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The Pilot Project Podcast is an aviation podcast that aims to help new pilots learn what it takes to succeed in the world of flight, to help people in the flight training system learn what they may want to fly, and to give Canadians and the world a peek into life on the flight deck in the RCAF. We want to help pilots succeed and thrive! We interview real RCAF pilots for their exciting stories as well as the lessons they've learned along the way. We'll learn their tips to develop resilience and the tools it takes to make it in flight training.
THIS TRANSCRIPT IS AI GENERATED AND WILL CONTAIN SOME SMALL ERRORS. IF YOU HAVE ANY QUESTIONS PLEASE CONTACT thepilotprojectpodcast@gmail.com. We understand the importance of good subtitles but currently as a one-person operation we just don't have the ability to edit these in a timely fashion and keep episodes coming out regularly. Thank you for your understanding!
All right, we're ready for departure here at the Pilot Project Podcast, the best source for stories and advice from the pilots of the RCAF. I'm your host, Brian Morrison. With me today are two special guests, lieutenant Colonel Colin Peak and Colonel Chris Morty Morrison. Today we'll be talking about training delays in the RCAF pilot training system. Guys, thanks so much for joining us today.
Our pleasure.
Uh, pleasure to be here.
Okay, so before we begin, let's go through their BIOS. Joined the Caf as a direct entry officer in 1997. He earned his wings in 2001 and was posted to Four Four Three Maritime Helicopter Squadron in Victoria, BC, to fly the Ch 124 Sea King, where he took part in Opathina and AP Apollo, as well as numerous cruises at sea with the fleet. He was posted to Shearwater in 2007, where he instructed on the Sea King at 406 Maritime Operational Training Squadron. In 2011, he was posted to one Canadian Air Division or One CAD for a staff tour. In 2014, he was posted to three Canadian Forces flight training school in Portage la Prairie, Manitoba, as a flight commander and to instruct on the Bell 206 helicopter. He then spent two years at One CAD working for Air Force Standards before attending Joint Canadian Staff program and returned to three CFFTS with the rank of lieutenant Colonel and as the commandant. After two years as Commandant he was posted to his current position as Senior Staff Officer of Air Operations Training for Standards Evaluation and Training, or SSO Aot Set. As well as being the Bell 206 Set pilot. Chris joined the CF in 1994 and after attending the Royal Military College, earned his pilot wings in 2000. He did all of his operational flying at 408 Tactical Helicopter Squadron in Edmonton, uh, amassing over 3700 hours of flying in the RCAF, and was rated as an A Category Instructor and Maintenance Test Pilot on the Ch 146 Griffin. He has commanded at all levels, including 408 Squadron from 2017 to 2019, and the Task Force Maui Aviation Battalion in 2018. He has deployed overseas six times three tours in Bosnia, two in Afghanistan, and most recently in Mali. Promoted to his current rank of Colonel in 2021. He has extensive experience working in one CAD, having served in numerous functions within the Tactical Aviation Section air force operational long range planning, air force standards and is now Director of Fleet Readiness. He is the recipient of the Meritorious Service Cross two Chief of Defense Staff commendations as well as a commendation from the Commander of Kansovcom. Now that we've taken care of the BIOS, I'd like to thank the community at the Canadian Forces Subreddit for helping come up with these questions. Let's dive in. The first question we have is what is the current wait time from joining to getting wings? Uh, what's the goal time for that? And what is being done to eliminate the difference?
We say three months for basic training.
Right.
Uh, now there's about a twelve month wait for phase one. Phase one is about three months, and then you got roughly a 24 month wait for phase two. Phase two should be around eight to nine months. And then you're selected Jet, you've got another four to six months if you're selected multi engine, four to, uh, five months. And then, uh, rotary is about seven or eight months. So just under five years is kind of what the tally is right now. I think that the goal is roughly, ideally, without the wait times out there, you take three years out of that. But, uh, roughly three years is kind of a good goal line. But, uh, myself, 20 some odd years ago, that was four years to Wings. I don't know what Colonel Morrison's weight was, but we're, uh, a little bit longer than we'd like to be eating now, for sure.
Yeah. What was your, uh, weight, Morty?
Yeah. So, funny enough, I did not talk to Colin about these questions, and I came up with exactly the same answer. So, in an ideal world, I would say from the time somebody comes into the military and we get a set of wings on their chest, you'd be looking ideally, at three years.
Okay.
For myself, I was the last crop of courses before they transitioned from purely calf military pilot training into the NFTC program.
NFTC is NATO flight training in Canada? This is the program under which flight training is delivered to RCAF pilots as well as our allies in Moosejaw.
So, for myself, I, uh, graduated from RMC in May. We started in September, and a year and a half later, I had my Wings. So we were very quick. We were, uh, under about 22 months from the time I graduated RMC, uh, being off to my operational training unit, and there was no wait. So I had three weeks to move from Moose Jaw to Edmonton, and then I was straight onto the Griffin Otu. So in a total of about 28 months, I was actually flying operationally.
Okay, so you guys are saying that essentially right now we're at about a five year point, and we'd like to get it down to a three year point.
Ideally, yes.
Uh, what's being done right now to try to move towards those goals?
It's a good question, Brian. Yeah, that's what my job entails a lot. And I know, uh, Colonel Carlson, my director of Force Training, is working really hard on that one as well.
But we've got quite a few kind.
Of irons in the fire for this one. And it started pre COVID when we introduced the contracted, uh, flying instructors in Mooshaw. So, ideally, you'd have seven contracted flyers in Mooshaw to help with the military folks.
Is that contracted civilians who are flying with the students?
Correct. Yeah. Most of them are former QFIs from Mooshaw, I believe some have come from other air forces that have gone through Mooshaw, but they're through CAE. I call them the Black Suitors.
Okay? And QFI is qualified flight instructor for the listeners.
You got it. We had hoped for there's ten positions that were created for that was the idea to have seven on the line, you'd have ten. So people go on leave or some are doing maintenance flight. It hasn't been as successful as we had hoped. As airlines picked up. We have three gusting five at any time, so that hasn't come to as much fruition as we had hoped. Phase two rotary is another one we kind of talked about just to ease some pressure off of Moostra, we've increased phase two grow significantly, uh, in the contract. Initially, the statement of work allowed for three. That went up to ten. This year we're 18, next year we're at 20. When I talk about years, I talk fiscal years. We're looking at what avenues we can use to increase Phase two grove. Because if you're not going jets, phase Two grove is a great way to uh, line up for multi engine. And both rotary. We've secured from November of last year to January of next year 25 slots from Njep, which is uh, the Euro NATO Joint Jet Pilot training, uh, program in Wichita Falls. At Shepherd Air Force Base, we were the only uh, members as far as the fighter lean in training. But the T 38 Talon has had some engine issues and so they've reduced some slots on the T 38. So a lot of the other nations they've reduced their T Six throughput because they didn't have enough. Those people, ideally, they'd like them to go through the T Six, uh, which is the Texan Two, the American equivalent of the Harvard Two, to end up on the T 38 afterwards. So if they didn't have those T 38 slots, canada snapped up those empty slots and have put our candidates down there. Uh, once they're done phase two, some will continue on to the T 38 and they'll still in the kind of the same pool as what's selected from, uh, Phase Three and Harvard as well. So the same opportunities exist whether in Canada or the US. To continue on for uh, the T 38, but many of them will come back and feed our other Phase three Harvard or they'll feed, uh, multi engine or brewing as well. Yeah, that's kind of the bigger irons in the fire for now. But there's all sorts of training plan reviews and other pieces in place that make training as efficient as possible. Been a significant effort working with Colonel Morrison's team to try to get more instructor candidates to CFFTS as well. They have 76 captain line numbers there and for a long time they've been uh, around the 50 to 55 captains there. So uh, part of a dedicated effort to gradually increase that uh, footprint of candidates coming from the operational communities into uh, two CFFTS.
