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The Pilot Project Podcast is an aviation podcast that aims to help new pilots learn what it takes to succeed in the world of flight, to help people in the flight training system learn what they may want to fly, and to give Canadians and the world a peek into life on the flight deck in the RCAF. We want to help pilots succeed and thrive! We interview real RCAF pilots for their exciting stories as well as the lessons they've learned along the way. We'll learn their tips to develop resilience and the tools it takes to make it in flight training.
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Bryan:Alright. We're ready for departure here at the pilot project podcast, the best source for stories and advice from RCAF and mission aviation pilots brought to you by Sky's Magazine. I'm your host, Brian Morrison. And here with me once again today for part two of our series is special guest major Matt Neary, a CH one forty nine Cormorant pilot, CEO of one zero three Star Squadron in Gander, Newfoundland, and the creator of the YouTube channel, Matt from one zero three. Matt, welcome back to the show and thank you again for taking time out of your busy schedule as CEO to chat with us today.
Matt:Thanks for having me back, Ryan.
Bryan:Listeners can check out part one of our chat to hear about Matt's early career, some flight training stories, and a high level look at his operation career and journey to being CEO of one zero three SAR Squadron in Gander, Newfoundland. Today for part two, we're gonna talk about the Outcast nine zero three accident, lessons learned, SAR culture, and, of course, Matt's YouTube channel, Matt from one zero three. We've said we're going to discuss the Outcast nine zero three accident. But before we get into that, can you explain your qualifications as a maintenance test pilot or MTP, instrument check pilot or ICP, and standards pilot? Absolutely.
Bryan:It's kind
Matt:of a natural progression. You know, first you become an aircraft commander and then you get good at that and then you're going to move on to these different qualifications. One of the first ones you get after becoming an aircraft commander is a maintenance test pilot. Helicopters need maintenance. They're very maintenance intensive.
Matt:That's the nature of the beast. And when they kind of maintenance, they need a certain, I guess, flight protocols or procedures just to make sure that they put everything back together correctly. It's all written down in a checklist and you just got to follow along and just look for anything not quite right. And that's a qualification to become a maintenance test pilot is you're qualified to go do that. And we've evaluated that you have enough systems knowledge and you can pick up these little things that may not be quite right.
Matt:So that's the first thing. And it's usually for someone who is very or more knowledgeable of both the aircraft and aircraft systems. Then you move along as you progress in your aircraft commandership to either becoming an instrument check pilot or a standard pilot. Instrument check pilot is a Canadian Forces wide qualification. It means you know quite a bit about rules of how to fly.
Matt:There are a lot of rules to fly, as it turns out, and a lot of them are based upon instrument flying. These are very specific procedures followed both by the military and civil pilots. And you are, in a sense, an expert on those procedures, so much so that you can evaluate other people on following those procedures. Every pilot in the CAF has to go through an instrument checkride once a year. And as an instrument check pilot, you are the person checking those evaluations.
Matt:Similarly, there's a standards pilot. That's when you're kind of the pinnacle of your your aircraft commandership career. You are so well versed in how to fly the kormorant and how it should be flown that you can evaluate others in how to fly it. So once a year I need to go do an annual proficiency check. Someone checks how good I am at flying a kormorant.
Matt:The person who gives me that check is a qualified standards pilot. And seeing as I'm one of those, I can check others. There's a certain hierarchy that's neither here nor there. But yeah, so as you progress through your career, you get these qualifications. It increases your responsibility, but also increases your awareness of how things work, how important certain things are.
Matt:It's just kind of a natural progression for those who are doing well, if you will.
Bryan:How do you find those responsibilities change your relationship with flying in the aircraft?
Matt:It makes you a little more confident in who you are and how knowledgeable you are and that you are, you know, you are slowly becoming a subject matter expert. Remember what we were talking about in the prior show about how all of sudden I'm one, you know, one day I was 20 years old, not knowing anything. The next day I was four years old and the adult in the room, the one who others came to it. This is part and parcel with that. You slowly increasing your your expertise, if you will, and others will start coming to you for that expertise.
Bryan:What does a strong safety culture look like inside a SARS Squadron and how do you reinforce it day to day?
Matt:Set the example. You can do all the flight safety training. You can do all the courses online. You can have all the briefings. Those are great and they are effective, but you also have to set the example.
Matt:So if something kind of goes astray as CEO, I will do my best to put in a flight safety so that others can see that I'm taking the program seriously. I am putting in a flight safety. Someone will investigate what has happened and we'll move on from there. And I have faith in the system. You know, it's it's non punitive.
Matt:I'm not going to get in trouble. There may be a couple of awkward moments in a briefing discussing my situation and why it came to be. But yeah, I truly believe setting an example for those is the way to do it.
Bryan:I think that's the only way. And I think we have a really good flight safety culture and program within the Canadian Air Force.
Matt:I would agree with that. I mean, obviously, you know, there's little problems here and there with it.
Bryan:Well, nothing's perfect.
Matt:Exactly. But when you compare it to what other countries have, either a complete lack of safety or in other cases, a very punitive thing where if anything goes wrong, you're going to get blamed. So you're motivated to hide it and then no one learns from it. So I'm quite happy with what we have here in the RCAF.
Bryan:Yeah. And for the listeners, we're talking about if it's punitive or not. One of the cornerstones of the RCAF's flight safety program is that it's what we call non punitive, which means basically its intent is not to hunt down the person who made a mistake and punish them for it. Its intent is to find the error, find out why it happened and prevent it from happening again.
Matt:Right. Interestingly enough, as a CEO, if I feel that there was something really negligent or, you know, someone was breaking rules on purpose or negligent. I'm just going to use that word. I can launch a parallel investigation, but flight safety is so protected that I can't use any of the information flight safety gathers and gains for that investigation. It has to be completely separate and independent.
Matt:I've never had to do that and I hope I never do.
Bryan:Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. And and that's that's true because it's important. Like people might hear what I said about non punitive and think, well, oh, there's no consequences if you break rules or like willfully cut corners or whatever. Well, no, that's not to say there will be no consequences.
Bryan:It just doesn't come from the flight safety program. Absolutely. Yeah. How do you and your crews debrief difficult missions or close calls?
Matt:Well, we talk about it. Usually it's in the transit once everything's settled down on the way home, you know, get it out while it's still fresh in everyone's mind. Talk about it as a crew. So there's not any sort of sometimes there might be a bit of. I don't say resentment, but dissatisfaction of someone else's performance, like talk it amongst as a crew, figure out what everyone was thinking and have an understanding of why someone else did something they did so that doesn't build as soon as you hit the ground split.
Matt:Because some cases, we're on our 18, our 19, we're exhausted as soon as we land and gander. We just want to go home. We don't want sit there and talk for an hour. So that's that's the first step. The next step is if it's important enough, you revisit it a day or two later.
Matt:If if once people have had time to process it, absorb it and think about it. Interestingly enough, videoing stuff has become very beneficial. People get to kind of review video review what was said. I remember we had a bit of an interesting boat hoist we're doing. We're having problems establishing a guideline.
Matt:And it was an acting team lead, really, really good, confident individual. And when he watched the video, he said he's like, Ah, now I understand what you were trying to say to me. But he was so focused on everything going on. Know, we're hovering right by a boat like everything's happening. Like it's a very saturated task intensive moment.
Matt:It wasn't until he rewatched the video that he understood what we were trying to communicate to him. And he used that as a learning experience. So we've seen that that even videoing stuff has actually helped in these debriefs and to figure out like what happened because everyone remembers it differently. Well, the video only remembers it one way, the true way, I guess the factual way. But just like flight safety, those videos are very protected.
Matt:They don't leave my hard drives ever without getting buy in from everyone because there's certain things that shouldn't be spread to other people. Yeah, absolutely. So that's the other way we've we've found that we've learned that that we can debrief. And it's it's been great, too, because you can show other crew members who may have not been on that mission to learn from like, hey, this happened to us. And instead of just trying to explain in words what happened, we're like, look, this happened.
Matt:This is how we solved it. And everyone's like, oh, that's cool. That was a really good solution. That's awesome.
Bryan:Yeah, that was actually something I was going to ask is if you ever you take something like, hey, this is a good enough lesson that we should share this with the squadron. All
Matt:the time.
