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Welcome to The Pilot Project Podcast, your premier source for stories and insights from pilots in the RCAF and mission aviation - brought to you by Skies Magazine! Whether you're an aspiring aviator, navigating flight training, or simply fascinated by the world of military and mission aviation, this podcast is your guide. We sit down with pilots and aviation professionals to hear their thrilling experiences, lessons learned, and expert advice on resilience, training, and the skills needed to succeed in this exciting field. Strap in - we’re ready for departure!
New here? Start with "Logbook: First 100 Part 1: The Climb".
Hey everybody. It is your host, Brian Morrison coming to you, not quite live from my new recording studio in Ontario. We just wanted to thank you for your patience over the last couple of weeks. As we moved from Manitoba to Ontario, things were a little hectic. Episodes mostly came out on time.
Bryan:We did have an unexpected week off their promotional posts were all over the board. So we just want to thank you for standing by us and for the kind messages and comments we got along the way. And from here on, things should hopefully start to smooth out, and we should be pretty much back to normal. So with that, please enjoy today's show.
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Intro/Outro:Fuel and ignition switches. On. RPM switches. Set. PD switches.
Intro/Outro:Normal, doors and hatches. Enclosed, light out. Strobe light, on. Research check-in, lane with your left. Engineers, start number two.
Intro/Outro:Starting two. Wing three one zero and ten, Pilot Project Podcast, clear takeoff Runway 31 left.
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, and today's episode is going to tie into one of our most popular recent interviews, our series on four two seven with lieutenant colonel Chris Bray. This series will focus on the history of tactical aviation in Canada, the history of special operations aviation in Canada, as well as the history and evolution of air power in Canadian Special Operations Forces Command or CANSOFCOM. So here with me today to talk about this super interesting topic is colonel Todd O'Malley, the current director air and space at CanSOFCOM.
Bryan:Todd
Bryan:and
Bryan:I actually crossed paths years ago when he was the commandant at two Canadian forces flying training school in Moose Jaw. I was a student on the Harvard two at the time, and I remember running into him in the school one day and asking how things were going. And Todd looked at me and said, living the dream. And considering the career we're about to discuss today, I'd say that was definitely true. So, Todd, thank you so much for being on the show today.
Bryan:It is great to have you here.
Todd:Thanks very much, Brian. I very much appreciate the opportunity to talk.
Bryan:So in this first part of the conversation, we're going to focus on Todd's early journey from pilot training to flying twin Hueys during the Cold War era to becoming the first air liaison officer assigned to join task force two. But before we get to any of that, let's go through Todd's bio. Colonel Todd O'Malley was born and raised in Windsor, Ontario. Following high school, he attended Sioux College before joining the Canadian Armed Forces in 1986 under the officer cadet training plan. He earned his wings in 1988 as a helicopter pilot and was immediately posted to four two seven squadron flying the CH one thirty five twin Huey.
Bryan:Within months of arriving, he deployed to the Sinai Desert for six months, followed shortly by another six month deployment to Honduras. During the early nineteen nineties, Todd became one of the pioneers of night vision goggle operations within Canadian tactical aviation and was the first NVG specialist at four two seven squadron. In 1993, he deployed to Somalia as the detachment deputy flight commander and senior NVG specialist before becoming the first air liaison officer assigned to JTF two in 1994. His career would later include leadership appointments across both tactical aviation and the NATO flying training in Canada program, including serving as Apache flight commander at two Canadian Forces flying training school, deputy commanding officer, and later b flight commander at four two seven squadron, and eventually commandant of two CFFTS in Moose Jaw. After retiring from the Canadian Armed Forces in 2011, Todd flew for STARZ Air Ambulance, instructed within NATO flying training in Canada, and worked with Boeing supporting the RCAF Chinook fleet before reenrolling in the CAF in 2023.
Bryan:In 2024, he was promoted to colonel and selected as the director air and space at Canadian Special Operations Forces Command headquarters. Todd has been married to his lovely wife for twenty eight years, and they have two children. They also have three Irish Setters. So, Todd, let's go through some of your early days. Growing up in Windsor, what originally pulled you towards military aviation and the CAF?
Bryan:Was there a moment where flying started to feel like a path for you?
Todd:Well, my dad was in the naval reserve, for almost thirty years. He was a high school French teacher, but he was also in the naval reserve. So I was familiar with the military side. I didn't have a lot of, experience from the air force side, but I was an air cadets, so I understood sort of that side of it. I was always interested in flying.
Todd:My dad actually got his pilot's license, I wanna say in his early forties. Oh, cool. Yeah. So I would go flying with him. I remember, and I wanna say it was with the air cadets.
Todd:I could be wrong on this, but we went to Selfridge Air Force Base in Michigan. And we
Bryan:were lucky enough that they walked us through some of
Todd:the hangars. And I actually remembered they allowed us in one of the single Huey helicopters. And I remember sitting up front thinking, know, this this is pretty complex, pretty, an interesting flying because up until then I had only really flown, with my dad in a small small aircraft, you know, like a Cessna. But I hadn't really looked at joining the military to fly. I always wanted to go the civilian route and then decide if it was gonna be helicopters or I'll call it airlines, which is what kinda led me to that decision of Sioux College, or to at least try to get selected to go to Sioux College.
