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All right, we're ready for departure. Here at the Pilot Project Podcast,

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the best source for stories and advice from the pilots of the RCAF.

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Brought to you by Skies magazine and RCAF today.

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I'm your host, Brian Morrison. With me today is my instructor from

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Moose Jaw days, Blake McNaughton. Welcome to the show, Blake.

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It's great to be here, Brian.

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Yeah. All right, so before we get started, we'll go through Blake's

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bio. Blake was born in St. Catherine's, Ontario

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and joined the Canadian armed forces in 2002 and graduated

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from Royal Military College of Canada in 2006 with a

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Bachelor of arts in Political Science. He served at the Joint

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Task Force North Headquarters and 440 Transport

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Squadron in Yellowknife, Northwest Territory as a two

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Lt operations officer before proceeding to pilot

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training in Moosejaw, Saskatchewan in 2008.

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After earning his wings, blake took assignment as a flying

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instructor with Two Canadian Forces Flight Training School on the

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CT 156 Harvard, and then the CT 155

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Hawk. During this time at the NATO Flight Training Center,

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he accumulated over 1300 instructional hours

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and achieved an A Two instructor category.

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Blake joined four three, one Air Demonstration Squadron in

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2015, serving as Snowbird ten advance and

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safety pilot for the 2016 17 and 18

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seasons. Following a fourth year with Four Three One Squadron

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serving in a Snowbird Standards Instructor pilot role, blake

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brought his over 3400 hours of military ejection

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seat flying experience to the Sire community.

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Joining the Canadian Mission Control Center in 2019,

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he held the position of Chief Operator before serving two years

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as the officer in charge. Having just completed the

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training to convert to helicopters, he is headed to Four Four Two Transport

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and Rescue Squadron to fly the Ch 149 Cormorant this

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summer. So we'll get right into it. Where

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did flying begin for you?

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So I've got a great memory as a young boy

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going to the St. Catherine's District Airport and

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watching what I imagined was either a car and air show,

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and my dad purchased a ride for my

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older brother and I in a, uh, biplane.

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And I can still picture and

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feel the leather seat and strapping in. My brother

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and I both sat in the front seat of the biplane together, sharing

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one seatbelt. I could barely look over the

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canopy rail and we went flying. And I

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remember seeing the fields, the wineries,

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the Lake Ontario, all from the vantage point of

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this eight year old boy's, eyes upside down in this

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biplane. And I think that was one of the fundamental

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sparks that got this whole thing started.

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That's really cool. Do you remember what kind of plane it was?

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I have no idea. But it was enough to get

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a young boy excited about aviation.

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Yeah, that's so cool. Did you go to air shows and stuff

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as a kid at all?

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Not until I kind of got into it. So once I joined

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Air Cadets and started learning about aviation, then

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the bug spread and I started making efforts to go to

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things.

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Yeah, I was going to ask as well if you'd been in Air Cadets. So many

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of us are.

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Eh, I don't know what the Air Force

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does with regard to stats, keeping on numbers, but I remember in

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2016, of the eleven snowbird pilots on

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Squadron, nine of them were ex Air

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Cadets. And so it kind of speaks to

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the training. Very few organizations are

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teaching citizenship, public speaking,

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teaching leadership to teenagers, teaching discipline,

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focus, delayed gratification. You had to do

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tests a um year in advance for a course that

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you might not even be selected for the next summer. So glider,

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power, all those things. And you have to start four

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years in advance to go to basic Introduction to Aviation,

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then Glider, then power. Like if you wanted a chance, you had to work towards

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it. So I give a lot of credit to both the

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officers and volunteers who helped mentor me when I was

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an Air Cadet and the system itself.

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Yeah, for sure. I've mentioned before the

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people who got us started in my squadron, and Jim

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O'Connor was the, uh, CI who was teaching the

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Flying Scholarship. And I don't even know where I'd be

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without that course. It was so formative.

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And because of Air Cadets, I was a teenager who had a pilot's

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license. That's crazy.

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And some of the things I learned when I was 14, I

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still use in my job today.

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Yeah, I recently sat on the

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board to do the interviews as one of the

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interviewers for Flying Scholarship and Exchange here in

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Manitoba. And it's really cool

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to be on the other side of that and try to help put them at

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ease. And you get the ones who are super nervous and

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you get the ones who are just like, blow you away because they're just

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so confident and they seem so adult and they're only

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16 or 17. It's really neat.

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Yeah, it's amazing.

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Yeah. So you've done a lot of training in the

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Forces overall, how you found your flight training

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experience. And I guess what's neat about that is you're just

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finishing your helicopter training, but you also did how

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long ago was your initial flight training in the forces?

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So my PFT, my primary flight training was way

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back in 2003. Then 2007

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is when I started on the Harvard. Well,

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uh, then I was on the Hawk by eight. I

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did tutor conversion in 15

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and then back here in

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2022 to

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start helicopter conversion on both the Jet Ranger and then the

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Outlaw. So another two aircraft types.

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It's changed, but it stayed the same.

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Yeah, that was what I was going to ask.

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Yeah. So I guess I would say I'm kind of an OD Duck Man.

