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.
Alright. 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 my good friends, Paul and Mikaela Goddard. Paul and Mikaela, welcome to the show, and thanks so much for being here.
Paul:Thanks for having us.
McKayla:Yeah. We're happy to be here.
Paul:Happy to be back.
Bryan:Yeah. Listeners may remember Paul from our Cormoran episode and Mikaela from our episode about the pilot world from the exposes perspective. Paul is a current RCIAF pilot, and Mikaela is a retired air combat systems officer or ACSO, also known as navigator or nav. Today, we're going to discuss life as an aircrew service couple. So, Paul, we've been down this road before, but what was early life like for you, and what led you to joining the RCAF?
Paul:So I grew up in, BC on the West Coast and, joined the Air Cadets when I was 12. Went through the gliding scholarship. Didn't do power because it conflicted with the report date for RMC. But that's really how it started as I was an air cadet. I knew that I wanted to fly.
Paul:I wear glasses or contacts when I'm flying. And I had not thought that it would be possible for me to join the military. And then when they lowered the vision requirement to V2 from V1, so perfect corrected vision instead of perfect uncorrected vision, that's when I thought that I would apply. Turns out when I got in anyways, I was V1, so it wouldn't have mattered. But yeah.
Paul:Yeah. But that was a huge perceived barrier for me was, well, I don't see perfectly, so I can't be a military pilot.
Bryan:So you must have been pretty thrilled when they changed the rules and I guess even more thrilled when you found out you were V1.
Paul:That's right. Yeah. It was, it was a watershed moment for me.
Bryan:Yeah. Mikaela, same question. Where are you from and what led you to join the RCAF?
McKayla:I have a pretty similar story. I am from Cochrane, Alberta, so just outside of Calgary. And I initially joined Cadets because my twin brother, Zach, joined Cadets. And, he joined because he wanted to get his his license to fly. I think he wanted to do, like, powered flight.
McKayla:And, turns out he ended up doing more like the survival route stuff, and I got my glider's license. So, by the time that I got into high school, like, grade 11, grade 12, I couldn't really decide what I wanted to do in terms of a job. And so I'd had all this this exposure to the military, and I was like, oh, navigator looks really cool. And I actually I was not one of those that signed up as a pilot and then got bumped to navigator, which I know is a lot of people's stories. But I actually wanted to do navigator because I didn't want to do flying as my like, piloting as my job because I enjoyed it as a hobby, if that makes sense.
Bryan:For sure.
McKayla:Although I didn't really continue gliding after I got in because I had negative time. So, you know, it all turns out like that. But yeah. So, again, like, cadets had a big influence on me and, also just, like, having a job that was so unique was really appealing too.
Bryan:That's funny you say that. I was gonna ask if if you had any dreams of being a professional pilot or but that just wasn't your thing. Hey?
McKayla:Yeah. It really wasn't like a everyone always jokes that, like, navs are all the fit washout pilots, but we I genuinely thought the job was really cool. And I knew that I wanted to work in a group. Like, I didn't wanna be a solo, pilot. And I if I hadn't gotten into military, I didn't have plans to, like, pursue flying as a job.
McKayla:I was gonna keep it up kind of as a hobby and then do something else. I can't even remember what I was signed up for in university, but I think it was languages.
Bryan:So, Mikaela, how did the two of you meet?
McKayla:So, Paul and I both went to the Royal Military College in Kingston, and he's a year ahead of me, but we ended up in the same squadron. So the college divided. At the time, it was 13 squadrons when we were first there. And, so we ended up in the same squadron and he was a year ahead of me. So during, the first month or six weeks at the college, you go through something called the first year orientation period or FYOP.
McKayla:And you're brand new to the military. You're brand new to RMC. You're having to learn all this stuff and do kind of what people picture as, like, boot camp. Like, you're up at five doing, you know, physical training and then you're marching everywhere and you have to wear a uniform and you have to salute everybody and know everyone's names. And it was just it was a lot.
McKayla:But one of the things that happens is the second years get paired up with the first years as kind of like their support. And there's this illusion that we get, they sneak in to give us stuff, but the staff always know that the second years are coming to help us out. But yeah. So, this particular I think we were about two two and a half weeks into biop, and, my roommate had gone with the varsity soccer team to go, on an away game. And all of a sudden, we get yelled at, get outside of our rooms, and we're told that my roommate went AWOL.
Bryan:Can you explain what AWOL is?
McKayla:Yeah. Sorry. Absent without leave. So they told us that she didn't get on the bus with the rest of the soccer team, and she just, like, peaced out and went home. And she'd been having a bit of a hard time, like, as we all were, but they pushed it enough that it was convincing that we thought it had actually happened.
McKayla:So we were told that we were going downstairs into the squadron lounge, and we're gonna sit there and wait, and the MPs were gonna come and talk to us, the military police, to figure out where she was. And, so, of course, in our minds, this is totally legit, and they would never lie to us. And so we are petrified. Right? Like, we we have no idea what's gonna happen.
McKayla:We don't know any of the rules yet. So we're all sitting at attention in the lounge, and it's it's dark. Like, it's kind of in the evening. We don't know what's gonna happen. And then all of a sudden, what is it called?
McKayla:Discovery Channel by the Bloodhound Gang? Is that the song?
Bryan:It's, it's I think it's Bad Touch.
McKayla:Oh, bad yeah. Bad Touch by the Bloodhound Gang gets blasted from behind us, and this random group of people that we've only seen from afar come in wearing the most ridiculous costumes we've ever seen. Like, I'm talking, we had, like, a six foot four guy wearing, like, this red lace nightie. We had people in eighties tracksuits. We had somebody in, like, a bumblebee costume.
McKayla:Like, it was just ridiculous. And, of course, we have no idea what's going on. Our staff has disappeared. Turns out this was what's called bathrobe night where you get these costumes that you have to get dressed in to run to the bathroom to shower during the days. It's just another I guess it's supposed to teach you time management, but it was really just ridiculous.
McKayla:And so that was the first time at Paul because the second years are get handing over their bathrobes to us. And so that was the first time that we ever really interacted.
Bryan:What was Paul dressed as?
McKayla:Honestly, I can't remember. I was so I was so relieved that my roommate wasn't actually AWOL and I wasn't going to get interrogated by the military police, but I it's all a blur, but
Paul:Knee length, pink cotton dress with like mid bicep sleeves. It was horrible.
McKayla:It wasn't the most scandalous outfit, but it definitely was, something.
Paul:There's a reason this tradition doesn't happen anymore. But it was, at the time, it was meant to inject some levity into the whole, you know, super serious experience of we're showing up at the college and we're in the military now, and you're going through this I don't know for a lot of us, it was like, probably the most adversity we'd faced so far. And it's the beginning of your life as an adult and away from your family and that. And so it's just really hard to make that transition. And this is one of those things that we did.
Paul:And like I said at the time, it's intended to inject levity in it. And also, like I said, I don't think this tradition has survived.
Bryan:No. Probably not. But I can see how it was just meant to light lighten things up. Right?
McKayla:Yeah. And it was hilarious because we had you know, you'd get told, okay. It's time to shower, so you get whatever thirty seconds it was to change. So you're, like, whipping out of your clothes. I had, like, this eighties windbreaker tracksuit that I had to get into, which, by the way, is very hard to get on when your skin's wet.
McKayla:So you get into it, and we'd all be standing outside our rooms looking absolutely ridiculous. And then it starts a timer or whatever for the shower and stuff. So you go racing down the hallway, and, like, you'd have your two or three minutes shower, whatever, race back. Everyone's just looking a hot mess, like and you have, like I said, like, guys in, like, dresses and there was a silk nightie at one point. He had to wear shorts with it though.
McKayla:So it was much too small for him. Anyway, but it was just it was ridiculous. But at the time, it was just another annoyance that you had to, like, do and get through.
Bryan:Were these robes, like, just for Faye Op?
McKayla:Yes. Oh, yeah. Thankfully. As soon as FYOP was over. So as soon as we did our, the obstacle course and the badging ceremony and everything, we got for whatever, like, normal bathrooms to go to the hall because we we had shared, like, it was communal showers and bathrooms and stuff.
McKayla:Right? So there's a guys and a girls, but you you didn't have, like, your own bathroom in your room or anything. So, yeah, you gotta wear normal normal things
Paul:after that.
Bryan:And how long is FYOP?
McKayla:I think it's including the two week orientation period at the beginning that doesn't, that also involves, or at the time involved other ROTP cadets that were going to different universities. It was about six weeks, I think.
Paul:That sounds right. I think it starts in the August and it goes until the September for reunion weekend when the obstacle courses run.
Bryan:It sounds like, really hard, but also like kind of fun.