Todd:And that's really, I would say, the path wasn't so much military, it was when I came back from Sioux College, I met a recruiter. He was an a snowbird, an ex snowbird pilot. And he, you know, he started to talk to me about the military. And, so that's when I decided, okay, I'll enroll and see what this journey is all about.
Bryan:It's interesting how sometimes just meeting the right person at the right time can like really, really change your path. Like if you had never met that person, you may never have considered that line of work and now it's kind of, it's been your whole career.
Todd:Yeah, a 100%. I remember my dad introduced me and I actually think it was on a naval reserve evening that this gent came down to meet my dad and because obviously my dad had mentioned sort of what I was looking at doing. And so then we started talking and I remember him sort of daring me almost like, don't know if you have it in you to join the military and being a young guy, that was pretty much it. I remember waking up in Chilliwack going, what did I just do? And that's how it worked.
Bryan:Yeah. Definitely, if you have the right mentality, like, you have the right mindset to join the military, that tactic is probably gonna work on you.
Todd:Yeah. Yeah. A 100%. And I remember I ran into him years later. He was in Trenton working ops and we laughed as I walked in the door.
Todd:I'd I was flying twins up in Pet and we had flown down. I I walk in, I just started laughing. I'm like, well, that worked big guy. Good to see it.
Bryan:Yeah. It's cool that one of the first helicopters that you went in was a Huey. Yeah. And then later, you ended up flying twin Hueys, which are both, like, super, super iconic aircraft. So as you mentioned, before joining the military, you spent some time at Sioux College.
Bryan:What was life looking like for you during that period? And you mentioned that you were pretty close to heading in a different direction at that point in your life.
Todd:Yeah. Like Sioux College to me was, one, you're leaving home. So that's I'm in the middle of three boys, but I was kind of the first, head out to try to go away to school. And the program at the time I didn't know this, but the program was very, it was built around the military. It had a lot of ex military instructors.
Todd:And it's only when I really saw the military flying program in Portage and Moose Jaw that I knew they had built Sioux College around it. There was a whole selection criteria. Every flight was evaluated, but it was more than just flying. It was an aviation and flight technology program, and a lot of the non flying related courses were, I would say heavy for me in the math area, so I had, there was just way more work to do on that course because not only are you learning to fly and all that goes with that, but you were also learning these other skills that you would have in aviation flight technology world. And I guess if I had been successful there, I probably would have gone a traditional airline path.
Todd:That's where I was heading, and maybe it would change down the road, but that's the path that that school was on. And that's the path I was intending to go at the time. Mhmm. Probably airlines.
Bryan:And you mentioned there if you had been successful, you've also mentioned on that same line of thought that one of the most important lessons of your life came from being removed from training even though you passed. Can you walk us through what happened and what that experience taught you?
Todd:I I was doing quite well on the flying side of that program, and there's definitely a natural selection on that program in those days, that's like mid 80s I would say, because they only had so many slots ideally for the second year of that course, So on the first year, right at the very end of the first year, there is a commercial written exam and the rumor was that Transport Canada would test out their new exams on Seneca or Sioux College just to see how they work. So I remember we do this exam and the pass mark for Transport Canada was 60%, but the pass mark for Sioux College was 70. So when the exam results come back, three of us get called into a room and one got 69, one got 66, I believe, and I got 67. So you pass, but you're removed that day from school. Oh wow.
Todd:And I remember, yep, like you just worked an entire year and even though you passed, you didn't meet their mark. And I remember having to call my dad and say, you gotta come and get me, like I just failed school, although I'm probably five flights away from getting my commercial done. Know, was the Wow. Yeah, it's very hard to chew on that when you're young and you went away to school and a lot of people didn't think you'd be successful going away to school and now you got to come home and face that. And I remember, you you grow up very quickly because you're gonna have to face that.
Todd:And I remember thinking, okay, like, I'm gonna finish my flying, and I did, I worked for a family friend and then I made the money, kept getting my flying done, so I got my commercial done. And then you're trying to think, what am I gonna do? What am I, like, what do I do with this? I had a loan that I borrowed from a family member that I paid that back because it's kind of the, it's just the right thing to do, but the scars of that you had to, I use them to learn, I said okay, like if I get another shot at something, I I just have to take what I've learned here and and use it there to be successful. It was a big learning piece for me at a young age.
Bryan:You said that you would take what you learned. What do you think the big lesson of that was?
Todd:Well, maybe I, you know, maybe I didn't study as hard or maybe I didn't learn the topic so well that in an exam, you don't get flustered. You're so deep in the knowledge of that topic that you're like, whatever, you could throw anything at me, I'm gonna ace it. And I remember using that exact mentality when I was applying for the Starz Ambulance Medevac job, and I had to go write my airline transport rating licenses and my IF ticket licenses. And I had to sit in the basement for months and study. And I said, okay, we're gonna rewrite this ship and do it right.
Todd:And I think I got like 98% on those tests. And I kind of felt at that time, you know, years later, I closed that chapter and I took what I believed I learned and I put it to use.
Bryan:Yeah. And those ATPL, the airline transport pilot license exams are no joke.
Todd:Like No.
