Opneon is Canada's contribution to enforcing oil and gas importation sanctions against North Korea. So basically, goal is to go out there and look for sketchy ships that are transferring oil and gas products between them, ultimately destined for North Korea.
Dylan:They have this whole this whole system where they just transfer the fuel to try and muddy the waters. And so you're never really so you're not really sure where it's come from. And, we go out there. We we for about a month at a time, twice a year, and just look for these ship to ship transfers and try and photograph them and essentially attempt to enforce them. The this all happens in the East China Sea.
Dylan:We fly out of Kadena, Okinawa, Japan into the East China Sea, which is a essentially, this block of water that's in between China, Taiwan, and Japan. So I wouldn't say it's a contested area, but it's definitely an area that the Chinese and the Taiwanese and Japanese have a very close eye on. So you end up most of the time being intercepted by Chinese and Taiwanese fighter jets. And so you spend most of your time with with a fighter jet on your wing that's armed with missiles and is, in general, just watching, just making sure that you're not getting too close to them.
Bryan:Wow.
Bryan:What would you guys say stands out from your experiences flying in Opnion?
Matt:I would say that's probably the politics of the area. The politics are a lot more complicated than I was expecting because everyone's nice and friendly here in Canada, but and we know what is ours. But once you move to the East China Sea and you have Japan, Taiwan, and China all claiming the same territories, we would have flights where we would discover a new island every time, and a different country would be claiming this said island. So we could be flying over top of one, and then China a Chinese warship would tell us to turn around and go someplace else. And then Japan would come and say, no.
Matt:This is ours. You can keep going. So it makes for interesting flights because every time you're learning something new and you kinda have to adapt the way that you run your mission to avoid all these hotspots, I guess, you could say.
Bryan:Yeah. Now you were both on board for an aggressive Chinese intercept on Opnion with Global News on board, which made national headlines. Can you tell us this story?
Dylan:Yeah. So essentially, we we were going out for a regular mission on the off and it was just so happened to be one that General Huddleston was on board as well as this global news crew. And yeah, things were going as per normal, I think. Got intercepted a few times. They do basically handovers.
Dylan:So they'll have one jet hand over to another jet, hand over to another jet. I think it was the third jet that was eventually on us, really didn't like where we were going. So he was getting very close to us. Normally intercepts would be within hundreds or thousands of feet. This one was probably more in the tens of feet he was getting within our wing.
Dylan:Oh, wow. He would fly in front of us and run his jet wash in front of us, which is which is called bumping, basically just to create massive turbulence on the jet. And we were also getting flares dropped in front of us, So that's a bit of a risk to our engines. As you can imagine, if a flare went into one of our engine takes that might cause a full failure or something worse than that. So overall, that was a pretty scary experience, I'd say.
Dylan:Yeah. It's I think it really shows that they were yeah. I I don't know what what prompted them specifically on that day to be so aggressive about it, but we classified that as an unsafe and unprofessional intercept.
Bryan:So talking of professionalism, how do you maintain professionalism and discipline during these interactions with foreign military aircraft?
Dylan:I mean, these fighter aircraft, they they have missiles on board and are way more maneuverable than us. So we're essentially a sitting duck there. If they really wanted to do something, we there's nothing we can do about it. So all we can do is videotape, record. We can can keep logs, and in the end, have to keep doing our mission.
Dylan:So our mission takes us as as close to China as we can because that's where those ship to ship transfers are happening. That's their they they know where we fly, and so they try and fly in all the places that we can't get to. So we have to get as close to China as we can, and we have to it's not it's not a good anything against China. It's just that's where this that's where these things are happening.
Matt:Exactly. And we have no interest in China while we're there either. So Yeah. We just have to stick to our procedures in the script. Then we have this script that we just read out to them saying that we are operating due regard and that we're not there to bother them.
Matt:We're just doing our job. They just have to try and be predictable to them and not maneuver the aircraft aggressively in any way, just make it nice and smooth for everyone. And, yeah, the sometimes they'll come out and say bad things to you, but you just have to move on and not interact with them too much.
Bryan:Was it, like, pretty scary to have you know, to be intercepted by fighters? And, like, do you feel a sense of of danger? Or does it feel kind of routine and this is all political theater and there's not too much to worry about? Like, how does it feel?
Matt:The first couple of times were a little more scary. I remember our first flight, I think it was, like, an hour in, and they were already dropping flares just off her wingtip. It just comes to realization, okay. This is this is real. Something could happen.
Matt:Let's not get everyone confused and just, again, stick to the script, be predictable. Let's not try and get them going here.
Bryan:Yeah. Matt, what did participation in exercise RIMPAC teach you about multinational ASW integration?