So it sounds like there's a pretty significant increase in capacity for training through the various phases between phase two grove phase two helo using the Ngep resources.
That's true, yeah those things have totally helped. One problem we keep getting hit with in Moosejawn and the prairies is the weather as you know. So while we're making strides with me opening up more spots, moose Jaw hasn't had a great turn of fortunate events on the weather front so they haven't necessarily progressed as much as we had hoped. So that wait time we talked about two years is still roughly about two years and we'll do the math coming up shortly to look at that and see how uh, much we've ah, eaten away at that. We think it'll take about two years to kind of work through that and we should be ideally, if everything works out as planned, back to a normal throughput on the training side. Uh, we didn't say what the wait time was for phase three. Basically there's no wait time for phase three. That's the question. We're dying for people to finish phase two, uh, and get loaded onto phase three. So the farm or our orders recommend a two week break in between phase two and phase three. And as uh, soon as that breaks done, or if some folks might be asked to join a little bit sooner, uh, so we can get them on those phase three slots.
Yeah uh, just on the issue of the wait times for air crew, while that firmly is in the wheelhouse of two Canadian Air Division, there are some things that we're seeing from one Canadian Air Division and it's not just exclusive to pilot training, we're also looking at it from a technician training point of view as well. But we need to be doing more to recognize people coming in off the street, joining our organization who have significant experience. So we are very motivated to see folks coming in with a commercial pilots license finding a better way of recognizing the experience that they're already bringing to the table. And similarly, things like the basic officer training course are substantially longer than what they were historically. And I appreciate that there's a desire to put certain things into those courses. But as we think about the era that we're in with reconstitution and the need to bolster the numbers of people in the Air Force quickly, we've got to find some efficiencies here in areas like that that traditionally they're not necessarily directly related to pilot training but they influence the overall length of the pilot training continuum. And so, uh, we are actively working with air staff and Dmail, uh, purse on those initiatives because clearly some of those things, uh, just aren't completely within the wheelhouse of the Royal Canadian Air Force to influence exclusively.
That's very interesting to hear. I know there were a lot of people wondering hey, are they going to start recognizing, if I show up with a commercial license, is there some way to speed this up? And it wasn't people saying like, hey, I deserve recognition. It was, I want to serve, I want to get out there and do my thing. I've got these qualifications. Can that help in any way? So that's really interesting to hear that that's being looked at by higher, uh.
Ups in our training support side. In Tucad, they work closely with cafes and Cafes is one of those organizations that recognize civilian training and colleges. So one of our Aot Set members is working with them doing an analysis of a community college or a civilian flying training program that provides a Cpl or a multi engine IFR commercial license just to see what can attribute to or what can be plotted the, uh, prior learning assessment review towards our training. We had a few hang ups, though, in our pilot. QS is low level NAV information is in there, right? And mhm, there's a few, uh well, some people argue that, uh, why does a multi engine pilot need formation? But there's a few intangibles in there that are military training that, uh, sort of performance, that sort of training and your ability to work through those pieces that our graduates are very successful at getting through an Otu and getting through their aircraft captaincy upgrade within two years. And some of those intangibles that are hard to kind of recognize. Uh, so things that we're looking at, things that we're aware of, uh, and maybe there's some middle ground in there. And also the schools, those community colleges were interested in what that gap was because maybe they can provide that low level NAV training, or maybe they can provide a little bit of formation training that makes it easier for us to recognize. So it's kind of a two way street, which has been kind of cool to see as well. So more to follow on that.
Brian yeah, it's definitely something that has to be carefully considered because, like you say, you don't want to end up with a training gap. You don't want people who are underqualified, especially when they find themselves down the line pretty early on in their aviation career, large aircraft, complex, uh, aircraft. So really interesting to see what will come of that. Can I get one of you too, just before we move any further to just explain the difference between one CAD and two CAD?
Yeah, sure. So one Canadian air division is about 85% of the Air Force. And that's really where all of the operational capabilities of the Air Force reside, whether they be things that fly or whether they even be other capabilities that are more ground based. Uh, think tactical radar sets, things of that nature. Command and control organizations. Two Canadian Air Division is really focused in on training the Air Force personnel. Those CC three trades. The Air Force trades specifically for employment in the Air Force.
Perfect. Now, I had a question from somebody. They mentioned that the Caf Jobs website still says that phase two is an eight month course, but that lately it has not been it's quite a bit longer. Do you think that's an accurate statement? And if so, what's being done to make sure we're accurately communicating wait times?
So, yeah, myself, I don't have necessarily a link to the Caf Jobs, uh, website, but I know on our Btl team site we have managed by our two CAD VTL folks and we can definitely update that. I think that's, uh, kind of an action item for me out of this is that we can do a better job of communicating that. So I'll talk to the Btl side of uh, Air Force training and see how we can at least post that in the team site, which seems to be fairly popular amongst the folks who wait in training.
Yeah, I'm sure that people would really appreciate that. I think a big part of when you're waiting is just getting that accurate information.
It's true, I think people can take news as long as they're given the news right, of whether it's good or bad. I know I've done a couple of, not necessarily town halls, but I did a couple of open house things on teams with the Ptl just to try to pass on information on what we're doing. And General Alexander did one as well, which was quite well received.
If we flip over to the Otu side, what's the average wait time for an Otu currently, and where would you like to see that time actually sit, and what's being done to address the difference? Otu stands for Operational Training Unit and is the unit where a pilot gets trained on their new aircraft. However, it can also be used to refer to the course itself. For example, someone might ask, how long is the Otu?
With a couple of exceptions, and I'll touch on those briefly in a moment. Our average wait time sits right now at about twelve months. We would like that to be more probably in about the six month range. In an ideal world, allows people to recover a little bit after a very, uh, long and arduous, uh, training mill.
Yeah, for sure.