Bryan:I wrote those when I was on parental leave with our oldest son, and I studied for months. Like Yep. Just pouring over that all day every day for I think two, maybe three months.
Todd:Yep. 100%.
Bryan:Very difficult. Now I also got, like, know, 97, 98% or something. So maybe that was overkill. But realistically, do you want a pilot who scrapes by, or do you want a pilot who's almost getting a 100%? Like, I know who I want flying up front when my family's in the back.
Todd:Yeah. And I knew it. I had to do it. It's sort of for myself, but it's also at the time, my kids would see me in the basement in the night, kind of locked almost in this, furnace room, I had a desk in there and I just, that's where all my stuff was on that desk and every night they'd see me in there studying and I kind of wanted to set that tone that, hey, it never goes away. You're always learning and but always try to do your best.
Intro/Outro:Mhmm.
Todd:Right? That was a tough lesson though.
Bryan:So you completed your commercial license and then was it around that time that you were introduced to this ex snowbird?
Todd:Yeah. Exactly. It's probably almost the, you know, the same kind of within the months month or two, dad introduced me to this gent Graham Miller, I believe. And then I I put my name in and off I and then at that time, like, it just worked out perfectly. They needed pilots.
Todd:I didn't have a degree. So they had the OCTP program open. And I went down and enrolled and I said, okay, here we go. You know, let's see what this adventure is like. Because I wanted to fly and I thought, this is this is the path that you're on for a reason.
Todd:Let's let's see what that reason's about. I was still quite young. Mhmm. So let's let's go see.
Bryan:The OCTP, that's the officer cadet training plan. Right?
Todd:Yep. It is. Yeah.
Bryan:So you went through basic training. You did all that stuff. You head to Moose Jaw for flight training. So Moose Jaw, it's the mid nineteen eighties. It must have been a pretty incredible environment.
Bryan:Top Gun is super popular. The Hornet is brand new. Everybody wants fighters. What was pilot training culture like back then?
Todd:Yeah. And I'll go back if I can just a bit where Portage is the first place we had to go for musketeers. Right. And for anybody who's flown the musketeer, the only way to pass that course was they had to figure out how to land it because it did not like to land well. But and I was on an abbreviated course of that because I had my commercial license.
Todd:So they put you through like a gauntlet, like half the time you pass or fail, carry on, you want a moose jaw. So got through that, go to moose jaw, and moose jaw to me at that time, it was a 100% a fighter air force. Like everything was fighters and you're right, Top Gun was the craze, the Ninja motorcycle was the craze, F5s were flying, the Hornets were new and that's what everybody wanted to be. I'd say, I wanna say we had maybe 33 folks on our course and virtually every one of them, maybe a couple wanted airlines, know, by the Air Canada Training Program as they saw it. And then the odd guy wanted helicopters, but most of us wanted a shot at fighters.
Todd:It's just that was the culture in Moose Jaw at that time.
Bryan:Yeah. And I would even say when I was there in 2010, not everybody wanted fighters, but the school still very much felt like a fighter mentality, like a fighter school.
Todd:It absolutely did. And I think if you go back to when I went through, you know, you had the old hangars, the old, you know, where Apaches and Bandit where we all we're we we weren't in the same building like we were in NFTC,
Bryan:but Mhmm.
Todd:That had history. Some of those old wooden hangars that you lived in had the the history from way back, and it just it oozed fighters and then you had the tutor, so it kind of just all played into that world, know? And at the time I remember, and I don't think we've done it for quite a long time, but we used to have a mass attack Friday where f fives and Hornets would just beat up the the base, and then everybody goes to the mess and finds out what it's like. And you might have the odd maybe Argus at time or something a tracker flying through would stop in, but if f fives and hornets ripping up the airport and then you go to the mess to have a beer with them, it was it was, you know, it was fighters one zero one there.
Bryan:Yeah. That's pretty amazing. I still very clearly remember we were in the ground school phase of Moose Jaw, and one day Hornets came and we're doing a bunch of passes. And we could hear them ripping by and we were still in a lesson. And the instructor eventually just gave up and let us leave because we were so like, you could tell that we were, like, desperate to get outside and see these things.
Todd:A 100%. Yeah. Yeah. It's intoxicating, really.
Bryan:Yeah. I really think that, you know, obviously they don't do as much of those kinds of like we call them motive Xs. Right? They don't do that as much where they have aircraft visit the schools. I think just as a nature of the staffing shortages, the shortage of resources in aircraft and people, and the level of taskings going on and all those things.
Bryan:But I really hope that as part of this effort where they're recapitalizing the air force, getting all these new platforms, these really ambitious plans to massively ramp up our numbers
Todd:Yeah.
Bryan:Hopefully, of that stuff comes back because I think that's super motivating for the students. And I know the reason that I ended up picking Aurora's eventually was because somebody came and did they didn't bring the aircraft, but they just had someone come in and do a presentation on it. And I thought, hey, that sounds amazing. And, like Yep. You know, stuff like this podcast was hopefully this helps a little bit too for students who are trying to pick because they can hear experiences from people from different communities.
Bryan:But certainly back then, your only hope was basically if someone came and visited or if one of your instructors had flown one of the things that you wanted to fly.