Matt:So when I went to RIMPAC, I was actually not on a flying crew. I was in a ground position Oh. As a battle watch captain in the operation center.
Bryan:Okay. What what does that job involve, and what did you learn from it?
Matt:So, basically, this the person is on shift. There's someone there twenty four seven, and they basically overwatch the daily flying operations. And they're the point of contact for anything for any information that has to come through the, basically, the maritime patrol aircraft units. So it gives so it gave me a a unique aspect into how all the different countries operate because we were working with the Kiwis, the Aussies, the Brits, the Americans. Also, interestingly, the Indians, the Japanese, and the Koreans, which are not countries that we typically work with.
Matt:So it's interesting to see how they do things differently. And the way RIMPAC works is that they go under the crawl, walk, run principle. So you start off at the beginning of the exercise. Everything is super easy. And at the end, you're basically twenty four hour coverage on a submarine, and you're handing over to another nation that you've never worked with.
Matt:But somehow everything still ties in well together, and you're still able to hand over a submarine seamlessly with another country. That might not that might not have the same procedures as you in the first place.
Bryan:Yeah. Yeah.
Bryan:I've I was lucky enough to be on a couple of RIM packs as a as aircrew, and you've summarized it beautifully. It it's really interesting to watch it go from like very, very simple scenarios to very complex scenarios where you're you're maintaining coverage on a submarine and doing handovers and all that stuff. It's very, very cool to see.
Matt:Yeah.
Bryan:So let's talk about some of the various, I'll say, incidents you guys have experienced, some missions, some lessons. Matt,
Dylan:can
Bryan:you walk us through the engine shutdown on your Comox tail swap during your very first week on Squadron?
Matt:Yeah. So it's my first week on Squadron, fresh off the course. I'm sitting in the crew rooms, and one of the ACs walks in. He's like, hey, Matt. Are you free tomorrow?
Matt:We're going to Comox. Like, sure. Let's do it. Supposed to be a pretty simple trip. We're just dropping off a plane on the other coast and then coming back.
Matt:So, yeah, in the morning, get the plane ready, take off. In about half an hour into the flight, the start valve light comes on
Bryan:Okay.
Matt:Which means that the starter is engaged and spinning, which is not a good thing when the engine is turning at full speed like it is.
Dylan:Yeah. So we pull out a checklist and it basically just says
Matt:you have to shut the engine down. I was flying at the time. The AC was reading the checklist, and apparently, I had a bit of a shocked look on my face because it's not something that I was expecting, obviously. Something that we had trained for before because that's a common thing on a multiengine aircraft to have to shut down engines. Well, that's what we practice for anyways.
Matt:And on the Aurora, we do fly on three engines regularly as part of our training as well just to save fuel. So not too much of a big deal. But, yeah, now we're heavy because we're full of fuel. So we come back over Greenwood, burn some fuel, and then we land with no issues there. And then the next day, they fixed the plane, and we took off and went to Comox.
Matt:So that was a nice welcome to the fleet. It turns out that it was not the last time that something like that would happen.
Bryan:Yeah. I don't know too many people who flew the Aurora for for long without having to shut an engine down at least once. Yeah. I see you're both nodding your heads. So
Dylan:Yep. Comes with the territory.
Matt:Yeah. Yeah. Because Dylan and I were on another flight where we had to do it. We were both in the seat when it happened.
Bryan:Oh, really? Yeah. What's the story there?
Matt:We were flying just out of Charlottetown, I think.
Dylan:Yeah. And I think we just had the dropping oil pressure. There was nothing you know, nothing nothing shocking or anything. It's just oil pressure is going down. Okay.
Dylan:Shut down the engine. Let's go home.
Matt:Yep.
Bryan:Yeah. The nice thing about the Aurora is it performs beautifully on three engines. It has so much power for its weight that losing an engine, shutting down an engine is not a not a big deal. I mean, even.
Matt:Exactly.
Bryan:You can fly it on two engines. So Yeah. It's it's a pretty impressive airplane.
Matt:Exactly. And everyone's trained for it, so it doesn't really become a huge deal. Yeah. I think I think it was well handled. We just looked at each other and went, okay.
Matt:Let's pull out a checklist, pull out a checklist, and then we have to shut down. Okay. Shut it down. And we turned back and went back to Greenwood.
Bryan:Yep. So in June 2023, the Titan submersible operated by Ocean Gate imploded during a trip to the Titanic wreck, killing all five people aboard. However, at first, all that was known was that it was missing. Dylan, you flew during SAR activation for this event. What was that experience like from the air crew perspective?