Get themselves moved to their new location, buy a house, get themselves settled, do all those sorts of things and just get a little bit familiar and integrated with their units and start to get an opportunity to understand, um, how the community they're coming into is going to operate. Obviously, some people will be a little bit less than that, depending on where they come out of the phase three mill. And some people may be, uh, a little bit more than that. There are a couple of notable problems uh, right now. The biggest one honestly is the Cyclone Maritime helicopter community. They've been gravitating right now, by my latest numbers, at about a 39 month wait for the folks who are heading on to the next course here that's going to start. We did restrict the number of folks heading into that community about two years ago. So although the wait time has been very long for the folks who've been waiting, given that we've kind of not allowed a lot of people to go into that, we're clearing out that backlog and we'll start to open up that top here at some point here over the next year and then reestablish a healthy amount of candidates going to that community. The reality is, because of some of the parts challenges on the Cyclone fleet, the amount of flying that it's able to, uh, produce is significantly less than what we would have wanted it to be at this point. So the number of new ingredients we need is actually significantly reduced. The other fleet that's got a long OT wait time is the Cormorant. Most people are waiting for upwards of three years for it, but that's not really problematic simply from the point of view that we're not taking a lot of new ingredients onto that. Most of the folks going on to Cormrat are experienced folks who are currently flying on other units and we'll keep them flying on their current fleet and then just move them into the Otu when able. But we've identified three years worth of candidates and as we start to head into the midlife upgrade on the Cormorant, that's probably going to see, uh, a shutdown of the Otu for upwards of, uh, the better part of a year as well. Now obviously it's been very frustrating for the folks who've been stuck waiting for the course. We are looking at, uh, some initiatives such as setting up a rotary wing utility flight, leveraging all the opportunities we can at three CFFTS for rotary wing refresher training, trying to get the folks back in the portage. And as well, I'm even looking at we've been sending folks before they do their Otu on the mountain flying course. Now obviously they're not going to get the full benefit of a mountain flying course having done it without 500 hours of operational flying under their belt. But we do have a, um, recurrency training package on the mountain flying course now that as people come into the gate to upgrade to aircraft captain, we'll send them back in for that refresher so that they can get the pieces that they were just too junior to understand or appreciate when they did the mountain flying course. As very, very uh, new in grad pilots.
That's a good level of flexibility to kind of say, hey, we've got these courses coming up and uh, we can do it now, but we'll have to close some gaps later. That sounds good.
We have to look after people and recognize that, ah, the maintenance of morale is, from a principles of war perspective, the most important thing that we can.
Do the mountain flying opportunities for the New and Grads was a bit of a good news story. We were able to get New and Grads on the mountain flying course, which is probably one of the best courses that I've ever taken.
I've always heard that's an incredible of course.
It's awesome.
Has there been any progress on allowing pilots on the Btl to do any civilian flying?
I think that question is kind of pointed directly at me. Is anything being done? Yeah, we've sourced funds to support the program for both folks awaiting phase two, for the long waits, for phase two, and also for new ingredients that are awaiting, uh, Otu with potential lengthy waits. So I've got a draft statement of work that we've just completed. Still a few tweaks in there, and we're working with our contracts. Folks. We're going through a list. Uh, Transport Canada has actually got a really cool site we're looking at where opportunities are for folks to get that civilian flying. So we're looking at these, uh, schools or colleges or flying clubs that are kind of colocated with our bases where we think our Btl folks would be. There's a list on the Transfer Canada site, and you plug in, uh, what you're looking for in the province, and it lists the schools who are just that's awesome.
Yeah.
Populating that list right now. And I believe there's a bit of back and forth. Um, we send them a letter and find out how this can be done, but we're working on it. So, yeah, that's in my to do list. It's top number one or two in my board behind my desk. And it's coming shortly, so more to follow. Brian and we'll keep you up to date, and we'll kind of post info on that on the team site as well for the detail when we do have more information on that.
Would you say that's something that you hope is going to happen or something that it's a matter of time? It is happening.
I believe it's a matter of time. I don't know that there could be some contractual wranglings in there that have create a few hurdles that we need to overcome. But it's supported up the chain. And like I said, we've got funding for it. So it's in our business plan for next year. So, uh, it's just a matter of executing and whatever, finding those contractual means to make that happen. So it is coming. The idea is that, uh, if you don't have a rec license, they'll provide the ground school that you need to get that or whatever, fill the gap. Uh, if you've come in with a private pilot license already or higher, then they'll cover whatever training you need to get checked out on that aircraft, and then you fly. The idea was for, uh, we counted for about 100 or so on the Btl and 100 or so on the New and Grad side. So about $10,000 worth of flying per person, uh, was what we forecasted.
And if I could add to that, that certainly is very much, obviously the first priority in terms of this initiative, specifically, obviously, for folks who are awaiting their training. But what we would like to do then, as a next extension beyond that is offer that same program to staff officers who, after having come off of flying tour, they're sitting in a headquarters job. We'd like to get them that same touch point so that they can keep their fingers in the flying pot as well, because that's good and it's motivating.
For people morale wise, that really takes some of the sting out of being removed from everyday flying operations.
Absolutely. And certainly for the people who work for me, I try to get them every opportunity they can if they can maintain a category with their home community and the home community can support giving them the hours. Uh, I'm very amenable to that, but I appreciate that the opportunities to do that don't exist for the majority of our folks when they're on a staff tour.
Well, most fleets are stretched thin just to exactly meet all the requirements of training new ingredients and just keeping their people current and then also meeting the requirements of operations, especially right now with reconstitution. Reconstitution began in late 2022 and was intended to address personnel and staffing issues that had been exacerbated by COVID-19. Basically, anything that has been deemed nonessential has been pushed to the side to allow the forces to regroup.
We've gone from flying 95,000 hours a year with a desire to have grown into about 105,000 hours range right now. And this year we're only going to fly 72,000 hours. And, oh, wow, we're going to continue to struggle into that 75 to 80,000 hours range here for the next number of years. And that's even leveraging all the contracted maintenance support that we can.
That's going to be hard.
It is a very distinct challenge that we are going to have to figure out how to navigate. Uh, but again, I always look at when every problem occurs, it also presents opportunity. And I personally believe that this is the forcing function our organization needs to better adapt to the use of simulation. We've been very resistant to it. Now it's time to do it properly and do all the right enabling activities that are needed so that we can truly do simulated war fighting, which is something that we're very much struggling to do right now.
Yeah, and the truth is, as much as people would rather be in the aircraft and they'd rather be on exercise, simulation does provide some incredible training opportunities.
Mission rehearsal is something we need to be leveraging significantly more. And that does not always require upper end simulation capabilities. A lot of that can be done very effectively with some good virtual reality headsets or computer based desktop AIDS in the aurora world.
We have our flight simulator, but we have an operational mission simulator as well. The back end of it looks very much like the back end of the Aurora. The front end is a little more rudimentary for the pilots. But the point is not in that moment to be practicing your flying skills, the point is to be practicing your tactical knowledge and your mission implementation. And it's a really fantastic tool to get you ahead on the game for when you go out to your next exercise or your next operation. We were talking about simulation in VR and you said you had something going on at Portage. Yeah.