Todd:Yeah. A 100%. I know when I was there as the commandant, I would definitely brief on what it was like in b flight, flying with the Special Ops folks. And and I even took a four ship through there. We were heading off to the West Coast, and I remember asking, colonel Foster was the wing commander.
Todd:I asked him if I could bring a four ship in and take folks flying, and he gave me a tac fly area south of Moose Jaw. So basically, at 15 feet, I've got doors pinned open and we're ripping around with students. And I he basically told me never come back again because now I've got, you know, 60 students wanting helicopters and nobody wants to go fighters. And I remember that was a very successful day, we had people lining up to try to go again, but you're right, it's one stop, one person can change your entire path if they motivate you correctly, you know, or properly at the right time.
Bryan:Definitely. So you're making your way through phase two training on the tutor. How did that course go for you? How was the flying? How was the academics?
Todd:I, you know, I had a lot by then. I had my commercial, I had had Portage again. So I would say the academics went well, and I think the flying actually was going quite well. I didn't really struggle in Moose Jaw, and I feel like Sioux College helped me with that because they ran it the same. Every flight you were evaluated, it was it actually was really good for me to have gone through that experience where you didn't feel the stress at the same level as maybe somebody who didn't have that experience in Moose Jaw, because Moose Jaw is stressful no matter who you are, some of the phases you do well in, some of them you're going to struggle in, I'll call it, or not be as smooth in, you got more work to do, but I found overall, probably the only phase that you really have to work super hard at, even no matter what you're good at in the flying side, is formation.
Todd:That's just a very unnatural mode of flying when you're young and you haven't done it, But I found I found Moose Jaw, I don't say enjoyable because I don't think I mean, I had a great experience, but every flight I looked at it like, hey, you're one week away from being a mister, and that's how it was back then. So, you know, you I worked extremely hard during the week, and you blew the steam off Friday night. And by Sunday, you're back at it. And I said, I'm gonna keep this no matter what until the end.
Bryan:Yeah.
Todd:One way or the other.
Bryan:Yeah. Wow. Yeah. And it's funny, you know, the aircraft change, the buildings change, but the experience is very similar.
Todd:It is. Yep.
Bryan:I think for for every everyone who goes through there because I would describe it very, very similarly. Like, I look back at it fondly. At the time, it was very stressful. Yeah. And very like, you're you're keenly aware that every day is kind of make or break for your whole career.
Bryan:Yeah. And you're only ever two flights away from facing a board and maybe being sea strained. So it's definitely stressful. But at the same time, you know, you do have those moments every now and then. Yeah.
Bryan:If you get the free brain space where you can look outside and be like, wow, this is amazing.
Todd:Yeah. A 100%. There are some flights where I think nav really where if you're locked in and the wind maybe isn't blowing at 40 knots in Moose Jaw and you can see your turn point and your time is right on and you take that that brief, you know, twenty seconds to look around and go, wow. This is pretty this is pretty cool.
Bryan:Yeah.
Todd:This doesn't come often.
Bryan:And if you're lucky, you'll have an instructor every now and then who will remind you to do that. I have had instructors who would take control every now and then and just say, hey, you know, look around, you know, how cool is this?
Todd:I did, I had a Martin Terpent, I was his first student I think, and he would do that, he was a really chill guy and when we were doing well, he would just take control for a bit and say, hey, just look around, like, look what you're doing. It was good. It was you needed that. Right? Just to shake it out a bit.
Todd:Definitely. That was good.
Bryan:So we've talked about how basically everyone wanted fighters, and you were no exception to that trend. You ended up getting selected for helicopters, and I know that you've said that initially that was pretty disappointing for you. How did that feel at the time as a young student pilot?
Todd:Yeah. I you know, at the time you go into selection, and it's probably quite similar, when I was there as commandant and even flight commander. But the way they did it from back back then, at least on our course, there was, I want to say the word came down from above to start trying to send folks from the thirds of the course, not just middle or bottom, let's say to helicopters, but let's take people from all the thirds and we'll push them, you know, push them chalkers. And I was tied on course with Guy Miller. Guy Miller was, his dad happened to be wing commander in Moose Jaw at the exact same time.
Todd:And but I was tied, and we both wanted fighters like probably everybody, you know, I would say over three quarters did. And I remember Jerry Kennedy was my flight commander. He calls me in. He's, always a straight shooter, but a really nice guy. He was awesome flight commander.
Todd:He goes, listen, man. He goes, you're tied with guy. You both want fighters. His dad's wing commander. You're going helicopters.
Todd:Yeah. And I'm like you don't even know what to really do because at that time, you're like, I don't say three quarters of the way through Moose Jaw, but you're definitely over halfway and you're now comfortable with the bird. Like you know you can fly this and pass this course.
Bryan:And
Todd:there was a whack of us, I wanna say fifteen, twelve, 15 of us got sent helicopters, maybe two or three wanted it, But I'll tell you, there was a mentality even in Moose Jaw. Like, I remember at the time, there are certain individuals on our course that literally stopped talking to you when you got picked helicopters. Really? Yep. It was really it's actually another one of those defining moments in my career where I I made a deal in my brain that if I could ever come back to Moose Jaw in some capacity, flight commander, commandant, to try to to change how we treated each other back then or that like, it was like, if you're going choppers, you're kinda like not part of the air force anymore.