McKayla:Yeah. Like looking back at it, you're like, Oh my gosh, That's that's so dumb. Like, it's so funny and dumb to look back at, but during the time, like, during the moment, you're really in this competitive spirit because all of the first year flights at the different squadrons are all in competition, right, to win the top flight and you're training for the obstacle course and everything. So it's very much like, it just takes over your whole world while you're there too. Because you're also not allowed to leave the college at the time.
McKayla:Like everyone lives on campus. You're not allowed to live off campus. So there was just like, it was a very insular kind of phase where you're just getting, like, really deep into what it was like to be at the college.
Bryan:Were there rules about, like, cell phones and things at the time?
McKayla:Yeah. Oh, yeah. You had to report. Like so at the end of school or whatever, you would get your cell phone for a bit, and you'd have to, like, go in and report, and you'd you know, you say your, like, your service number, your rank, your squadron name, your flight name, and whatever, and you'd get, like, half an hour with your phone or something like that. So my parents used to say that, they'd see my number come up and they put me on speaker phone, and they wouldn't even say anything because I would just, like, rapid fire off whatever had happened and tell them all the ridiculousness.
McKayla:And then I'd be like and be like, okay. Now I gotta go. Bye. Love you. And they would, like and, of course, I had just joined the military and so had my twin.
McKayla:And so they were trying to learn all the acronyms. And RMC has its own set of acronyms. My brother is in the army. So they they didn't understand anything I was saying, but they were there for moral support, which is the important part.
Bryan:So, Paul, what's your side of that whole interaction of meeting Mikaela and that that night?
Paul:So for me, it was just like another thing that we were doing to help out the first years and, like, welcome them into the squadron and help them feel like there is one) a light at the end of this tunnel that is fire up and two) we're there for them as the second years. Again, Mikaela mentioned there's the illusion that the staff don't really know what's going on or this is somehow hidden from them and we're doing it on our own, but it's purposeful. It's all part of it. It's part of the team building exercise. So, yeah, I mean, I, at that point, like, hadn't really picked her out of the crowd as being any different to me than any of the other first years.
Paul:So it was just part of that experience.
Bryan:Okay. So when did the two of you first start to take notice of one another?
McKayla:Well, one of the perks of being in the band at RMC was that you didn't have to do morning PT. Morning more like, morning runs, which I'm a huge fan of. So I and also I had done bands, like, all the way going up through school. So I joined the band, and Paul was already part of it.
Paul:For similar reasons.
McKayla:Funnily enough, neither was like running. And so we, I started joining the band. So we would walk over together in the morning, or sorry. I would march because I was a first year and had to march everywhere. But we'd go over in the mornings, and then, I also joined the stage band, which was kind of like a jazz band that would play at different events, and Paul was part of that as well.
McKayla:So I think that's when we first started hanging out Yep. More.
Bryan:And just for the listeners quickly, if you're hearing any odd noises while Mikaela's talking, Paul and Mikaela recently had a baby. So baby Noah is sitting with Mikaela right now and
McKayla:And he's he's piping up at the restaurant.
Bryan:He's making his presence known. So, you may hear that from time to time and that's just life as new parents.
Paul:Yeah. And we really got to know each other more through the band, I would say, more than anything else. We were both, doing arts degrees, but again, being in the same squadron in the same hallway, and, and doing band really is how we ended up getting to know each other better.
Bryan:So what was each of your initial thoughts when it came to dating someone else in the RCAF?
Paul:For me, it wasn't that train of thought at all. I was at university and yeah, I was in the military and everyone around me was in the military, but really it was a university experience more than a military experience, from my perspective at the time. And, I was there to do school. So from my perspective, it was more dating another student. And the fact that we just had these other layers on top of it was neither here nor there.
Bryan:Okay. So you weren't like you weren't really thinking about maybe the complications that might come with it or whatever?
Paul:I was too young and too inexperienced in military life to see the road ahead
McKayla:at
Paul:all and to understand what might be coming along with that.
Bryan:Yeah. And I think that actually sounds pretty typical though of most people who date early in university. Right? Like, you're not necessarily thinking, like, how is this gonna work out if we get married? And how is this gonna look in ten years?
Bryan:Like, you're you're just you're dating.
Paul:The fact that we're both Air Force and the fact that we're both aircrew at the time, like, completely irrelevant.
McKayla:Yeah. Yeah.
Bryan:What about for you, Mikaela?
McKayla:I think I was a bit more aware of it, being, like, the minority at the college. Because I think there was about one in five were women, when I was there. And so you were kind of very aware that you would either you're either dating a civilian, which came with its own kind of trials, especially enough as first year because you had a lot less privileges in terms of, like, going into town or having free time or whatever. And you're also adjusting to university life. Right?
McKayla:I think everyone can that's done that jump from high school to university, you can kind of attest to the fact that all of a sudden you're like, oh, I have no time. Like, and we had a lot of extra things that you had to do on top of just school. So it was either somehow meet somebody outside of the college with the, like, little free time you had or date somebody at the college, or not date. I guess that was also an option. But, at the time, it was very like, I was a bit more cognizant of the fact that that was a thing.
McKayla:And I also wasn't, I I wasn't really thinking about the future. Like Paul said, it wasn't like, oh, well, how is this gonna work out? Although that did come in over the next couple of years that became more of a factor. But it it was kind of a given for me that that would be the only way I would be able to date because there just wasn't any time to meet anybody outside or maintain a relationship outside of the college at the time.
Bryan:Yeah. That makes sense. Like, if you think about it, if you were if you only had time, like, your parents only had time to, like, say nothing, put you on speaker, and then you could, like, like, say what you needed to say, how are you gonna have time to build a relationship with somebody who's not in that environment?
McKayla:Totally. And, like, I didn't have a car or anything either. So you're either paying for a cab to get downtown because, RMC is on a bit of a peninsula, and then you go, like, across bridge downtown. And there's Queen's University is right there. We could hear them having fun when we were not having fun.
McKayla:So they're close enough to, like, to hear. But, again, like, the chance to meet somebody and get to the point where you're you're dating and exclusive, but then also trying to explain this insanity that was happening. Right? Because compared to a normal university experience, like, my friends couldn't understand why I wasn't allowed to leave on the weekends or why, like, I wasn't allowed to just go downtown if I needed something or whatever. Right?
McKayla:So trying to explain that to somebody while also, like, getting to know them was just gonna be much.
Bryan:Yeah. I think that would be super hard.
McKayla:Yeah.
Bryan:So, Mikaela, how did you guys first start dating?
McKayla:So, we had, like, been getting to know each other. I had actually was dating someone when I first got to the college, and then that dissolved rather quickly.
Bryan:Was that that was a civilian?
McKayla:No. It was somebody else at the college.
Bryan:Okay.
McKayla:And we'd both we, like, we'd gotten in together and then realized it wasn't gonna work pretty quickly. So it was spring time, I guess. We had a little bit more freedom as first years because we're coming to the end of our our first year at the college and, paused me out. And I was like, sure. And then, about two weeks later, I was like, you know what?
McKayla:I just, it just feels like we're just friends. And like, I don't think I can, like, I don't see this really being romantic. So I broke it off as nicely as I could, full well knowing that he lived, like, three doors down and we were gonna see each other every day for the next three years.
Bryan:Yeah. So, Paul, how did you take it when Mikaela called things off between the two of you?
Paul:It was tough. I mean, like any relationship ending, this one had the advantage of being quite new. So we hadn't invested very much in that aspect of our relationship. We both were friends before, which helped, so we had something to fall back on. And, you know, when you're living in close quarters with 60 of your closest friends like that, it, you need to decide how that's going to go.
Paul:And the best way that can possibly go is being mature about it. Right? And I decided that my life was better with her in it than without her in it as a friend. So that's my way forward.
Bryan:So that's kind of how you managed to keep a brave face because obviously you didn't want to be stuck in the friend zone.
Paul:Exactly. And it was clear that she didn't want to be in the girlfriend zone either. So we had to, we had to figure out how that was gonna go.
Bryan:Yeah. For sure.
McKayla:He was very mature about it. He was very nice. And, the other thing too is, like, I think it was just after we had kind of called it off and we were back to hanging out kinda normally after a bit of a break. Some of the older cadets started calling me missus Goddard because we were hanging out so much and, like, we would be seen together all the time. So they started calling me missus Goddard, and that lasted for a couple years, much to the chagrin of other people that I dated at the college.
McKayla:So, yeah. So that, that might have been foreshadowing, but who knows?
Bryan:That's funny. So, Paul, how did the next couple of years go by?
Paul:It was mostly a university experience, right? Like, and trades training snuck into it. Basic training was done by that point for me. But that's, that's what you do is in the summers, you go away, you do training, and then you come back, and then you do school. And then you go away and you do training, and you come back, and you do more school.
Paul:And then eventually you graduate. And you start out doing life as a commissioned officer in the Air Force. And you're a junior second lieutenant who's just waiting for trades training at that point. So for me, I had the advantage of already being a licensed glider pilot. So my OGT, it was brief.