So I know the school there has made some great inroads on introducing VR and introducing 360 videos on their VR goggles. So like Mission M rehearsal, so they can see the circuit, see the maneuver before they're actually in the briefing room. So, enhanced chair flying. We're on the 20th to the 24th this month. We're taking, uh, a team two CAD DRDC the Rock Four Three Four Squadron, which is the OT and E squadron. And both the schools attending, uh, going down to Njep to see their VR set up that they have there is really interesting. We were down there recently, it's integrated into their lessons plan. We saw a student there doing their training with their goggles on their stick, and their instructor was in Washington State on their own goggle set in their headset, instructing them while they're doing that. That was pretty amazing. And then we have an RCF member at, um, randolph air force base in San Antonio. There they teach the pilot instructor training. So it's like a school just for teaching instructors that they send off to all the schools. So they're really training focused and they have a really mature and well developed VR training system. They call them Sleds, and they have a room full of Sleds. It's pretty cool. And they have an instructor in there, you can look down the line and say, hey, so and so, have your, get your head up or make sure you're looking at this. They can tell what they're looking at. It's pretty impressive. So the idea is, we'll see how they've developed their program and introduce bring those lessons learned back to Portage with the idea of spreading it within the rest of two Canada air condition, um, training schools and sharing as well with, uh, the operational side from there. So that's why we've got the folks from The Rock there and DRDC to help out as well, because everyone's obviously interested in this. And that, uh, mission rehearsal is so valuable and there's, uh, significant advancements in how you can achieve that.
That's going to be really neat to see how that comes along right now. We have some longer wait times. We've also just changed the pilot pay scale so that you earn less initially and you earn more later. Is leadership concerned. At all about any medium or long term effects on morale for those wait times, for that early hit on pay, especially for people who had joined under the old pay system and then it was changed.
That certainly is a very tough and delicate question. I would hope that based on the answers that we've been talking through on some of the other things, that, uh, the audience would have a very distinct impression that both commander onecat as well as the Deputy Commander of Force Generation are very seized with the issues of morale and making sure that we're doing right by our members. I guess what I would say right now is you probably still need just a little bit of patience with the new pay scales. There's still a tremendous number of issues that are being worked through and discussed. Of course, one of the problems that we're seeing right now stems from the fact that the new pilot pay scales didn't receive the same six point, I believe it was 6% pay incentive that the other scales did. And so certainly that's now magnifying the problem further of that lower pay scales in the early years kind of that gate one range of the pay scale. And I believe what's being done about that was a three, uh, years of effectively free incentive being granted to help bring people up to at least the Gso equivalents. Now there very much was a conscious decision taken as part of the new pay scale to pay people less in the early years when they don't have the same amount of experience. And so what I would suggest is this is part of the incentive of doing the professional development and applying oneself such that people can progress through the gate two, gate three and gate four pay scales and unlock those. I do recognize that if you have somebody who's been forced to wait for a number of years that can unintentionally obviously impede their ability to achieve the professional development for the next gate and to be able to keep moving through those years. And so that's a situation honestly, we're going to have to monitor here very closely. But as I said, they're still trying to sort through defining what are the gates that is work that is still very much in progress and there's still a number of challenges even between mapping over captains and majors and there's been some issues identified with the pay scales that have to be worked through there. I would suggest for the audience. This has been a topic of discussion on this colin alluded to the Ask Me Anything series of questions on the R Cafe and people can go in there and look at general, uh, Huddleston's answers and see some of the answers then that have been provided by the Air staff who are ultimately responsible for managing the Pay system.
Okay, yeah, that's a fair answer. It's a hard question. And I think what you were saying at the beginning is that if you look at all the questions we've asked so far, and you take into account the fact that there's all these initiatives going on in many different directions, it's obvious that this is a concern and that they're doing what they I can to make those things less of a concern. And I just want to explain to the audience, for those who are not pilots listening, the RCAF recently did a total restructure of the pilot pay system. Overall, it ends up with a much better final, uh, salary, but initially you earn a little bit less than you used to on the old scale. The other key component that you might hear us talking about is gates. So they've established several gates that you need to have certain qualifications in order to keep progressing and have your pay go up year by year. And uh, they're still sorting out what exactly those will be based on. But that was based on feedback from pilots that they would like to see as you get more qualifications, we'd like to see that those get recognized with the ability to earn higher pay. And that's kind of where that was born out of. We're going to move into a few questions about Moosejaw and Njep, which, as Colin said earlier, is the euronato joint jet pilot training program. We had talked earlier about attracting instructor pilots to Moose Jaw. Are there any plans to incentivize postings to Moose Jaw? Some that were suggested were, for example, a ah, guaranteed in writing posting of choice after completing an instructional tour. We do know that currently instructional tours are not always sought after by line squadron pilots.
It's very interesting to me to just watch the cyclical nature of how things happen in the RCF. You wouldn't have to go that far in our history where uh, actually going to Moosejaw and Portage to be instructors was a highly sought after posting in our communities. I would say that for the person who's asking about can we get things guaranteed in writing? The reality is we're never going to see guarantees in writing. We always do the best we can to balance the wishes of the member against the needs of the institution. But to put things in writing would be very difficult because obviously circumstances change and sometimes the needs of the institution change. Or perhaps a situation where there's a change in circumstance for somebody else who's perhaps at another unit and there's a more pressing requirement to move somebody else there compassion circumstances, for instance, it could.
Be your needs against someone else's. Also very pressing needs.
Just to add to that as well. Just for the uh, pipe instructors we call them now the first assignment IPS, especially in Mooshaw, and we've got a couple now in Portage on the rotary side. The Commodores have done well of having those vapes, uh, the first assignment IPS belonging or get adopted by future communities. So we can't necessarily guarantee a, uh, posting, but we could say, yeah, you're going to go SAR, or yeah, you're going to go Air Mobility, or yes, you're going to go Cyclone. It's been really helpful just on that motivation piece, know that your career is being monitored by your community with an Otu date. Kind of been, uh, forecasted that deal beyond in the future. So that's some progress we've made on that side as well that's helped with both schools.
So we know that we're retiring the Hawks soon. Are we looking at permanently outsourcing jet training to Njep or similar programs or is that a temporary measure?
Interesting question. We've been a permanent player in Njep for a long time. I don't know the start date, but it was an augment to, uh, our Hawk training in both Mushaw and Cold Lake for 419 as the fighter lead in training Flit. So we have, uh, a footprint down there in Texas at uh, Shepherd Air Force Base and they produce that fighter lead in training as 419 closes down or pauses, I'm not sure the correct term there, but as the Hawk retires, that footprint in Texas will increase and we'll have a higher throughput of, uh, students through there. We've also established a footprint in Italy with the International Flying Training School. I can't pronounce the name of the location, but it's a fourth 5th gen fighter lead in aircraft in, uh, Texas. The injet aircraft is the T 38 Talon. It's 50 odd years old. So the fighter force wanted, with the F 35 on the horizon, they wanted to have an opportunity to have their fighter lead in training students trained on a fourth 5th gen aircraft to ease with that transition to the F 35. So that is going to be permanent. What we have added is the T Six side, which we weren't a player in before. That would likely be temporary until fact, I would imagine.