Bryan:Yeah. You're not in the club.
Todd:You're not in the club. And it was really prevalent back in in the mid eighties, it just was. Mhmm. Good, bad, or ugly, that's the way it was. So not only are you going down to Portage and and leaving sort of a path that you wanted, but now you have to go learn to fly helicopters.
Todd:And, like, you know, nothing against fixed wing, but it's way more difficult to fly helicopters in my opinion. Mhmm. So now you show up on course. You gotta go back into ground school. You gotta learn a new bird.
Todd:And then you gotta try to figure out how to hover and how to fly this thing. And, you know, the the we all on our first trip, you know, to hover, you're in the middle of a farmer's field. I think they did this to all of us just to reset our expectation, but you're all over that field trying to figure out how to hover and we all came back and said, we're gonna fail this now. It's like you thought you were on a path to success in Moose Jaw, here you are now thinking, oh man, I'm I'm done. There's no way I'm passing this course.
Todd:Where our mindset was in Portage and it's not a good mindset, it's just how it was. And you know, that was that initial struggle in trying to figure out how I'm gonna get through this course.
Bryan:Yeah. First of all, I will definitely not argue with helicopters being more difficult. You know, I have tons of friends here who are helicopter instructors. I've been doing this show for years now as we were as we were saying before the interview. Yeah.
Bryan:And, I've talked to a ton of, different types of pilots, and there's no doubt that helicopters is an incredibly challenging skill. I remember when we were on multi, we would be going out for the early trips. You know, startup, taxi, off you go. And you'd look over and there'd be somebody on one of their early trips in a Bell two zero six helicopter, and it would just be wobbling like crazy over the apron. And then all of a sudden, it would go rock steady.
Bryan:And, you know, the instructor had had to take control.
Todd:100%.
Bryan:And then it would slowly become more and more and more unstable, and you knew the student was trying their best. And then, whoop, it's rock steady again.
Todd:Oh, yeah. It was so bad.
Bryan:We were talking about it after, like, us multi students and we were like, holy cow. Like, that looks really hard.
Todd:Yeah. I it it really is. And I I think initially, you're like, you just truly, you almost have to find your confidence too, because you will let it get you. And I remember having off levels where you put sort of one skid on the side of a hill and then you kind of sit there and see if you can bring the other skid down. So you're sitting like, let's say on the side of a hill, maybe five, six, seven degrees slope.
Bryan:Oh, weird.
Todd:Or he put you on one that was too much of a slope and he just wanted you to sit level but with one skid on the side of the hill and now you're just, it's all hands and feet at that time and I remember having a real tough time, like I was over controlling everything and so Walt Heenahan was my instructor and he tuned in the AM radio station and he just had it playing quietly in the back and it almost took your mind off of what you're doing. You know, a song would come on and you would just hear it And all of a sudden he goes, look, and you had just even everything out. We were just sitting in a hover. And I thought, okay, that's a really good trick to remember down the road for somebody if you're teaching. Mhmm.
Todd:But, yeah, you know, you had to have the right instructors there to to learn, you know, auto rotations at night and auto rotations to touchdown. I don't even I don't even know if we teach that anymore.
Bryan:I feel like I've heard they don't.
Todd:Yeah. That's what I heard, but but we used to do them in holy jumping. Doing that at night, that that was something else.
Bryan:Two things. First of all, it's funny you mentioned the music because there was that AM station in Moose Jaw as well. I think it was a rock station of some kind. Right. Yep.
Bryan:That my instructor, Phil Tate
Todd:Okay. Yeah.
Intro/Outro:I know.
Bryan:Would tune in sometimes.
Todd:Right.
Bryan:And which is also interesting because Phil ended up on Aurora's for a short time, so we were on squadron together. But the other thing was we're talking about auto rotations, and I actually think we've never explained what those are on the show. Can you quickly just explain to listeners what an auto rotation is and what it what it involves?
Todd:Yeah. I guess the best way to equate it is if you lost your engines in a in an airplane, airplane, ideally you can glide back to a runway, but you're in a helicopter and you have an engine failure, your rotor system will still turn, but you basically are going to, it's not a glide, you're basically going to land, if you look down at your chin bubble window down by your feet in a helicopter, that's probably give or take where you're going to meet the earth. Wow. And the way auto rotation really works is as soon as you would have an engine failure, you wanted to try to lower the collective to take any pitch off of your rotor blades, which would in theory during flight, it's helping you fly, but you're trying to basically keep your rotor disc at a speed that when you get very close to the ground and you start to flare, you have enough energy built up into your rotor system that you can do one collective check up, and now you're using that cushion from your blades to cushion your landing.
Bryan:Okay.
Todd:So as you're coming down, you're looking for a field, you're gonna try to get yourself in the wind, you're watching your rotor because you're trying to keep that energy in your, in the rotor head, the blades, and just about, I'd say maybe 20 feet above the ground, you start to do a flare, a bit of a flare, and now you're watching the rotor. Just as you level off three feet above the ground, you do a pretty positive collective check up. And that cushion is an instantaneous cushion that allows you to touch down. And then you you walk away and, you didn't roll into a big ball. That's an autorotation.