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I love this stuff. I really enjoy the

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challenge. I love that every day. This um, is a

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unique environment where you kind of have to show up or shut up. You have

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to prove yourself every day. You're only as good as your last flight.

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And uh, at the same time though, I love learning new

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things. Uh, you never want to stagnate in life

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right? And so, uh, that along with the

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camaraderie that is pilot training, you're all in

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it together, trying to get to the end state. Every day is a little

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bit of a grind. Every day has got high points, low points.

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It's been really good.

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How do you feel about moving on from that environment after

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basically a whole career in a training? Well, except for the snowbirds,

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I guess. But most of your career has been in a training environment right?

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Either as a trainee or as a

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trainer.

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Yeah, I would say I'm probably more lucky than good.

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But the instructing side of things has fit

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my personality and so even when I am outside

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of an official instructional capacity, I find

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myself gravitating to training or standards roles

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in all the environments. And so I guess

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I was naturally inclined to be a teacher of sorts. So

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uh, those skills translate everywhere

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I go.

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Yeah, that's true. I mean, even you're going to the Cormorant, right?

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In comox I am, yeah. So you're going to

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get there, you're going to get trained and then it's not long

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before you're in a training role again as a uh,

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AC, teaching and mentoring FOS and

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all that stuff, right?

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I sure hope so. And even then when I walk in so I'll

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have junior FOS who are on their first Otu and I'll be on my

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fourth. And so there's a natural inclination there that

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I'm expected to teach and mentor and make sure I guide

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them.

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That'll be a cool experience too, seeing people who are just

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kind of showing up for the first time and figuring out what that all looks

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like. Very much so. Be a new world for you too though, with uh,

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it being an ah, operationally focused unit.

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Very much so. It's going to be a steep learning curve, but I'm ready for it.

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Yeah. Cool. It'll be neat to chat

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in a year or two and see what SAR stories you end up

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with. Do you remember any big hiccups

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or failures or setbacks in your training?

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So my student training generally went

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okay. I had a few struggles or hurdles later

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on FIS flight, uh, instructor training

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or an Otu or two. But uh,

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after any bad flight, you just have to come down, you have to

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regroup. You have to realize that another day is coming.

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You have to realize that tomorrow is another day

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and you can bring your A game tomorrow and I found that

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refocusing hit the books a little, and then always

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the second or the reflight was always far, far

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superior. Yeah, but that's where you have

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to learn to compartmentalize. You have to learn to

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regroup, and you have to be like water off a duck's back,

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man. A bad grade or a bad flight or a bad

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moment needs to brush right off, and you have to

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move on.

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Do you have any advice for how to help yourself

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do that, or is it just something that everyone has to figure out?

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You know what I remember in Moosha, them talking about square

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breathing, and I know that worked for a lot of my peers. Whenever

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I find myself in an instance like

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that, uh, I don't particularly go directly to square

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breathing. That's where you breathe, like, up the one side of

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a square, and then you exhale on the top of the square, and then you

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breathe in on the other side of the square, and you exhale and you

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take a couple of seconds to kind of regroup. The

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way I look at things is airplanes and aviation

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is magic. If you think about the fact you have to go strap onto a

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10,000 pound airplane with multi jets that are

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exploding inside with gas and fuel and ignition,

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and you're going to launch it to 40,000ft, and then you're going to go

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300 knots, and you're going to do this and that and the other thing.

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You're never going to be able to take that all in.

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So the way I approach complex maneuvers and even

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every flight is I got to move that switch, then

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I've got to move that attitude indicator one degree, and then that

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throttle has to move half a millimeter. So that dial

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on that display moves two knots.

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Small bytes, small increments, small

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successes. If I can do that, then together,

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the combination of all those acts creates

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the magic that is the mission or the success that is the

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mission.

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So you were a Pipeline instructor, right?

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I was, yeah.

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And was that something that you wanted at the time?

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It wasn't, actually, no. I was on the Hawk. I

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was on the jet stream to go

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fly Hornets in

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2008 when a good budy

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of mine, Rockville U, he was up on a training

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sorty, and the engine threw a blade, and so

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him and his instructor came back for, uh, essentially a

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flame out engine cautionary, um, approach.

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It didn't go well, and they had to eject. And after that

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crash, everyone was okay, by the way. But after that crash,

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they had to do a very deep investigation into why

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the engine had thrown some blades and took many months. And so

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the fleet was partially grounded in Canada, and

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so a lot of our capacity to train new pilots

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was gone. And so a bunch of the people on my course, we were

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all sent back to the Harvard, and we were one of those initial

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crews to get our wings actually on the Harvard.

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I think I was like, the fifth guy ever to get wings on the

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Harvard and that rolled us right into flight

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instructor school. And, uh, there was a plan later to

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go jets. As we'll talk about it didn't end up happening. My

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career was a little bit of a curving road,

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uh, and that's how I ended up as an instructor. But

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it turned out to be an amazing experience. Uh, I didn't realize

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it at the time, but I was a 25 year old lieutenant. I didn't

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have enough time and to even be prone to captain. And

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I had this amazing freedom as an

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AC on this airplane. And we had so much

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freedom to fly. Spent a lot of flying around the

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southern prairies, but also around all of North America. So

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we touched all the corners of most of North

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America. I got over 520 hours my

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first year on squadron.