Bryan:What is your approach to mentoring younger pilots in high risk environments?
Matt:Making them understand that it's all about risk management. It's not exactly a perfect math, but it is pure management. Like, what is the risk you're about to undertake? Do you understand the risk you are taking and what is it you're you're going to hope to gain by it? And that's what risk management is.
Matt:And that's probably the most important thing. One of the misconceptions perhaps as well about SARS that we're all a bunch of cowboys just going out there. Yeehaw. No, not at all. Everything is calculated.
Matt:Everything is thought of ahead of time. Everything. Yes, there's risks to it, but it's hopefully calculated. We're looking at little things. How do we mitigate it?
Matt:What are we trying to gain? Is it worth it? So that's probably the biggest lesson I have for for a lot of the more younger junior pilots. And we've had several instances of people doing some outlandish things. You're like, Okay, cool.
Matt:But. Were you going to save a life by doing that? They're like, well, no, it's like, why? Why?
Bryan:Yeah. Yeah, there has to be a good reason.
Matt:And then you just trying to get that across them. You're like, what were you trying to accomplish? Because it wasn't much. So perhaps the risk you were taking weren't that great. Or are you aware of the risks you were taking?
Matt:Maybe you aren't. And I think that's the biggest lesson. I mean, aviation is risk management. Yes, really. That's it's a huge aspect of it.
Bryan:Yeah, the only way to 100% mitigate risk in aviation is not to take off
Matt:basically. You know, keep it locked in the barn, but whatever. Yeah, that's obviously not a solution. No, I would say that's that's the biggest lesson or what I try to to teach others when it comes to the aviation thing. How to do SAR, you know, yes, there's a lot more aspects out there.
Bryan:Of
Matt:course. And that's where I leverage my experience at RCC as well as multiple tours to to show lessons learned or different ways of thinking or explain to them why it is they're doing a certain task.
Bryan:So now that we've kind of established some context, talked about your experience and the culture of SAR and the flight safety culture, let's move into talking about the Outcast nine zero three accident. And for listeners, we're going to keep this strictly to Matt's experiences and perspectives out of respect for the other people who were on board. So if you feel like, oh, why aren't we hearing about, you know, other members of the crew or whatever? That's why we're very focused here on maintaining respect for people's privacy and only speaking for Matt's experiences. Absolutely.
Matt:It's not that I'm a narcissist. It's just not my place to spread what others did, what others have said, what others are thinking. Yeah, obviously we shared something that perhaps was a little is intimate the right word? You know, was quite an experience for all us and it's not my place to say what happened to others.
Bryan:Yeah, I agree. So let's get into it. So what I'm about to read is from the investigator synopsis and that's basically giving us just the bare facts of the incident and then we're gonna get into actually talking about it. So a cormorant call sign Outcast 903 with a crew of six was scheduled for a training mission flying out of 9 Wing Gander. At the end of the mission, the crew conducted hover work in the vicinity of the intersection of Runway 31 and Runway 21.
Bryan:During the final clockwise hover turn sequence, the pilot flying seat unexpectedly descended to its lowest position. As the seat rapidly descended, the collective position moved downward abruptly and was quickly brought back up near its original position. For approximately two seconds, the aircraft was subject to severe vertical vibration or bouncing during which time small cyclic movements were made and full left pedal was applied. The aircraft reversed from the previous clockwise rotation to an accelerated counterclockwise left yaw about the aircraft mast. The aircraft rotated through approximately 400 degrees and as the right rolling intensified, the right outboard wheel, the right horizontal stabilizer and the main rotor blades impacted the runway near simultaneously.
Bryan:There was no post crash fire but the aircraft was destroyed. Four of the six occupants sustained minor injuries while two occupants sustained serious injuries. So you were the pilot flying that day and the aircraft commander. What does it feel like, first of all, when I read out that synopsis?
Matt:I've read it many times myself, and I've I've I've seen it everywhere. Not much anymore. I mean, it's it's kind of something I've I've processed and and put behind me. Mhmm. It is a review of what happened.
Matt:It sometimes doesn't feel real that that has happened to me, but. You know, I've I've obviously accepted and moved on.
Bryan:That's good. When you think back to Outcast nine zero three today, what first comes to mind?
Matt:So if I could sum it up as to what happened in the quickest way and everything that happened afterwards, it was for seven seconds, everything went wrong. Mhmm. But everything after that went right.
Bryan:Okay.
Matt:You know, and and that's how I would sum it up. And that's really the only thought I have when it when it comes to that.
Bryan:You've said that you don't want it to define you. How have you found the right balance between acknowledging these events and moving forward?
Matt:So I I don't have any problems talking about it at all. Obviously, I'm here, but I don't normally bring it up in conversation. I don't want to be a, you know, one track record.
Bryan:Yeah, of course.
Matt:I don't want it to define me. Right? Like, I've moved on. I think everyone else has, but I have no problems talking about it. It's just one of those events that have happened in life, just like a lot of other things that, you know, I don't have singular events that define me.
Matt:It's just a collection of events that define who I am, and this is just one of them.
Bryan:Can you walk us through the training mission that day?
Matt:Well, I can walk you through basically everything that happened. So yeah, we took off on a training day. It was a beautiful day in Gander. It was March. We were off to go do some hoisting, whatnot.
Matt:I had a pilot beside me who was very experienced in helicopters, new to the cormorants, as well as we had a training FE with us, two heavily experienced Sartex and a very experienced, FE. So myself, the FE and the two Sartex were very experienced. The FE under training and the copilot, for lack of better term, the other pilot, first officer were perhaps not as well versed in the corner. So we went off, did some hoisting, get some confined areas, normal land work, completely ordinary. During one of the turns we were doing in the confined area, I asked the Effie under training.
Matt:I'm like, Okay, do you want me to turn around the nose or do you want me to turn around the tail around the mast? And he didn't understand what that meant. Not surprising. So I like, okay, cool. When we get back to the runway, I'm just gonna go and demo what these eats, what these different turns are.
Matt:Turn around the tail, turn around the mast, turn around the nose. For those of you who at home who don't know what that means, a turn around the tail is you're doing a three sixty degree turn, but the pivot point is the tail. Turn around the mask, you pivot around the mask, turn around the nose, you turn around the nose or point in front of the nose. So we did around the tail. It wasn't pretty, but it never is around the mast.
Matt:It wasn't a big deal. And now all of a sudden, part of this was also to show the copilot who had prior times in a lot of other machines. But this is probably the biggest helicopter he's ever flown to show that this is, in fact, still a maneuverable helicopter and it flies like any other helicopter. So I chose a point that was some perhaps 100 yards off the nose. To execute this turn, it's cross controlled.
Matt:So I was going in a clockwise direction as seen from above. So to do that, I have to put right pedal and left stick. That's cross controlled. It makes the aircraft kind of bank and be out of out of trim. So you're kind of like leaning over to the side.
Matt:And we're doing that turn and we've gotten a good maybe complete turn into it. I don't know. I don't remember. It's not. It doesn't matter.
Matt:You guys can read the full flight safety report if you really want to know the juicy details. But at that point, out of nowhere, the seat dropped. This has happened before. Usually when you're taxing or something like that, this was not an unheard of occurrence and it's happened before in the Cormorant. And as it happened, all I said or I thought to myself was like, no, the seat fell again.
Matt:Not a vent, right? And according to the flight safety report, as I fell, the collective that is the control that controls the up and down in the helicopter bottomed out. And within half a second, had it brought it back right to what it should be. So we just kind of dipped and went back into the hover. And we're just drifting out of the circle.
Matt:I wasn't putting any major inputs. We're just going to get out of the circle, resume flight and probably just land. We're done for the day. And after that, I don't really remember much. I guess the violent, violent shaking happened.
Matt:Something aerodynamically happened to the Kormorant, which is called vertical bouncing. I guess the AW101 aircraft is perhaps a little more susceptible to this than any others. It is very uncommon in helicopters. In fact, to try to get a better understanding of it, I have to reach out to some people with some PhDs who are doing research papers of this because they themselves didn't quite truly understand it. Wow.
Matt:Anyway, so the helicopter is bouncing up and down at about three, three and a half hertz. So that's three peaks, three lows every every second. And it was from positive, I think, like 1.7 gs to negative point two gs. So we were getting weightless and positive weightless positive like three like just that's pretty violent. You ever shake a spray a can of spray paint?