Bryan:I feel like that word positive checkup was, like, a very specific keyword from teaching.
Todd:Yes. It is. It is.
Bryan:I feel like it's almost like you wanted to say aggressive. Right. And then you were like, oh, that's that's not quite it.
Todd:Yeah. Because aggressive and helicopter don't go together well. Yeah. But is, it's a one final aggressive checkup and you're taking all that energy that you saved all the way down from whatever height you were at to cushion that landing. And we used to, you know, we taught them, they were taught in jet rangers, and when I did my instructor course for the Huey, we had to, you know, we taught those and we used to do them in the Huey, which was sporty.
Bryan:It actually reminds me of doing a flapless landing in the Aurora. You don't really flare, but you you do a quick yoke check. You do a you check the yoke quickly just to sort of pop it for a second and and take some of that rate of descent off.
Todd:Right.
Bryan:So just to make sure so I actually was asking also for myself because I've I knew sort of the concept behind an auto rotation.
Todd:Right.
Bryan:So basically, you want the blades flat so that it's almost like one of those toys where you, like, blow into the spinner and it and it spins faster. Yeah. So, like, your blade is gonna spin faster.
Todd:100%.
Bryan:And then as you get close to the ground, you check the collective. So that would, what, make the blades more of a course pitch? Correct. So they're gonna bite basically and give you a second of lift kind of?
Todd:That's that's exactly what you're doing. And it's all about the timing because I remember doing it to my instructor on the Huey when he was teaching me. I was being taught to be an instructor, and I remember I did that collective check just a bit high, but not enough time that he could roll the throttles back on to give us the power. And we almost looked at each other like, oh, this is not good. We had a bit of a rock landing when we landed, but I learned very quickly, okay, that was a couple of feet too high, so the next one I won't.
Todd:But yeah, that's exactly, not only are you trying to find a place to land, but you're even in turns, had to watch the rotor depending on the chopper you were flying, even in a turn, if you had that collective all the way down, you could almost build too much energy in your rotor head where you're almost gonna over speed the rotor system. Oh. So you had to do a minor check-in some turns depending on how aggressive the turn was. So you had like one eyeball out, one eyeball on your rotor and trying to get your calls out at the same time.
Bryan:That's a lot.
Todd:It was a lot and we used to do 180s in Portage to practice and in that turn coming back, there's a lot going on and then all of a sudden all you're trying to worry about now is that leveling off just before you're gonna touch with that collective check and then just trying to be level when you touch. It was fun to do, I don't think for the instructor it was, but for the student, it was a very challenging, but but you felt really good at the end of it if you if you did it well. For sure. Right? There's a lot of hands and feet and and brain energy being expended.
Bryan:I would totally agree with that because I think the most satisfying things in aviation in especially in military aviation, which tends to be pretty dynamic, and probably that's true though of most helicopter flying, is there's when you pull off something where you're managing energy and rates of descent and turn radiuses and all those different, like, dynamic things and all comes together, it's actually kind of funny. Sometimes IF can feel that way too because there's so many different things you're managing and and, like, gates you have to meet for performance and stuff. Yep. But, yeah, I I definitely know what you're saying there. And then it's funny you talk about that firm landing, I'll call it.
Bryan:I think most people at some point have one of those and it's like a big lesson. Like
Todd:Yep.
Bryan:I remember turning into Kaneohe Bay Hawaii on my first RIM pack. And I had this Australian crew commander, Adam Saber, who was a huge role model for me on the Aurora, just like immensely knowledgeable and professional. And he's still doing very well in the RAAF. And there was a bunch of things that were, like, different from what I was used to, and I only had a few months I had only been off the OTU for a few months. And I was coming around this turn and I basically, I just took a little too much power off and never put it back on.
Bryan:And at the last second, he kind of gave the power levers a bit of a tap up and checked the stick. And it was this big firm landing.
Intro/Outro:And I thought, oh.
Bryan:And I never crossed the threshold. Never went through the window again, which for listeners is this little it's basically an imaginary spot where you're managing your energy on approach. And I never went through there again without less than 500 shaft horsepower on every engine. That was like a thing that was drilled in for the rest of my time on the Aurora. And then the funny thing about that was, of course, my worst landing of my whole career onboard the aircraft is my wing commander in Huddleston.
Bryan:And, of course, also onboard was an American colonel and a previous American exchange pilot that we had had on our squadron before who met up with us there. And the last thing he said to me as they called me up to do the landing was, don't f it up.
Todd:You're like, right. Got it.
Bryan:Yes. Those are big lessons, Yes. So let's roll the tape back a little here. So we were talking about how basically it was a big adjustment for you to end up on helicopters. You have talked in the past about having to recage your attitude during helicopter training.
Bryan:I think this was probably another growing up process for you. Can you tell us a little more about that?