Paul:I was blessed to be in the Air Force at a time when I was in the trough of the wave. And so my training pipes all lined up end to end to end. So I went and, I was in Comox for the summer, and, I was a glider instructor for that year. And then I went away in that following October, I think it was, to Moose Jaw to go and start phase two on the Harvard. So, just a series of school and then training and then right into pilot training.
Bryan:That's a great time to, as an OJT experience, to be able to go and be a glider instructor.
Paul:Yeah. Yeah. It was huge to be able to get back to the program in that way. I did it one summer while I was at RMC, in the summer that ordinarily people do language training. I had managed to test out by that point.
Paul:And so I did it then and I did it this summer following school as well.
Bryan:That's awesome. I spent a summer instructing on gliders just before university and it's my time on glider as a student and my time there as an instructor were, like, two of the best summers of my life.
Paul:Definitely.
Bryan:Yeah. Mikaela, you guys were working professionally at that time together in the squadron as well. Right?
McKayla:Yeah. So well, in in Paul's last year of school, he was the for one semester, he was the squadron leader, so the, like, cadet in charge of the squadron, and I was the admin officer. And, so that was our first chance to work together professionally. Like, we'd been living in the same place and, like, quote, unquote working together, I guess, if you wanna say that. But, this was the first time we actually, like, professionally had to interact with one another.
McKayla:And, sometimes it went really well, and sometimes it didn't. But a lot of it was we would like, we were living in the same hallway. So we'd like roll our chairs out into the hallway and, like, yell down the hall for the other person to also come out and talk about whatever and then roll her back in. So it was, like very close quarters working together, living together, and then we were also still, like, in the band and doing extracurriculars together as well. So, like, we were seeing a lot of each other, and that was the first time I got to see Paul in a leadership role, really of any substance, I think, which was really cool to see.
McKayla:And we got along well enough and stayed friends. So obviously that that turned out nicely. Yeah. And then that summer, the, summer of twenty thirteen, I was also posted to Comox to do, like to teach at the gliding school, but I was teaching ground school. That was my summer OJT.
McKayla:So we worked together there as well.
Paul:That was our near miss.
McKayla:That was
Bryan:so when did things start to change again for you?
McKayla:Well, like, like Paul said, that was our near miss. So this summer, that summer I was newly single and, we were just enjoying like hanging out with our friends and, and spending time in co ops for the summer. Cause anyone that's been there knows it's,
Bryan:like, heaven.
McKayla:Yep. And, my parents came to visit close to the end of the summer and, they met Paul. And they'd heard about Paul, like, throughout the years. And so they met him and they invited him out to come to dinner with us. And we were getting ready, and my mom goes, oh, he's just such a wonderful guy.
McKayla:And I'm like, yeah. I know. He's one of my best friends. And she goes, well, he's just enamored with you. And I was like, mom.
McKayla:And I did, like, the classic, like, we're just friends. Meanwhile, my mom's like, yeah. Right? And so they, that's why my mom became team Paul. And that lasted until well, now.
McKayla:Paul's still one of the favorite children in the family. So, but yeah. So, 2013, it was one of those things where we almost, they almost started dating again. And then I went back to the college and, we didn't start dating again. But we kept in touch, while Paul was doing his training in Moose Jaw.
McKayla:And that Christmas, my friend and I actually drove out to see him and a couple of other friends in Moose Jaw, during my Christmas break. But that was kind of the, where it started to shift back, kind of a deeper friendship and more towards like something romantic. And then that actually kind of all kicked off while Paul was on phase three, just finishing up in Portage here. And I was in Winnipeg for my, I was waiting for my trade training.
Bryan:So, Paul, during that time, were you, like, the whole time sort of hoping things were gonna get together again? Or
Paul:Yeah. So summer twenty thirteen, very much so. At some point you need to move on. And that's sort of what I tried to apply myself to after Mikayla left and I was still in Comox. And, I was very intentionally single during phase two.
Paul:That is a course that you need to apply yourself fully to, especially if you struggled with the Harvard the way that I did.
Bryan:Okay.
Paul:Shout out to John Vincent for getting me through that course. And then from there, it was, onto phase three, became a helicopter pilot. And, again, still very intentionally single, having a much better time. It clicked in a way that flying at Harvard just never did. Yeah.
Paul:So that time was just, as Mikaela said and alluded to a little bit, like a much deeper friendship, and at times being okay with that and at times not.
Bryan:Yeah. That must have been kind of tough.
Paul:Yeah.
McKayla:Yeah. He had to watch me make some poor life decisions. So, and thankfully it was there for all of them, like there to be kind of emotional support for them. And we had started being able to hang out more because I was in Winnipeg and he was in Portage, just about forty five minutes away. So he and sometimes some of our other friends would come into the city, and we'd go do stuff.
McKayla:Like, we'd go see the, the orchestra, or we'd go to the zoo or do like two, whatever, just enjoying being by a city, mostly for the guys, and getting out of Portage to have a little bit of a break.
Paul:And we went camping on the May long weekend one year and, Michaela was renting a room from a pilot who was flying in Winnipeg at the time. And, I woke up one morning after this camping trip because we had driven back from one of the parks, to the Southeast Of Winnipeg. And, it was just absolutely horrendous weather. Like it would have been probably about 45 or 50 knot winds. And with the canoe on the truck, up top on styrofoam blocks and using ropes to tie it down on the other vehicle, we were only able to move at about 30 kilometers an hour to get back towards Winnipeg.
Paul:So the one and a half hour drive, I think it was supposed to be, turned into like a four hour ordeal, where, we were in Steinbeck and literally begging someone for a cargo strap because Canadian Tire was closed on Sunday. So we had to literally beg a cargo strap from a guy at a gas station, who was just there getting gas with his utility trailer. And that was what got us there. And anyway, I woke up, the next morning, on this guy's couch who, owned the house that Mikaela was wanting in the room. And he's like, what are you doing in the couch?
Paul:And I'm like, I don't know, man.
McKayla:Yeah. So,
Bryan:like, it was obvious to everybody?
McKayla:Yeah. Absolutely. Yeah. No. It was everybody.
McKayla:Like, at my bachelorette party, there was a banner that said, we told you so. Like, that's, like, that's how obvious it was to everybody else. Yeah. So the camping trip, by the way, it it was because my birthday's on the long weekend in May, and I'm like, I'm gonna go camping. And we all know that the long weekend is either gonna be, like, 30 degree weather or
Bryan:Or a nightmare.
McKayla:Or a nightmare. Right. And so, we Paul hadn't even come out with us initially. He was thinking of coming out the next day. And when we called him to be like, hey.
McKayla:Are you coming out? He was like, there's weather warnings. This storm. And I'm pretty sure I said, oh, it's not gonna be that bad, but you know what? You don't have to come if you don't want to.
McKayla:And so despite despite the weather warnings and looking at the radar and looking at all this stuff, he still came out to suffer with us. So that should that also should have been a clue.
Paul:Yeah. The GFA looked like a coloring project. It was real bad.
Bryan:Yeah. And and for any non aviator listeners, the GFA is a graphical area forecast and it it's, it basically just shows a picture of the weather and the more colorful it is, the worse the weather is.
McKayla:Yeah. So he he's struggle bust through that. But, yeah. And then we actually, we actually started dating, like made it official when, I had Paul's wings grabbed.
Bryan:Okay.
McKayla:Which was typical timing, I feel like on my part, because Paul had about a month before he was moving to Goose Bay And Labrador.
Bryan:So now you guys are starting to date. Mikaela, you told me that your parents really liked Paul, but what were their thoughts on seriously dating someone else in the military?
McKayla:You know, I don't think we've actually talked about it that much, but I think they had kind of assumed that was gonna happen. They knew that, like, it was pretty all consuming. And so the chances of me meeting someone else were were pretty low. And also, I think they understood too having somebody that understands what you're going through is is helpful. Right?
McKayla:So, because they they had enough of an issue trying to keep up with all of our acronyms, like what was going on and how things worked. Because to a civilian, a lot of things don't make sense, or are, you know, are hard to accept that you can't change. And so, I think that they kind of were, like, assumed that would happen in some way, But they never they never told me not to. So and they did. I I had dated people that were in a different service branch, like, in the navy and in the army.
McKayla:And, I think the closest we came to, like, really talking about that was asking, like, so where could you guys be posted together?
Bryan:Like, how are you gonna make this work?
McKayla:Yeah. Exactly. Without being, like, super blunt about it. And so and I was I had an answer. None of them were very good looking back, but, I mean, I had an answer.
McKayla:So
Bryan:So Paul's graduating his wings course in Portageville Prairie and Mikaela's starting her ACTO course in Winnipeg, and that's a relatively short, long distance option. What happened next?
