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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.
THIS TRANSCRIPT IS AI GENERATED AND WILL CONTAIN SOME SMALL ERRORS. IF YOU HAVE ANY QUESTIONS PLEASE CONTACT thepilotprojectpodcast@gmail.com. We understand the importance of good subtitles but currently as a one-person operation we just don't have the ability to edit these in a timely fashion and keep episodes coming out regularly. Thank you for your understanding!
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 buddy, Corey O'Neill.
Corey, welcome to the show. Thanks for having me.
So, before we get started, we'll go over Corey's bio. Corey graduated from flight training in 2015 and was posted to four Two Three Maritime helicopter squadron in Shearwater, Nova Scotia, flying the new Ch 148 Cyclone. While awaiting training on that aircraft, he flew some familial trips on the retiring Ch 124 Sea King and took a ground operations deployment to Kuwait during Op impact to work with the CP 140 Aurora Fleet in 2016 2017. He also took the delay as an opportunity to do the Arctic Survival and advanced Siri training in Resolute Bay and Winnipeg respectively. After completing his Otu training in 2017 on the Ch 148, he was immediately deployed as a First Officer with the HMCS, revealed the Quebec on the first operational deployment of the Cyclone. Upon return, he completed the upgrade to Maritime Helo or MH aircraft Commander and deployed again with the HMCS Toronto. Following that deployment, he completed the Maintenance Test Pilot Course and the Maritime Helicopter Crew Commander upgrade, reaching his highest category in the community. During his posting, he was involved in domestic operations, several multinational operations, and was deployed on a few short sails to the Caribbean. He was posted to three Canadian Forces Flight Training School in 2022 and recently.
Became a qualified flight instructor.
So where did aviation start for you?
Aviation started completely by accident for me, for the most part.
I worked for the RCMP while I.
Was in university at the University of.
Ottawa, and originally I had planned to be a police officer.
So I worked doing policy work for.
Them in Ottawa and headquarters during my time there.
I essentially worked, um, with the Skyhawks, the Parachute jump team.
Oh, cool.
And it was just kind of a public relations thing that we were doing. And after that we all went out for drinks. There were some delays in my progress anyways, trying to crack the police force as a regular member. I had ambitions to get down to BC and do some work down there.
And I was a bit frustrated.
And they had mentioned the military as.
An option for me, mhm, and said.
You should check out being an intelligence officer in the military.
Okay. And after a mundane day at work.
I decided to go down to Spark Street in Ottawa and apply.
So while there, essentially they were quite.
Happy that I already had a security clearance. I was working for the government. I did some reserve time when I was quite young in Thunder Bay. So they created a file for me, and we're pretty enthusiastic, I thought.
I kind of was a shoe in.
For it and went back to work. And after a couple of months, I.
Didn'T hear anything from them.
So I inquired again and they said, we're simply not hiring, um, for that particular trade.
And I said, well, what can you give me?
I want to be challenged both physically. I want to be in the mix, but I want something that's going to make me think. And they said, well, you should be a pilot. And I immediately dismissed that as an option for myself. I had no previous background. I didn't have an engineering background. I was an international relations and global politics graduate.
That sounds like a perfect pilot.
Yeah, exactly right. Somebody that is a complete, uh, natural. And the way that it was explained.
To me was more or less you're.
Kind of in the queue anyways, what's the harm? Brush up on your math and we're.
Going to send you to Trenton. So off I went.
And it was explained to me that typically guys or girls that come into this trade have a background, obviously, in the field, or they've done air cadets or gliders or have a private pilot's license, which tempered my expectations. And, uh, I went down to Trenton.
And tried my best to, uh, I.
Guess, compete and crack the lineup, and.
It worked out for me.
Wow. Yeah.
So you had no background in aviation?
None.
No initial intent to be a pilot?
None.
But your trade was closed and they recommended it to you and that was that.
Yeah, I think there was a timing thing where the trade had just opened, and I had a good recruiter who said that this is an option based off of my prerequisites, and again, kind of tempered my expectations as to who is typically successful in the trade. And yeah, he was sent down to air crew selection. I think there was 14 of us.
That went down and six came out the other end.
Um, either that weren't successful in the initial portion or the medical portion that follows, and I was successful.
So off I went.
So when did you start thinking, like.
Okay, I'm going to be a pilot?
It wasn't until phase one, I'd say.
Where it started to feel real, where.
It started to feel like that it was a possibility. Obviously, you get excited at the prospect. Basic training wasn't something I was massively.
Worried about, but I went through and.
I know actually, Captain Foreman talked about this a little bit as well, but I went through during the heyday of I think there was like a 60% to 70% failure rate in phase one. So I just worked as hard as.
I could to try to be successful. And how did that go? How did your flight training go?
You know what?
Hindsight is 2020. Uh, looking back on it, I loved it.
Yeah.
I'm very much more so now.
Kind of of the opinion that growth happens in failure. And I had a little bit of.
That, obviously, with my struggles in the RCMP or trying to crack the police force. But, I mean, I forged some of the best friendships through training. The challenges of training were something that I came to enjoy. Once you surpass the stress that, uh, of course, you're aware of and everybody else that's kind of gone through that rigorous training is aware of.
Did you have any big setbacks during your flight training?
Nothing that was substantial. A few failed trips here and there. One or two Eds on the way through, extra duels to brush up on a few things.
But I came through pretty unscathed, luckily.
Now, when you had to do those extra duels from a failure, did you find that difficult? Did you have a tool you use to get through that?
It's a mental game, for sure. You go into any one of those training flights, especially pre wings, knowing that your career is kind of on the liners. At the very least, it's a perspective that you have mhm for sure, uh, of the student.
So you know that it is very.
Much a do or die type situation. So really, just ensuring that you know your stuff and getting into the books and trying to prepare yourself as much as you can before you jump in the aircraft is really all you can do. Try to calm your nerves.
Yeah.
So preparation was your big thing?
I'd say so, yeah.
So you did get through your flight training?
I did.
And you got to selection and you get selected for the Cyclone?
Yes.
Now, at the time, were they saying Cyclone or seeking?
It depended who you asked. It was right on that cusp, really.
Okay, so you weren't sure if you're going to be like the last cadre of seeking.
Exactly. So they did on my graduation announce, when they kind of make that announcement.
During the ceremony that I am off.
To fly the brand new Cyclone.
Okay.
But I feel like in speaking with people from the squadron, they were saying that years prior and yet they were selling the Sea King. So I think it was just kind of a caged response for them, maybe.
And was that what you had wanted to get?
So I jumped around a little bit. I was heavily influenced by my primary and secondary instructors here in Southport, and they were both MH guys.
MH is short for maritime helicopter.