Fact or the future aircrew training program is the procurement program to develop the next contract for all air crew training.
That'S helped alleviate some pressure off of the production in boost. Shaw and Colonel Carlson, our director of Force training, has just come back from the steering committee last week, so I'm waiting to hear how that went because they asked that question. Uh, formally, Canada become a formal participant in the T Six side? I believe the answer is yes. So we'll see that probably progress beyond this next year, but more to follow on that as we, uh, develop that course of action.
And so that T Six training would represent another increased capacity. Would that be for phase two type training?
For phase two, yeah, it's a phase two equivalent.
If I might just add on to Collins answer there a little bit. In addition to the Italy course, they're also looking towards Finland, as well as another means of providing an avenue, uh, to complete flit as 419 stands down, my understanding, and I sit in on as one of the co chairs of the Future Fighter Operational Implementation Training Subworking Group with uh, Colonel Adam Carlson. As I understand the situation right now, there is an intent to bring 419 Squadron back as an active unit some point in the early two thousand and thirty s with a suitable aircraft that has the right sensors and equipment such that it helps set the conditions for students to transition to the fifth generation F 35 technology.
It would be interesting to see the students move on to some more higher tech jet trainers. We did have a few questions that relate to phase training and creative solutions within that some people had talked about. They had heard rumors that Phase One would be eliminated entirely. Has there been any discussion of that?
There has.
In December, we had a team meeting in Ottawa. They called an air ops planning group. Colonel Morrison sent his deputy, Lieutenant Colonel Johnny Coffin with us there. But basically all your training SMEs and leads on looking at Phase One. And it was interesting looking at kind of our throughput. You were trying to tackle the backlog in Phase Two, and we're looking at our throughput and where some of those choke points are. If Mooshaw is fully healthy and we could fill 95 to, uh, 100 Phase Two slots per year, all of a sudden Phase One then becomes the choke point because we wouldn't have enough Phase One slots to feed through. There's also discussion on the Phase Two Grove training that we do a lot of the initial part of Phase Two replicates what they do in that initial part of Phase One. So there is talk about how to integrate that into Phase Two to be a little bit more efficient and whether you could do that in Mooshaw as well. So there is a trial going on right now of folks that, uh, have not done Phase One that went direct to Phase Two. It was interesting, as we talked about it, we were thinking, okay, there's going to go cold, they'll go right into Ground School and go into Phase Two. So when they did that review, they recognized there's some core concepts that need to be introduced before starting Phase Two. So those folks actually sat in on the Phase One Ground School and they included in that Phase Two pre start, they call it Phase Two Lead in Training, which turned out to be about twelve LPs before starting Phase Two. And uh, that looking at that closer, that kind of captured a lot of those core concepts that you really want to learn about. Attitude, flying, introducing Hpma that you performed, some military aviation, emergency handling. Those things that really help with your training and your learning curve in a new environment. So we're looking at ways of how we can introduce that for Mooshaw as well. So it's not formally, uh, completed yet, but we are looking into it and figuring out ways of how we could incorporate that into Moustra. Perhaps there's a shorter phase one that we do and work on the timelines to get people more efficiently onto that phase two training so they don't have that two year gap of, uh, that core training competency loss. You'd see with that wait time, so long answer for more to follow on that. Brian, I think it's important to provide.
Maybe some of the context as to why we're looking at that change. Obviously, the efficiency of the pilot training continuum is one component of it. But historically Phase one would have been more of a selection course determining people's suitability to be a pilot. But with the current pass rates on the course, we're just not seeing the same value added in that as we used to. So there's a belief that going straight into Phase two is again, shoring up a few of those core competencies at the outset will lead to the exact same outcome with no detriment to, uh, the students.
How is the trial of Phase two helo going? Is that looking at potentially being a permanent program?
So it's going great. We're getting the results that we expected. We thought with more time focused on Phase two that you're going to get a pretty strong chopper pilot out of it. And we've just this last week we looked at the scores from, uh, Phase three where people end up on the Jet Ranger side and at the same timeline with that similar point in the program and their scores are very similar. So people are doing well. Proof will be in the pudding though, so we'll wait to hear how they the feedback from the Otus. But the first course graduated in late summer. They met the standard for our training at the end of it and uh, all did really well. So, um, I suffer the feedback will be good from the Otus or they might not even notice the difference. The thing with it though is we leverage hours from Phase three rotary hours to help fund the phase two rotary program because we are underutilizing what's in the contract for Phase three. We had a pot of hours that we were able to kind of leverage to feed into that. So if the demand increases for Phase three rotary, that could potentially impact the ability to run a phase two course because there's more hours in that on the Jet Ranger. Uh, and it's quite instructor intensive as well because it's a longer program. So the training establishment isn't necessarily built for that program running at the same time as a full phase three rotary program. So we'll keep it as long as there's room. And it sounds like at least until fact that there will be room, but, uh, things could change. But it looks good.
I'd imagine then that you just mentioned fact again that that would almost be something for maybe a future contract like prove the concept now and then if it ends up being something that yeah, this is definitely viable, work it into the next contract so that the capacity is there. And that would also free up a bunch of phase two fixed wing capacity then for people who are going fast jet or multi.
I think it was great to see for fact, but that is the plan for fact is that folks stream earlier so they'll be at initial training on the program and then they'll stream earlier for multi engine and stream earlier for rotary wing.
Okay, so this has been a bit of a proof of concept for that somewhat, yeah. Okay. Are there any other creative training solutions being proposed or trialed right now? We've talked about the use of phase two, GROBE phase two helo. We've talked about shortening phase one. Is there anything else that is being floated?
We've talked about the recognizing qualifications as well that's getting looked at, the addition of virtual reality as far as helping and augmenting our training where it doesn't necessarily and it was really neat scene in Texas. They had a big placard on the board of what VR is and what VR isn't. And they say this isn't reducing flying time, it's augmenting that flying time and making a better product at the end. So we just want to be careful with that, that no one thinks that VR is taking away from time in the cockpit because we all know how valuable that is. Yeah, those are the main ones. Off the top of my head, we've talked about a lot of them.
Yeah.
And when you say that previous experience, you're talking about people with civilian experience coming in, correct?
Yes.
And sorry, what were you saying there, Morty?
Yeah, so that's the answer for obviously getting people up to their wings. We're looking at things as well on the operational, uh, side of the house because we need to be able to get people to aircraft captain or the equivalent a little bit more efficiently as well. And we are taking a complete reexamination, we're just about to kick off on it, in fact, here in the next month or so about our entire training methodologies, including what skills we're training too. And we're very much looking at things from the perspective of what is needed as we are looking at the totality of our modernization efforts in the Air Force and what skills continue to endure and what skills just don't have applicability in the future. Stop training those now if it makes sense to stop training them so again, that we have a more efficient way forward. One of the things that we've been the most guilty of doing is you see people come through the pilot training stream and they're improving and getting better each and every step of the way. We get them through their Otu and then we've been in some cases too guilty of letting them stagnate. I really very much appreciate the fighter forces mentality about how they continue to have those exports, those very well established, coherent training plans with the associated flights to keep people progressing through all their blocks. Not all of our communities do that, and we need to be doing that in a more rigid format. The era where we could just do it based on some informal mentorship and leverage a bunch of experienced air crew. That situation does not exist in our Air Force today. We have to be much more intentional about how we mentor young people and we've got to keep them that same level of motivation that got them through their pilot training and got them their wings, got them through their operational training. We have to continue to nurture and foster that so that they're continuing to progress to becoming aircraft captains, at which point then they can start to develop themselves, the next generation of crews coming in behind them.