Dylan:Yeah. So it was it was it was interesting in that as the Aurora as the Aurora, we are generally a secondary song set. So we let the Hercules and the Coimarons do their do the majority of the SAR work, but and we'll kind of cover off areas where they don't think something's happening or yeah. We're we're essentially a secondary asset to those the main ones with Sartex on board and all the SAR kit and all the SAR training. But in this case, where we're hunting for a submersible, all of a sudden, Aurora is the perfect machine to do that because we can we can both drop sonoboys down at last known position.
Dylan:We can drop it's called ESUS down, which is like an underwater communication device, I guess I'd say. And then we can also do regular SAR things, looking for debris, looking for survivors in the water. Yeah. So as far as it was the first time that I'd done a SAR and it was also the first time that I was a primary SAR asset that was going to be on the front lines potentially actually finding these people. Yeah, in hindsight, that's the submersible that exploded long before we ever got there.
Dylan:But there was points where we would drop a songboy down and in the hour, we would hear banging, bang, bang. Oh, really? And we were and we were I don't know if it was just confirmation bias or what it was, but we were pretty convinced that was some kind of a survivor underwater and maybe that kept things going for a few days.
Bryan:Wow. That must have been crazy.
Dylan:Yeah. It was.
Bryan:So let's talk about your selection for SEEDCORN. When did you first learn about SEEDCORN and what drew you to apply?
Dylan:I I got my first message while I was deployed on NEON. It was basically just a message from our from our ops saying, hey. This is potentially a thing that's coming up. Is it something that you're interested in? And basically, all he wanted to know was, are you interested in going to one of these four places, that being Jacksonville, Lossy Mouth, The UK, which is where we are, or there's locations in Australia or New Zealand that he wanted to either a yes or no, and what's your ranking of those four Ouchan locations?
Dylan:Now, this was all before the PA had even been announced. So I definitely took the whole thing with a bit of a grain of salt. This was in November 2023. And the actual PA announcement was in December 2023. So I called my wife pretty much as soon as I got that message.
Dylan:We talked it through. And with that grain of salt, we were like, yeah, let's just see how this all plays out for now. My wife was at the time thirty weeks pregnant, not thirty weeks pregnant, a little bit less than that, but she was very pregnant at the time and the idea of us uprooting our lives in the near future seemed a little daunting, but we just thought probably a good opportunity. So we'll see how it all plays out.
Bryan:How about you, Matt?
Matt:So I only heard about it through Dylan the first for the first little while. I wasn't approached for it up until the last day before Christmas where they grabbed just over a dozen of us, brought us into a room and said, you guys have been selected for SEEDCORN. We don't know where you're going. It might be Australia or The UK. We don't know how long you're gonna be there or when you're gonna go, but just get ready for it.
Matt:Happy holidays. And then came back after Christmas, obviously, thinking about during the time off for a bit. Yeah. Just decided to go with it. Not think thinking that was gonna be a great opportunity.
Matt:And then a couple weeks later, the screening message came in, and we started the whole process to come here.
Bryan:So speaking of that screening process, what did that look like, from your perspective?
Matt:The the screen process basically just to look, at everything and make sure that you're good to go and ready to, move overseas and that there shouldn't be any, issues. So, generally speaking, the whole family has to go through the process. So you'll meet with social workers, doctors, dentists, the CO, and all that. Just make sure that you don't have anything bad happening in your life, that there's no underlying medical conditions that might require you having to come back to Canada earlier, that your kids are gonna be able to smoothly transition into the new education system, stuff like that. So that takes a few weeks to get, and then the whole file gets sent to Ottawa and they approve it before you get a post a message.
Bryan:Dylan, anything interesting in your screening process?
Dylan:Yeah. I mean, my daughter was born on January 27, and, the week following that, I got the screening message. So a little bit chaotic, and I was probably a little slow to get going on the screening at that point because, I had a postpartum wife who needed some time to recover and a brand new baby that we were still trying to figure out how to keep alive. Yeah, the screening process was not really designed for newborns, I'd say, in that we had to take my daughter to the dentist to verify that she in fact was okay dentally to go overseas. We brought her in, the dentist said, yep, no teeth there.
Dylan:Good enough, I guess. So yeah, it a very busy time when I was actually on paternity leave at the time as well and I had to do this whole screening process. A little bit of a mess trying to bring my wife out to social worker meetings as well. Again, postpartum and not even really supposed to be bringing a newborn baby out into the public for a while for the sake of they'd have weak little immune systems. Yeah, it was it was definitely interesting.
Dylan:Yeah. Poorly timed, but that's that's how that's how it goes sometimes.
Matt:And it's just a lot of appointments. Yes. A lot of appointments, a lot of following up because you can't move on to the next step until this person has signed something. So sometimes you have to call back a couple days later and ask for the signature and just a long process.