And they really spoke to some of the benefits of MH and spoke to the lifestyle a little bit. I originally, I think, when I was in basic training, wanted to go tackel and then that parried over to search and rescue and doing domestic ops. And then by the time I graduated, I was swayed to MH, so I did end up getting what I wanted, but I was, uh, pretty indecisive at times.
That's fair. I think a lot of us were though, back then, because you have so little idea. All you have is a few secondhand accounts, and if you're lucky, you've sat down with an instructor or two who's flown different airframes, but you really don't know.
Yeah, I feel like probably a lot of listeners or a lot of people that think about pilots are like, I want to go jets. Jets is kind of the thing, because I've watched Maverick. Um, but once you get into actually how operations work and what you want to do and where you want to live and what you want to get paid, there's just so many different variables that you have to consider in terms of work, life balance, family, all the stuff that you need to kind of bring into account.
Yeah, totally agree.
Were you intimidated at all asking for the Maritime Kilo fleet by the idea.
Of being at sea?
No, I wasn't. I spoke about my reserve time. It was in the Navy. Now, granted, it was in Thunder Bay, so I really just floated around Lake Superior. That didn't really count. But no, it really didn't phase me.
About going to sea.
So over water operations really didn't come.
Into my frame of mind.
So before you started flying on the Cyclone, you deployed in a ground position in support of Op Impact to work with the CP 140 Aurora Fleet?
I did.
How did that come about?
So going back to, uh, I guess whether or not I was going to fly the Sea King or the Cyclone.
When I got to Squadron, they told.
Me, you know what, you're lucky. You were going to be on the.
Last Sea King Otu. So I thought, that's fantastic.
I'm going to fly both aircraft. I'm going to get some experience. So I was awaiting this Otu. I was course loaded on the training, and it was the Friday prior to the Otu start.
And I got called into the DCO's office and he says, I'm so sorry, but you've been off ramped and you.
Are no longer on the OT. Uh, reason being because the fleet was kind of dwindling and OTS were taking a little bit longer. It was a course of eight. They cut it to a course of six, and I was number seven.
That must have been a tough I.
Mean, it was nice that it was a Friday. Yeah, that might have been strategic. That could have been strategic. So in the period of time after that, after, uh, coming to terms with the fact that there would be probably a significant delay in my training, I just kind of wanted to take advantage best I could and do some additional training. So you mentioned it in kind of the preamble there that I did Arctic survival. I did Aceri.
Can you explain what Aceri is?
Acer? Yes. That's the advanced survive, resist, escape. It's put on here just, uh, outside of Winnipeg. And it essentially gives you the survival techniques and skills in case you have a downed aircraft and you're kind of behind enemy lines. It just kind of gives you some survival techniques. It's a challenging course and kind of has you on the run, sleep deprived for quite some time, but it's great training. So I did all these other things that were made available to me, essentially.
To be as productive as possible before.
I got into the actual helicopter training. And Kuwait was given to me as an option.
Obviously, the CP 140 fleet, as well.
As the maritime helicopter community, we are kind of in the same realm of work.
Yeah, for sure.
So it was a nice way for me to transition into MH and learn a little bit about underwater warfare, above water warfare, and things that would be.
Relevant to me when I actually did hit the fleet. Yeah, so that was a six month tour, actually.
I did, uh, several back to back to back HLTA backfills.
Okay.
So it ended up being just over three in order to accommodate everybody.
Okay.
So yeah.
And that was a positive experience.
It was, yeah, it was a really good experience. It was my first operation kind of out in the real world, which was a nice thing. I did learn a lot just about the coordination in terms of, obviously a bigger joint mission like that. And I did learn quite a bit about CP 140 operations as well. So I did a lot of mission prep, worked with intelligence, cultivated kind of.
All of the information that would go.
Into their daily brief, and then I would brief the crews before they went up.
That's awesome.
Mhm.
Yeah, those briefings are huge. That's really cool. I didn't realize that's what you're doing over there.
Yeah.
What do you think was the coolest.
Experience you had while you're over there? Coolest experience?
I had had to have been who I ended up there with, I feel. So we talked about training a little bit and my experience in the training system here. Phase two is a real highlight for me, and I will shout out my guys in Kestrel flight, but, uh, that was probably the most enjoyable phase. It was kind of a long eight month stint here in South Port. And of course, all of those individuals kind of, um, branched out to their respective fleets after. Some went multi, some went hilo.
And while we were there, there was.
About three or four of us that.
Ended up back in Kuwait at the.
Same time with the respective fleets. And we got to kind of catch up. It was just a really neat experience to have all these guys, some of them were flying a couple of us were doing ground jobs while waiting, and.
We all got to kind of reconnect in Kuwait, which is pretty cool.
When you run into an old friend from the Air Force and you're both doing your thing in an operational theater, it's neat to see that friendly face in, uh, in a faraway place.
Absolutely. And I don't know if it was kind of the same when you went through, but even through basic training, there was a lot of pilots loaded on that course.
So we all kind of weathered the storm together to finally get our wings.
And then we all kind of branched out and did our own thing and ended up spread out across the country. So it was almost like, uh, to see everybody, ah at completion and be able to hang out.
It was, uh, really cool.
So what exactly does the Cyclone do?
It's a loaded question.
It does everything, which is kind of what was one of the main selling features when speaking to the MH guys. So, primary functions above water warfare and underwater warfare.
Right.
So it acts as the eyes and ears for the Navy. It deploys as a naval asset over the horizon and is able to identify vessels that are above water and then has a capability to, uh, track submarines and engage in underwater warfare.
Secondarily, um, it's a secondary SAR platform.
Essentially, and it does utility work as well. So we can hoist, we can sling, troop transport, diver deployments. So it's a little bit of everything.
Yeah.
You guys do it all?
Yeah.
I knew, obviously, that you guys were an anti submarine warfare ASW asset because I've worked with plenty of maritime helicopters, but I didn't realize I mean, it seems obvious, but I didn't realize that you guys would do all that utility work as well.
Yeah, utility is a big part of it. We had the capability to hoist and.
Sling, obviously, as well. I can't tell you how many times that operationally that was employed.
But it's a capability that we have.
And one that you maintain and have.
To train for, and one that we maintain. We do it over land and at sea. So we pick up a, uh, load and do circuits around the ship and come back and try to pickle it in a certain spot.
Okay.
Yeah.
How was the cyclone? A step up from the sea. King, what's the big differences?
The biggest difference was the capacity for sanitization in that TS.
Uh, just go the ball.
So that's like a big sonar ball that you dip in the ocean and you can ping with, right.
