>> Bryan: All right, after a long break, we are back and ready
for departure here at the pilot project podcast, the best source for
stories and advice from the pilots of the RCAF. I'm your
host, Brian Morrison. With me today is my favourite repeat
guest, my wife, Melissa. Melissa, welcome back to the
show.
>> Melissa: Thanks for having me.
>> Bryan: A lot has changed in the last seven months and we figured we owe you some
explanation for our absence as well. So let's dive into it.
As with the last time I had Melissa on the show, we're going to reverse
roles. So at this point, I'm going to hand over the hosting duties to Melissa
and I'll be in the guest seat for the rest of the episode.
>> Melissa: Before I get started, I'm going to introduce
you, Brian, as our guest by reading your
bio. Brian grew up going to air shows and
has always wanted to be a pilot. He got his start flying
in the air cadet programme as a teenager when he needed
money for university and the pilot trade was open.
Necessity and opportunity came together. Brian
joined the Canadian Armed Forces on June
14, 2006, two days after his
20th birthday. He signed up originally for twelve
years through the ROTP programme. After finishing
his degree in commercial aviation management at the University
of Western Ontario, he was posted as a second
lieutenant to 400 Tactical helicopter
squadron, where he worked in Ops while he waited to go to
Moosera. After a 16 month wait, it was
finally time to go to Moosera, where Brian completed his phase two
training and finished at the top of his course.
Brian then went on to complete multiengine training in Portage le
Prairie, where he earned the Hal Wishart award for top
multiengine student. Brian requested and was
assigned to 405 long Range patrol Squadron
to fly the CP 140 Aurora in Greenwood, Nova
Scotia. After working in Ops for 17 months,
he finally began training on the aurora, which he completed
about eight months later. After spending a month in
Hawaii, Brian came home to marry me, the love of
his life. When he requested leave for his honeymoon, he was told
to wait as something was coming down the pipe.
A month after getting married, Brian deployed to Kuwait to fly
surveillance flights in Iraq for Operation Impact. For
roto zero, he was gone for four months, then home for
three and gone for a second three month tour.
It would be over two years before Brian had spent more days home
with me than away on the road. In his first
three years on the Aurora, he was away for 314
days. Highlights from these years included
flying across Canada, including the Arctic, Kuwait,
Brazil, Scotland, San Diego, Hawaii, Florida
and the Azores. During that time, Brian
upgraded to aircraft captain on his 30th birthday
and later upgraded to crew commander.
After their first son, Hendrik was born, Brian took parental leave
and upon return was requalified just in time to be
posted to three CFFTs as an
instructor. After their second son, Theo was
born and while Brian was on parental leave, he was
diagnosed with other specified trauma and stressor
related disorder, as well as generalised anxiety
disorder, which led to his medical release after
18 years of service on July 2,
2024. During his time in
the RCAF, Brian has flown for approximately
1700 hours and has loved every minute of
it throughout his career. There have been many pauses and
setbacks, but he has always persevered, as we know
he will with whatever comes next.
All right, Bryan, let's start with the most obvious question.
Why haven't you been putting out new episodes for the last seven
months?
>> Bryan: So initially when I started doing the show,
I thought that I had followed all the rules and regulations for
what was required, but there are no written
rules that specifically talk about podcasts. So I really just
had to do my best, talk to the public affairs officers
and sort of hope that I had all the t's
crossed and the I's dotted. After about a year,
somebody let me know that
I should have had permission from my commanding officer as well, which
I hadn't done originally. So
I paused the show and applied for permission.
And unfortunately, just the way bureaucracy works
sometimes it took over six months before I
got an answer. That being said, in the meantime, I have
done a few interviews that I'm really excited to air over the
summer and fall.
>> Melissa: When we last checked in and spoke about your mental health, we
noted you were possibly heading for a medical release.
Where is that process at?
>> Bryan: So, as we mentioned in my bio, and as we suspected
would happen, I was medically released from the canadian armed
Forces. My last day was actually last
Tuesday, July 2. So I am now a
civilian.
>> Melissa: How does it feel to be a civilian?