Bryan:All the red tape. Yeah. Yeah. How did your peers and families react when they learned you were going to Lodzemith?
Dylan:Again, I had a I had a newborn daughter at the time, and she was the first daughter on or the first first grandchild on both sides of the family. So I think there was a lot of disappointment there. Yeah. They they just kind of started to step into this new role as grandparents and then, oh, sorry. We're we're going overseas now.
Dylan:But it's I I think the important thing to remember with these postings is that they are temporary. Have an end date. You know where where you're coming back to, at least in our case, do. And yeah, and they can step back into those roles as soon as we're back.
Bryan:How about you, Matt?
Matt:Everyone was pretty excited. Obviously, a little shocked because I just showed up for Christmas and said, hey. By the way, this might be my last Christmas here before I move somewhere else. So some people were a little concerned about that, but everyone is very encouraging and, saw this as an opportunity that I shouldn't, miss. I should just go for it.
Bryan:Awesome. So as we get ready to close here, what advice would you have to any listeners who are maybe considering an OKEN posting?
Matt:100% take the opportunity to go here. The screening process is very long and then the whole moving part is quite stressful as well because you have to sell your house. You have to sell your vehicle. You have to get visas, and then you have to travel to a new country to find a new place to stay. And you have to buy a new car, go through all the admin of being here as well because now you need new bank accounts, which you can't get if you don't have an address.
Matt:But then you also can't get a lease unless you have a bank account. So it's just to kinda take things slow and what's the next step? Do one thing at a time and ask others on how they did stuff and piggyback it off of them instead of trying something new and having to go through the whole thing again on your own. I think it's a big thing.
Dylan:And, yeah, I I agree with everything that Matt's saying there. It's I I think you have to be open to a a huge cultural shift as well. Even even going to The UK, I thought I was gonna go to The UK and, it'd be kind of the same, but you go to the grocery stores, everything was different. All the brands are different. Everything is called something different.
Dylan:People, they speak an entirely different language sometimes. And yeah, it's just you have to be prepared for that cultural shift. And I can't imagine it must be a lot more challenging for people that go to places that don't even speak English at all. So it's, again, like Matt said, very rewarding and an opportunity that I will probably never get again in my life. But, there's challenges for sure.
Bryan:Yeah. It's a
Matt:lot of work to get here, but once you're here, it's actually quite nice.
Dylan:Yeah. Exactly.
Bryan:Awesome. I have a final question for you guys that I didn't put in the outline, but I've noticed Dylan is drinking out of a mug. And I'm curious, as Canadians who are now in The UK, are you guys drinking coffee these days or tea?
Dylan:Still on the coffee.
Matt:I don't drink either of them. So
Bryan:Oh my goodness. You're a long range patrol pilot who does doesn't drink coffee?
Matt:A lot of people had asked me the same question. Yeah.
Dylan:Wow. Get this, Brian. There's no coffee maker that we can use on the p eight. So Oh,
Bryan:I'm out.
Matt:Oh, yeah. The the the first crew to bring, the p eight here from The States, they just brought in, like, a regular kettle and plugged it in because they were not gonna fly across the Atlantic without having a cup of tea.
Bryan:That's hilarious.
Matt:But, yeah, that when when they landed, other people weren't happy about that. Yeah.
Bryan:No kidding. A pot of boiling water
Dylan:loose in the No way that could go wrong.
Bryan:Oh my gosh. Okay, guys. That's gonna do it for part one of our conversation today. I really enjoyed hearing about your journeys into the RCF and your flight training experiences as well as your time on the Aurora. When we connect for part two, I am really looking forward to diving into your transition to the P8A Poseidon, your work alongside the RAF, and what all this means for the future of long range patrol aviation in Canada.
Bryan:So thank you once again for being here today. Thanks, Brian.
Matt:Thanks for having us.
Bryan:Yeah. Fly safe. Alright. That wraps up part one of our chat with Matt and Dylan about their flight training and operational experiences on the CP one forty Aurora. Tune in next week as we hear all about their life living in Lossy Mouth, Scotland, training on and flying the P eight a Poseidon with the RAF as part of the SEEDCORN program.
Bryan:Do you have any questions or comments about anything you've heard in this show? Would you or someone you know make a great guest, or do you have a great idea for a show? You can reach out to us at the pilotprojectpodcast@Gmail.com or on all social media at at pod pilot project. And be sure to check out that social media for lots of great videos of our RCAF and mission aviation aircraft. As always, we'd like to thank you for tuning in and ask for your help with the big three.
Bryan: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 up. See you.
Bryan:Engineer, shut down all four. Shutting down all four engines.