And then it opens up and essentially, we can put sound into the water and then we can track that way. So we almost had to, in the initial stages, rethink our tactics and our dipping profiles, for example, just because putting.
That particular sonar in the water just.
Sanitized can't remember what the metric was in terms of like, how much more, but it was significantly more than what the Sea King was capable of. So they would do whatever pattern they chose that would be in line with whatever tactics they were trying to employ. And it almost didn't apply because one dip with this particular ball would just cover a massive area.
So you guys basically had to start rethinking. How do you fight with this aircraft?
Yeah, honestly, it was good and bad.
It was worse for pilots because we didn't fly as much. But you could sit in the hover, essentially, and it was really the sensor operator in the back that would play with the specifics, like the settings, essentially, of the sonar to try to pick up whatever the target may be. But we didn't have to do much in terms of movement to try to maximize his area.
Yeah, I mean, that's the name of the game, right? That's the only reason, when you're out doing ASW that's the only reason you're out there is to put those guys where they want to be.
Exactly.
You're just there to get them in the right spot so they can do their thing.
Glorified bus Driver yeah, for sure.
Can you tell us a little more about the training and upgrade process for a Cyclone pilot?
Sure.
So you get to your squadron, you're sent to the Operational training Unit, uh, being 406, and you go through the Otu. When successful on the Otu, you'll be employed on squadron.
From there, you'll do a little bit.
Of local flying and start working away on your upgrade package. A big part of that upgrade package is Seaborne operations.
So you deploy as a copilot and.
Work away at that.
From there, you get all your seaborne.
Checks as well as your overland checks and, uh, upgrade to aircraft captain.
And then it's almost a rinse repeat.
For a maritime helicopter crew commander. There's an upgrade package, things that you need to do, and that's more sort of the tactical side. They have a crew commander course, which I thought was fantastic. It was a really good almost a.
Forum of really experienced MH guys.
So it was a good combination of learning the tools, employing the tools, say, in the simulator, filling that role, but also drawing from the experiences of some really knowledgeable maritime helicopter operators. So I couldn't say enough good things about the course. Then from there, you go through your.
Typical check rides and eventually get that crew commander qualification. Um, it's not exactly that quick.
There's obviously hours requirements and things uh, like that as well. But that's typically the stepping stone in every one of those roles.
You typically deploy in some capacity.
So you'll deploy as a copilot, you'll deploy as an aircraft captain, sometimes an.
Aircraft captain and an MHCC, or sometimes.
Just as an aircraft captain. Then you might get a short sale as an MHCC as well.
And when you say deploy, you mean a sale?
A, uh, sale?
Yeah. So I did two long ones. So I did a six, seven month sale as a copilot. I did a six month sale as an aircraft captain, and then I just did some more so local flying.
But it was in a, uh, like.
A Join X type thing with the Navy as an MHCC. So I got a few rides as a crew commander, but I didn't really get to deploy in that role.
Okay.
Yeah.
You were talking about the crew commander course that you guys take. That mentorship is so key when it comes to because you're stepping into this leadership role. And the thing that's different about being a crew commander on the Aurora or the maritime helicopter is, unlike other fleets, you are organized into crews, and you're responsible for that crew and their admin. It's not just when you're flying that you're responsible for them. Right, right. So you have a leadership position that a lot of pilots don't get put into.
Right.
And that dichotomy was something that was most confusing to me and a little bit challenging when I did deploy as an aircraft captain, is just kind of knowing my arcs. M vice, the crew commander that I had, which was a Taco, and, uh, he did a really good job as well of still mentoring me in that role.
And I got to employ kind of.
What I was trying to employ as a new aircraft captain to try to gain the required experience deploying in that role. So it's a lot of teamwork that kind of goes into that relationship.
Yeah.
And you can get that mentorship. It's important.
Right.
You can get that mentorship from a Taco. A taco is an axo. So we just interviewed someone who explained on a recent episode that an Axo is Air Combat Systems Officer, aka a navigator. And on the maritime fleets, both the Aurora and the maritime helicopter, you can have a Axo who is the crew commander.
Yes.
So you can get plenty of mentorship from those guys and girls as well.
For sure.
So we just started talking about this a bit, but something unique about the Cyclone is that it deploys on board a ship. Can you tell us what a normal.
Day at sea looks like for a Cyclone crew member?
They call that an oxymoron. A normal day at sea.
Okay.
Yeah.
Seaborne operations are interesting, for sure. So there's usually this familiarity period where you integrate with the Navy. They do things differently. They're on different schedules.
And you really have to try to.
Find this balance with, um, them being kind of the awkward cousin in their ship dynamic. But they usually eventually break and they welcome you with open arms.
Typically on ship.
You'Re woken up by their bong bong alarms. First thing in the morning, you go and you have breakfast, you look at what they have. It's called the flex and that's their schedule, essentially, and where your air missions fit in that particular day. And then you start planning around that. The interesting thing about shipborne operations is no matter which crew you are on, you're always involved.
That being you'll have a landing signals.
Officer, an LSO, or you're the flying.
Pilot now, the landing signals officer, that's.
The person who's in that little kind of mini control tower hut thing.
Right?
Exactly. Yeah. So you're clearing them for takeoff. Clearing them for landing. And you're working alongside the bridge. You're essentially on comms with the bridge, getting their required clearance to bring them in, make sure that your Rad has safe so you're not shining a radar or anything like that.
Rad has is radar hazard.
Yeah.
So you make sure that they're safe to come in into the landing profile.
And ah, not just blasting them with radar, basically.
Exactly right. So you're always kind of employed and if the debt commander happens to be flying, then responsibilities can be delegated to you to kind of deal with the other piece being like the day to day admin that needs to happen during that because our sorties are about 3 hours while, uh, at sea. So you could fly anywhere from one trip to four trips with both crews throughout the day, depending on uh, what your goals are for the day. But then otherwise it's kind of normal. Again, oxymoron normal ish in that you try to go to the gym, but your gym moves and rocks and rolls. Um, and depending on the sea state, you try to have some dinner, but.
Your plates might is that hard to get used to?
It is. I remember my first exposure was as I was again, just trying to capitalize.
On some learning opportunities as a young.
New member of four, two, three I.
Jumped on the Athabascan before they retired it okay.
And went out on a famil.
They call it a salty dip.
And I don't think I was more.
Than a couple miles out of the.
Break and I was not feeling great.
Were you getting seasick?
Yeah. You have to work yourself up to it. I've now come to realize that everybody gets seasick. Yeah, it is at what level you get seasick is the variable. So we build up our tolerance and eventually you can deal with it.
But it does take some getting used to.
If you're pretty sick, do they just give you a break to deal with.
It or do you still have all your duties?
They give you a little bit of a break.