>> Bryan: To be honest, Im still processing that. I
have a peer support person that I talk to fairly regularly
and he says that it takes around
three to five years for it to really set in and to come to grips
with a change. So Im trying to take my time and work
through it. In some ways its nice. Im looking forward to
the unlimited vacation time, at least until I figure out
what's next. But there's definitely things I
miss.
>> Melissa: How do you feel about being medically released?
>> Bryan: I have mixed emotions about it, for sure. I'm mostly at peace with
it because I knew that it was what's right for my health and
for the family. But that being said, it's a dream
job, so it's very hard to walk away from.
How would you say the process has been for you?
>> Melissa: It's been rough.
That's my nice way to put it. It's just been a lot of,
like, managing
more of the house and helping you
manage kind of the roller coaster that you've been
on. There's been, like, a lot of highs and
lows with any, like, anyone's mental health,
really. There's. There's good times and bad times. The roller coaster
has just been a little bit more than we were kind of used
to. We kind of stabilised a little bit,
and the whole process has just
had so much uncertainty to it, which
has caused a big spike in your anxiety.
So the fall from that is that
there's more for me to pick up and do because you're
frozen a lot more of the time. So it's
definitely been rough, but at the same time,
it's not as bad as I thought it was going to be
because you've grown so much in the last couple, uh, of
years.
>> Bryan: Yeah. And definitely, like I said, I'm at peace with it, and
that's true. But that doesn't mean that hasn't been a hard process.
For sure.
>> Melissa: Yeah, for sure. All right,
so you're officially done your RCAF
career. So I feel like we need to talk about, you know,
some of your favourite parts of that before we move
on to talk about other things. So, Brian, tell me, what was
your best day flying in the RCAF?
>> Bryan: Brian? So, ironically, even though it led to
eventually a medical release, I would say that my tours
overseas were my best days flying in the RCAF.
It's very satisfying to fly on a
super regular basis with the same crew all the time in
the same aircraft. You really get used to how everything's going to
go. You're working as a team, you get to know everybody
and kind of how all their idiosyncrasies work
together. Also, there was this feeling
of like, okay, we're in Iraq, we're fighting
against ISIS, we're taking part in global events, and
you feel like maybe you're hopefully
helping to make the world a better place. And at least
certainly we were helping a lot of people who lived
in Iraq to not fall under the
subjugation of ISIS. So for that, it
was very satisfying.
>> Melissa: And I think that was, like, the era where you felt like you
were finally trained and actually doing your
job, which for anyone that's gone through the process,
it's just so much learning and so much training through
all the different phases to finally, like, be on
your aircraft, doing your thing for
real, on a real mission, I think that was.
That was huge for you.
>> Bryan: Yeah, uh, 100%.
>> Melissa: What was your hardest day? Flying in the RCAF.
>> Bryan: So I would also say that some of my hardest
days were my tours overseas.
Obviously, I was pretty scared a lot of the
time, which is part of what led to my trauma
injury. I've also never been more tired than
during my first tour. Like, just
totally exhausted. Our schedule was all over the place. It
was really hard to get on a good sleep pattern. We
had challenging conditions, and like I said, there were threats that I
found scary, despite the fact that we were
taking really excellent precautions.
And, uh, as far as, like, how tired I was,
I was actually so tired that when I got back, you know, we
went on our honeymoon within a few days of me
returning home to Canada, and I was
just a wreck. I could hardly keep my eyes open. I was
basically falling asleep at our first night at dinner.
>> Melissa: The biggest party pooper.
>> Bryan: Yeah, it was. It was pretty brutal. We
had fun, but I was exhausted.
>> Melissa: What was the coolest experience you had flying in the
RcAF?
>> Bryan: So I have two coolest experiences. The
first one was getting to take you and your family flying in the
Aurora for family day. The second cool experience
is like, a very quintessentially east coast
experience. I got to do a fly past in
Digby with the Bluenose two.
So for our younger listeners who may
not be familiar with it, if you look at a dime, assuming you ever
carry change, that is the ship that is
on the canadian dime. And they had
that ship and a couple other tall ships that were
sailing up and down the sound in Digby,
and we basically did, I would say, half a dozen
fly pass for the crowd, just going
in at the minimum altitude we were approved
for and doing high speed
passes, climbing up, coming around, and doing it
again. It was just a really cool experience to get to
do that kind of thing. Yeah, it was
awesome.