Yeah, I couldn't agree more. I mean, we've talked many times on the show about the importance of mentorship and how it's probably one of the most key things that you receive during your growth as a pilot. But leaving it up to chance is risky because if you get a great mentor, that's fantastic. But if you have somebody who's got stuff going on in their life or they haven't been trained up to that, you might miss out. And like you say, then people stagnate people who are really doing well throughout their training. You get them behind the wrong mentor and you lose a very valuable asset.
Yeah, it's a great point. You have to be very intentional about it. And I think we have to be in recognition of the fact that the experience levels are less than they used to be, we have to provide the tools for more junior air crew to be able to do mentorship effectively. We have to institutionalize some of these tools and whatnot to set the conditions for success.
We're going to pop into a couple of questions about Otus. The first one that people were curious about is are any Otus currently closed? And I think we sort of touched on that earlier, so I wouldn't say.
That any Otus are closed. As I mentioned earlier, some communities are more restricted or reduced input than others, and in particular the Ch 148 Cyclone and the Ch 149 Cormorant. That said, we don't ever want to completely close off the pipeline to a, uh, community. Sometimes we get an axle who's now chosen to vot he's become a pilot or she's become a pilot and they want to go back to their community. We would be very foolish not to capitalize on the experience they had. Yeah, so we just had that case within the past week with a Ch 148 axle, wanted to go back to Shearwater. Obviously, we made the accommodation for that individual to be able to continue to contribute all the valuable tactical information that they acquired as an axle.
That's a huge asset.
It would be foolish of us not to do that.
I got a couple of questions here about the F 35. Will the F 35 affect how we do fast jet training? Pre wings?
I'm not so sure right now with what we know about it today, it's going to affect anything pre wings. It certainly is going to have a big change on the fighter lead in training as we've already touched on, and the need to provide a more advanced platform that introduces certain skills to the pilots in advance of going on to the F 35. And I think that the fighter lead in training is going to draw on a lot more simulation. Even flying the F 35 is going to draw on a lot more simulation, frankly, because there are just certain things that you're not going to want to fly live in the aircraft to give away, from a tactics point of view, the full set of capabilities that that aircraft brings to the fight. But uh, in terms of the pre wing piece, I can't foresee right now any major changes. Colin, what's your thoughts on that?
Yeah, I was thinking the same thing. I think with fact, they'll have a plan for getting wings that will lead up to what comes next, uh, for fighter lead in. But yeah, it'll be what happens afterwards. I mean, with our training plans for phase three fixed wing fast performance, whether it's a jet or a high performance turboprop, those training plans can evolve as we learn more about what fighter lead in training will be and training on the F 35. So we'll see. But for short term, ah, no.
The one thing I could say is the fighter force has been, um, unfortunately just going through a slow, gradual attrition here over the past number of years. And so as we're looking towards F 35 and the numbers of pilots we need, that is one area you're going to see an increased emphasis on is producing more phase three jet pilots to be able to meet the future demand signal of the F 35.
That actually kind of rolls into my next question, which is who will fly the F 35? Do you expect that to be largely converted F 18 pilots, new wing grads? Uh, mix of both? I would assume the answer is both, but yeah, I'll let you answer that. Yeah.
So the short answer is indeed both. Um, we've started to work on what the transition plan will look like. Obviously it's a tremendously complicated transition because you've got the F 18 community going through right now, the Hornet extension programs, which has two distinct programs of Hep One and Hep Two. You're onboarding the Australian Jets. The interim fighter Capability project. And then you're still trying to then, um, set the conditions for F 35 in the future. So a lot of moving pieces right now in the fighter community. I can say that there are plans to use both new ingredients as well as what I will call Hornet pilots with limited experience. There's a certain advantage if we have a minimum of 200 hours of fast jet time for a student going into the F 35 training program at Luke Air Force Base. And right now the plan is we're going to do all of the training, uh, at 410, I forget the name of the squadron in the US. But it's not 410 Tactical Fighter Squadron that we know from Cold Lake. It just happens to have the same number. And it's a US uh, Air Force Squadron that is a uh, composite unit with USAF instructors. So it's a 50 50 mix of, uh, Canadians and IPS. And I suspect even if we resend up the 410 Canadian Squadron in Cold Lake at some point in the future, we'll always have some throughput still occurring down in the US. Because it gives certain advantages to being able to do that. The key thing here is through the transition we have to be able to continue to meet, obviously our NORAD mandates for the defense of North America as well as keep a little something in our back pocket in case the government of Canada comes calling and needs the capability to deploy overseas. So you have to be able to keep that going with the legacy Hornet fleet as well as then building up capability on the F 35 until you can do logical handoffs of those capabilities.
That sounds like a challenging thing to, uh, balance.
It's immensely challenging thing to plan. And the plan right now will probably go through several iterations until we land on what we actually end up executing. Because there's going to be over the next ten years a number of things and difficulties that we just haven't foreseen.
Yeah, of course.
And it's not just about the pilots and the maintainers. There's a tremendous number of other things that are required to truly be able to leverage the F 35. Whether that's security considerations whether that's the considerations of all the communication infrastructure backbone that you need to be able to leverage, uh, the amount of information that the F 35 will hoover in in the battle space towards having enough intelligence operators and potentially artificial intelligence human machine teaming to be able to then exploit the information that it produces or gathers I guess is a better way of saying it.
It's something that you don't think about necessarily traditionally when you think about fighters. But these new generation fighters are going to have so much more capability than what we're used to.
Absolutely. And they are very much sensor based platforms. They are fully networked in with all the other platforms in the battle space. I mean, these are tremendous gatherers of information, but also their ability to share that information is just unreal.
Yeah. And that's king now, on the battlefield, people who haven't been there, maybe they wouldn't realize that, but one of the biggest things that people spend time doing when you're in the air battle space is identifying who's who friend. From foe and just the massive amount of communication and data that is being sent around to identify and keep tabs on everything that's going on. So it's really interesting to think about that not just happening from larger platforms like what I would have been seeing over Iraq and the Aurora, and having that come from your smaller, uh, fighter assets as well.
Yeah, absolutely.
What's in the works right now for UAV training?
So, still early days again with the Rpas project.
An Rpas is a remotely piloted aircraft system, commonly known in the past as Drones, or UAV for Unmanned Aerial vehicle.