A lot of personnel in the Navy.
Can wear like, say, a patch that I don't have no idea what it actually does. I think it messes with your inner ear a little bit and can help combat some seasickness. But us having a different medical profile and having to fly, we don't have access to it.
So have to grin and bear it.
So, I mean, uh, they're going to hate that I say this, but we might be a little bit harder than the Navy because we don't get any gravel esque type things.
That's right. The Air Force is known for its ruggedness, for sure. So when you guys have a rough sea state, what's it like taking off.
And landing from a ship?
Taking off is easier because essentially you're just pulling pitch.
Do you time it with the role?
Yes. So that's, again, one of the roles of the LSO, the landing signals officer.
So you are what they call trapped on deck.
And that's the bear trap has you kind of latched to the deck with.
A probe and the sea has a rhythm.
And once it has that, uh, they call it a quiescent period.
But once it has kind of a quiet period, they will open the trap.
And clear you, take off, and without.
Delay, you want to pull pitch and.
Start flying away from the ship, essentially.
Basically.
So it doesn't come up and smack.
You as you're, uh yeah, essentially, like you have maybe it's 1 second, maybe it's 2 seconds to start lifting.
So you don't want to delay at all. What's that like? The first time you do that, as.
You would imagine, uh, there is some stress and copilots are often very white knuckled when they're doing it. No doubt good aircraft captains are shadowing the controls like we do kind of here when you're learning a new skill. So, yeah, that part's a little bit easier. The biggest concern, obviously, is drift.
And there's kind of visual illusions that.
You got to deal with because the ship may be coming towards you and away from you. With the waves and the motion of.
The ship, you might feel like you're.
Drifting towards it or drifting back. You have to just be very steady on the controls and then kind of.
Take off, I guess, because the ship's.
Your only reference visually. Right. So, uh, if it starts to move around, you might think you're moving.
Exactly. So this will parry very well into the next, which is landing, and you can imagine that that's even more difficult. So when the ship is kind of rocking and rolling, you're looking at a reference that is just above the hangar. You feel very, very close. It's not a very large landing spot, obviously, to begin with, but you'll have the reference of that hangar that is coming toward you and away from you and you have to just kind of trust your references and trust that you're not moving.
Wow.
Uh, and once you hit that quiescent period, you have to call that you're going to attempt a landing and you're.
Almost working with the LSO to ensure.
That your attempt is safe. And you can wave yourself off if it's not going well. Your copilot can wave you off if.
It'S not going well.
And the LSO could also. Wave you off if it's not going.
Well, what's that like? If it's, let's say, nighttime and rough the worst.
Uh, honestly, it's a double edged thing.
Because you land successfully with such a.
Sense of accomplishment, but at the same time, it's after you're done kind of breathing into the paper bag. But really, you know what I mean? It can get tense, for sure, and it can get challenging. And a lot of the times I've been in situations where you just have.
To wait, uh, in that high hover.
For three, four, five minutes. The bridge is probably in the LSO's ear saying, you got to land now. Get down, get down. And of course, you eventually being the aircraft captain or as a copilot, hopefully listening to your aircraft captain, you're not going to try to execute a landing until it's safe to do so. And you just got to wait it out.
And I guess the ship has to go in a straight line while you guys are doing that.
Yeah, they do. I mean, if they do need to maneuver, they will wave us off somewhere and they'll reposition. But, yeah, once they've picked a heading.
Or we've requested a heading, we've worked.
Through Wins and all the rest of that stuff. So they have to kind of stay the course until we're successfully landed on the ground.
Man, that's got to be really scary sometimes.
There's certainly been some challenging days, for sure.
And again, we kind of chat a little bit offline about it, but when.
You come back to the ship, when you first kind of deployed from the ship, you're within limits. We have now. It's, um, kind of an accelerometer to say whether or not you're in or out of limits to land and take off, just like our normal kind of weather, wind limits. But, uh, ship motion limits is something that we have to deal with.
Okay, so you may deploy and you're.
Within limits, and then all of a sudden, you hit some unexpected weather or, uh, some unexpected sea state and you come back and you're out of limits.
Okay.
What are you going to do?
You got to land. There's nothing you don't have an alternate. There's no alternate. There's no options. You're at the only possible spot to land the helicopter.
So you just got to execute. Is that where the bear trap comes into play?
Yeah.
So the bear trap certainly assists with that. We can land what's called clear deck, free deck, or tethered, essentially.
So can you explain what the bear trap is?
So the bear trap is this mechanism that secures us to the deck, a successful landing. We have a probe that will deploy out of the middle of the fuselage, the body of the helicopter.
Is that like, on a cable or no.
So the probe will come down regardless.
Okay.
And when you land, I think it's.
Probably about 4ft by 4ft, the bear trap.
Okay. And if you can put the probe in the bear trap, the LSO will.
Close the bear trap, and it secures you on deck. We can do that with a tether.
Or without a tether. If there's rougher sea states, it would.
Be more beneficial to use a tether. And essentially, what the LSO could do is apply tension as you're lowering collective and help guide you in to a degree. Now, granted, this is a pretty heavy helicopter, and that is assistance at best.
Right. So, like, a person hooks that up?
Yeah. We would get into a high hover. We would lower messenger wire.
A deck handler would come out, clip.
Those together, give a signal, we would raise the messenger wire, and that would.
Essentially get us on the tether.
Okay.
And then we try to execute a landing that way. And as we are lowering collective to land, the LSO is applying a certain amount of pounds of pressure to try.
To help us guide ourselves into the bear trap.
That sounds really intense.
Honestly, it's some of the most challenging but best flying that obviously, I've done. But I think overall, in the calf.
Uh, it's a challenging feat.
Well, it is a great feeling. Like when you're really earning your pay and you're coming in under difficult weather, challenging circumstances on fixed wing, let's say you're fighting a big crosswind and there's lots of gusts or wind shear, visibility is bad, whatever. And you get in there, you bring it in, you're on solid ground again.
And you can kind of just go.
And you get this feeling like, yeah, we did it.
Well. Exactly. Right. So in the moment, you wish that.
Obviously you had calm seas and sunny.
Skies all the time.
Everyone loves to land when it's nice out.
Exactly. But when you do kind of get down, it's kind of etched in your mind as obviously, some of the most challenging flying. And there is kind of a heightened sense of accomplishment when you do things that, you know, only a handful of.
Pilots will ever do in that kind.
Of regime of flying.
So that's it's pretty cool. So we've talked about a day at sea, right.
What does a normal day look like? At four.
Two, three squadron.
Four two three squadron. I'll, uh, first and foremost say, great group of guys, good camaraderie out there, but Four Two Three Squadron with a.