>> Melissa: What are your feelings about the military now that you have
released?
>> Bryan: So, overall, my
experiences and feelings with the military are
positive. I still think its an
amazing institution. Ive enjoyed my career in the
military a tonne, and
truthfully, I cannot think of another
one that im going to enjoy as much. Thats one of the hardest
parts about moving on is that this was a
dream job and im trying to imagine
what else would I enjoy as much and its so hard to think of something
that I would like that much. So obviously I feel really
positive about it. I'm not going to miss the bureaucracy.
I won't miss working in a place where it takes six
or seven months to get a response on if you can do a podcast or
not. I found that pretty frustrating. But every
organisation has its faults. I am
looking forward to the freedom of not being in,
but I recognise that we have it so good in the military
and there's going to be a tonne of things that I'll miss.
>> Melissa: Oh yeah, I think it's going to be interesting watching your
transition to what I like to refer to as the real world.
>> Bryan: Yes, definitely. I've already had to learn about
healthy insurance and dental plans.
>> Melissa: And you made your first visit to a real
doctor in pharmacy.
>> Bryan: That's right. It was eye, uh, opening.
>> Melissa: What will you miss the most about being in the military?
>> Bryan: So the first thing that I'm going to miss is the
camaraderie. I think that that is something
that I'm just not going to find anywhere else. I think just by
the nature of the organisation and what we do and
the shared experiences we all have and the hardships we go
through that the camaraderie that that builds is just second
to none. I'm also going to miss. I know we're both
going to miss when we move next the instant friends
factor of being in the military. When you move,
you go to a new posting, you go to a new unit.
Hopefully there's some people there that you already knew. But if not,
like you definitely meet a couple people in the first week. By
the end of the week you've got a few buddies, your spouse meets
their spouses and everybody has friends. You're going
to barbecues and all that kind of stuff. So
that we're going to miss because the next place we move
we're not going to have a base, we're not going to have a
posting to go to. We're going to have to figure out how to make friends
as adults in the real world and I think that's going to be really
weird.
>> Melissa: Yeah, I think the military
families in general do a really good job
of just welcoming new people
into that community and helping you find your place in
your community. It's awesome.
>> Bryan: Yeah, for sure. And then of course the other thing I'm going to miss is
just the adventures and the variety of experiences
and seeing the world for free and all that kind of
stuff.
>> Melissa: So what's next for you?
>> Bryan: So the short answer is, I don't know, but I think
that's okay, at least at first. It's going to take some time
to kind of get my feet under me, figure out
what else do I want to do and
go pursue that. But I think, like I
said, I think it's okay at first to not be sure what you're going
to do, especially with a medical release,
because the release was unplanned. The release was something we knew was
probably coming, but it wasn't part of my plan. So it kind
of makes sense that I'm not ready to go with this second
career, and I'm trying to kind of give myself grace with that
and take some time to figure that out. In the short
term, I'm basically just going to focus on getting better,
staying in good shape physically, because I know that that also leads to
better mental health for me and doing the podcast.
>> Melissa: I'm sure your listeners are excited to hear more podcasts
coming.
>> Bryan: I hope so.
>> Melissa: What are the biggest challenges ahead you see for restarting the
show?
>> Bryan: Initially from behind the scenes? I'm definitely going to be rusty
in terms of conducting interviews, editing,
getting the show online, just all the little things that it takes
to make a podcast happen. It is a lot of work,
and there's going to be some steep learning curve
again with just getting things back online. The other
two things that I see as a challenge, which luckily the audience can
help with both. The first is regrowing the audience.
I can only imagine that in seven months, a
fair number of people have given up on the show or thought
that it's not coming back or lost interest.
So obviously you, the audience, can help
us by spreading the word that the show's
back online, by telling some friends about it,
telling people, you know, who may be interested in aviation,
or especially with aviation within the
RCAF about the show. The
third challenge is
going to be coming up with new ideas, new
ideas for shows, which again, the audience can help
by suggesting guests, topics,
all that kind of stuff.
>> Melissa: So now that you're out of the military,
how will this change the show?