Again, I think what's key here to understand is the Rpas system is something with absolute global reach. We're expecting something similar to like a Reaper style armed UAS platform will be used obviously domestically to help do some of our maritime surveillance roles, including up in the north. But it certainly is also going to be used overseas in very much a tactical type role to gather information as well as prosecute targets. One of the key things from our allies when they're operating their similar systems is we're transiting this potentially across the Atlantic, and we're doing that through what's called non segregated airspace. So airspace where it's not just exclusively reserved for military use. We're flying these things potentially in the same neck of the woods that you'll find a commercial airliner on. And so folks are very nervous about the idea of having non, IFR certified pilots doing that. So for the moment, all the operator positions of the Rpas system are intended to be pilots. Might that change at some point in the future as we gather more experience and lessons learned? Uh, maybe we find that you could have Axos operating the system and you have just a pilot who's on call, who comes in for certain phases of the flight. I'm not sure what the future will look like, but for the initial Cadre and the initial operating intent, it will be to leverage pilots.
Do you expect that that would be pilots who were new in Grads or people who'd already been on other platforms?
So I think it's going to be a mix. I certainly think that we'll leverage some pilots who've been on other platforms. Uh, we'll leverage some pilots, perhaps who are grounded from the ability to actually fly, but could continue to do something from the, uh, US. Operator station, potentially. And I do think that we'll get some new wing grads if we find ourselves in an unfortunate situation again, at some point in the future where we've got longer pilot awaiting training times, why not leverage that pool of workforce and get them a really unique touch point from. An experiential point of view.
And I'd say don't be mistaken, Brian. That's a flying tour of flying that thing. If you've seen the makeups of the cockpit, that's a full aircraft cockpit. The only difference is your windscreen are the actual live TV screens of what the air pass is seeing. Right. So, uh, different experience. The only thing your cockpit is going to be, I think downtown Ottawa, but very cool.
Uplands.
Uplands. There you go.
Yeah. Uplands. Ottawa.
Uplands.
Having said that too, I don't know what it's like now. I know we used to joke when I was in training, we tease people, oh, you're going to end up on UAVs. I think it would be fascinating work. Having done that work in the desert and having done that in a crude version of essentially doing the very, very similar work. It's fascinating work. It's absolutely incredible. And you're participating in real world events on the spot, I think it would be really, really interesting work.
Agreed.
Yeah. A uh, very similar mission to what.
Other pilots are doing and very pointy end.
Very pointy.
The pointy end, or being at the pointy end is an expression used to describe jobs where you may end up in combat.
Very pointy end. And I think, frankly, if we're being honest with ourselves, it's very much the future of where all tactical flying will be. I I think don't foresee after the F 35, Canada buying another quote unquote manned aircraft, the next fighter will be a UCAV. And uninhabited I think, is the term they use now. Combat, uh, aircraft.
That's really, that pretty much does it for the questions specific to Otus, we're down to the last few here. One question that we got that I really liked was for people who are concerned about these issues, for people who want to go and make a difference, what's the best method to get posted to Tucad to help find solutions to training delays?
Being at Tucad and being a former CEO, say, talk to your chain of command, make that known to your supervisor, uh, make that known to your Co. Use your proper channels. When you have those career manager interviews yearly, make sure you get an appointment and uh, have that on the list going into uh, Emma as well. On your career sheet, find some positions that you think would suit you, that you're interested. So it's there for the career manager to pull off as well that you're interested in. And feel free to reach out to uh, our departments as well and ask questions to see if they're spots or ideas for succession planning. I'm in contact with colleagues across the country that are interested in some of these things that have asked me those great questions and yeah, that's a great idea, we could totally use you in this spot and some things like that have worked in. So we always say that you're your own best career manager. Uh, obviously stay within your lane, um, but ask good questions and talk to your supervisor and see the best ways to do that. Just on a similar note, we talked about Pipes first assignment IPS. We talked about pilot scales as well. One of the fastest ways, we think, to get those pilot gates for, uh, the pay system would be a pipeline instructor. Because as you're done your flight instructor training, you're an aircraft captain, you're on a program to get upgraded from a CCAT to a Bcat. And there's another very structured, rigid program to upgrade to a Cats as well, to get selected for some of those assignments that, uh, unlock that top one very early on in your career for potential as well.
So we talked about how to incentivize that. That's one right there is completing that tour. You should be ready to basically get through all the gates by the time you're done an instructional tour.
It's true.
Yeah, that's a great point.
So this next question is basically about using your experience and offering that to some of our younger pilots who are just getting into the pipeline. If you were an officer cadet now, facing the current timeline, using the experience that you have now, how would you maximize the value of that time?
I think it's a great question. It's a super pertinent question, given the delays that some of our members have been facing. One, it's about keeping a longer term perspective and recognizing that the career that you're embarking on is a phenomenal career. I look back at the experiential things I've been able to accomplish, whether that was the deployed tours overseas, or just the opportunity to fly around at 15ft with my hair on fire in a helicopter. It's been fantastic. I would not change that for a moment. So how do you make the most of that time? Well, I would suggest that, uh, when I show up on an operational squadron, the thing I want to do is I want to be flying. And so again, it gets down to how much of that professional development, those formal checks in the boxes, can I knock out now while I'm awaiting my training? I'm going to get as many of those calfjods those Afods done calfjods are.
Canadian Armed Forces junior Officer development courses, or Afod. Air Force Officer Development Courses are courses that junior officers, including pilots, must take. These courses train junior officers in a wide range of topics, including Canadian Armed Forces and RCIf doctrine, and a general body of professional knowledge that is essential for a junior officer.
Maybe I'll ask to go do, uh, some second language training so that I can get all those things taken care of. This is the prime window in which to do it.
The Afod stuff is stuff that especially junior pilots, we tend to really not want to do. And I didn't want to do. The last one I did, which was only block three. But once I was in there, I, uh, saw the value of it. It's so common to hear pilots sitting around in the ready room complaining, and that's fine. That's part of what everybody does. But, oh, uh, why are we doing it this way? Why do we do this? Why do we do that? Well, if you have a solid understanding of our doctrine and sort of the overall organization of how the Air Force works, then some of that stuff makes sense. And at least, you know, well, this is how you might be able to address that, or this is why it's happening that way.
The other advantage of doing that is then you've got a really strong competitive file so that if you do want to do something, perhaps outside the community that you're selected for, or even if you're staying in your community, you want one of those real plumb type postings, like an exchange tour, you've got a really strong file that will compete against anybody. So I like to stress the importance of being a self starter, and I think that that self starter even applies. As you get through your training and you get onto your operational squadron, you can wait for opportunities to be presented to you, or you can choose to go after the opportunities that are there. And I think it's a much better strategy to go after the opportunities. That's one of the prime reasons I upgraded as fast as I did. I didn't want to wait. I didn't want to sit around so capitalize on the opportunities that exist.
I'd have the same answer. I did have a two year wait for phase two, and, uh, I was fortunate. I had a really good, uh, OJ experience at 407 Squadron. You brought me into the community and put me on a crew. But same thing, like, seek those opportunities, even if it's getting on the odd flight when you can. But professional development is huge. Whatever courses you can get, the unit.