Changeover from Sea King to Cyclone.
As with any kind of fleet that is trying to introduce a a new new helicopter, there's been some serviceability issues, obviously, some setbacks in progression of training.
So we do have some state of the art simulators there that are getting.
High use, I'd say, in terms of training.
So you spend some time doing simulator trips.
There's also, obviously, local training flights that we do to stay proficient in the helicopter, but we end up sharing the fleet with 406 and generating new pilots.
Does take priority yeah, we had the.
Same issue in Greenwood. With 404 and 405, the operational squadron is always second priority. And if you're having any serviceability issues, that means that all the serviceable aircraft are going to the training squadron.
Exactly. So deployed operations are prior One, students are Pride Two, and your own kind of flying proficiency is Pride Three. Considering that you have like, two state of the art simulators that are accessible.
For the most part, but with that.
New fleet as well, there's a lot of amendments to courseware it's how can we do it better?
Kind of those thinking groups to try.
To maximize training value with the resources that we have. And then, of course, the normal list.
Of secondary duties that are at kind of any squadron.
So how often do you think you fly? Like on a weekly basis?
You'd be scheduled probably for about three trips a week.
Okay.
I'd say so. It's not, um, uncommon scheduling wise. And then again, it's a matter of.
Whether or not those aircraft are going to be serviceable.
And then you end up probably donating one of those to the 406 program. That's actually a big reason why they employ as much of us.
Or I guess we take advantage of.
The MTP course, the maintenance test pilot course. So when things aren't going well serviceability wise, we at least have the resources to try to get some back online so we can get some of that training.
Yeah, for sure. And the thing that listeners should realize as well is it's not uncommon for something like there's so many things on this aircraft. When we say that an aircraft goes us or unserviceable, it could be something major, it could be something quite minor. But if something's broken, it's broken. And if you're the second, I'm sure you guys run into this as well. If there's a training flight first and you're taking it after them because their first priority, it's just that much more of a chance that something has gone wrong during that flight.
Exactly.
And it might be something minor, but it's still enough to bump your trip off for them.
Exactly. Or the type of trip as well. Right. So think of instrument flying is, I guess, the easiest example, but, ah, ours would say overwater flying vice, just kind of going out for proficiency hands and feet type stuff. We could lose the Sono boy dispenser and that stops restricted. So it essentially is just kind of, uh, again, the flying bus, but it's just the helicopter that you can go out and you can do some sort of confined area landings.
Yeah.
You have to just kind of amend what you want to do.
Right. But when I left, which was probably.
Just over a year ago now, the service ability was good enough that I would get a few trips a week. Okay, that's pretty good.
Yeah.
What would you say was the hardest part when you started flying on the.
Cyclone, it would certainly be seaborne operations.
Okay.
Reason being is that there's no real portion of the operational training unit that.
Touches on the hands and feet of seaborne operations.
So the first time that I transitioned over top of A deck was on my way out on my first deployment. So there's no work up to that.
Now, let me qualify that by saying.
That typically we have sea training on with us, and we do a couple.
Of days around the local area, but I essentially was not getting off the.
Ship until, or at least back on Canadian soil until we got back from the deployment.
So you learn how to fly this helicopter.
You learn some of theory behind landing on a ship, but you don't get that experience until you're in it. So there is no work up to that. So that, I think, is probably the biggest challenge for any maritime helicopter pilot.
Is you're thrown in the pool.
So something I always ask after that is what can you do to overcome that? It sounds to me like probably just getting in the reps. Yeah, I mean.
That'S some of it, but it again.
Goes back to work ethic and preparation.
Control what you can control, and then.
Accept what you can't is what I would say.
So we have shipborne operating procedures. Know your limits, know the approach profiles, know the numbers required, so you don't.
Have to waste any mental capacity thinking.
Of that, and you can just kind of focus on the task at hand. That concept likely rings true for a lot of things when it comes to flight training is that we have thousands and thousands of pages of publications which.
You know but to be able to.
Parse through that, understand the important things and commit those things to memory in.
Order to allow you the capacity to get the job done is probably the.
Only thing that can really prepare you.
I'd say how much are you away.
From home flying the Cyclone?
I kind of alluded to this with kind of my personal sailing schedule. And depending on who you ask, it's always quite varied.
I guess some of it comes down to luck.
It is.
I happen to be more of a seaborne guy than an overland guy.
There are people in squadron that are.
More overland than seaborne, and they end up doing, uh, the ferry flights, and they end up doing east west transfers. And there was a cyclone here only, uh, about a week, week and a half ago, and they were doing essentially an east west transfer and a cross country PR tour.
Nice.
Uh, at the same time, which was awesome to see.
But in terms of deploying, it's typically a six month sale, usually maybe a.
Little bit under, a little bit over, give or take a month.
And then they do have smaller operations.
Or multinational operations, say, off the coast or down in Autec off the coast.
Of the Bahamas and those can be.
Two to three months as well.
So it's varied, but expect if you're.
Going to be a maritime helicopter pilot.
That you will deploy at least twice.
In your first tour as a copilot and hopefully eventually an aircraft captain for.
At least nine months, at most 15 months. Okay, so you can expect to deploy.
Once every two years type thing.
Exactly. I deployed in 2018, 2020, and in the middle of that I did a three month stint down in Autech as well, so down off the coast of Florida. And I mean, that one wasn't too tough.
Yeah, right, but it's still time away.
It is, it is time away. And again, if you take for example, what this last crew just did, they I believe, took a month to just hit a bunch of different stops in terms of trying to cultivate some interest in the Cyclone, doing some recruiting for the RCIF so you can be away from home domestically as well, mhm, in certain cases.
So because we are a fleet that.
Is able to kind of do a little bit of everything, there's a chance that you can get tasked to do.
A little bit of everything.
So it sounds like you need to be prepared if you want to fly the Cyclone for a fair bit of time away.
Yeah, I'd say so in the operational sense, for sure. In terms of that career progression that we talked about, there's a couple of.
Other things that you can end up doing.
You're a little bit of a master your own domain as well. So I talked about myself going the MTP route. You can then parry over as well to 406 and become a maritime helicopter instructor pilot and teach and that course keeps you at home right, as well. And then there's those other positions and standards, et cetera.
Something that I've come to realize in the last couple of years is that as pilots, most of us, we just want to fly. We want to fly and we want to be, most of us operational. We all joined to be at the pointy end and that's kind of what we want, especially when we're new, right?
Yeah.
But there is a reason that they kind of ideally would say, okay, you do four years operational, four years out of school, two or three years in a ground position and then back to operational because that actually gets you a chance to not be burnt out if you do all that time. So I just counted out ten years. If you do ten years operational, there's a pretty good chance you're going to be really burnt out. It's going to be very hard on your family because you're going to be gone every couple of years for half a year or more. That's really tough.