>> Bryan: So I think to the audience, hopefully it will
be fairly transparent, like, there won't be
a big change, like in terms of the quality of the show,
in terms of how often it comes out. I'm hoping to keep all that kind of stuff
the same, but potentially, I'm hoping that
now that I'm out, there will be a little less red tape
in terms of me accessing certain guests. And I
believe I should have access to some fairly. I don't want to give
anything away yet because I'm not sure what's going to come
together, but I think I should have access to some fairly high
level guests in terms of people
positioned fairly senior in the RCAF. So hopefully we should
have some really cool guests for the audience to listen to soon.
Awesome.
>> Melissa: Uh, any other future plans
for the podcast?
>> Bryan: Basically, the plan is to keep it going as before, as long
as we have enough content. I'll keep putting out episodes every two
weeks, but we recognise that once we cover
all the fleets, we've kind of picked a lot of the low hanging
fruit. And it's going to be harder to
come up with unique ideas for shows. So it may
come to a point where we need to slow down and put out episodes monthly
just to sort of give us time to come up with
ideas. But again, that's where the audience can help with suggestions
in bringing forward guests, so you can reach out to
the show with topic ideas and guest ideas.
Toddpilotproject on all social media and
thepilotprojectpodcastmail uh.com dot.
>> Melissa: So in case you didn't know or your
listeners, the RCAF has a podcast.
Now. Why should people listen to your
podcast?
>> Bryan: So the first thing I'd point out is that we aren't in
competition. I actually was involved with that
show. It wasn't my idea, but I was involved with the
early stages of it, and I actually hosted one of their first episodes.
It's a cool show, but it's focused
on the RCAF as a whole. So
not just pilots, it focuses on all
trades, all walks of life within the RCAF, which I think is
great. But our show is more pilot focused, is the
goals of the show are to help pilots in
training and to help pilots succeed and to learn.
So I think we offer fundamentally different
things, but like I said, we're not in
competition. And I think more podcasts on
RCAF Aviation is a good
thing.
>> Melissa: When do you expect the first episode of the, uh,
podcast to be released? After this one.
>> Bryan: So we're going to start releasing episodes again on the
30 July and every two weeks after
that.
>> Melissa: All right, now, before we wrap up, I've got a few
retirement jokes for everyone, including you.
Um, great. Brian doesn't know I'm doing this.
I mean, he does. Cause I told him I was gonna do it, but he doesn't know what
I'm gonna say.
>> Bryan: I can't wait.
>> Melissa: All right, why did Brian
decide to retire so young?
>> Bryan: Uh, why?
>> Melissa: Because he finally reached his cruising altitude in
life. Oh, my gosh, that's the
worst one. The next year, better. All right.
Why did Brian decide to retire?
>> Bryan: Why?
>> Melissa: Because he was tired of always winging it.
All right, last one. Why did Brian
decide to retire?
>> Bryan: So they're all the same joke with different punchlines?
>> Melissa: Yeah.
>> Bryan: Okay. Why?
>> Melissa: Because he realised life's too short to always have his head in
the clouds.
>> Bryan: Oh, my gosh. I said I was trying to gain listeners,
not lose them.
>> Melissa: Come on, those were good.
>> Bryan: It was fine. All right, Melissa,
thank you so much for taking the time from your busy schedule to hang
out and do the show with me. I'm really excited for
releasing a bunch of shows and for getting this back on
the road.
>> Melissa: Oh, uh, thanks for having me. It was fun.
>> Bryan: All right, that is going to wrap up our reintroduction
episode. For our next episode, listeners
will remember a former guest we had named Scott
Harding. We caught up with Scott when he was just finished his
phase three multiengine flight training about six months ago.
So we'll be hearing all about phase three multiengine flight training
and a little bit about where Scott is heading next.
Do you have any questions or comments about anything you've heard in this
episode? Would you or someone you know make a great guest
for the show, or do you have a great idea for a topic for the
show? You can reach out to us at Pod pilot
project on all social media or the
pilotprojectpodcastmail.com dot. We
love hearing from our listeners. We'd also like to take a
moment to thank all of you listeners for coming back and having a
listen to the show. We know it's been a while, so we really
appreciate your time. In the meantime, you can help us get that audience
back by liking and following us on social
media, sharing the show with your friends, and following and
rating us five stars wherever you get your
podcasts. That's all for now. Thanks for
listening. Keep the blue side up. See ya.