Paul:So, I had invited her to come as a guest to my wings mess dinner. And it just sort of felt right. At the time when she showed up, it was like different than it had been before when she was coming to visit or when I was going to visit. And, from there, it just, it just sort of happened naturally that the friendship just evolved into being more than that. So we were dating and at the time she was quite adamant that this is going to be a temporary thing.
Paul:This is like, I don't want to do long distance. And I'm like, Okay, cool. I've got five weeks to change your mind.
Bryan:Why five weeks?
Paul:Because that's when my report for duty date was in, in Labrador. So that was the period of time that it was going to take me to do the administration of packing up what part of my life is in Portagellar Prairie, moving it to Moose Jaw, packing up what part of my life is in Vancouver, moving it to Labrador. Meanwhile, doing all of the screening in Moose Jaw to get to Labrador because it's an isolated posting.
McKayla:And
Paul:then executing my drive from Moose Jaw to Vancouver to supervise my load and then to Labrador to start my life in the operational air force.
Bryan:Did you drive from Vancouver to Labrador?
Paul:No, I drove from Portage La Prairie to Moose Jaw to Vancouver to Labrador. That's crazy. It was crazy.
Bryan:I loved it. And all during that time, you've gotta convince Mikaela to, like, stay the course and keep dating you. That's right. So what was your perspective on that?
McKayla:So I had told him, like, I had just gotten out of, like, a longer term relationship that was long distance and had failed pretty spectacularly close to the end. And, so I was like, I don't really know if I wanna do long distance. I don't want to, I don't wanna wreck our friendship, like, all the corny lines, right, that you kinda try to talk yourself out out of things. And Paul did say that. He said, okay.
McKayla:Well, I've got five weeks to change your mind. So in the midst of all of his driving and crazy back and forth stuff, he drove out to Winnipeg from Moose Jaw probably three times, which is like an eight hour drive. Yep. It's no, no small feat to come and see me and, and spend time together and actually date, like go do stuff. And he, you know, would call me every night and we would talk about our days.
McKayla:And, he helped me with some of my coursework, like, when it came to, like, prepping for flying and stuff like that. And, by the time he was driving back from like, the last time from Moose Jaw through to Labrador, I flew out to drive with him from Moose Jaw to Winnipeg. He would drop me off and he would keep going to Labrador. And that by that point, he convinced me to to give it a go. And I actually had, like, the don't you heard him talk from one of his friends in Moose Jaw as we were packing up the car.
Bryan:For you not to hurt Paul.
McKayla:For me not to
Bryan:hurt Paul. Yeah. Because probably his buddies would have all known that he'd been pining after you. Right?
McKayla:Yes. Yeah. They'd been present for the pining. And, pining sounds sad. I don't think it was, like, active pining.
Paul:It it was, like, constantly on the back burner to some degree or another over the period of time. Right? And like I said, there were periods of time where it's like, fine, we're just friends and that's the way that it is. And that's good. And I'm on this course that I need to fully apply
McKayla:myself onto.
Paul:So it's probably better that we're not dating anyway. And then there were, there were times I was pining more actively.
McKayla:Yeah. So his friend, actually, as we were loading up his car, was like, listen, If you're not, like, in it to win it kinda thing, if you're not in it for the long term, you really, like, don't don't string him on. Like, don't don't break up from it, like, with him from a distance, like, while he's in Labrador of all places. Right? And I I was like, no.
McKayla:I I get it. Believe me. This was like, I they've had the past five weeks to, like, really evaluate this and, like, I'm not I'm not just doing this for kicks kinda thing. But yeah, so I had to like, don't, don't hurt my friend. Yeah.
McKayla:And so then, then we started dating and it was, and by dating, obviously like not in person most of the time, because Paul was in Goose Bay and then he pretty quickly went to Gage Town for his, operational training.
Paul:So my F and E showed up, I think it was almost two weeks after I did.
Bryan:Which is furniture and effects.
Paul:And the very next day I was on my plane to Fredericton. I had not unpacked my house properly.
Bryan:Crazy.
Paul:When I got back from course the week before Christmas, the first sorry, the week before Christmas leave, the first thing I had to do was assemble my bed so I could sleep in it.
McKayla:Yeah. So, like, he had a quick turnaround and he was busy. And, despite the fact that he was flying at, like, a search and rescue or, I guess, combat support quadrant, he was doing tactical flying engaged town, which, it's not his favorite thing in the world. I think he'll say It was fine.
Paul:The flying was great. The tactics, I knew I would never need to apply, so I had a really hard time playing that game. Yeah. That's fair.
McKayla:So, so he was doing that. I was on my Axo course, which took about a year and was, like, fully stuck in on that too. So there was a couple there was definitely a few nights I called crying about my life choices. But Paul was really great the whole time. Yeah.
McKayla:And, like, just super supportive and because he knew how stressful it can be when you're on course. And, like, you kind of have blinders on. You don't see, like, that some things aren't the end of the world. So he talked me down off the ledge a couple of times.
Bryan:So he he said he talked you down off the ledge, but he also talked you into something during this course. So can you tell us about that?
McKayla:Yeah. So, I'm not sure if the NEV course does it anymore, but what you used to do is you would fly. It's called an OUV, an operational unit visit, and you would fly to Halifax, from Winnipeg. And you get you're being evaluated on the flight or whatever, but then you get to go and tour the different squadrons that you could end up at or the different fleets. So you'd go to Greenwood to see the Auroras and the Hercules.
McKayla:You'd go onto the ship and talk to people that were on at the time on the Sea King. And so you get a chance. Because a lot of people, when they join, they might not have had a chance even to see the aircraft they might work on, let alone, like, talk to somebody about what it's like to be there. And our instructors at the school come from all different backgrounds, but it was still nice to see kind of the aircraft you'd be working on and and what squadron life life was like. So we flew at it was the November, November '20 ninth, and we, it coincided with the Grey Cup, which was in Winnipeg.
McKayla:And this is important because everyone was grouchy that they were missing it and that we were away for that weekend. So by the time we landed in Halifax, got ourselves sorted out, went to Juno Towers, the, like, accommodations we were staying at, everyone was in a bad mood Everyone was cranky. And Paul had been like, hey. My friend is getting posted to Shearwater in Halifax, and he's driving through. So why don't I come up for the weekend, and we'll, like I'll see you when you're done your touring of the squadrons and stuff.
McKayla:We can hang out. I'm like, great. This is fabulous. But by the time I get to Geno Towers, I'm just like mad at everyone. No one like, in a van full of navs, you think anyone would have helped me navigate to get to Geno Towers?
McKayla:No. No one did. Everyone's cranky and crabby and no one had made any plans for dinner. Everyone was anyway, wasn't in a great mood. And Paul kept messaging me going, hey.
McKayla:Like, where are we gonna meet? Should I meet you at a restaurant? Should I meet you there? Like, what are your plans for dinner? And I was like, I don't know.
McKayla:No one's planning. And I'm just ranting. Right? So finally, Paul's like, what's your room number? I'll just come to Juno Towers.
McKayla:And, so he come he comes to Juno Towers, and he comes in the door, and I just start ranting about my course mates and how they're all nobody's helping, and I can't believe we haven't made any plans for food yet. And I'm just just ranting. And I came out into, like, into the room, and, Paul went down and went in for a post. And I guess that was the only way that he was gonna get me to, stop ranting long enough to do anything. But yeah.
McKayla:And then my first I instead of saying yes right away, my first question was, are you serious? As if as if he would joke about that. And yeah, so that was, that was how he proposed, was just stop my rant.
Bryan:So how was that for you, Paul?
Paul:So I'm engaged down on course on TAFO, the tactical first officer course, where you learn how to be a first officer on the Griffin, particularly for one wing, but also the SAR and also combat support, Griffin pilots get their start there. And I had decided that I was going to propose that Christmas in Goose Bay because we had already talked about it and she was already planning to come up for Christmas. And so I had had an engagement ring ordered and I had couriered it to the Squadron Engage Town because that's where I was. I wasn't going to send the engagement ring to my empty house in Goose Bay that wouldn't have worked out well. So I had this ring, and then I found out she was going to Halifax.
Paul:And I was like, I wonder So I did a little bit of Google math and figured out that, you know, I wasn't going to be able to afford to fly from Fredericton to Halifax and back. And then, my buddy, Nigel, was texting and he was like, Hey, I'm coming through. And I'm like, Can you give me a lift? Sure. Yeah.
Paul:So I got a leave pass, from the course director, and I got a one way airfare ticket for the return trip. And I got, I bummed a ride from my buddy to take me out to Halifax and then just waiting for the Dash eight to arrive full of navigators and students and all of that. And then, yeah, we ended up meeting at Juno Tires exactly as she described. And, in the middle of the rant, it's like, well, it's kind of like, it's burning a hole in my pocket. It's got to come out now.
Paul:So I went down on my knee. And when she came out, I opened the ring box for her.
Bryan:So how did your friends and family react to such a quick engagement? Because this was only after, like, five months or so of dating.