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Uh, that's huge. On a little twin seat

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turboprop. That's a lot of time spent at Harvard.

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Yeah, well, at 1.2 average flight

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time, that's a lot of strap in.

242
00:10:51.058 --> 00:10:51.340
Yeah.

243
00:10:51.410 --> 00:10:54.316
But, uh yeah, man, so that freedom. As

244
00:10:54.338 --> 00:10:57.116
a junior pilot, I had a lot of

245
00:10:57.138 --> 00:10:59.916
opportunities for exposure, uh, a lot of opportunities to make

246
00:10:59.938 --> 00:11:02.936
mistakes, a lot of opportunities to learn from those mistakes. And then

247
00:11:02.978 --> 00:11:05.712
being at a place like Musha with a lot of other

248
00:11:05.766 --> 00:11:08.524
senior instructors and people who've come back from operational

249
00:11:08.572 --> 00:11:11.212
tours, they're on their third or fourth tour and they're now senior

250
00:11:11.276 --> 00:11:14.000
senior instructors. Having them as mentors

251
00:11:14.080 --> 00:11:17.056
was something I never anticipated, but really paid dividends.

252
00:11:17.168 --> 00:11:19.700
Yeah, I guess in a place like that, you're really

253
00:11:19.770 --> 00:11:22.084
in a place that has kind of

254
00:11:22.122 --> 00:11:24.644
concentrated mentorship at, uh, like, a really

255
00:11:24.762 --> 00:11:26.372
high rate of very.

256
00:11:26.426 --> 00:11:29.368
Experienced people and people who have literally been trained by the

257
00:11:29.374 --> 00:11:32.296
military to be mentors, because we're taught to

258
00:11:32.318 --> 00:11:35.176
be better instructors, and we're tested, and you have to

259
00:11:35.198 --> 00:11:38.056
be proficient. And those skills very quickly

260
00:11:38.158 --> 00:11:41.128
translate across. So it's funny, I introduced

261
00:11:41.144 --> 00:11:44.012
you to Jules Daintry, who was on one of your podcasts about the

262
00:11:44.066 --> 00:11:46.956
Hawk. He was one of my first instructors, much as I

263
00:11:46.978 --> 00:11:47.624
was one of yours.

264
00:11:47.672 --> 00:11:50.556
Yeah, that would be really like, he's such a smart dude. I really

265
00:11:50.578 --> 00:11:53.036
enjoyed chatting with him. So at the time, were you

266
00:11:53.058 --> 00:11:55.964
disappointed because things weren't going the way you

267
00:11:56.002 --> 00:11:57.112
kind of had planned?

268
00:11:57.256 --> 00:12:00.092
Yeah, that was definitely one of those screeching break

269
00:12:00.146 --> 00:12:02.964
moments in the Air Force when I got called into a briefing room

270
00:12:03.002 --> 00:12:05.940
and my course director told me, hey, you're not going jets anymore, at least

271
00:12:06.010 --> 00:12:08.836
not for the time being. You're getting sent back to the Harvard to get your

272
00:12:08.858 --> 00:12:11.664
wings and then we'll figure it out from there. And I asked all this typical

273
00:12:11.712 --> 00:12:14.656
questions that I think a lot of young people ask, hey, can I get like, a guarantee

274
00:12:14.688 --> 00:12:17.568
in writing? Uh, what's going to get me back there, I'll do anything you

275
00:12:17.594 --> 00:12:20.536
want. Send me to alert for six months. What do I need to do? But the

276
00:12:20.558 --> 00:12:23.268
desperation or the moment of panic

277
00:12:23.364 --> 00:12:26.088
is having a very myoptic view of things. As you

278
00:12:26.174 --> 00:12:28.972
spend more time in the Air Force, you realize that

279
00:12:29.106 --> 00:12:32.060
there's no straight path. Very few of us go a direct line

280
00:12:32.130 --> 00:12:35.116
from air cadet to astronaut. Mhm the rest of us have

281
00:12:35.138 --> 00:12:37.996
this Miranddering career. And like I tell

282
00:12:38.018 --> 00:12:41.008
a lot of guys when they don't know where they're going to be posted coming out of

283
00:12:41.014 --> 00:12:43.820
the wings or get selected out of Musha.

284
00:12:43.980 --> 00:12:46.876
You will probably love your first airplane.

285
00:12:46.988 --> 00:12:49.904
No matter what you get, you will find a place

286
00:12:49.942 --> 00:12:52.928
in the Air Force that you geographically love,

287
00:12:53.014 --> 00:12:55.636
that you never even thought of or even heard of before you joined the Air

288
00:12:55.658 --> 00:12:58.096
Force. It's an amazing adventure.

289
00:12:58.288 --> 00:13:01.104
I want to talk now about a little bit about your time on the snowbirds.