Matt:You know what it's like to be that ball in it? That's what it was like, or at least what I think it would be like. And I don't really, like I said, remember very much after that, I knew I just had a thought that, like, couldn't figure out a way I could not solve this problem, there was a problem, I couldn't solve it. And my my final kind of thoughts were back to a certain manual written by the US Army Aviation Corps or something like that. It was titled How to Crash a Helicopter.
Matt:It's a six page document of all the lessons learned in Vietnam describing what is the best technique to crash a helicopter. Strange, but they have that written there. And one of the lines in there is accepting it and controlling it. So instead of trying to fly away from it and saving the day and then we're just going to land, put in a flight safety and call it a day, I was like, I don't think that might make it massively worse. Like, I don't know what's going on.
Matt:I'm not sure that's a good solution. But what I do know is if I lower that collective right now. It's going to suck like this is going to get bad, but that's acceptable. We will be Okay. So I lowered the collective.
Matt:At least that's what I remember, right? Like after traumatic incident, my brain is just making up the story.
Bryan:Is that sorry, is that basically versus like raising the collective and now the aircraft is much higher in the air and still out of control essentially?
Matt:Exactly. And then you're just trying to fly away and then you might find yourself at a lot higher energy state still out of control. Yeah. And so I lowered it and initially it felt like an okay landing, and all of sudden I just felt it kick hard in one direction and then I felt it rolling over. And then right away in my in my mind, the first thing I'm thinking to myself is like, Oh my God, I can't believe I'm going to be the idiot that rolls a cornrow.
Matt:I can't believe I'm going to be that dummy. You know, this is all happening in the microseconds. But that that train of thought actually, I think, really helped us that day, because as we're going over and I'm thinking to myself, what an idiot I am, I am also thinking myself, I'm like, Okay, I'm going to roll over. I got to remember to shut the engines, shut the engines. The levers are called pals.
Matt:Like, shut the pals, shut the pals, shut the pals. And we just bid in hard. I got with the round of the cockpit pretty good. And but right away, as soon as the motion stopped, one, three off that that stopped everything that stopped the aircraft from beating itself to death. That probably helped prevent any post crash fire that helped everything.
Matt:There's an entire shutdown routine that I'm supposed to do afterwards. I don't think I did very much of it. I think at that point, the effects of what I think I had was a bit of a concussion took effect. Now, what actually happened is during that shaking, for some reason, which we'll never really truly understand, is my left foot went all the way to the floor. It just took that pedal and put it to the max, which caused a violent left jaw.
Matt:According to Flight Safety Report, this was done due to spatial disorientation, the combination of just being shaken around and my seat dropping and and what have you. Again, read the flight safety report if you want to truly understand the body physics as to why that was. So I had entered a very, very violent left yaw and then we hit the ground and we rolled right. But I shut the aircraft off in time. There was no close crash fire.
Matt:What followed after that was kind of a very disorienting. I think I took a substantial hit to the head, which is why I don't really remember much of it. I remember feeling something is like really wrong with my body. I could feel like tingling and pain and like almost queasiness, like not like I've hurt myself, which I do often falling off things, but like I've sustained it substantially. It's a whole other level, like something is wrong.
Matt:I remember wiggling my feet to see if I was paralyzed. Wow. And I wasn't. But I could tell something was very, very, very wrong. I look over and there's my first officer who I think I thought was dead.
Matt:Wow. So I knew I had to get out of there. I was on the the upward seat. So we're on our side and I'm on the the the higher seat. So I'm just dangling in the air.
Matt:And like, how do I get out? Right. I tried to use my window. I think I worked the handle, but I couldn't pop the window out and I could feel something really wrong with my body. And I was like, there's no frickin way that I can get out this window.
Matt:So I just kind of hoped and prayed, popped the seat belt, fell and then started crawling out of the aircraft. Eventually, someone helped me out. We all worked as a team. We all got out of the aircraft in like four minutes or something. It's quite difficult to get out of the side of a helicopter that size on its side.
Matt:It turns out I had broken two vertebrae, so I had a broken back trying to get out of it. Wow. And then, yeah, we we all got out by then. Gander Fire was was there doing their thing, or at least so I remember. And I'm just trying to walk straight and I can, you know, my back muscles spazzed hard as a defense mechanism to try to guess immobilize my back.
Matt:One of the Sartex Sorry,
Bryan:did you say you were walking?
Matt:Yes. Wow. Yeah. One of the Sartex realized very quickly what was wrong with me and did his thing. And with the I don't even remember how.
Matt:But next thing I know, I'm lying on my back on the the runway and everything is happening, you know, all sorts of commotion. The other pilots beside me, they're tending to him. And yeah, so I was still fairly dazed, I think. And then I busted out my cell phone. Time to make some phone calls.
Matt:Naturally, the first call I made was to my boss. The then acting CEO at the time, I called him. He's like, I'm like, hey, how are doing? He's like, oh, you know, like, hey, you know, I'm just answering emails. I'm like, cool.
Matt:You know, you're about to get a bunch more emails right now. It's like, oh, what's up? I'm like, well, we just crashed, man. I just rolled a gorman. May need to get to the office.
Matt:I don't remember how the rest of that conversation went. But that was just trying to get the ball rolling that, you know, we've had an incident. And after that, I remember calling my wife at work. I got a hold of receptionist and I was like, hey, I know she's working, but you let her know I'm fine. Gander is very small.
Matt:There's always people watching the aircraft, do what they're doing. I'm pretty sure it was on Facebook before the rotor blades even stopped. Yeah. Like information flies fast now. And I was trying to get ahead of it to make sure that it didn't go really sideways Or again, at least that's what I remember.
Matt:Anyways, it turns out I got a hold of her and I just said like, Listen, whatever happens you hear like, I'm fine. Having never called her at work before saying the words I'm fine, she was naturally suspicious that it was indeed not fine. And then she could hear the background, you know, like I think one of the star techs was yelling, it's going to blow. We need to get out of here. Wow.
Matt:The fire trucks are doing all. There was lots of noise in the background that may be indicative of what was going on. Ambulance is coming. You know, I think one of the star techs is saying like, this is probably one, this is probably two. We need to get it going, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
Matt:So she just asked if I was going to go to the hospital. I said, yes, yes, I was. And it went from there. So that's kind of what happened up to that point. If I could sum it up in two, three minutes, it was an interesting ordeal to say the least.
Bryan:Wow. That is such a wild story. Like I remember this happening. It's so different to hear it in your words than to hear a sterilized flight safety report. I can't imagine going through that.
Matt:I mean, I don't remember much of it. It's hard for me to imagine it, right? It's again, I think I took a bit of a hit to the head. No doubt. And obviously adrenaline and everything else is running through you, Your body's flooded with chemicals as well as the pain receptors firing off like crazy.
Matt:But yeah, that's that's what happened. So the seat fell and it caused the aircraft to enter into a vertical oscillation, which the core mount is susceptible to it. We know how to get into it. We know how to kind of get out to it. It's not really trained because the practice getting into it destroys the airframe usually.
Matt:In fact, the aircraft manufacturer found out we were practicing from time to time and said, like, you really shouldn't do that. It's it's kind of a weird phenomenon that not a lot of helicopter pilots know of. The only other times I've heard of it happening were slinging incidents and something being kind of loose in the controls that causes this thing. And it's kind of taught that if you don't get out of it by bounce five or six, that's it. The airframe will just fold up on itself.
Bryan:Yeah.
Matt:But yeah, and then after that, that was that was the longer process, I guess, of dealing with everything.
Bryan:Wow. First of all, thank you for sharing that.
Matt:Oh, no worries.
Bryan:I know like some people go through a traumatic experience like that and they have no interest in talking about it. Thank you for sharing that that story with us.
Matt:No big deal.
Bryan:What this is kind of a probably challenging, but what lessons did you personally take away from the accident? If any were, you know, if there were any that could be taken?
Matt:Make sure to check my seat more often. No, actually, oddly enough, if I was talking one of the other pilots, he said it was kind of ironic because I'm the one who checks my seat probably the most because I've had had had this happen in the past. But other lessons, I guess, would be, you know, it can happen to you. It's so easy to quarterback other incidents and be like, well, if I was there, that would never happen. You know?