McKayla:Yeah. And, we well, so anyone that had noticed at the college was like, oh, finally. Like, they would kind of just this was bound to happen, and they finally like, she's finally come around. But a lot of people hadn't actually known that Paul and I knew each other beforehand. So I got some pretty questioning, oblique questions, I guess, about whether or not this was maybe a shotgun wedding and if I would need to take some maternity leave during my course, which turned out I was not for the record.
McKayla:But yeah. So it was kind of a split. It was everyone was so excited, and then the other people were like, oh my gosh. Is she pregnant? So but once once those rumors went to got put to bed, everyone's pretty excited.
Bryan:So now you're an almost service couple because you were engaged but not married and therefore not entitled to benefits. How did that affect the next couple of years?
Paul:So initially it was, you know, just stay the course status quo, everything is as normal. I'm still me, I'm still at my unit and I'm still required to be there and work. And she's still on her course and she's still required to be there and she still needs to get her axle wings and do the thing in order to make the next step happen. We spent a lot of our free time and a lot of our disposable income on traveling back and forth. So, having been finished phase three and then right away to TAFO and then Christmas leave, I had, I think it was ridiculous.
Paul:I was gone for all March effectively in order to get all my leave burned before the end of fiscal so I didn't need to accumulate. And I just went and I stayed with her in Winnipeg while she was on course. And I did the, you know, stay at home spouse thing for a little bit sort of like, you know, is this actually gonna work? Is this something that we can do? Can we live together effectively?
Paul:So we did that. And then it was just back and forth. Every time we had leave, we would coordinate it, we would end up one of us would fly up or down to see the other. After Mikaela got posted to Greenwood, things were easier because at least we were in the same time zone.
Bryan:And,
Paul:we were able to see each other more cost effectively as well. It was just one flight instead of two or three in some cases, to get to Winnipeg from Labrador. And from there, it was just being long distance. And that was hard. That was hard for a lot of reasons and for a long time.
Paul:But we always had the end in sight that, you know, we're gonna get married. And we reasonably quickly had set a date that we were gonna do it before I was posted out. And we picked February, in particular because my brother was going to be deployed on OpUnifier to the Ukraine. And one of my very best friends was doing her degree in Australia, where she was living, where she continues to live. And she would only be able to come up in the summer, which is our winter.
Paul:So it was hard, but like I said, we had that light at the end of the tunnel. And I was able to squirrel away a fair amount of money just living the bachelor life on my own, but being in this committed long distance relationship.
Bryan:So when and where did you finally tie the knot and what did that change for you two?
McKayla:So we got married in February, February first '20 '18, and we were outside in the mountains in Canmore. And, I I think Paul mentioned it, but we had picked the date because that was when all the the people could make it that were important to us. Right? So my, like, one bridezilla moment was if anyone says anything about the cold, I'm gonna lose my mind. Because this is the only time it's gonna work, and this is, like, my perfect venue and everything, and it's gonna be great.
McKayla:But if anyone says they're cold, they're dead. Like, they're they're gonna die. No one complained. Not even the Australian visiting from her summer to to our winter. She was a trooper about it.
McKayla:Like yeah. She was great. Yeah. So, immediately after the wedding, like, that 4AM the next day, we left for our honeymoon. Had a wonderful time.
McKayla:And then Paul went back to Labrador. I went back to Greenwood and then immediately went to Italy for three weeks for an exercise. And then that kind of started the kind of faster pace of operational life for both of us. So, I started going on more. Even if it was just like flying, I was flying more, because I was actually on my squadron.
McKayla:I wasn't just just, like, on course. And, Paul was flying more a little more, I guess, in Labrador. And we had a couple more months until he was due to move down from Goose Bay. So he moved down from Goose Bay in at the April. And he moved a little bit earlier than we normally would because he was going on to his Cormorant course immediately.
McKayla:So, again, like, his timelines all light up really nicely so he didn't have to wait, a very long time. But it wasn't, like, fabulous timing for me. But yeah. So he was he was down for about two weeks in Greenwood in my little PMQ, and then he went off to Comox to have a great party summer.
Bryan:Yeah. And then you guys were able to be posted together because you were now married. Correct?
Paul:That's right. Yeah. So when we got married, we did the paperwork and I advertised early and often that we were going to get married and this was going to be a thing, paperwork to follow because we're getting married on the February 1. First of February, we're getting married, getting married on the February 1. Right.
Bryan:Because that's right before posting season.
Paul:Right? Exactly. So, and we all knew that I was due to leave. And so my career manager heard that and, I'm getting posted degree with it. That's just the reality of the situation.
Paul:And so I was fully accepting, fully accepting of the fact that I would probably end up doing like a penalty lap and wing ops or, have to be like doing flight safety for a year or two or something.
Bryan:Some kind of non flying job.
Paul:Something because the cormorant is what it is. And the community is, quite selective, for good reasons about, who they take. The course for pilots runs twice a year. I was almost certain that it would be quite full for quite a while. And, it was going to be fine.
Paul:But they had a slot and they were happy enough to put me in it.
Bryan:Okay. So that all worked out?
Paul:That worked out great.
Bryan:And so amidst all this busyness, you guys buy a house. Yes. And then Mikaela had to move you two into your house together.
Paul:So the two weeks that you can't miss during your Cormoran course, you're in The United Kingdom at RAF Station Benson doing the simulator training, and our move date, our move in date coincided with that training. So the three other guys on my course were all also posted that summer. All of us were on the spring course and all of them got to attend their move. No. Yes.
McKayla:Thankfully, I didn't find that out till after.
Paul:I didn't tell her until after on purpose.
McKayla:Yeah. I found out at a barbecue once everyone was back and we met everybody and there was some, some terse words. But, so, yeah, I ended up writing to both, I think, his CO and my CO at the time that I I would be taking his, relocation leave because he wasn't here to do it, and I had to move all of his crap, basically. I said it nicer than that. But, they were happy to let me have his relocation leave, which was great.
McKayla:But I did. I moved So
Bryan:they were accommodating at least
intro:as
Bryan:much as they could be?
McKayla:Yeah. It was it was actually a lot easier in terms of that than I expected. But I moved my stuff out of my PMQ into the house we bought, and then Paul's stuff arrived, and I had to move that into our house as well. Shout out to my little brother for coming with me because he also moved he also drove with me when I moved to Greenwood. And then the next time he came to visit me, he was helping me move into a new house.
McKayla:So, funnily enough, he hasn't come to visit since, because I think he's worried that we're gonna move again. I was
Bryan:gonna say he doesn't wanna trigger a new move.
McKayla:Yeah. Exactly. But, yeah. So Paul called me, as I was unpacking his stuff and to see how the move was going. And I had opened a box, and if anyone else everyone knows that they pack everything.
McKayla:Right? Well, they packed what apparently was a garbage pile, that had Christmas candy from our very first Christmas in Goose Bay, like, three years ago. And also in the box was, like, the third set of dishes just from Paul's stuff, And I was losing it. I was so mad. So Paul called, and he goes, hey.
McKayla:How's the move going? And he's in a pub. And I can hear everyone in the background. And I went, I love you. Don't talk to me.
McKayla:I'll call you tomorrow, and hung up because I was so mad. And yeah. So that was how the move went. It was fine. And and he owed me.
Paul:Big time. Yeah. In my defense, there's like, I don't know, let's say a 80 places to eat in Oxford and a 75 of them are pubs.
Bryan:Yeah. I've been to The UK. Most people who've worked out of The UK at all or visited, they know what you're talking about.
McKayla:Didn't make it better.
Paul:Sure didn't.
Bryan:So how did the next couple years go?
Paul:So from there it was really a case of high fiving at the door. So I've gone on courses, gone on this or that, gone on exercises for her, gone on boat camp, gone on mountain camp, gone on, you know, whatever it is, you're gone. And so sometimes we were gone at the same time, which meant that we were apart for longer than we would have been otherwise. So it was a case of just fast paced, young married life and also fast paced operational air force career stuff happening all at the same time and overlaying. So it was a case of, well, when's your cruise block leave happening?
Paul:I don't know, man. Okay. So like, should I take this week off of the SAR schedule or this week off of the SAR schedule? I don't know, man. Okay.
Paul:Well then we need to pick one. Because if I want a week off in a row, I need to advertise that early enough. There are four of us, four FOs on the squadron, which means that I'm working half of all weekends, including the ones I'm not in town for. Now that has changed significantly since then. We have, when I left, 10 ACs and nine FOs on squadron instead.
Paul:But that was their life at the time. I flew over three fifty hours the first calendar year that I was there at the squadron, which is a lot for a helicopter pilot, especially for a helicopter pilot. So that's how that went initially. And then from there, we just basically kept living together, kept deepening our marriage and enjoying that time. And eventually it was a case of, well, we're looking at each other and we're like, Is this the time to start having kids?