You'Re in as well may also be able to unlock some opportunities and some doors. So I wouldn't hesitate to ask within the unit.
Well, I mean, everybody's got their specific. Like, SAR has a bunch of SAR specific training courses you can go take, even on the Aurora. We had some maritime basic warfare courses you could take to gain better understanding of once you go and integrate with the ships. How does that work? So that's a really good point. I also love the point you made, Morty, about getting the cafjods and afods done. I think an aspect of that people are like, oh, well, that's a tick in the box. You got to get it done. Okay, great. That is a reason to do it. But the other reason to do it that you said is they are going to make you do it eventually, so you do it now while you're waiting. And like you said, that means more flying time later because you're not having to do that instead, or you're not having to fly all day and then do your Capjods and your A Fods at night and just being totally exhausted. So there's real value in getting those done early.
Yeah, I think there's another reason for it as well. If we're being honest, we want to be professional aviators, we want to be the best of the best. And joining the Air Force is you're going to get to do things that civilian pilots just won't have the same opportunities. And I'm not saying that military pilots are better than civilian pilots. I just think that there's unique things that excite military folks to come in.
Yeah, for sure.
Even if you don't want to be promoted and you just want to spend your career getting up to that incentive 20 captain, you still need to be a peer leader. And so leadership doesn't necessarily just involve being promoted, it's being recognized as an expert in your community. And going out and getting that, uh, professional development done is important. Because now, if I've got my calf jaws and my A Fods done, now, I can go out when I get onto the squadron and I'm done my Otu, I can start going and getting professional development courses that are related specifically to my community and what I'm going to do. So tactics type courses, electronic warfare, how to do test and evaluation type activities. It opens a lot of doors.
On a lighter note as well, take advantage of some of the, uh, recreational activities that you have offered to you as well. I know I did a ton of sports on Oje, was on squadron hockey teams, base soccer teams, base basketball teams. Those are hard to get when you're busy and you're flying operationally. So take advantage of that when you can. And that's a nice relief from the daily grind as well.
We're down to our last question, which is always one of my favorite questions. So this is the one question I kind of gave you guys that is generic to the show. A big part of this show is to reach out to new pilots, people who are considering joining the Air Force, people who are thinking, hey, maybe this pilot thing is for me. What advice would you give to a new pilot, a brand new pilot? What would be your piece of wisdom you give to them about being a pilot?
I think Colonel Morrison touched on a, uh, lot of those things. But my career advice to pilot I have 26 years in the military ish I've enjoyed almost every day of that, and I've never second guessed my choice to kind of live that adventure and seek that goal and that dream of flying. It's still awesome. And here I am, uh, 26 years in, and I still get to fly, uh, as much as I can, when I can. The staff work comes first for uh, most part but uh, very cool opportunities that we have. And you'll have no other experience to travel the world and work uh, with the people that you get to do. And it's not just the flying, especially when I was comment, I think that's in Morty you'll probably agree, almost the penultimate of a career to be able to lead a flying squadron or a flying unit like that, even more so in an operational side, but working with those professionals and those teams. I'm a big sports person so I love the team environment where everyone's kind of working together for that common goal. Uh, and I've seen that every day of my career, working uh, with colleagues. Uh, so it's been awesome. So I still highly recommend it. Uh, you've got some really dedicated people in there that are trying to do their best to shorten pilot training times and make your experiences in the military as valuable as possible and trying to achieve your goals. So I still think we're in a pretty good place.
I'll echo a lot of what Colin just said. I personally still think and uh, maybe I'm biased after almost 30 years, I don't think that there's a better career within the military than there is to be a pilot. And the opportunities that we get are just phenomenal. Whether it's the quality of the instruction or the quality of the people that you're going to work with throughout your career, it's second to none. I always remind people to work hard. It is truly a privilege that we have to be able to fly for the Canadian forces going overseas, doing deployments and um, not just representing your unit, but representing the best of what Canada has to offer the world is just a phenomenal privilege, but also a phenomenal responsibility. And I wouldn't change a moment of my career for a moment. The six overseas tours have all been the very best times that I've had in the military and I think there's something to be said for those tough times. It's those times where you're really challenged on employment that shows you what you're truly made of. So I would certainly encourage people to take as many opportunities to get overseas. In fact, um, I'm lining up to go overseas to Qatar, to the chaos for my 7th tour here, uh, hopefully in the not too distant future. And just always remember as well, there can be a tendency as pilots to focus on us and we're the ones out there flying the missions, but nobody's flying without the complete effort of your unit. So never ever forget to just be grateful for all the people who are just working hard to make the mission happen, whether that's somebody who's refueling, whether it's somebody who's cooking a meal, it's truly a team effort. Never forget anybody within your unit. And I guess the last thing I would say is like Colin, I've been a CEO and it was a phenomenal experience. So I know that there's a real tendency to want to just fly, but I would really encourage people not to be scared of leadership. I'm still flying as a colonel, I managed to get almost 4000 hours flying in rotary wing. If you want to make flying a priority and you want to have leadership credibility, you can have those things. It just takes your personal effort to do it.
Yeah, I love that. That's something that I've been, uh, wanting to pass on in this show a little bit is asking people who've gone and done it, hey, why should a pilot want to go be a leader? Why should a pilot want to do their afods? Why should a pilot want to do anything besides just fly? And I think you just hit the nail on the head. That was great.
I was going to add Brian and maybe it's a segue for another show, but as far as the family side, my career has worked out really well for my family, as well as providing opportunity and financial, uh, security and things like that that go along with it. We're not away all the time. Uh, and the military has always listened to me as well when I needed to take time for my family or stay in a certain location because of that as well. Ah, the military is listening.
Yeah. As much as the military can be tough on families, I also think you'd be hard pressed to find an organization that has as much patience and accommodation as we tend to get. If you've got something going on, the job is still there waiting for you. And my experience has been, hey, go take care of your family and uh, let us know what you need.
Absolutely.
Okay, uh, I think that's going to wrap it up. I want to thank you both so much for taking the time to be on the show today. I really appreciate it. I know you're both very busy so thank you so much.
Awesome. Yeah, our pleasure.
Pleasure.
And I think great idea having Colonel Morrison I there together to help tag team some of the questions. I appreciate that.
Okay, that wraps up our episode on training delays. We'd like to thank the Canadian forces. Subreddit again for your questions. Have you ever wondered what it's like to refuel a fighter jet over Iraq? How about to fly with the Prime Minister or the future king of England? Next week we'll sit down with my friend Jeff Foreman and find out all this and more. Do you have any questions or comments about anything you've heard or in general you can reach us at thepilotprojectpodcast@gmail.com or at podpilotproject. On all social media, we'd love to hear from our fans. As always, we'd like to close by thanking you for your support and asking for your help with the big Three, sharing with your friends, liking and following us on social media and following and rating us five stars wherever you get your podcasts. That's all for now. Thanks for listening. Keep the blues it up.
See you.