Bryan:Mhmm.
Matt:All humans kind of do that. Probably pilots especially. But having been there, been like, oh, it it really can happen to me. I think the day prior to the seat dropping, I was in my twenties. After it fell, I was well into my forties.
Matt:I aged a lot. It humbled me. It taught me that I am fallible. It taught me that I am mortal. These are bigger things.
Matt:That's that's the bigger changes. Lessons learned that I guess if someone else goes through it, I could I would know what they might be going through and what the path to recovery may look like. I I I can't really think of other major lessons. Obviously, there was all the DFS lessons and and the investigation reports, how to do things better, blah blah blah, but I don't think that's what you're asking. Yeah.
Matt:I don't know. Does that answer your question, Brian?
Bryan:Yeah, think it does. Although that does bring me to my next question, though, which is what lessons learned were brought forward from the investigation?
Matt:I mean, you can read the whole flight safety report. It's to the viewers on there. Just Google DFS, Director of Flight Safety and look up for the accident reports. It's it's there available on the web if you want to read the sixty, seventy pages of it. I guess they found that there was no real maintenance done to the seat adjusting mechanisms.
Matt:And I don't think the manufacturer had really specified much maintenance to be done. You know, they did that. Does it work? It works.
Bryan:They figured it was like a lifetime part.
Matt:Yeah, which is kind of strange because everything else on an aircraft has inspections, has cycles. And and this, I guess, from my understanding, didn't. So what they found was one of the seat pins should be extended by a quarter inch, 250,000. And it was maladjusted that it was only extending 130,000.
Bryan:So roughly half?
Matt:Half. Cool. Not a problem. It's probably been like that for years. And then when I adjusted my seat fore and aft, they found that because the whole seat, there were so many looseness.
Matt:These seats are always a little loose. I guess it's by design. But the the two things that move fore and aft were asymmetric. So I guess the two feet, one was more forward than the other, which caused a huge twist in the seat that causes the pins to automatically retract or go bias by one twenty five thou. So this if if you think about that, was sticking out one thirty and because it twisted and now it's only sticking out, you got to subtract 125.
Bryan:Oh wow.
Matt:It was only sticking out 5,000, which is not a lot. And I guess the other pin was also kind of not sticking on by much. And when I was in that maneuver, remember I said I was cross cockpit, cross controlled out of trim leading over. I guess that just provided enough of the twist to just cause it to drop. So the lesson they learned from a technical perspective, I guess, was there should be more inspections on those seats.
Matt:And they were like they after that happened, they just tore them apart and they realized, yeah, there was a lot of issues with these seats. Other lessons from a bigger thing, I guess, general, I forget his name at the time. He was head of the Air Force, I think. He found out about it. He said, Oh my God, you know, blah, blah.
Matt:This is terrible. Let's talk about it. And it he was around people at the time and they're like, oh, You know, this this happens to us in in the C seventeen or in the Griffin. Like, yeah, we have seats problem happening all time. And the king one of the king air goes like, oh, yeah.
Matt:I happens to be all the time. And then he also found out that no one's reporting that. Community The wasn't. The other communities weren't reporting all these problems they were having. He I guess he just like flipped his desk going like, what the is going on?
Matt:We're having all these problems and no one's saying anything about it. So there's a pretty stern written memo, if you will, of if you're seeing something wrong, report it. So that was one of the other lessons. There might be some factors to why that was that people weren't reporting things. I would compare to at least in the Quran community to you know, how many sometimes you close your door and it doesn't close all the way on your car?
Matt:Yeah. And you just kind of hip check it or you just try it again. Like, you don't you just like, oh, that's that's an annoyance. Mhmm. Never in your mind you picture it that it could cause a crash.
Matt:And I think that was us in the corner on community. These seat drops, because they're normally only happening when we are on the ground before startup, were seen as an annoyance. No one could ever formulate the thought that this would eventually lead to an aircraft being on its side. Yeah. So perhaps that's why we weren't taking it as seriously in these reports.
Matt:And I'm probably guilty than most of not having reported this because I had happened to meet more than a few times. But that was kind of the technical lessons learned. There were some other ones. I think we all realise how difficult it is to egress out of a helicopter that size on its side. I had proposed that we keep the old carcass of the aircraft and put it kind of like on a rotisserie and use it as a egress trainer.
Matt:Like we practice egressing underwater in a helicopter because we've seen helicopters when they land on water, they flip upside down. We do that every two years. We've seen Humvees and labs flip whenever they get IED in Afghanistan and Iraq. So they created these rollover trainers for soldiers to practice egressing from flipped vehicles. And I was like, hey, what do we do with helicopters?
Matt:Because all large helicopters, S 92, probably a Chinook 101, you name it. They always end up on their sides like maybe we should train this as well. I don't think the firefighters realize how difficult or D and D fires it would be to get someone out of an aircraft on its side. I think they're envisioning just walking in, throwing someone over the shoulder and walking out like a hero. Well, it's not going to work out that way.
Matt:They didn't go forward with that idea for whatever reasons. But that was another lesson learned as to how difficult it can be to egress.
Bryan:Yeah. So a lot to take away from it on a like a professional technical level.
Matt:Oh, absolutely. Like, mean, like we were talking about earlier in the the other show, DFS does a very serious job of this kind of stuff.
Bryan:Do you find that you fly differently today as a result of this accident?
Matt:I think I did when I got back to flying. I think I was a little more. I don't want to say gun shy, but like it was still there and it took a while to. You know, almost fight through it and just get better. There was a few instances here and there were prior to me it wouldn't have been a thing.
Matt:Then now I was again, I don't want to say nervous or scared, but I was more apprehensive a little. But certain maneuvers or certain things that happened to me post accident. And it took a good solid year and a half to get over that of just working through it. So to this day, do I think I fly differently? Probably.
Matt:But maybe I just aged and matured naturally, right? Just like you as a human being drive your car probably a lot differently than when you were 18 years old.
Bryan:Oh yeah.
Matt:In fact, I think insurance rates will show that there's a reason for that. But yeah, in general, you know, probably not as much. It's just, I guess, natural maturity came with it.
Bryan:Okay. And as we talk about this, let's let's get into your recovery and your return to operations. What was the recovery process like for you personally? And let's talk about it emotionally and physically because the physical recovery must have been pretty significant.
Matt:It took a, you know, a bit of time for my back to heal. Obviously, a couple of months. It sucked. It hurt for the first few days, that's for sure. And then there was the whole frustrating thing of like, Okay, I feel good now.
Matt:Medical system, give me the checkbox. Give me the checkmark. Yeah, that didn't happen very quickly, as you would imagine. Obviously, aviation medicine is taken very seriously and they're they're doing all their due diligence to make sure I am indeed physically fine. And so that took a bit of time.
Matt:Again, slightly frustrating, but it is what it is. Things that definitely helped me, especially immediately in the aftermath, was I got a bunch of messages from people I'd flown with in the past, you know, other than asking how I was doing, but just saying like, hey, you know, like we all still trust to fly with you. You know, we we believe like we don't blame you for this. Like we I would still fly with you tomorrow, you know, because as soon as this happened and I'm, you know, I was brought to the hospital, I'm just kept in a room by myself. I'm not talking to anyone else.
Matt:So I don't know what others are thinking. I don't know if everyone's just blaming me for this. Don't even know if I'm going to be allowed back in the building.
Bryan:You know, which must have been really tough.
Matt:I had no idea, right? All I managed to do was was when I walked out of the hospital, obviously it was slightly painful to walk. Was apologized to the other pilot, which I found, and then I just left, broken back in my uniform, still soaked in jet fuel. They sent me home. Jeez.
Matt:Yeah. But I didn't know how I would be treated in those coming days, right? I didn't know if everyone blamed me. That was very hard. And so those messages from people saying like, hey, we still trust to fly it with you really helped initially to get my mind perhaps in a better place.
Matt:And then after that, it was the first couple of flights. In fact, the first flight back in the helicopter, the we were just passengers, two of us. And the the flying pilots, a good friend of mine works at Cougar now, he simulated or he got into that vertical bouncing as well. We know how to get into it. We know how to get out of it.