Paul:And it was coming up and it's like, Okay, well, after this trip, we're going to go to Australia and we don't want to do that with a young child. And then the pandemic.
McKayla:Yeah. So just prior to the pandemic was probably when we were most busy because I finished my upgrade, to an A category nav, or it was called tactical coordinator on the Aurora. And Paul, had you done your aircraft kind of upgrade?
Paul:I had done my upgrade to, FO3, which is where you start doing your acting aircraft captain stuff. But I hadn't really started doing that work in earnest yet.
McKayla:And so then that those three months, we between flight safety courses, we did some Arctic or we I did some Arctic cold weather trials in Resolute. Paul was doing, I think, I wanna say a boat camp or something. So we saw each other over a three month period for about twelve days.
Paul:Not in a row?
McKayla:Not in a row.
Bryan:Wow.
McKayla:So it was basically like you would do a handoff. So you'd get home and be like, okay. So the dogs are fine. We need my dog food, and I'll be back in two weeks. And and also, can I borrow your toque because I lost mine or something like that?
McKayla:Right? Sadly, Paul is much smaller than I am, so I can't steal any of his other kit, but I could steal his toque. But, yeah. And so then as I was coming back from Resolute, that was when the world had kind of started to shut down a little bit. So it was March 2020, March '20 '20.
McKayla:And, we were in Pearson Airport flying back to Halifax to head back to Greenwood. And you're seeing a lot more people with masks and gloves on, and we weren't really sure what was going on. We'd been away for about two weeks, and then, we're watching the news kind of in the terminal. Like, wow. Okay.
McKayla:This looks like it's a thing, I guess. And I think three or four days after we got back to the squadron from that, we had the squadron brief saying, okay. This is what's happening, and our wing kind of not shut down, but switched to a COVID protocol. So, which actually was was a bit of a blessing in disguise, which I hate to say about a pandemic that was so devastating to everyone, but we ended up having so much time together that we never would have had otherwise. We it was the longest time consecutively that we'd been together since we were married.
McKayla:Actually, even probably since RMZ.
Paul:I think ever. Yeah.
McKayla:Yeah. And so initially, I was part of, the standby crew. So I was kind of waiting to hear if we were gonna get deployed or not. And, Paul, they had split into pools. So the squadron had split in half so that if half of them got sick, the other half wouldn't
Bryan:Mhmm.
McKayla:And stuff. And we Nova Scotia was quite strict on the restrictions. So we were just kind of hanging out at home with us and the dogs, and we had all this time. And so obviously we got pregnant.
Bryan:As as many of us did.
McKayla:Many, many of us did. Because I mean, what better time, than a global pandemic?
Paul:It really moved up the timeline too. It was like, we're gonna go to Australia. Oh, Australia is closed. Well, I guess that's not happening. So is this the right time now?
Paul:Yeah. It is. Yeah.
McKayla:Yeah. Well, and I moved the timeline out too. I was a little bit obnoxious about it, but I kept telling Paul that all I could that he could get me a baby for my birthday, which is like and he was like, I'm not getting you a baby for your birthday. And then my counter to that was, well, you're the only one that can. And then I just I basically harassed him into it, I think, to move up the timeline that quickly.
McKayla:And then Owen showed up in February 2021.
Bryan:So how did the two of you handle parental leave when Owen was born?
McKayla:So we were lucky enough, like, most like, everyone can take parental leave, but the military will top you up. Right? And so we split our parental leave. Paul took the first six months off with me, and then I had six months after that. So I was off for a full year, and Paul was off for six months, which was great because that was, like, the only way everyone still functioned.
McKayla:I kept Owen alive and Paul did everything else for us.
Paul:And this is before the policy was updated to align with the EI rules. So we took both six months concurrently for both of us were paid, and then Michaela took leave without pay for parental reasons, as opposed to parental leave for the last six months. So she was just on EI. Okay.
McKayla:Yeah. And so then, Paul went back to flying in Jan.
Paul:August. August. August, September.
McKayla:After Owen was born. And then he was, doing STAR shift work and we had a six month old. So that was there's a lot of use of earplugs and, he was not on the night shift for the baby for a while.
Bryan:Yeah. Like, well, once you went back to work, how was life as a service couple, with a child when you're both trying to fly?
Paul:Unsustainable.
McKayla:Yeah. I think that's probably the best way to put it. We, because we didn't have any family or anyone close by. We lucked out that one of my, really good friends was our daycare because we also didn't get a daycare spot. Yeah.
McKayla:So, she watched, she watched Owen for us, and, her husband flew with Paul as well. So she knew what the schedule was like, and she was so flexible, and she was really a godsend. But I was ready, like, with my requirements to be able to fly again in February, and my first flight was in May. Because it would be something that something would come up and then I would be like, well, I can't go away because Paul's away on a a boat camp or something. Or, okay, I need to fly, but Paul is in Cape Breton right now doing a rescue, and he's not gonna be home in time to get our son.
McKayla:And I'm not leaving him there till 11PM at night. Like, that's not that's not something you can reasonably ask even, like, your best friend, I think, anyway. So between that and then both of us trying so I was trying to recatted, like, get my category back, because I'd been off for a year, and Paul was working on his upgrade. So the scheduling was just, like, the worst game of Tetris you've ever played in your life. Yeah.
McKayla:Yeah. So it ended up taking quite a while for me to get my category back.
Bryan:Yeah. That sounds like it would be really challenging.
McKayla:Yeah. It was just like a scheduling nightmare. The other the other issue too is that we were having serviceability issues with the Aurora at the time, and the the availability of flights and aircraft was low already. So then trying to fit me onto a flight with the training, like, someone that was qualified in training was also, you know, an added layer of complexity.
Bryan:Yeah. Like, you guys, you as a family had a complex schedule and the Aurora at the time was having a very complex schedule. It's challenging.
Paul:And SAR doesn't stop. Right? So when she is theoretically or hypothetically going to be gone on an exercise, I either need a nanny or I need my mom to fly out from Vancouver and not work effectively for that time that she's with me. Or I can't be on the SAR schedule, right? At the drop of a hat, you can be gone anywhere in the region, which for Greenwood includes Iqaluit.
Paul:So it's twelve hours of flying there, you go to bed, the crew from Gander does the mission, flies a helicopter back to Iqaluit, and then you wake up in the morning and you fly the aircraft back home. That's if it's simple and quick and easy. And if it's not, if it's a major SAR case, you can be gone for a week or two weeks at a time, again, at the drop of a hat. So
McKayla:Yeah. And once I got my category back, I would be on twelve hours standby, right, with the ready 12 crew. So, it was one of those things where we were looking at all of our options. And one of them was to get, like, a live in nanny, which wasn't a thing that was possible for us. And then the other option was for one of us to stop flying, and that was the option we ended up taking.
Bryan:Mhmm.
McKayla:So, Paul still really liked his job, and he was happy to keep flying. I had been taking airsickness medication the entire time I was flying on the Ira, which was pretty hard in the body. And I realized that now that I had Owen, I didn't actually wanna be able to deploy. It just kind of added another layer of, like, anxiety for me to be away from my son for anywhere from, like, a week to six weeks to eight weeks to whatever.
Bryan:Mhmm.
McKayla:And so talking with, my my chain of command and stuff, and there there were kind of options. Maybe I could be geo restricted, so I couldn't deploy and that kind of thing, but that didn't felt very or it didn't feel very genuine to me. Like, it felt like I would be kind of only doing half my job, and I didn't think that was fair to slough that on other people. And so I had been doing my master's. To add on to the complexity of our lives before kids, I was also doing my master's while I was flying and working and Paul was working and stuff.
McKayla:So I graduated just after Owen was born, in May 2021. So I had another kind of career opportunity that I was looking at. So that's why I was the one that pulled the plug.
Bryan:Okay. So you decided to leave the RCAF to pursue other options. Can you tell us more about that?
McKayla:Yeah. So I I knew that if I wanted to be promoted, past past major, I think something like that, you needed to have a master's degree. And, at the time, I wanted something that was a little bit different than, all of my work on the Aurora, which was really technical. And so I found, a master's of library and information studies, which is not even remotely related to what I was doing on the Aurora, but it was something I was really interested in. So I graduated from the University of Alberta with that master's degree.
McKayla:And so since leaving the military, I've worked at two different libraries. And when I come back from maternity leave, I'm gonna be the library director here in Portage, for our regional library. So it's worked out timing wise really well for me, but it was definitely like a big leap considering I'd been in the military since I was 18. And so I've, my whole adult life had been in the military.
Bryan:Yeah. I mean, having just gotten out of the military myself, it's a huge transition. Did you find it difficult to leave?
McKayla:I did in some ways. Like some ways I was really excited for the freedom that I would have in terms of like being able to have a better family balance of time. But it was really hard to leave kind of that the whole world that I knew, and it felt like I was leaving a lot of my friends too, which turns out not. They're all great. And we talk we still talk a lot.