290
00:13:01.152 --> 00:13:04.116
How did you end up on the snowbirds? And aside from

291
00:13:04.138 --> 00:13:07.124
how you got there, did that goal exist for a long time or did that

292
00:13:07.162 --> 00:13:09.372
develop during your time at Moosejaw?

293
00:13:09.456 --> 00:13:12.136
So I've always been a fan of the snowbirds, uh, as a

294
00:13:12.158 --> 00:13:14.936
kid, although I never knew if I would actually be on the

295
00:13:14.958 --> 00:13:17.604
squadron. And so I was still young Moosha

296
00:13:17.652 --> 00:13:20.476
instructor on both the Harvard and the Hawk with enthusiasm for

297
00:13:20.498 --> 00:13:23.228
jets, and that was the way I was going to go. I lived in a

298
00:13:23.234 --> 00:13:26.008
PMQ, um, a private military quarters,

299
00:13:26.104 --> 00:13:28.860
so a little subdivision on the base, and my back

300
00:13:28.930 --> 00:13:31.404
kitchen window looked right across the street on Seven

301
00:13:31.442 --> 00:13:34.064
Hanger. So every morning I'd literally be eating my

302
00:13:34.102 --> 00:13:36.976
Cheerios and I'd be looking at the squadron crest. So

303
00:13:36.998 --> 00:13:39.520
there was that. I had a lot of mentors and

304
00:13:39.590 --> 00:13:42.496
peers who, on the Harvard and the Hawk were trying out. And

305
00:13:42.518 --> 00:13:45.364
that makes it more real, is when you know people who are on the team

306
00:13:45.402 --> 00:13:48.196
and who are going through the process of applying and

307
00:13:48.218 --> 00:13:51.012
then crazily enough. My neighbor Mark

308
00:13:51.066 --> 00:13:54.048
Leverardier, call sign Happy, was always telling

309
00:13:54.064 --> 00:13:56.836
me to try out. So he was a solo on the snowbirds, and we'd be out

310
00:13:56.858 --> 00:13:59.796
shoveling the driveway, and of course he'd stop and you start chatting like you

311
00:13:59.818 --> 00:14:02.788
do at the side of the street, and he'd be like, So, Blake, when are you trying out? And I'd be

312
00:14:02.794 --> 00:14:05.676
like, Happy, I don't even have my wings yet. And then a couple years later, hey,

313
00:14:05.698 --> 00:14:08.668
Blake, when are you trying out? Happy I'm, like,

314
00:14:08.754 --> 00:14:11.628
200 hours into my first flying, uh, tour, and he's

315
00:14:11.634 --> 00:14:14.444
like, oh, don't worry, you'll get there. And he always had the same

316
00:14:14.482 --> 00:14:17.436
line, and I've stolen it is that, if I can do

317
00:14:17.458 --> 00:14:20.312
it, you can do it. Happy is a very talented pilot,

318
00:14:20.376 --> 00:14:23.164
and I'm not necessarily anywhere close to his level of proficiency,

319
00:14:23.212 --> 00:14:26.032
but he kept saying, if I can do it, you can do it. And it

320
00:14:26.086 --> 00:14:28.880
resonated. And mhm, I think you'd remember

321
00:14:28.950 --> 00:14:31.836
like your first formation flight on the Harvard. I know they're

322
00:14:31.868 --> 00:14:34.548
now doing it on the Grove here too, in Portage. But

323
00:14:34.634 --> 00:14:36.816
your first flight in formation is very eye

324
00:14:36.848 --> 00:14:39.716
opening. It looks easy and then

325
00:14:39.738 --> 00:14:42.644
you try it and ah, then as you get better and better

326
00:14:42.682 --> 00:14:45.508
and better, it looks less hard. And then you see some of the

327
00:14:45.514 --> 00:14:48.024
stuff that the snowbirds are doing and you're like you have a new

328
00:14:48.062 --> 00:14:50.872
appreciation for how hard that is if you try that stuff. Well,

329
00:14:50.926 --> 00:14:53.844
not that you should be trying that stuff, but if you try more advanced formation.

330
00:14:53.892 --> 00:14:56.776
And I absolutely fell in love with

331
00:14:56.798 --> 00:14:59.748
formation flying, uh, at the school both teaching it because

332
00:14:59.774 --> 00:15:02.104
there's nothing like giving someone their first formation

333
00:15:02.152 --> 00:15:04.524
flight. It's so much fun, it's so

334
00:15:04.562 --> 00:15:07.468
crazy. And then doing it like both the Harvard and the

335
00:15:07.474 --> 00:15:10.156
Hawk and the Hawk was a real sweet platform to fly

336
00:15:10.188 --> 00:15:12.784
formation. And we would have a lot of fun both

337
00:15:12.822 --> 00:15:15.484
doing simulated operational formation

338
00:15:15.532 --> 00:15:18.220
flying, but also, um, school type formation.

339
00:15:18.300 --> 00:15:21.184
Like the tighter yeah, totally closed echelon stuff.

340
00:15:21.222 --> 00:15:24.048
Yeah, I loved flying formation. That was

341
00:15:24.134 --> 00:15:26.884
really fun. It's just such a cool experience.