Matt:It was nowhere near as violent as what I experienced, but it was one of those like, is this what you felt? Because we still were a little unsure that that's what it was. So the first flight we got back into that bouncing, it wasn't awesome. You know, it wasn't great, but no one likes that. And then after that, the first few flights me flying, it still felt natural, but I had that that higher apprehension, if you will.
Matt:Yeah, of course. And it took a while to to get back to it. I remember at one point this was probably six months after it, I think I was doing test flying in Halifax. We're taking aircraft out of maintenance. One of the maneuvers required is to do a fast pedal turn to the left and to the right.
Matt:I let the other pilot do it. Much more junior pilot at the time is first officer. I'm like, hey, you do it. Have fun. Not because I didn't want to, but because I'm here to teach other people how to fly here to have him experience stuff.
Matt:I told him like, all right, so just be careful. We're into wind as the tail comes around, the wind's going to catch it and whip us around. Don't let it do that. I'm like, kind of may have still a bit of PTSD there, buds. I kind of said to him as a joke and wouldn't you know it?
Matt:He actually didn't listen to what I had to say, I guess. And the wind caught it and just whipped us around. I didn't panic. I didn't like just jump on the controls or anything. I just sat there like.
Matt:Oh, you know, and looked at him. He's like, Oh, sorry, Matt. Yeah, the wind caught me. I'm like, Yeah, I did. And again, that was like one of those like.
Matt:We're before that, it wouldn't have affected me, but now it was like not as fun anymore. Yeah. The first time back in the sim where we're practicing, you know, losing the tail rotor, you're whipping around. It was like
Bryan:that must have been tough.
Matt:Well, it's kind of weird. You know, I'm going into it. I like, oh, it'll be fine. All of a sudden it's like unlocking the core memory. Yeah.
Matt:Unlocking memory. I didn't I didn't remember. All of sudden, it locked it. I'm like, oh, I've been here. Oh, it sucked.
Matt:And I was talking to Sims instructor. I'm like, cool. He's like, okay. I stopped the launch. We're do that.
Matt:I'm like, yeah, we're not. We're gonna take a break from that, Danny. He's like, oh, why? And then, you know, he put one and one together. He's like, oh, oh, sorry, dude.
Matt:So I had those little moments of of kind of unlocking memories prior. There'd be a little incident that happens a year, year and a half later. And I was it's kind of a flashback to something that happened. Mhmm. It's it's frustrating not remembering every single detail about that incident.
Bryan:Yeah. When I was 17, I crashed my dad's truck and I can barely remember it. Like, didn't even get a concussion. It's just like the adrenaline, the shock that you're in afterwards. I I think I remember the the chain of events and like how it happened.
Bryan:But I have this memory of like looking to my side as we rolled and seeing my window pop like a balloon is how it felt to me. Like, which is obviously kind of a weird thing to think of it happening that way. But like your brain is just in this totally different space and you don't you just don't remember it clearly.
Matt:Yeah. So I've had those weird memory unlocks. In fact, the first time back into a cockpit, oddly enough, was my RUIT training that that underwater escape training I was talking about earlier. So So the first thing they do is strap me into this fake helicopter, put me in the water and then roll it. So that unlocked a few memories while I was upside down in water.
Bryan:No doubt.
Matt:Good times. Yeah. But that's all right. You know, I told the instructor, I'm like, hey, I knew him very well. He knew what happened.
Matt:I was like, just so you know, I'm a spaz underwater, so I'll just keep an eye me. He's like, I got a map and it all went fine. Yeah, it's just been an interesting experience, say the least.
Bryan:It sounds like you had really good community support, though, during this.
Matt:Absolutely. And that that brings back to when you first asked me what first comes to mind, which was again, for seven seconds, everything went wrong. But after that, everything went right. And I'm talking about the egress post crash fire to the support and then the lessons learned everything years down the road. It all went right.
Matt:In fact, I took to prove how non punitive the system is. I wrote off a $5,060,000,000 helicopter and four months later I was promoted. Yeah. Yeah.
Bryan:And you're a CEO of a squadron?
Matt:Yeah. I'm not quite sure that would happen in the US military or some other militaries.
Bryan:Yeah, I think you're right there. Speaking of which, coming back as DCO, did the accident influence how you led others?
Matt:Not. I don't think so. I can't really positively identify anything that that really changed the way I led everything. I mean, up to that point, I'd never been a DCO. I'd never been really in charge of large groups of people in such a capacity.
Matt:So I guess it was just one of the many experiences I had in life that shaped who I am today.
Bryan:Do you think it shapes how you mentor new pilots today?
Matt:In some ways, some very, very specific lessons learned. You know, again, the the drills we have to do called a post emergency and post crash shutdown. You know, something happens, you've got all these actions to shut down the aircraft safely and we practice them from time to time. But there I can positively say I'm like, when it happens to real, if it's not like truly, truly like, you know, by memory, the same thing as unbuckling your seat belt, you may not remember it. You won't have time to use your memory.
Matt:It has to be instinctual. Little things like that where I can draw on those lessons or in the sim, I was just there and we were talking about a scenario where your. Tail rotors jammed in the hover and you've got two options, either just accept the rotation, put it on the runway or try to fly away and diagnose. And I compare it to a gamble. I'm like, yeah, you can fly away and maybe you solve it.
Matt:Maybe you do that perfect landing or maybe you don't, you die. Conversely, you can do just lower the collective and accept the rotation and and maybe you roll it. But at least, you know, you're not going to crash it from high altitude.
Bryan:Yeah, you're not going to fall from like 200, 300 feet.
Matt:Right. And I can point to it. I'm like, I've been there, I've done it and we survived, you know? Yes, there was some significant repercussions medically, if you will, afterwards. But but we lived.
Matt:So little things like that, you know, I can draw on that experience.
Bryan:Okay. I'd like to talk about your time as CEO now. Sure. Especially given the high tempo that you guys go through at one hundred three. Yeah.
Bryan:What makes one hundred three Squadron the busiest star unit in Canada? Other other than the fact that obviously you get the most missions, but like what what contributes to that?
Matt:Why we have the most missions or? Yeah. Yeah. So we're in Newfoundland, which is kind of an unusual spot. Not only is there a lot of stuff going on here, but there's not a lot of other resources.
Matt:If you look at the West Coast Of Canada, there's all these other rescue agencies out there, civilian or other. Here there's not. It's kind of an isolated part of Canada, but there's still a of fishing activity. There's still a of people living on the coast as well as we have weather here. We have some of the worst weather imaginable, always fun.
Matt:So when you combine those two, we're often the only resources that can respond to even the most minor of incidents. Whereas perhaps in Ontario or other places, there's all the others, these other agencies, police, civilian agencies, anything that can help affect the rescue here. There's no one. There's not much. I mean, there's the Coast Guard.
Matt:There's certain GSAR entities, entities which we work with and partnership all the time. But there's not a lot. So it means we get caught. We're we're not only the last resort, we're also sometimes the first resort. We're the only resort.
Matt:Mhmm. So that leads to a lot of the business we have.
Bryan:Okay. We talked about this a little bit in the last episode, but how do you keep your team from burning out?
Matt:Like I was mentioning, we're we're own worst enemies. You kind of have to identify that when people are like just trying to get the job done no matter what because they believe in it. But maybe it's best that they take time off regardless of the consequences that happened, that maybe we don't fulfill the SAR mandate. One of the tools we have is constantly requesting for augmentation, that is to say, bringing in members from other squadrons to help us out to make sure the people here get the the time off to decompress and process. And, you know, we sell the squadron as you come here, you're going to get some action.
Bryan:I was going to say that's that's good seasoning for for these other pilots.
Matt:Yeah. So so people or, you know, all their crew, flight engineers and Sartex, there a lot of them are eager to come here for a week or two, to experience what it could be like here. Sometimes they don't have any missions. Sometimes they have a lot of missions. Mhmm.
Matt:They may not want to post any gander because it can be quite hard on the family life, but they are more than happy to come here for a couple of weeks and experience it. Yeah. So that's one of the tools we've been using a lot is is augmentation to help prevent people from burning out. It's not always possible when we do the best we can.
Bryan:What do you think are the toughest leadership challenges that come with that ops tempo?