McKayla:Like, it wasn't it wasn't nearly as alienating as I thought it would be, but it was still a really, like, big decision. We talked about it a lot before it actually happened.
Bryan:So when you decided to leave, did you feel like that was pretty much your only option to move forward?
McKayla:I think it was our only option to have the lifestyle that we wanted to have. So during the pandemic, being able to spend so much time together and then followed by parental leave where Paul and I were able to, like, parent together, and I wasn't doing it by myself. It kind of made the idea of high fiving at the door and handing off kids between deployments and shift work and stuff, like, just not not something that we wanted for our life. Like, our priorities definitely shifted. So I think that in theory, we could have made it work in some way.
McKayla:Like, either I could have taken a desk job or Paul could have taken a desk job, or maybe we would have found, like, a different way to do childcare or something like that. But in all, like, in all the things we talked about and all the the ways we looked at it, that this was the best way for us to get the stability that we wanted for Owen and and the best way for us to have that balance of being able to spend time together as a family. Mhmm. So it ended up being the only option for us.
Bryan:And have you found since you moved to Port Elizabeth Prairie, Paul's at the school, you're working a job again, but it's outside of the military. Have you found you've been able to achieve that balance?
McKayla:Yeah. I think so. It's been a lot easier. I mean, it does help that, like, Owen's in daycare now, and right now we're on parental leave. So Of
Bryan:course. It feels
McKayla:like we have tons of time, but, we definitely have a better balance. Like, with Paul not being on shift work, he like, it's predictable. When he's home, we can actually plan ahead to do things, like, you know, go camping with his brother and, their family and, like, do things that we wouldn't have been able to plan for before. So I think so.
Paul:Yeah. I agree with that. My schedule is a lot more predictable. It's basically daytime, except when it's not. I'm in Portage, except when I'm not.
Paul:But those are the two default states. And that just was not true when I was flying the Cormorant in Pinoyed. Combine that with the fact that Mikaela's got a civilian career on the go now, it means that we don't have to do the career manager dance of managing our career managers together and getting them to communicate with one another and actually listening to us effectively and being able to give us what it is that we want or what we need. That's just not something that was as easily achievable anyway.
Bryan:We've been talking a lot about your guys' experience as a pilot and an axo as a service couple. Paul, do you think that your experience as a service couple is representative of most folks experiences?
Paul:I think that it'll be largely similar, but there are a lot of different types of experiences to be had as a service couple. There are service couples where, there's a rank gradient, and sometimes it's quite large. There are people I know who are a married couple, one's an officer, one's an NCM. There are married couples I know who are not in the same element. So one could be, Air Force and one could be Army.
Paul:That will be restrictive of where you can live in the same place. There are people who are both in the Navy and both in the same trade. That gets complicated as well, because how do you manage the timing of career courses? Where is it that you're going to go next? Whose turn is it to have the primary reason for the move?
Paul:And who's going to have to find a job? Or who is the Air Force or who is the Army or who is the Navy going to have to find a job for to make it work for the other person? One of my commanding officers in Goose Bay had a live in nanny because their spouse was also a commanding officer of a unit in a different province at the same time.
Bryan:That's crazy.
Paul:Isn't it? So that's something that Mikaela and I decided would not work for us. It's not something that we would find to be palatable, but for them, it worked. And it worked great. And I'm really happy for them that it did work great, but that's not what we wanted.
Bryan:So it sounds like there's going to be some similarities, but there's all kinds of flavors. There's all kinds of various experiences out there. And with so many variables like element and trade and rank and all these different things, like everyone's experience is going to be different. Doctor.
Paul:That's right. Yeah. And largely the things that you're going to have in common with our experience are, well, career management and child rearing and childcare and parental leave and all of those sorts of family related obligations and the larger institutional CAF, career experiences, as opposed to maybe some of the specifics don't really apply.
Bryan:So I want to go back to when you were both flying, how did you handle the challenge of trips, courses, deployments, etcetera, that regularly come up in the aircrew world?
McKayla:Before or after kids? Because it was a little different, I think.
Bryan:Let's say before kids, because you were both flying more regularly then and still trying to maintain your relationship. And I imagine that was quite a challenge.
McKayla:Yeah. We, a lot of times, like, I, I was thankfully never deployed on, like, a six month deployment or a long term operation, but I did a lot of the short trips. So, like, we'd go to a week or ten days TL knife or we'd, you know, go for a couple of days here or there or a couple of weeks for an exercise. And then that usually coincided with the times that Paul would actually be home and then he would go somewhere else. So, we we kind of accepted that we were going to spend a lot of time apart, so we really were purposeful about the time that we had together to, like, make the most of it.
McKayla:So we got to do a lot of traveling together to places that we'd wanted to go. And so when we did have leave to like, we did absolutely everything we could to make our leave line up so that when we were on leave, we were both on leave at the same time. And we could both, like we could go do stuff and do whatever we wanted to and stuff. So it made it more purposeful, I think, when we were spending time together. It did mean that there were things that a normal couple would have, like, in the house that didn't really come up for the first, like, year or two.
McKayla:Like, how the kitchen was organized. I had just put stuff in the kitchen the way that I wanted it to. And Paul was never really around enough or, like, engaged enough in wanting to move anything that anything changed. But then when we were home for COVID, we realized that, like, oh, well, I've been putting stuff here. I've been putting stuff here.
McKayla:Like, just it was almost like we were roommates in very weird aspects of, like, oh, well, this is where I put the towels. Oh, well, this is not where I put the towels, and and the silly things like that. So, but we had kind of both agreed that, like, we wanted to push our careers forward. And if there was a big decision coming up about a course or about time away, we would talk about it. But, generally, we knew that before we had kids was the best time for us to push forward with that, I think.
Paul:Okay. Yeah. There are boxes to check as a junior officer and as a junior pilot and as an FO that you need in order to progress. And the quicker you can get those out of the way, as long as it's not too early for whatever it is that you're trying to get accomplished, so much the better. And so that is a large part of why we spend so much time away from each other, because we were both being career oriented at what I think was the right time in our careers.
Paul:And it, like Michaela said, forced us to be intentional. And that also paid dividends because we weren't at home wondering what to do with ourselves when we had leave coming up. It was, We're going to go and do this thing. So even when we did have leave, and we stayed in the province, we were doing day trips here or doing a hike there or, you know, going out for a one night staycation somewhere, something like that. So, I think that it was good for our relationship that there was that pressure put on it and we were intentional about protecting it.
Bryan:So basically, despite how crazy things were, it almost kind of forced you into being super intentional about your relationship as the only way to kind of survive that time.
Paul:That's right. And that's exactly right. Because survive that time is exactly what we did. I did the math one time for my AFOD course that we were on when the pandemic was announced. And that previous calendar year for travel, we had put $18,000 worth of travel claims through our checking account.
Paul:So that's all of the hotels that we actually had to pay for, not that were paid for under contract. That's all of the taxis. That's all of the per diem for meals and stuff. No airfare at all. No hotels that were paid for under an exercise name.
Paul:That's just that's how much money
Bryan:That's the amount of money you had to claim to be repaid by the military. Yes. And that's just a measure of how much you were on the road.
Paul:That's right. We spent $18,000 on travel to do our jobs. That's crazy,
Bryan:which you are reimbursed for. But the point is, that's a measure of how busy you guys are.
Paul:Absolutely. Yeah.
Bryan:Something that you eventually had to plan for and something that most military families are supposed to have that a service couple absolutely must have is a family care plan. Can you tell us about that?
Paul:Yeah. So a family care plan is so what happens to the kids effectively at our stage in life? Or what happens to the aging parents that you are responsible for taking care of when you're gone? Because you will be gone. You have to be gone as part of your job.
Paul:So sometimes there's that extra capacity where you can trade your shift, or someone else can go on an exercise, or maybe you can find a way that the timing of something can shift. Other times, it's just the way that it is and the way it has to be, and the thing needs to get done when it's getting done. And the answer then becomes, Activate your family care plan. So what's going to happen has already been thought out and has been put pen on paper that, you know, when X happens and we need to do this, here's what's going to happen. And so for us, that answer, thankfully, my mom's in a position where she can fly out from Vancouver to come and be with Owen while Mikaela's potentially gone on an exercise, and I'm still needed on the SAR schedule.
Paul:But being apart from our families, most of the continent away comes with a huge lack of support structure that you can fill in in other ways when it's just a minor thing. There's always someone around who's willing to pick up your kids from wherever it is, and everyone gets it. You know what I mean? Like, we're all in the same position and they're happy to help you out, but you can only take that so far. And that's what the family care plan is there for us to trap those instances.
Bryan:Yep. Did you guys ever have to use yours?
Paul:We never ended up needing to.