342
00:15:27.002 --> 00:15:29.908
And to do a rejoin on another airplane and kind

343
00:15:29.914 --> 00:15:32.596
of zoom up on them and then at the last second, check your

344
00:15:32.618 --> 00:15:35.540
speed as you approach close to them is just

345
00:15:35.610 --> 00:15:37.512
amazing. You can't believe you're doing this.

346
00:15:37.566 --> 00:15:40.564
Yeah, it's hands and feet flying and there's

347
00:15:40.612 --> 00:15:43.368
very small margins of error, or at least it seems that way when you're a

348
00:15:43.374 --> 00:15:46.216
student and, uh, you got to put up your shut up,

349
00:15:46.238 --> 00:15:46.472
right?

350
00:15:46.526 --> 00:15:49.300
Yeah. And it kind of I don't know, for me, when you do the

351
00:15:49.310 --> 00:15:52.236
rejoin, it sort of feels like you're zooming up

352
00:15:52.258 --> 00:15:54.956
on this little World War II fighter or

353
00:15:54.978 --> 00:15:56.764
something. You know what I mean?

354
00:15:56.802 --> 00:15:58.044
Yeah, I know exactly what you mean.

355
00:15:58.082 --> 00:16:00.570
They're such a cool looking airplane. And, uh

356
00:16:00.898 --> 00:16:02.320
I loved it. It was really cool.

357
00:16:02.390 --> 00:16:04.730
So all of that, all of those experiences,

358
00:16:04.730 --> 00:16:07.728
uh, gave me the impetus to go throw my name into the

359
00:16:07.734 --> 00:16:10.704
hat, which is hard. It's hard to put yourself

360
00:16:10.742 --> 00:16:13.232
out there to be judged by your peers and told

361
00:16:13.286 --> 00:16:15.508
whether, uh, you are good enough or not.

362
00:16:15.594 --> 00:16:18.196
Yeah, I believe it. I can only imagine that trying out for

363
00:16:18.218 --> 00:16:20.836
that, like you said, it's kind of vulnerable, right?

364
00:16:20.938 --> 00:16:22.036
Very much so.

365
00:16:22.218 --> 00:16:24.068
Was it difficult to make the team?

366
00:16:24.234 --> 00:16:26.724
Four through one squadron has impossible

367
00:16:26.772 --> 00:16:29.656
standards. They are looking for superior pilots, but

368
00:16:29.678 --> 00:16:32.456
they're also looking for this well rounded person who's also an

369
00:16:32.478 --> 00:16:35.384
ambassador. And so to meet both those things

370
00:16:35.502 --> 00:16:38.440
can be quite difficult. So my first tryout in

371
00:16:38.590 --> 00:16:40.900
2014 was unsuccessful.

372
00:16:40.980 --> 00:16:41.224
Okay.

373
00:16:41.262 --> 00:16:44.236
But there's three kind of ways that you can be told that

374
00:16:44.258 --> 00:16:47.228
at the end you can be said, hey, thanks for coming out. You can be told, hey, you

375
00:16:47.234 --> 00:16:50.188
made the team, congratulations, or hey, this year wasn't for you. We

376
00:16:50.194 --> 00:16:53.088
either didn't have enough spots or some other reason come back

377
00:16:53.094 --> 00:16:56.012
and try out again. And so I was lucky enough to be invited

378
00:16:56.076 --> 00:16:58.960
back and I did another tryout the year later,

379
00:16:59.030 --> 00:17:01.988
which again is a lot of work, but at the end of it, they offered me a

380
00:17:01.994 --> 00:17:04.784
job and I took it and had a magnificent

381
00:17:04.832 --> 00:17:07.104
experience. But, uh, the tryout

382
00:17:07.152 --> 00:17:10.004
itself, the flying portion, is again

383
00:17:10.042 --> 00:17:12.470
looking for that superior pilot because

384
00:17:13.160 --> 00:17:15.928
that person on their worst day has to perform

385
00:17:16.014 --> 00:17:18.696
better than most people on their best. So

386
00:17:18.798 --> 00:17:21.464
traveling the airshow circuit all summer, doing low over

387
00:17:21.502 --> 00:17:24.484
aerobatics, over a variety of terrains and cities

388
00:17:24.532 --> 00:17:27.428
and environments and weather, that person can wake

389
00:17:27.444 --> 00:17:30.296
up, and I'm not saying like, be sick, but wake up and just

390
00:17:30.318 --> 00:17:30.920
feel off.

391
00:17:30.990 --> 00:17:31.852
You have an off day.