Todd:Yeah. It was another growing up process and, know, we were pretty young and back then you're, I wanna say 88, so I was 22 coming through, had 2020 when I joined basically, '21. So training was really fast, everything happened right one after the other, but what I remember on helicopters is not only are you trying to figure out how to fly them and the ground school and the like, but I think it was the first test in my flying that I got a partial pass, and that was another experience for me like, okay, like I gotta now go redo something and really I remember it, it's not because I couldn't do it, it might have even been off levels to be honest, it probably was off levels, you know, landing on the side of a hill. But I remembered thinking, okay, like if you want your wings, they're the exact same wings as you would have gotten in Moose Jaw, You have to you gotta change your mentality here and go after this with everything you got because at the end of the day, you can decide what you wanna do at the end of it, but go get your wings.
Todd:And I remember after that flight, I don't think I had any real big issues again for the rest of the course, but I started to have to change regardless of the fact that I'm not really where I wanted to be. It's you're still pursuing your military wings.
Intro/Outro:Mhmm.
Todd:Different different path, not one I chose, but I had to kinda grow up a bit and say, hey, enough. Like, nobody's coming to rescue you. You're like, this is it. This is your path.
Bryan:Yeah, you can't keep looking at it like a consolation prize, like you need to go after it like this is it, right?
Todd:Yep, and I remember after that partial that I had to reset my brain because I'm like, I don't like this partial thing, I don't like to fail things, especially if I, you know, if it's on me because I didn't prepare well enough or I brought a a poor mental attitude towards it. Mhmm. Plus on me a 100%. And this one I think was. So again, that was another one of those, you know, learning points of growing up.
Bryan:Yeah. Yeah. I'm I'm very much in that camp as well when it comes to you just have to do everything you can to succeed and then you can Yeah. Whatever happens, you can deal with that.
Todd:100%.
Bryan:If you if you don't make it through because you didn't do enough, that's pretty tough to to swallow.
Todd:It is. Yeah. And, you know, there's only one life, so you will keep replaying that in your head down the road and I don't nobody needs that.
Bryan:Yeah. So you started to sort of make peace with being on helicopters and maybe even start to enjoy it. When did you start realizing that tactical aviation might be where you belonged?
Todd:Well, again, that's probably another thing in in, Portage. You had you had Chinooks. Had Kiowas. You had Hueys at the time. You had Sea King.
Todd:I wanna say the lab for SAR. But back then, TACHEL was very, very much it was, you know, TENTAG. It was I would argue a lot of people that were in TENTAG wanted to, like, outgrunt the grunts. They wanted to be more army than the army.
Bryan:What's TENTAG?
Todd:Tentag was Tactical Air Group. That's the previous name of the four one wing.
Bryan:Okay. Yep.
Todd:Right? So and I remember Herm Harrison. He he very good buddy of mine. He was the chief helicopter instructor there. He came from 04/27, and he ultimately down the road was my CO.
Todd:But so he brings me in the office and he says, listen, with your personality, you would be perfect in Tactical, and I'm gonna send you to the best place to fly, which is Petawawa. I'm a single guy, I'm like, what is Petawawa? What is that? And right behind him, like right behind the chair that I'm in or the couch is a map. He goes, it's right on the map there, like between like Ottawa, North Bay.
Todd:I look and I see like Pembroke. He goes, well, it's close to Pembroke. Yeah. I go, you're sending me to a place that's not even on your map, and I'm supposed to think this is awesome. And that's that's how I kind of started down the road because I really didn't know how to pick what I was going to fly coming out of Portage.
Todd:I knew I didn't want to be Sea Kings. I didn't really want to go out on the on the ships. I think SARA would have been a good choice and then everything else was really around tactical aviation. Mhmm. So if I kinda looked at it back then, probably had a 80% chance of going tactical aviation.
Todd:And then I got launched to Pet. And, you know, a sad side of it that I didn't know until I arrived in Petawawa at four two seven was they had just recently had an accident in '88 where they lost to Twin Huey, they lost to crew. Oh, wow. Yep. So Cam Duttmall and I were the two guys that were sent from the course to 427.
Todd:So not only are you going tactical aviation in a place called Petawawa, but you show up at a squadron that is mourning the loss of their buddies, and they know you're the replacements.
Bryan:And
Todd:that is a whole different feeling too. And I remember that walking in going, yeah, I know exactly what you're thinking right now, boys.
Bryan:Wow. Yep. What was that like to step into? Were they were they standoffish a bit at first? Like, was there some resentment or were they fairly welcoming?
Bryan:Or
Todd:I think they were standoffish in a way that the Huey guys and the Kiowa guys, were almost, I don't wanna say clicky in their own world, but they were very much different personalities. And I think you had to just come in and a lot of them are very experienced guys. So you had to kind of stay quiet, sometimes not my, you know, my strong suit, but I kind of had to stay quiet and learn from them and just let them bring you into the Huey folds,
Bryan:know? Because
Todd:it was very recent too, and I remember they were still mourning, and so you had to really be careful for the first while, As yet, you know, two months after that, we were deploying, which I also didn't know
Bryan:Oh, wow.
Todd:When I got sent there.
Bryan:Wow. Just before we jump into that, we're about to jump into kind of going all through this Tactical stuff. Listeners now are probably more familiar with the Griffin, and they may know of the Twin Huey. One of the iconic Vietnam helicopters is the Huey. So what is the difference between a Twin Huey and a Griffin?
Bryan:Cause they look pretty similar, right?