McKayla:Once I had decided that I wasn't going to be, staying in the military, so I was in the middle of a contract. So I gave, I gave about eight months notice, but I needed to give six months notice. Right? So, at that point, it made sense for the fleet that I was moved into a different position. So I moved into a wing ops position that was shift work and, had a little bit more flexibility in terms of being able to, like, stay home.
McKayla:I wasn't deploying. They didn't have me on the deployment list. Mhmm. So I knew that I wasn't leaving anywhere. I was just rocking a desk for the last six months of six months ish, of my time in the military.
McKayla:So that kind of took the pressure off. But had I stayed in, we definitely would have had to, to activate it at one point or another.
Paul:It was inevitable.
Bryan:So we're talking about times that you'd be apart. What are some of the craziest things that have kept the two of you apart?
Paul:There was a time I was flying a Gryphon back from BC to Labrador and, I hit a duck with the main rotor blade. So that kept us on the ground for a little while while they were figuring out, was it within limits or not for us to continue? So we ended up getting the deviation to fly to Winnipeg and do some repair work and then continue on. But that meant I was way longer than I should have been.
McKayla:Which, I mean, if you think about a Gryphon flying from BC to Labrador, you know, it's already gonna be a long trip. Yeah. And then and then I got a call and they were in only in Alberta. And I got a call going, so I'm okay. But and that we we've had a couple calls like that.
McKayla:The so I'm okay, but this thing happened. And, one of my favorite ones was, when Paul was away, they were gonna do some mountain flying in Northern Labrador with the Cormorant. And so the base up there where they were staying, only has lines, like, direct lines down to other bases. It's not like a you don't have cell phone reception or anything. So I was in my office, and I was a flight safety officer kind of at the end of my, my time in the military.
McKayla:And so I I was in my office, and the phone rings. And I answered, you know, like, four or five flight safety, captain Goddard. And all I hear is, you will never believe what happened last night. And, and I knew it was I knew it was Paul, and I knew to expect that, like, he he wasn't gonna be texting me or anything. And, that's when he told me that a polar bear had beaten up his cormorant.
McKayla:And so they weren't gonna be flying for a little bit until they got some parts repaired.
Paul:So we were told specifically to park the helicopter on top of the mountain beside where the accommodations are, but we couldn't. It was in fog. But we could park it down at the airfield at Cyclic. And so that's what we did, which is where we were that was a refueling point. And so that's what we ended up needing to do.
Paul:So we landed, shut down, crewed out, went up the mountain, woke up in the morning, went back down the mountain, and, they found, the polar bear had pushed in a couple windows and had pushed the cover off of some of the flotation bags for if the aircraft were ever to ditch. So those now were just sitting exposed to the side of the aircraft having a hole in it effectively. Yeah. So that was, that was another good one. I ended up losing contact with losing visual contact with a boat while I was hoisting to it, and I damaged a hoist cable.
Paul:So that was during an exercise. What else?
McKayla:The Aurora always breaks when you wanna go home.
Bryan:Yes.
McKayla:So I'm just sure you know. So there's been a couple of times where we were just delayed getting home. Oh, I think this wasn't really something that kept us apart longer than it should have, but it definitely caused a little bit of consternation. When hurricane Dorian hit Nova Scotia, I was conveniently in New Orleans on a, an away trip. So when I called Paul, he was on day three of no power, and which for us at the time meant no water in our house because we had a pump.
McKayla:And I was on a rooftop in the pool. So, you know, there's been a couple of times like that. Yeah.
Paul:That was a good one.
Bryan:Okay. We're gonna try to get these last couple of questions in while baby Noah is eating because he is starting to get fussy. So what has been the hardest part of being a service couple?
McKayla:So, obviously, like, the time apart isn't fun. Nobody really enjoys that, especially if, you know, if you like your partner, you kinda wanna spend time with them. But I think for us, the hardest part when we were both in was that we just couldn't plan anything. Like, we couldn't plan to be at, our siblings' birthdays or at our, you know, parents' anniversaries or any kind of those those events that would be nice to be at, because we didn't know who'd be working, who'd be flying, if we'd be home in time and stuff. So I think that was the hardest part for me.
Paul:And not knowing when or where or whether you're going to move. That summer coming up in September, it's like, I'd like to be able to plan what's happening a little bit, especially where as a service couple, like you're trying to coordinate your leave to make it work so that you can actually be together for your leave. That got frustrating. Yeah.
Bryan:What would you say was the best part of being a service couple?
McKayla:I really liked, just, like, the support and just you didn't have to explain everything to them. Like, so Paul Paul seemed me, like, absolute worst in many different scenarios, but, he so it was really easy for me to be like, the plane's broken. And I wouldn't have to be like, so this means that, you know, we may or may not be home tonight or whatever. He would just know. And so then it'd be like, okay.
McKayla:So he would be like, okay. Great. I'm only feeding myself. I'm in charge of the dogs. Like or if I'm flying, then I'll message our friends to go do whatever.
McKayla:Like so it it just made it easier because you didn't have to explain everything. So when you're already frustrated about something, you're not also trying to like rationalize it to someone. That was, that was a pretty good part of it.
Paul:On top of that, just being a really effective sounding board. So knowing what it means, but also understanding what the implications are and asking questions back and forth about like, what do I want out of this life in the Air Force? And getting good, intelligent questions back that are making me think about myself more than being like, okay, well, if it's A, B or C, like, I choose B because that's what makes the most sense for family life. It's a lot more nuanced than, I think it could be. And I imagine that there are civilian spouses that do this quite well also, but it's implicit in our relationship.
Bryan:Yeah. Because you understand each other, you both understand the life, you understand the implications of decisions and all that kind of stuff. So it just makes it that much easier.
Paul:That's right. And we've also been friends for so long that being married is, I think, easier in some ways, because there's still discovery to be had for sure, but, we have a strong foundation to build it on as well.
Bryan:What piece of advice would you give to couples dating or maybe starting married life with someone else in the Air Force to have them have a successful family life?
Paul:Talk early and often about the milestones that are going to be coming down the road. Constantly updating what your expectations of your life together are going to be moving forward is key. And keeping those expectations realistic and flexible as well. So that's what I think has been a large part of our success as a couple is that we communicate again early and often about what's important long term.
McKayla:Yeah. And I think that we like you never get stuck in a plan. Like, because everyone knows that your plan's not gonna survive first contact with life. So having like, you know, initially, this is what we wanted, but, hey. This new opportunity has come up.
McKayla:And you know what? It's maybe not ideal right now, but it looks like it could be good. Or now I'm interested in this, or it turns out I don't like this as much. And also being willing to decide when you're gonna take a turn because it it's rare that you can have both people progress in their career exactly as they want to at the same time without someone having to give something. So, when it was looking like, I was gonna be staying in, but I was closer to promotion than Paul was, Paul was like, yep.
McKayla:Great. My next tour is gonna be a desk job here. Like, we'll stay for as long as you need or whatever. Like, that was and it wasn't, like, a huge fight because, in theory, Paul, you know, has been in longer than I have and, you know, we we didn't focus on those kinds of things. It was kind of like, oh, hey.
McKayla:Well, this is the new in newest information we have, so let's go with that. Okay. See how it goes.
Bryan:So a lot of communication, a lot of taking turns, and understanding each other's situations.
McKayla:Mhmm.
Bryan:Yeah. Okay. That is gonna wrap up our chat with Paul and Mikaela. If you like them as much as I do and you'd like to learn more about Paul's career, you can hear him talk about his time on the Cormoran on episode 27. And to hear more about Mikaela and life as a spouse to an RCAF pilot, you should check out episode 23.
Bryan:Guys, thank you so much for coming in today. I really, really enjoyed learning more about your story. Like I said, you are on parental leave. You have a baby in your lap throughout this interview. So I really appreciate your time.
Bryan:And, thank you so much for taking this time out of your day.
McKayla:No problem.
Paul:Thanks for having us, Brian.
Bryan:Alright. That wraps up our chat with Paul and Mikaela about being an air cruise service couple. For our next episode, we're gonna do things a little differently. I'm gonna sit down and talk with Melissa. We're gonna make a special announcement, something very exciting for the show.
Bryan:For the second half of the show, we're gonna sit down with Mike Reyno. He's the publisher and owner of Vertical Valor, Vertical Marketplace, Skye's, RCAF Today, eVTOL dot com, Insight Magazines, and Vertical MRO Conference, all under MHM Publishing. Mike has a ton of air to air photography experience, and he has flown with every squadron and in every aircraft the RCAF has. Do you have any questions or comments about anything you've heard in this show? Do you have an idea for a show or would you or someone you know make a great guest?
Bryan:Reach out to us at thepilotprojectpodcastgmail dot com or on all social media at at pod pilot project. You also wanna check out our social media because we regularly post great videos shot by RCAF members of our aircraft. Finally, we'd like to thank you for listening and ask you 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.