392
00:17:31.906 --> 00:17:34.716
Yeah, you're 80%, but at your 80%

393
00:17:34.818 --> 00:17:37.708
you've got to go up and you're well trained and you're well practiced, but you've got

394
00:17:37.714 --> 00:17:40.684
to perform that show that most

395
00:17:40.722 --> 00:17:43.296
people may never learn to fly to that level of

396
00:17:43.318 --> 00:17:46.256
pilotage. So that's what the squadron is looking

397
00:17:46.278 --> 00:17:48.930
for in their demo pilots. But at the same time,

398
00:17:50.020 --> 00:17:52.928
you got to be a team player, m, you got to be able to put in front

399
00:17:52.934 --> 00:17:55.892
of a microphone or on television. So the

400
00:17:55.946 --> 00:17:58.836
two to three week tryout process includes all

401
00:17:58.858 --> 00:18:01.844
those things. It includes eight flights. So you do like a two

402
00:18:01.882 --> 00:18:04.816
ship, then a couple of three ships. A couple of four ships is all in the CT

403
00:18:04.848 --> 00:18:07.616
1114 tutor, the iconic red and white snowbird

404
00:18:07.648 --> 00:18:10.532
jet that we've all seen. And then at the very end, your

405
00:18:10.586 --> 00:18:13.476
8th flight. So I think I said two ship, three ship, then we

406
00:18:13.498 --> 00:18:16.348
do some four ships. And the whole time you're moving to all the positions. The

407
00:18:16.354 --> 00:18:19.308
Snowbirds have very dedicated comms procedures. You

408
00:18:19.314 --> 00:18:22.184
have to learn and be very tight on there's

409
00:18:22.232 --> 00:18:25.228
like one day of ground school for type conversion. Most people have never flown the

410
00:18:25.234 --> 00:18:25.644
tutor before.

411
00:18:25.682 --> 00:18:28.556
I was going to ask that, are you expected to be like a full on

412
00:18:28.578 --> 00:18:31.324
tutor pilot or are they at first mostly testing your

413
00:18:31.362 --> 00:18:34.256
flying and you're going to get a chance to get better with the

414
00:18:34.278 --> 00:18:35.456
aircraft over time.

415
00:18:35.558 --> 00:18:38.332
You are going to have a conversion

416
00:18:38.396 --> 00:18:40.812
when you show up on squadron, that is going to be official.

417
00:18:40.876 --> 00:18:41.884
Like if you get selected.

418
00:18:41.932 --> 00:18:44.688
If you get selected, yeah. But for the tryouts, they

419
00:18:44.774 --> 00:18:47.524
throw it all at you. The tutor is not a

420
00:18:47.562 --> 00:18:50.436
complicated airplane, so if you have jet experience as.

421
00:18:50.458 --> 00:18:53.040
Well, that's what it's made for, right, is to teach people to fly.

422
00:18:53.120 --> 00:18:55.924
So it's not crazy cosmic, but it's a lot to

423
00:18:55.962 --> 00:18:58.776
absorb and yeah, they're going to debrief you on every switch you do out of

424
00:18:58.798 --> 00:19:01.748
order, but you spark it up and you're always going to be with you never fly

425
00:19:01.764 --> 00:19:04.600
it solo during the tryouts. So you're always with

426
00:19:04.670 --> 00:19:07.528
an instructor, usually a seasoned demo pilot, and

427
00:19:07.534 --> 00:19:10.524
they're evaluating you and they switch around so they get different eyes on you and

428
00:19:10.562 --> 00:19:13.420
everyone has a big discussion about you every day.

429
00:19:13.490 --> 00:19:14.108
Yeah.

430
00:19:14.210 --> 00:19:16.984
Uh, so you do those seven flights, those seven formation

431
00:19:17.032 --> 00:19:19.884
flights, and then you do one low level solo, which isn't actually

432
00:19:19.922 --> 00:19:22.876
that low level. They only go up to 1000ft. And then you do low

433
00:19:22.898 --> 00:19:25.792
level aerobatics. They essentially give you part of the book and say, hey, study

434
00:19:25.846 --> 00:19:28.464
this and show us what you can do if you were

435
00:19:28.502 --> 00:19:30.252
selected as a solo demo pilot.

436
00:19:30.316 --> 00:19:30.736
Really?

437
00:19:30.838 --> 00:19:33.628
But for most of us, the minimum altitude is

438
00:19:33.654 --> 00:19:36.516
3000 EGL for aerobatics. So dropping that by

439
00:19:36.618 --> 00:19:39.472
two thirds and doing your first, there's no practice,

440
00:19:39.536 --> 00:19:42.320
you just go out there and do it. It's intimidating,

441
00:19:42.400 --> 00:19:45.156
no doubt. So that's the flying stuff and at the end of it, they

442
00:19:45.178 --> 00:19:48.164
evaluate you. So even if you're not on the flying schedule, you attend every

443
00:19:48.202 --> 00:19:50.964
brief and debrief, which can be an hour to start,

444
00:19:51.082 --> 00:19:54.068
an hour plus to end. The end of the day, they have a hot wash where

445
00:19:54.074 --> 00:19:56.956
they say, hey, here's the general things that you guys did well or didn't do

446
00:19:56.978 --> 00:19:59.868
well, work harder and be better tomorrow. It's a very

447
00:19:59.954 --> 00:20:02.476
professional process. And then to the

448
00:20:02.498 --> 00:20:05.196
ambassadorship stuff, there's interviews with the Co

449
00:20:05.298 --> 00:20:08.124
team, lead SWO to check on your

450
00:20:08.242 --> 00:20:11.052
officership, and then you do things with the public

451
00:20:11.106 --> 00:20:13.916
affairs officer to see how you are with media. And then we

452
00:20:13.938 --> 00:20:16.520
even have a planned dinner

453
00:20:16.600 --> 00:20:19.416
where mes kit type stuff, where there's

454
00:20:19.448 --> 00:20:22.388
intermingling of squadron members and candidates. And I

455
00:20:22.394 --> 00:20:25.284
don't want to reveal too much behind the curtain because it's part of the process, but

456
00:20:25.322 --> 00:20:27.988
they get to know what you're like as a person and whether or not

457
00:20:28.074 --> 00:20:30.916
you're going to be a good fit. It's a small team, they spend a lot

458
00:20:30.938 --> 00:20:33.828
of time away from home together and so you want to

459
00:20:33.834 --> 00:20:35.568
make sure personalities jive.