Absolutely. And I think it's a real disservice to you as a pilot as well because there's so many things that you could gain and acquire from being in Squadron mhm. So that opportunity to kind of become a flight safety specialist or an HPMA.
Specialist or human performance and military aviation is, ah, HPMA.
So there's all these opportunities in squadron to learn about very important concepts of aviation outside of actually being on the controls that's right. That you don't really get the opportunity to focus on doing deployed operations.
Yeah.
There's more to being a pilot than just flying.
Yeah.
And even a school, a lot of people don't want to go to a school, which I think is crazy, but learning to be an instructor is huge. You learn so much about the art of flying, uh, when you have to learn to take it from being kind of instinctive to saying it and explaining it to somebody and putting it into words and showing them how to do it.
Yeah.
What would you say was your best.
Day on the Cyclone? My best day on the Cyclone was.
Probably my first accomplishment of the Cyclone. The transition from the Sea King to the Cyclone was, of course, a challenging one and a challenging one for command as well. They gave priority for the most part.
In the initial conversion training to seasoned.
Or at least a little bit seasoned.
Lightly seasoned MH pilots that had a.
Qualification in the Sea King. I, um, as well as one other.
Individual, happened to be the first unseasoned.
The abenishio, untouched pilots. So they loaded two of us on conversion training, one.
And it was a bit of an.
Experiment to see kind of how we.
Would measure up against individuals with a.
Little bit more time.
And because they had kind of earmarked.
Me for that first deployment, they pushed the pace a little bit. So I was a little bit actually I mean, it's almost consistent with all of my pilot training feeling a little.
Bit behind the eight ball or having.
To try that much harder because I didn't have any aviation experience or whatever the case kind of may be. Knowing that I was a little bit.
Under the microscope, i, uh, put that.
Much more effort in and I was the first to finish the course along with a major that was, again, like a 4000 hours pilot.
Okay.
Wow.
So that accomplishment, I remember it quite vividly. I was walking back from the aircraft and the CEO was out there to kind of meet me and again gave that kind of cautious look like, how did he do?
How did he do?
Is it good to go? And I was flying with Captain McDonald at the time and, uh, he kind of gave the thumbs up. He said, good enough to be a copilot, and kind of gave a smirk and that was that.
So that walk probably from the aircraft.
Back to the hangar was a pretty proud moment for me.
It's a great feeling, isn't it?
It is, yeah.
How long is the Otu variable?
Ideally?
Ideally, I feel like you can get through it in four to six months.
Okay.
Yeah.
Which is a bit of a slog. A lot of people's otu is quite short on the aurora. We're about nine months.
Eight.
Nine months.
Yeah.
Four to six months is quite long, too. It's another whole flying course, for sure.
And, I mean, it's likely the same.
Probably more so for you guys, maybe.
But we're a little bit limited by weather as well.
So it depends the time of year that you're there.
The aircraft service ability again, a couple.
Of variables come into play.
Yeah, for sure.
I mean, you need a few days. Uh, the aircraft are capable in all weather, but you, as a student, need certain weather to go out and actually be able to see what you're doing. And you can go out in some bad weather because that's a good experience, too. But you can't do every flight in bad weather because you need a chance to go out and have the visual reference is and be able to see what it looks like to see a ship from 20 miles away or to have a horizon to practice some of the things you need to do.
Exactly. And there is an overwater component. There's not a shipborn operation component, but there's an over water component where you'll.
Go out and again, dip lower, uh.
The sonar, raise the sonar, all the rest of that stuff. And if you don't have the limits over the water, or if you have some equipment, stuff like the aircraft flying.
But the equipment might be us or.
Ops restricted or stuff like that, so there's just some delays can pop up.
Yes, for sure. So if that was your best day.
On the cyclone, what would you say.
Was your hardest day?
Hardest day on the cyclone, when I was in control of the cyclone was a deployed mission.
It was just one of those days.
And I think that most pilots will, at some point have something similar where.
The weather may or may not be in limits.
It was a night operation. There was a risk of clear Icing at, uh, an altitude that we were.
Planning to operate below, but not a lot below.
The significance of clear Icing is that.
It tends to be pretty severe.
Yeah. So it can weigh you down pretty quickly and put you in a bad spot.
And it was a night op.
So I was looking at the weather and kind of humming and hawing. It was one of those things where I looked to my debt commander for a little bit of guidance as an aircraft captain, and I said, Would you go? He looked at it a little bit. It was a very dark night as well. Millilux was down.
Uh, and he said, yeah, I'd go.
Sorry.
What was down the millilux.
So that was just a very dark night. There was not a lot of ambient light from the moon.
Okay, so anyways, we gear up, we're over the Arctic Sea. So north in northern Norway, we take off, deploy from the ship. I lose visual of the ship go.
To turn on my night vision goggles, and I get a goggle failure.
Oh, wow.
Now, typically in that regime, we have.
Two battery packs and then you just kind of flick it over to the other, the other side and they come back on.
I attempted that unsuccessful as well.
I hand control to the copilot who's already on Goggles. And we have something on the cyclone called Rips, which is an ice detection system, essentially. And it gives you the metric, actually.
Like, uh, how do I explain that?
Like how bad icing is.
Yeah, essentially it'll say, okay, while you're picking up some light Icing, some moderate Icing, some severe.
Okay.
And the rip system kicks in almost immediately. We're at about 200ft and it just starts to peg over into the severe Icing.
And I can't see any, so that.
Was probably my worst day.
Anyways, I ended up taking control back.
We're off goggles. My MHTC taco was on the radio. We got back behind the ship, executed a landing.
Turns out the cord was frayed to.
The box that actually holds the battery. So there is no hope for goggles.
For me, uh, that day.
But got back behind the ship, landed on, avoided the Icing, and just kind of carried on. But again, speaking to one of those moments that makes you think is you're only about 100ft because we hit ice at 200, so we're between zero and 200ft over water. Black night flying off the rattle. We have like the one little light out in the distance, uh, to try to get back, to navigate, to land.
To anyways, that was the end of my night. That night, that was the worst one.
Really intense. That's crazy.
Yeah, but I mean, those experiences are what help you grow, what help you learn. Again, the struggle is kind of what gets you there and it gives you.
Just, um, another sense of airmanship.
Listeners who are listening carefully will notice that for that last answer you started with your worst day while you were at the controls of the cyclone. On April 29, 2020, stalker 22 crashed into the Ionian Sea while operating from the HMCS Frederickton, killing all on board. Can you tell us about how that.
Day went for you that day?