Matt:Again, like I was alluding to earlier, we we are our own worst enemy. Like everyone wants to get the job done, and it's not because I want to please my bosses and get a gold star on my evaluation or any of that nonsense. Know I could give a damn, to be honest. But I have a lot of buy in into what our role or what our job is, which is search and rescue. I'm not busting my chops and spending my days off trying to make sure that TPS report is filled up correctly.
Matt:But I believe in SAR. And so identifying that myself and as well and others in us maybe trying to get the job done too hard and and not accepting that maybe we fail a little. Maybe we just as a squadron take an entire day off and say, sorry, man, we're not answering a phone today because if we do something bad will happen. Those are some very interesting challenges. Other challenges are, you know, I'm a pilot.
Matt:It's very easy to get involved in the pilot things and try to help or solve a problem. But I have to again take a step back and let other people solve the problems like I mentioned in the other show or in the other episode. Yeah, I could probably solve that problem better, but it's not my job to solve that problem anymore. I have to let someone else do it because they have to learn how to do it.
Bryan:Well, and otherwise you're just micromanaging.
Matt:Yeah, exactly. I have to stay out of it. I have to let them let them figure it out. Mhmm. So those are some some interesting leadership challenges.
Bryan:Something that I imagine would be a challenge because of the tempo would be keeping the aircrews sharp and mission ready. The reason I say that is because maybe with that operational tempo, is there enough time for training as well as the fatigue that this all leads to?
Matt:It's a challenge. We've been actually coming up across is, can we get the proper training in? Can make sure they have all their currencies and their proficiencies that certain things that we perhaps may not do very often get practiced and it takes a lot of balance. So some of the things we're trying to do is be the most efficient we can with the limited hours we have for training. But at the same time, you want people to go out there and enjoy flying and not be a bag driver, if you will.
Matt:Like they still want to go out there and enjoy themselves, enjoy flying for training. So as well, we take a lot of the lessons learned from our missions and put them into to practice in our training, which is kind of cool being here as well as when we're teaching you guys like, hey, you should do this or hey, you should do that. It comes from because I had this experience. I had this happen to me. You know, like when I'm giving a simulated scenario to a copilot, it's real.
Matt:We did this for real. So like you can't call me out and saying this is not a realistic scenario. It is real because I had it happen. The same with emergencies. So that's one of the bonuses of being so operationally high tempo is you have a lot of experiences to guide your training.
Bryan:Can you tell us about any big saves from your time at one hundred three Squadron? And that doesn't have to be necessarily one that you took part in, maybe one that the squadron did that you're proud of, anything like that?
Matt:Well, the biggest one that, you know, in the recent time is is the big one. That ship with 20 some people aboard where you have that, you know, iconic footage of the ship, the cargo ship crashed up against the rocks and the waves flying into the sky and the helicopter just swaying in the winds, fighting the turbulence.
Bryan:Oh, the the Baltic, the MSC Baltic three.
Matt:Yeah, that's probably the biggest one we have. I wasn't on that mission, obviously, but the next guy there, Pete, he was. I'm sure he'll he'll be more than happy to talk your ear off about that one. Those are some that's probably the biggest one we've had or at least the higher profile one. Everything else has been pretty much you know, we've had a couple interesting airplane crashes or helicopter crashes.
Matt:Those are a little more interesting. A lot of the other missions we do are just boat medevacs, which can be quite, quite challenging, but are perhaps not as sexy or dramatic.
Bryan:Mhmm. And for listeners in case that rescue that he talked about there sounds exciting. Next week, I will be interviewing Pete Wright, who was the co pilot for that for that mission and a former CEO of one zero three Squadron, as well as Greg Hudson, who was the lead StarTek for that mission. So if that sounds exciting, stay tuned because we'll be covering that in full detail. What has been the biggest leadership challenge since taking command?
Matt:Learning how to deal with the outside world, learning to deal with all those agencies that it used to be Pete's problem. Yeah. Now it's mine. That's been a very huge learning thing, especially in the first few weeks, you will, of taking command. I perhaps did a couple of things I shouldn't have, which was my introduction to all those agencies when they came emailing and calling about what I had done.
Matt:So that's been a challenging learning all that. I will, I guess, if you will. But I think I'm getting a grasp on it. I think I'm I'm I'm getting there. I've got a handle on it now.
Bryan:Okay. What's one myth about star flying that you'd love to debunk and why does that myth exist in the first place?
Matt:I I think it's what I I talked about earlier about that. I guess the world sees us as a bunch of cowboys and we're not. It's it's math. It's calculated. It's risk management.
Matt:It's risk mitigation. It's thinking ahead. Where does that myth come from? Probably movies, TV. It's all make believe, right?
Matt:Sorry, our crew. Yes. One of the many slogans is that others may live, but it doesn't mean sacrificing yourself stupidly. Right. Everything is calculated.
Matt:We all we take safety incredibly seriously. And I don't think people realize that. I think people are starting to realize it a bit when they when they saw some of the videos of all those checks and double checks we do, that everything is a lot more methodical than you would imagine. It's not just us rolling up on scene going yeehaw and throwing someone out the door. It is methodical.
Matt:It is calculated and is thought of.
Bryan:I'd like to shift gears here and talk about, of course, your YouTube channel, Matt from one zero three. You've been able to grow a pretty successful YouTube channel. I think I checked the other day, you have about 30,000 followers which, is certainly more than I have, for the podcast. It's nothing to to sneeze at. The funny thing about that is you're not into social media at all.
Bryan:In fact, you said you don't know how to use Instagram, Twitter or TikTok. So what pushed you to start your YouTube channel? And just as a quick aside, I told my wife last night how jealous I am of that, that not only do you have like a ton of followers, you don't even have to deal with the social media. I was like, that is the dream.
Matt:Yeah. I mean, I don't even know if it's worth it doing an Instagram, a TikTok or Twitter. I think I started an account just to save my name, but I don't use those socials because I don't know how. Yeah. I'm not really like I don't take selfies.
Matt:I don't take pictures of myself. But what I did end up doing was for the years, I took a lot of video of missions and whatnot, and I would send them up to whoever it was, the pathos or our own media people to put something together. And they would they would do a very good job. They would put together a thirty second or one minute clip to to put on on Insta or or Twitter or whatever it's called nowadays or Facebook. And that was great.
Matt:But I had hours and hours, gigabytes and gigabytes of footage. And I thought, I'm like, you know what? Like, there's a lot of ad geeks out there who probably want a more in-depth look into what it is we do. You know, they're not looking for the thirty second news clips. They're looking for the forty five minute explanation of what it is we're doing.
Matt:You know, as people out there who build a frigging cockpit of seven thirty seven in the garage and they just practice flying in transit. Yes. You know, that's how motivated they are. I would find that incredibly boring, but hey, to them, all the power to them. So Pete helped me out a lot to making sure that we sold my idea to all the people that needed selling to.
Matt:And it took off on on it took off, you know, during the first upload. I didn't know what was going to happen. I didn't know what it was going be like. Like, I researched on Reddit what running a YouTube is like or what you're supposed to. And it was almost disheartening these guys after, you know, two, three years, some of these people owning a channel only have, you know, thirty, forty views per upload, and I was like, oh, that's going be a lot of work if I'm not getting any traction.
Matt:But that being said, my measure of success is not how many subscribers it's. I find the questions the most interesting thing, the comments, what people are asking when people are asking intelligent questions, this means. I'm getting through to the run. I'm doing what I set out to do, which was to educate people of like, this is this is happening every day. This is how we do it.
Matt:That's been probably the most fascinating part about it, not the view count or subscriber count, which is cool. Yeah, sure. It's a good metric. But it's the comments and questions that I really judge my success by, if you will. Yeah,
Bryan:I always said I had a similar experience with podcasting that I checked it out on Reddit and I would hear see these posts from people that I've been podcasting for five years and I only get 10 listens an episode and I was like, oh man, like, don't know if I'd keep going at that point. But for me, the metric metric of success was like, am I putting out something I'm proud of? Yeah. And are do people seem to be enjoying it however many that people that is? And I when I'm able to say yes, then it's it's still fun.
Matt:Oh, exactly. I mean, it was it's been fun learning how to edit videos. I didn't even know how to edit anything. I had to learn Yeah, I was I like learning new skills. I used to tinker a lot in the garage messing around cars.