460
00:20:35.744 --> 00:20:38.536
Yeah, I can imagine. I mean, how much are you on the road with the

461
00:20:38.558 --> 00:20:39.444
snowbirds?

462
00:20:39.572 --> 00:20:42.344
I spent about two thirds of every

463
00:20:42.382 --> 00:20:43.384
year away.

464
00:20:43.582 --> 00:20:46.552
Yeah. So it needs to be a group of people that have a good

465
00:20:46.686 --> 00:20:49.436
dynamic and get along well and

466
00:20:49.538 --> 00:20:52.028
can solve things well if they're not getting along

467
00:20:52.114 --> 00:20:52.924
right. Yeah.

468
00:20:52.962 --> 00:20:55.180
They are definitely your brothers and sisters.

469
00:20:56.000 --> 00:20:58.872
So we've just done an interview with Scott Harding

470
00:20:58.936 --> 00:21:01.836
on phase one and two training on the Grobe and I thought we could

471
00:21:01.858 --> 00:21:04.832
talk a little bit about your time on phase three helicopter as well.

472
00:21:04.966 --> 00:21:07.856
You're just in the process of finishing this. In fact, your

473
00:21:07.878 --> 00:21:10.672
last flight is tomorrow and by the time this airs you'll be

474
00:21:10.726 --> 00:21:13.200
complete. How's that gone so far?

475
00:21:13.350 --> 00:21:16.096
It's been amazing. Now, again, obviously, I'm a little bit of an OD

476
00:21:16.128 --> 00:21:18.996
duck being a, uh, retread coming back. There

477
00:21:19.018 --> 00:21:21.876
is no conversion from fixed wing to helicopter because there's too

478
00:21:21.898 --> 00:21:24.724
many foundational things that you need to learn. So they load us on the

479
00:21:24.762 --> 00:21:27.320
standard phase three. So my peers on course

480
00:21:27.470 --> 00:21:30.324
are second lieutenants who are just finished phase

481
00:21:30.372 --> 00:21:33.368
two. And actually, uh, I'll say it right off the

482
00:21:33.374 --> 00:21:36.344
bat. Pilot training is a team sport. And so

483
00:21:36.382 --> 00:21:39.284
I got to throw out to, uh, Lee Shaver, tristan Thompson,

484
00:21:39.332 --> 00:21:42.204
and Jordan Johnson, who are getting their wings in like, two weeks from

485
00:21:42.242 --> 00:21:45.084
now to both congratulate them, but also thank them because

486
00:21:45.122 --> 00:21:48.028
I probably wouldn't have gotten through the same thing without the

487
00:21:48.034 --> 00:21:50.896
teamwork that's required to achieve this stuff.

488
00:21:51.078 --> 00:21:53.824
But the course itself, hey, they're running a good

489
00:21:53.862 --> 00:21:56.688
program here. The instructors are dedicated, the

490
00:21:56.774 --> 00:21:59.616
facility and aircraft are great. Um, but the

491
00:21:59.638 --> 00:22:02.548
process itself was very humbling. Yeah,

492
00:22:02.634 --> 00:22:05.312
you can imagine having all the foundational

493
00:22:05.376 --> 00:22:08.292
information, you know, about aviation challenged once again

494
00:22:08.346 --> 00:22:11.040
from scratch. So it's very vulnerable

495
00:22:11.120 --> 00:22:13.924
to have to put all that out

496
00:22:13.962 --> 00:22:16.852
there. And, uh, especially if you were like a previous top

497
00:22:16.906 --> 00:22:18.080
dog in an industry.

498
00:22:18.160 --> 00:22:20.996
I was just going to say, was it hard for you to come in and kind of be

499
00:22:21.018 --> 00:22:23.956
like, okay, not that you have a big ego, but you know who

500
00:22:23.978 --> 00:22:26.956
you are, what you're capable of. You've been on the snowbirds, you've been an A

501
00:22:26.978 --> 00:22:29.848
category instructor. You're used to knowing what you're

502
00:22:29.864 --> 00:22:32.844
doing and being at the top of kind of where you can

503
00:22:32.882 --> 00:22:35.816
go. What was it like then to be like, all right, now here's

504
00:22:35.848 --> 00:22:36.888
a helicopter.

505
00:22:37.064 --> 00:22:40.028
You know what? Even though you might have been a

506
00:22:40.034 --> 00:22:42.904
top dog, you're now at Puppy Obedient School, so

507
00:22:43.042 --> 00:22:45.712
you got to play the game. And I say game,

508
00:22:45.766 --> 00:22:48.480
but everything here is built for our success.