Um.
The easy answer is obviously it was massively difficult. You're almost putting, uh, a kind of a tailspin trying to cultivate information as.
Best you can, when of course, the opposite is employed in the calf.
Communications go down intentionally.
Intentionally, for sure. So people that are, that are immediately.
Involved are dealing with the tragedy, with.
The accident, and you're just kind of.
On the sidelines working to try to.
Gather as much information as possible just to give you some sort of semblance of control. So that's how I remember the day.
Was pacing, essentially trying to figure out who the crews were who were on.
Board, how the crews would have been kind of broken up. The first reports that came out mentioned.
A Sea King vice cyclone out of Greece.
And uh, it was just trying to verify what information was credible the best.
Way that you could. And that's just kind of how I remember it.
And then again, just touching base with.
Immediate friends, trying to just deal with.
It collectively to see who's safe and.
Just see who's safe and see who knows what, uh, for the most part.
But it was obviously very erratic. Uh, and that's the best way that.
I can explain how the initial day went. And then of course, as more information.
Came in, it was very piecemeal, unverified.
And you just kind of wait until.
Command calls you in to give you actual details. So uh, after the dust sort of.
Settled and a little bit of time.
Went on, how did you find that affected you?
The only positives that you can draw, really, is how the maritime helicopter community came together. I found a lot of support from people in that community. Again, those friendships that you cultivate were, I think, for a lot of people, very important in working through the tragedy.
And uh, you again wait for answers.
Not that answers make anything any better or worse. I think it kind of gives you, again, that semblance of of control.
But with anything of this nature, there's a time aspect that is very hard to appreciate.
I don't know if you remember it as uh, obviously as vividly as I do, but the equipment required to recover the uncertainty of kind of where it was in the state of everybody there uh, was a period of time in there where you just didn't know what was going on. And for me, I kind of found comfort in just kind of dealing with those realities with people in the community, the uh, MH community and the Nova Scotian community. There was a lot of support that was around at the time.
Do you think that doing that and.
Dealing with it in that way has allowed you to have a degree of closure, to move on in a way that's healthy? Or are you still working through it in some ways?
I mean, I don't think that you're.
Ever not working through it.
You understand aviation, uh, in general, but more so military aviation, there's risks associated with more complex flying, for sure. But no, I don't think over it is a thing that you ever get.
To in terms of dealing with it.
In terms of outlets. The military as well as the community, the military themselves have come a long way in terms of providing different supports.
Operational stress, injury stuff, and kind of.
Mental health pieces to help work through these types of events.
And then secondarily, again, discussing that stuff.
With people that have had similar experiences or the same experiences certainly help, but I think it's always kind of a.
Constant self check here and there to.
Make sure that you're kind of doing.
Okay with that type of stuff.
Thanks for opening up about that. I know it's not easy.
No, uh, it's certainly, ah, a tough subject to broach and to reflect on.
Um thank you.
Yeah.
Shifting gears.
What would you say are the most.
Memorable flights you've had while flying the Cyclone?
Most memorable flight that I had was.
I think it had to have been.
About a four, four and a half hour long flight. It was in the Lithuania.
And my MHCC, uh, at the time, Major Pete Tomlik, now, he, um, had.
This idea of pretty much executing a medevac diver deployment.
A Folks will transfer into Lithuania in.
Consort with the Lithuanians.
And this was all training.
This was all training, but it was like a obviously multinational training kind of event.
So the idea being there was somebody.
In the water, you had to go pick them up, deploy some divers, recover.
Them, bring them back to the ship, they get some medical attention, you hoist.
Them down onto the Folks, which is the front of the ship. So you're kind of doing some sidewards flight into a ship that's floating into.
You, essentially driving into you, and from.
There getting some sort of semblance of medical attention, and then airlifting them into Lithuania.
And it was, again, I was a.
Pretty junior aircraft captain. I was pretty nervous in terms of just the complexity of two, three. Typically you spend a lot of time just kind of briefing one of those four aspects. But, uh, it was certainly probably my most memorable flight in terms of doing the business, doing the job, and that.
Kind of dynamic flying.
Were you intimidated when you found out.
That was the plan?
Yes, I was. I could admit it after the fact at the time, I got, no, it's not a big deal. But yeah, when I found out what the plan was, there is a little bit of intimidation, for sure. So I was an aircraft captain with a junior co pilot, pretty green, and.
Then had, uh, a new Ish crew commander.
So the crew commander came over from 406. He spent a lot of time there just teaching. So, not a new crew commander, but new to operational, uh, cycle.
Right.
So there was a lot of learning that was going on. And honestly, again, the best way to learn is under stress sometimes. And it was a pretty complex thing, but, uh, it was well executed. And, uh, again, one of those things you come back from and you're like, man, that was cool.
That was great that we pulled that.
Off, that we pulled that off. And everything went well. Yeah.
So it was one of the good ones. Okay.
It's sales pitch time in 30 seconds or less. If I'm a pilot in training, why should I want to fly the cyclone? What makes it unique, and who would it appeal to?
Okay, number one, pay. Now, I don't know what the pay.
Difference is now, because they're kind of amending those, but at one point, I believe we were the highest paid pilots in the Canadian forces.
Okay.
Reason being is especially, I think, if we were in halifax, because PLD, which is getting yeah, I was getting changed.
So that'll be gone.
No promises, but you get air crew.
Pay and CPAY on top of your normal pilot pay.
So pay was a big one.
Well, they'll still be getting, I would think, CPAY.
They get the CPAY air crew is.
Part of your salary.
Part of your salary now. So there might be some amendments. I don't know how it's I didn't look too close.
Okay. But the second one, we already kind.
Of talked about flying in general. That kind of flying is unmatched. I feel maybe four, two, seven. They must do something over there, I.
Feel, is in the mix.
But outside of that, this is the most dynamic helicopter flying the Canadian forces, in my opinion I'm biased.
Sorry.
Guys will tell you different, tacau will tell you different. So we're all just going to argue and agree to disagree.
And the third is travel. So port stops.
So the one thing, just think of the navy as like, a very terrible cruise ship, but you get to go to a lot of cool places. So my first appointment was in the mediterranean. I hit sicily, I hit egypt, I.
Hit croatia, I hit north africa, I hit israel.
So there's a lot of and of course, spain, portugal.
Wow.
You get to hit all of these different destinations every I mean, it could be as much as every two weeks, could be as long as once a month. But it's the only community, I feel.
Where you get to see all these.
Different places, because there's just different stops on the, uh scheduled on the deployment.
Yeah.
So I've been lucky enough to see the mediterranean side of it, and then the second time that I was deployed, it was more up in the baltic. So norway, denmark, france, I've seen a lot more of the world than some of my counterparts.