Todd:They do look similar. Probably one of the biggest issues we had adopting the Griffin when it came into service as the old Huey guys is it looked similar. So I would say that if you could take the Vietnam single Huey, the twin was almost exactly the same except it had two engines with one rotor system. So that way if you lost an engine, you still had another engine. That was probably the biggest difference between a single Huey and a twin Huey.
Todd:If you go to the Griffin, look and feel, would say is very similar, but I would say one of the biggest areas for performance that you had to watch is the rotors, the rotor system was limited on the Huey, like you could pull, I'm gonna say a 100 plus or minus 2% torque, and then the blades would start to slow down. If you pulled any more than that, the blade actually starts to slow down and decay, which is never a good thing. But in the Griffin, there was no limiter per se, you might hurt the bird, you might damage some components, but if you needed 115 torque to get out of a situation, it's going to give it to you. And I remember it was it was faster. It was twitchy or like a little more responsive.
Todd:And ultimately, although I was like in the day hard, hard over on the Huey's better. When I started to fly the Griffin in b flight, and do the maneuvers that we did, it actually performed much better than the Huey did for, you know, stopping where I wanted it to stop, being quicker and giving you, you know, more ways out of harm than the Huey. The Huey was really it was a workhorse of the helicopter world, and it was designed exactly what it was built for is to move troops around, move cargo around, be close to trees, bushes, you know, rock and soil. But the Griffin really was a VIP bird, so smooth, and then we sort of militarized it over decades. So it was a smooth bird, little quicker, better performance, but it had that ability to stop you when you needed it and give you the torque when you needed it.
Todd:Mhmm.
Bryan:So overall, once you got used to it, it was an improvement.
Todd:Yeah. A 100%. I, you know, I for me to say that's big, but yes, I I think it's I think it was. It definitely was. 100%.
Bryan:Okay. So, Todd, we're coming to the end of this part of our chat. As we close here, I'd like for you to offer some advice to student pilots out there in the RCAF system who maybe don't end up initially selected for what they had been hoping for? Because a lot of people do show up in Moose Jaw. They have this dream of I'm gonna fly this.
Bryan:I'm gonna be this kind of pilot. And the road does not take them where they thought they'd go. What kind of advice would you give to those people?
Todd:Yeah. You know, Brian, I probably dealt with that a fair bit when I was flight commander and common on in Moose Jaw. But the advice I would give is like, will work probably the hardest you've ever worked to get your wings. And it really doesn't matter what platform you ultimately wind up flying on the people you meet, the experiences you will have. It's almost like every person will have their own journey that ten, fifteen, twenty, thirty years worth, it's yours.
Todd:It's sort of like the most unique profession because you will literally have deployments, flights, missions, friends, experiences that maybe nobody else will have that exact storyline. So if you get sent like me, like if you get sent from Fix Weing The Helos, and I look now at what's in the system and what's probably coming in the system, you know, the future is so bright. There's so much people can have an incredible career no matter what they get to fly. And I feel sometimes we forget that it's only about 130 years old just flying. So you're part of something that is extremely unique.
Todd:And if you can go out every day and strap in and go flying, whether it's low level, high speed or across the ocean, you win. Like you have a life that most have no comprehension of how lucky you are. And you have to look at it that way, you're extremely lucky to have passed everything to get there and to be actually doing that. Mhmm. And I feel sometimes we forget that.
Bryan:I totally agree. I think that it's very, very easy to lose sight of how fortunate we are to just to get into the forces as a pilot. Yep. There are so many people. Like, you can't even so many people write us on social media or email us asking how can I how can I make this happen?
Bryan:This is my dream, you know, and and like what? 1%, 10% max?
Todd:Yeah. Very few.
Bryan:Are gonna get in there. In fact, probably nowhere near 10%. So if you get in, it's just you're so fortunate.
Todd:Yeah. And I feel sometimes I think that's the piece of that's the piece of advice I would give is is if you crack that nut and somebody gets to put wings on your chest, you win. Absolutely. You win. Like, you should be smiling every day going to work.
Todd:Yep. Yep. 100%.
Bryan:Alright, Todd. That is gonna wrap up part one of our chat. It was really cool to kinda hear about your journey through Moose Jaw. In the future episodes, we are gonna tackle a bunch of really cool stuff that I'm looking forward to hearing about some of your deployments, the evolution of four two seven, and your work with JTF two. So, I just wanna thank you again for being here, and I will talk to you on the next one.
Todd:Right on. My pleasure, Brian. I very much appreciate you taking the time to, chat today. Thank you.
Bryan:Alright. That wraps up part one of our series with colonel Todd O'Malley on the history and evolution of four two seven squadron and air power within cansoftcom. Tune in next week for part two where we will dive into his early deployments as well as the pioneering days for NVGs or night vision goggles within tactical aviation in Canada. Do you have any questions or comments about anything you've heard in this show? Would you or somebody you know make a great guest, or do you have a great idea for a show?
Bryan:You can reach out to us at the pilotprojectpodcast@Gmail.com or on all social media at at podpilotproject. 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. 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.
Bryan:Thanks for listening. Keep the blue side up. See you.
Intro/Outro:Engineer, shut down all four. Shutting down all four engines.