Matt:Obviously, after my injury, I'm not as mobile, if you will. Well, no, I am mobile. I'm just not able to be as physical as I used to be. So I just kind of in front of the computer and started editing videos. To be clear, though, I'm not disparaging anything that pathos do.
Matt:They just have a different audience and a different goal than my goal was.
Bryan:Oh, for sure.
Matt:So we work in tandem. I'm talking to them all the time, but it's been interesting. It's it's been really a learning experience.
Bryan:Mhmm. Yeah. And I just find it interesting to kind of hear about what your experience is like, because there's a fair amount of parallels between my own experience in starting a podcast. And I was in the military still when I started the show and sort of navigating that system and figuring out how do the permissions work and who do I need to work in tandem with. And and I I'll echo what you said that working with the public affairs people has been great experience both while I was in the military and once I got out.
Bryan:They're very, very helpful people. And as you said though, there's different goals sometimes. We're more long form content and they tend to produce more shorter, more digestible stuff because that's what a lot of the public wants.
Matt:Yeah. Mean, it's it's that's that's their purpose. So like I said, we're we're symbiotic relationship, if you will. Yeah. And it's been great working for them.
Matt:The they're certainly not the enemy and I don't view them as the enemy at all. I view them as a very strong ally. Yes. And they've helped me out a lot with this because certain other elements in the CAF, you know, when this first started coming out, they had a lot of questions of like,
Bryan:I bet
Matt:who the heck said you could do this. Yeah. And being able to go back on the conversations I had with the past, I'm like, well, it's written here that I can do it. And this is what Jag had to say why I can't do this. And then once he explained all that and Pete is a magnificent ambassador when it comes to that kind of stuff because he was he was answering all those questions for the first year.
Matt:They kind of get by and they're like, Oh, Okay, it sounds like you did your homework. I'm like, Yeah, obviously I did. I didn't just one day start this up, hit upload and not tell anyone about it. Yeah, that would have not gone over too well. Yeah.
Matt:Yeah. But it's been very interesting talking to the public as well as making connections with other SAR agencies around the world who reach out to me. Sometimes they have very technical questions or sometimes they're just saying hi.
Bryan:Yeah. Yeah. It's that that's one of the coolest parts of doing something like this is some of the people you meet along the way, whether that's fans of the channel or show or peers or or whatever it is. For me, like, I love meeting all all the guests and the people who who write into the email or comment on social media or whatever. It's a really cool part of doing this.
Matt:Absolutely.
Bryan:Now you talked earlier about how much you enjoy getting questions on your videos. What are your top five questions that you get and, which one is the one that you get the most?
Matt:So the questions I love because it allows me to think and then how do I explain It makes me have a better understanding of what the role is. Sometimes I don't even know the answer, which is the worst part of some of the questions. But it also allows me to explain it in much more simple terms, which helps me teach others how things are doing. So the first question, probably the most common question was how do you coil the guideline? I had no freaking idea how to coil a guideline.
Matt:Not like I was not it's not my job. I don't know how to do this stupid thing. But eventually I found a Sartech willing to volunteer fifteen minutes of his time and he shot a video of it. And that Sartech Sam is like beyond a natural in the camera. He did that one take and did an amazing job.
Bryan:Awesome.
Matt:So that was cool to to learn and see. So I learned something how to do it now through that video. Constantly people asking it and also gave me content. I managed to create a video out of it. The second most common question is how do I go to the bathroom?
Matt:Is there a toilet in the chopper? The answer is no. We have empty water bottles.
Bryan:Oh,
Matt:not very dignified, but it is whatever. Such as life.
Bryan:That's just what it is.
Matt:It gets more interesting for the women aboard the chopper to do that way, but they have methods. I was actually going to film a video of me doing it, obviously not show everything, but just show what it's like standing in the back of a helicopter trying to steady your aim as it's going through some turbulence. But I think we came to the conclusion that perhaps that was not the most professional content. The next question is, it's always in a rush. We got the ambulance lights on.
Matt:We got to go, go, go. Why do I spend so much time taxing around the run or the taxiways? Why can't I just take off from where I am? The reason for that is the downwash will destroy anything I'm near if I try to take off next to hang or next to another aircraft as well. Bigger airports, they expect for me to behave like an airplane.
Matt:And from IFR, I have to take off from a runway and land at a runway. That's that's just the way it is. Yeah. Next, what's the other question? Who gets the bill?
Matt:And I don't think that comes from Canadian viewers. I think that comes from a lot of perhaps American viewers where obviously the whole medical system there is funded differently to that. Again, it helped me. Learn, I had to kind of phrase a proper response, which will help me if I ever have to do a TV interview with the media. And it's that we are allocated a certain amount of hours a year.
Matt:Out of those hours, we are to do all our force generation and force employment. That is to say all our training and all our missions. We do all those. So had I not spent five hours saving someone, I would have then used those five hours of training in training on how to save someone. So had I not done that boat hoist, I would have spent those hours training to do a boat hoist with a training boat.
Bryan:Yeah.
Matt:So in the end. There really is no cost because we're going to fly the same amount of hours every year regardless. Right. So it's all a wash. At most, there's maybe a couple per diem, just pennies.
Matt:And it's all good training. Doing a mission is good training. And this is a this capability that the government of Canada has decided we shall have a SAR, a robust SAR system in Canada costs a certain amount of money to keep to have that capability. And that comes in the form of those hours every year that I'm allotted and have to fly. So it's either we have that capability or we don't.
Matt:And the government of Canada said we will. And it costs the same amount of money regardless we do missions or not. So that's kind of the answer I came up with. Usually I phrase it a little nicer, but and then the last question is, why is the ship always moving when I'm hoisting to a boat? And I actually created a ten minute intro to a video explaining the whiteboard mark markers and all that.
Matt:Why it is we always get the ship to move. It's not intuitive to a regular viewer. Why? Like once you get the boat to stop, it'd be easier, right? No, it's actually a lot harder.
Matt:Helicopters expend more energy the slower they go. We're always on the backside of the power curves. So those are the most interesting questions I get and it's giving me content. And now I just kind of point people to a video explaining it.
Bryan:Yeah, that's actually the last one is very interesting. I had not thought about the reasons behind why you keep the boat moving.
Matt:I mean, there's several reasons, but that's one.
Bryan:Does it also help like how it behaves in the swell and things like that?
Matt:There is obviously a boat has to move to maintain steerage. You know, a boat is not effective without its rudder moving through water as well as it keeps all our down walk behind it so it doesn't blast the Sartex as much. It makes sense.
Bryan:Oh yeah,
Matt:even going five, ten knots faster gives us a you know, it can shave off 1010% off our torque. Wow. Offer power numbers. It's surprising how effective it can be. Cool.
Bryan:How do you balance being a CEO with being a YouTuber?
Matt:It is incredibly hard as part of all this, all the YouTube and everything I do is on my own time.
Bryan:Of course. Yeah.
Matt:And a long video can take upwards of eight to ten hours of editing and piecing together. Whereas you and I, it's just like sound and it's only two two audio streams that are already synced. I have to sync four or five cameras together, which is hard in itself. Yeah. And then all the editing, all the footage, and then I have to go through and remove everything that someone may have said or someone may have done.
Matt:That's not because I'm trying to hide something, but we're training. People are learning. People are making mistakes as we doing these things and not everything needs to be broadcast to the public.
Bryan:For sure.
Matt:You can imagine what it would have been like if there had been a video camera in your Harvard while you were learning phase two, learning how to do certain things. You're making mistakes and that's part of life, but it should be broadcast on the Internet. That's the same thing with this. A lot of the stuff I hide is not that we did something wrong. It's just someone is learning and that is no one else's business but him and I.
Matt:So it's a lot of time and turns out being CEO is actually kind of a busy job. Yeah. Who would have thought it? So how do I do it? Time management, I guess, or being owed thirty days off.
Bryan:Yeah. And further to your point about some stuff doesn't make the cut and it's not about hiding things. I mean, it's the same thing with this show. Right? Like how many times, you know, today while we record this have I misspoken Absolutely.
Bryan:And then I start the sentence again. Well, it's not I I cut that stuff out not because I'm hiding it. It's just why would I put that in? Exactly. It's a learning thing.