What kind of a person would it appeal to?
Um, I think that it would appeal.
To someone with, number one, a high tolerance. Because, again, when you kind of high.
Tolerance for what just in general, again, the type of flying some people don't deal well with that kind of high stress flying.
Right. So kind of that adventure seeker, as I feel, is what I think it.
Would mostly appeal to for me. And I think a lot of people that are like, minded. You want to get your deployments out. I think that's anywhere, though, you want to get those out early in terms of getting that operational experience, for sure.
Or you have a family, being away.
From home, no matter what community you're in, is never great. And these deployments are six months where I think, um, a lot of the times, and correct me if I'm wrong, but in the fixed, uh, wing side, it's more of three months.
Yeah, it's typically two to three months. Yeah.
So, I mean, that differs for us, it's usually six. So somebody that is either single or is ready to kind of commit to that amount of time away.
Yeah.
You need to have that independent spouse.
Yeah.
Just kind of know what you're getting into beforehand. But I mean, hopefully you've done your research by the time you put in kind of selection type things. And that's something that you're at least aware of.
Okay? Yeah.
All right, we're down to our last three questions.
Okay.
They're always the same.
Okay.
What is the most important thing you do to keep yourself ready for the job study?
Always keep learning.
And that doesn't mean that you're necessarily in the books all the time, but you learn from there's always somebody that has more hours than you that has been in similar situations, but you learn from other pilots.
I loved, loved learning from technicians.
I spent a lot of time, especially on my second sale, the aircraft service.
Ability wasn't as well as it was.
In the first sale. Like, the hours that I got were about half.
Okay.
But I spent a lot of time in what they call the aid on the tech manual. Um, going through some things with technicians to really understand not only that the aircraft is broken, but why the aircraft is broken, how these things work. And honestly, it's a wealth of knowledge out there. And just continue to keep learning and set your goals to what's kind of coming up next and facilitate an avenue.
To get there best way that you can.
I like your answer, but I like your follow up even more that studying doesn't necessarily mean being in the books, that some of your best resources are the people around you.
For sure.
I also really like that you mentioned the technicians because they are so knowledgeable and their documents are much more in depth than just what we call Aois, your aircraft operating instructions that have your systems and various things in them. That's typically what air crew are studying, or at least pilots are studying, for sure. But the Aedums, as you mentioned, the.
Tech manuals that they have, are so.
Much more in depth. And once you're ready to go into that depth level, you can learn a lot about your aircraft systems. And that really brings you up to what I think the level of knowledge.
That a crew commander should have, for sure. I would agree. Yeah, that's really cool. What do you think makes a good pilot?
I think first and foremost, being humble will make you a good pilot. Totally. It will humble you at some point if you think otherwise. When I started teaching deck landings, for.
Example, it's something that I endeavored to.
Drive into my copilot.
It's like, do not be afraid of waving yourself off. And that was driven into my head.
By the aircraft captain.
That taught me. A lot of times I feel like.
Pilots in general felt pressured to make things work when they tried to execute a landing that may not have been perfect. And just realize that it's challenging.
And you have to check your ego.
At the door a little bit when it comes to that kind of flying, because safety is paramount, obviously, and those two things don't usually go hand in hand when you're trying to just kind of execute a landing and you don't want to miss, and you have to kind of check that at the door. And I guess the second thing that I would say is kind of that diverse knowledge that we talked about.
There's so much out there in terms of information or skill set for piloting in the air.
I'd say more so in the RCIF. I had a lot of experience with deployed operations. I didn't have a ton of experience.
In the overland side. Right. So trying to expand my knowledge in the if world, for example, flying into.
Busy airports like for instrument flying.
Instrument flying, or just doing VFR visual flying rules into busy airports as well. It's just something I wasn't heavily exposed to by way of being out in Halifax and by way of being overseas. So there's always things to work on.
Right.
So just understand that the career in.
General is just a learning process and there's always more M. Yeah.
And there's going to be some discomfort that comes with that.
Right?
Yeah, for sure. Um, it was one of the reasons.
I asked to come out to Porters Prairie.
Things I loved about the job were that teaching aspect.
But on the opposite side of it.
Things that I wasn't massively comfortable with is flying to the States cross country. It's just not something that I did while I was on my first tour ever. So I identified kind of somewhere where I think that I could improve and kind of worked that into my career.
Plan to be a more rounded pilot.
That's great.
All right, this is the last question.
I want you to picture somebody who is thinking about joining or has just joined. They want to be a pilot.
What advice would you give to that new pilot? I would say if you've just joined, I'll take that example and I'll say they do this a little bit for.
You, but really give it thought is.
To set goals first and foremost and.
Then make those goals known.
There's usually a tale of two pilots.
I feel in the Air Force, there are pilots that seem to have wanted.
A career progression and have gotten that career progression, and then there's a pilot that had wished for something and things.
Just didn't line up. And I think communication comes into play in a big way.
There are people out there in terms of career managers or even chain of.
Command sometimes that might just say, that's not possible, understand that it's always possible and work towards those goals is kind of what I'd say.
So I've been fortunate that, um, maybe.
I haven't gotten absolutely everything that I've wanted, but I've been able to navigate through at least this portion of my.
Career since joining the RCAF in a.
Way that I at least had some sort of directed control of. And that's because I made those intentions known to my chain of command and had really candid conversations about what was possible and what's not.
So that's kind of the advice that I would give is just, number one, do your work. And I guess first impressions are everything.
And leave a good impression.
And then secondly, that will parry into the ability to have those conversations about.
What you want to do long term.
And give us some good thought.
That's a really great answer.
I, uh, like that. Okay, that's going to wrap it up.
Thank you so much, Corey, for coming in today. I know you're very busy with Instructing, and I really appreciate you taking the time out today to chat with us.
That's great.
Thanks for having me. I really enjoyed it.
Awesome. Cheers.
All right, that wraps up our episode on The Cyclone with Corey O'Neill. For our next episode, I'll be sitting down with my old comrade from Aurora days, Paul Hodgson. Paul worked extensively with Canadian Forces Recruitment Group, or CFRG, and we'll be answering all your recruiting questions that were submitted by listeners as well as the Canadian Forces subreddit. Do you have any questions or comments about something you've heard in this episode or would you or someone you know make a great guest? You can reach out to us at, uh, thepilotprojectpodcast@gmail.com or on all social media at Atpod Pilot Project. As always, we'd like to thank you for your help with our growth in listenership. We've seen some huge growth this month, so rest assured, your efforts are helping us with that. We'd like to ask for your help, as always, 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 up. See you. Engineer shut down all four shutting down all four engines.
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