Bryan:It's a it, you know, you put your best foot forward on a broadcast and that's just that's just what makes sense.
Matt:And I think if I if I put everything on the on the Internet, the other crew would not agree to be filmed. They'd be like,
Bryan:yes,
Matt:screw that. Like, no. And I never, ever, ever want to violate that trust I have from the crew members that I will make sure nothing. Gets put put on the Internet, that shouldn't be absolutely So much so that I think certain entities are like, cool, we want all your raw footage, Matt, you know, from internally. I was like, yes, that's not going to happen.
Matt:Like, will not happen.
Bryan:Yeah. I don't do that either. You know, I've had people ask for the raw recordings and I say, I'll give you the recording, but I'm going go through it first.
Matt:You know, I'll shift delete my entire hard drive before I turn it over to D and D. And that's not, you know, malicious or anything. It's just there's a lot of stuff on there that shouldn't get out. I'm not talking about patients faces. That's easy to edit out.
Matt:It's just people making mistakes, people learning and people and somebody taking something completely out of context.
Bryan:It would be a big violation of trust.
Matt:Yeah. One of the things I can do and why the channel is successful is I can provide context, everything that perhaps other entities couldn't. Like if I turn this footage over to the public affairs people or the the imagery technicians or the video editors, they wouldn't have the context of what's going on or be able to explain it, whereas I can. And I think that's probably one of the singular reasons it is more successful than if some other entity inside D and D were to do it.
Bryan:Does the squadron ever tease you or give you a hard time about being a YouTuber?
Matt:Absolutely. All the time. But teasing is usually a good sign. Oh yeah. I think if people were were offended or not in it, they wouldn't be teasing me.
Matt:At first, people were a little more apprehensive of it. Sure. But I think I've gotten a lot of buy in, especially they're using it for training. A couple of months ago, I had that that boat that did not go well at night, where the Sartech was swinging and violently at the middle of the night and he almost slid off the deck like a bunch of stuff went wrong. And I think he realized that, yes, he could explain to the other architects, this is what happened.
Matt:This is me sliding off the deck. This is how I fixed it. Words don't do it justice. He was like, wow, I can just grab that video from Matt, show them in the debrief like this has happened like this is real. This is how we solved it.
Matt:Like this is how I did it. Thoughts and other ones like, oh, you could have done that or you could have done this or like, wow, that's an excellent solution. And now those those baby Sartex have that. They're like, I saw this. Now I know what he went through and now I know how to fix it.
Matt:And it's a lot more real when it's footage. So I'm getting a bit more buy in, if you will, from people who are realizing they can really use it as as a training aid. Know, as lessons learned, that's even for the other squadrons. We have certain techniques or certain things we encounter here at one hundred three that perhaps four thirteen or four forty two don't and vice versa. Right?
Matt:Like we know a lot about maritime. The West Coast knows a lot about mountain stuff. I don't know how to fly in the mountains, but I know how to do boats. And perhaps they are not as well versed in boats just from sheer geography, But inexperienced, certain junior people could watch videos and learn from that or even other countries learn how a different agency is doing it, what their techniques are like. But yes, I still get teased from it.
Matt:Perhaps I should have spent a bit more time coming up with a name.
Bryan:What do you hope people take away from your content and from hearing your story today?
Matt:From the content, it's more just like, yeah, this is going on. This is very tax dollars are being used. There's always see always a lot of negative publicity around D and D, the CAF, RCAF and. You know, I get it. Well, that's what makes the news, right?
Matt:Negative publicity sells rage rage bait gets clicks. You know, that's that's life. That's what media has shifted over to. Sadly, I can't change that. But just be aware that we're out here doing this and it's not just me, it's everyone.
Matt:It's it's the different squadrons. It's different agencies. It's GSAR, CRCP, all these all these other agencies that are constantly doing SAR work. It's it's happening every day and and it's out there. Just be aware of it because I don't think a lot of Canadians are aware.
Matt:And judging by the comments, that's true.
Bryan:Mhmm. If the public remembers one thing about SAR and what the people flying those missions do, what should it be?
Matt:Be careful of the downwash. No, kind of what I was saying earlier, we're always out there. We're always doing our job, but as well, be prepared, be cautious. Like it can happen to anyone. Bad news, something goes wrong.
Matt:And if you're prepared, it greatly mitigates what that that bad event was. That's I think what what people should take from it, as well as what I was saying earlier. There's there's an entire group of professionals, not just us, you know, GSAR, RCMP, other agencies doing this every day.
Bryan:What is you talked about being prepared? What does that look like in simple terms? Let's say you're going on a hike or you're going kayaking. What is being prepared look like?
Matt:Don't assume nothing will go wrong. You know, the back of your mind, assume something will go wrong and have something with you or plan of how you will deal with what can and will go wrong. If you're going kayaking, maybe that means wearing a life jacket, wearing a locator beacon, you know, having an extra sweater, telling someone where you're going and when you should come back. Yeah. In case something goes wrong.
Matt:Little things, right? It's so easy just to blast off your kayak going like, I've been kayaking for forever. Nothing will go wrong. Well, you know, I've been flying for three thousand five hundred hours. Nothing will go wrong.
Matt:Well, it did. Yeah. But I was wearing a helmet, right? That saved me. Yeah.
Matt:Stuff does, can and will go wrong. Just just be aware of it and don't assume it won't happen to you, I guess, is the biggest thing. You know, you can get into individual specifics of every single activity and what you can and can't do and and what how you should prepare. But I think it's it's, first off, a mentality, if you will. Mhmm.
Bryan:Yeah. I used to go hiking alone sometimes at night in Nova Scotia. I don't really know why, just to try it, I think. And I would tell a friend I was going alone, so I would tell a friend where I was going and when I thought I'd be back and then I would actually check-in with him when I was back and I'd have a backpack with for whatever the weather was, enough stuff for me to get through the night in case for some reason I got stuck there.
Matt:And you know what? That's that's a lot actually. That's that's quite a bit. Maybe some sort of lighting device so you can signal helicopter overhead. Yeah.
Matt:Or maybe some sort of a beacon, either the spot kind or the PLB kind, Garmin in reach, whatever. But even what you did was was just a whole lot of thing. You mentally prepared yourself like, hey, something could go wrong. And I've mitigated that by telling someone what I'm doing when I should be back. Nothing is more frustrating than being at RCC, getting a phone call like, hey, my friend never came back.
Matt:We're like, okay, where was he going? I don't know. When was he supposed to be back? Like, oh, I don't know. What was he wearing?
Matt:I don't know. Okay.
Bryan:Yeah. Good luck.
Matt:Well, I mean, it's not much to run on, right? We're just going to waste a lot of time searching a large area versus trying to be pinpoint and getting to you sooner.
Bryan:Yeah. Okay, Matt. Thank you so much for spending this time with us and for being so open about your journey, your experiences, and the realities of life in the SAAR community. It's been a real privilege to hear about your insights on leadership, rescue work, and everything you've built on your YouTube channel. I really appreciate you taking the time to share your story and I know the listeners will walk away with a deeper respect for the people who fly these dangerous missions.
Bryan:So thank you again so much for being on the show. Thank you for taking time out of your day when you're already so busy. We really appreciate it.
Matt:So much for having me on your show, Brian. I had a lot of fun. Yeah. I did too. Fly safe.
Matt:Cheers.
Bryan:Alright. That wraps up our two part series with major Matt Neary, also known as Matt from one zero three on YouTube. Tune in next week as we sit down with two pilots taking part in Seedcorn with the RAF in The UK. Seedcorn is the training of Canadian air crew on the P eight a Poseidon. Tune in as we hear all about the new capabilities this aircraft will bring to the Canadian Air Force, especially in the area of anti submarine warfare.
Bryan:You don't wanna miss it. Do you have any questions or comments about anything you've heard in this show? Would you or someone you know make a great guest, or do you have a great idea for a show? You can reach out to us at the pilot projectpodcast@gmail.com or on all social media at podpilotproject. And be sure to check out that social media for lots of great videos of our RCAF and mission aviation aircraft.
Bryan: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. Thanks for listening. Keep the blue side up.
Bryan:See you. Engineer, shut down all four. Shutting down all four engines.