509
00:22:48.630 --> 00:22:51.488
The goal is to get you to the standard. It's in the best interest of the

510
00:22:51.574 --> 00:22:54.436
Canadian forces and the taxpayer that we don't waste funds on people who

511
00:22:54.458 --> 00:22:57.364
aren't going to be successful. So the process was really, really

512
00:22:57.402 --> 00:23:00.388
good, but I would say the biggest area that

513
00:23:00.394 --> 00:23:03.204
I struggled with was control reversal. So

514
00:23:03.242 --> 00:23:06.096
in a fixed wing aircraft, your left hand is on the throttle

515
00:23:06.128 --> 00:23:09.016
most of the time, and if you go forward, you add power. If you

516
00:23:09.038 --> 00:23:11.848
come back, you reduce power. On a helicopter, there's a

517
00:23:11.854 --> 00:23:14.632
collective in your left hand. If you go forward or

518
00:23:14.686 --> 00:23:17.496
down, it reduces power, and if you

519
00:23:17.518 --> 00:23:20.500
pull up, it increases power. So it's the opposite.

520
00:23:20.580 --> 00:23:21.192
Oh, weird.

521
00:23:21.256 --> 00:23:24.124
So there's a lot of muscle memory when you get into a high

522
00:23:24.162 --> 00:23:26.984
stress situation, like hovering for the first time and your lizard

523
00:23:27.032 --> 00:23:29.756
brain wants to do something, your hands are moving without you

524
00:23:29.778 --> 00:23:32.768
consciously thinking about it. So I had to unlearn that stuff.

525
00:23:32.934 --> 00:23:35.824
And the other big comparison, I would say, from going

526
00:23:35.862 --> 00:23:38.656
from fixed wing to helicopters is a comparison with,

527
00:23:38.678 --> 00:23:41.376
like, a nice sports car. So a nice sports car, you're driving down the

528
00:23:41.398 --> 00:23:44.228
highway, you're in this cabin, it's comfortable, and

529
00:23:44.314 --> 00:23:47.220
you kind of eventually lose a sensation of speed.

530
00:23:47.220 --> 00:23:49.748
Mhm whereas a helicopter is more like a

531
00:23:49.754 --> 00:23:52.656
motorcycle. The second you get on it, there's no warm

532
00:23:52.688 --> 00:23:55.172
up time. You have to be on your game. That thing is going to fall

533
00:23:55.226 --> 00:23:58.152
over and it's trying to kill you. From the get go,

534
00:23:58.286 --> 00:24:01.236
and you have the sensation of speed, you have the sensation

535
00:24:01.268 --> 00:24:03.796
of being close to the ground. Your situational

536
00:24:03.828 --> 00:24:06.616
awareness is far, far greater. And the senses, the

537
00:24:06.638 --> 00:24:09.624
sensory overload is very, very different. So that's how

538
00:24:09.662 --> 00:24:11.208
I would compare the two.

539
00:24:11.294 --> 00:24:14.136
I'm assuming you're having a lot of fun flying helicopters.

540
00:24:14.248 --> 00:24:17.244
I'm loving it. I never used to drive down the highway and look at a field

541
00:24:17.282 --> 00:24:20.188
and be like, that would be a cool place to land. But now that pops

542
00:24:20.204 --> 00:24:20.832
into my head.

543
00:24:20.886 --> 00:24:23.728
Yeah. What do you

544
00:24:23.734 --> 00:24:26.656
think was harder, learning how to hover or

545
00:24:26.678 --> 00:24:29.516
learning to fly formation with the snowbirds?

546
00:24:29.548 --> 00:24:30.832
Like, to their level?

547
00:24:30.966 --> 00:24:33.756
It's actually very similar. It's

548
00:24:33.788 --> 00:24:36.620
very similar. All my friends used to say, uh, don't worry, you'll do fine in

549
00:24:36.630 --> 00:24:39.536
helicopters. It's like flying formation with the ground. And it is. It's

550
00:24:39.568 --> 00:24:42.564
the classic example of less is more. The big joke being that

551
00:24:42.602 --> 00:24:45.284
in a helicopter, they're paying you a lot of money to not do anything

552
00:24:45.322 --> 00:24:48.216
with the collective and cyclic, because the less

553
00:24:48.238 --> 00:24:51.096
you move it, the less errors you input and the

554
00:24:51.118 --> 00:24:53.976
more aerodynamically stable the whole thing is. Yeah, they were

555
00:24:53.998 --> 00:24:55.370
harder in different ways.

556
00:24:55.820 --> 00:24:58.492
So your whole career has been fixed. Wing your

557
00:24:58.546 --> 00:25:01.068
initial goal was fighters. You're flying on the

558
00:25:01.074 --> 00:25:03.676
snowbirds. How does all that then

559
00:25:03.778 --> 00:25:06.716
lead you to choose helicopters? You know what?

560
00:25:06.738 --> 00:25:09.320
I had an amazing twelve years flying

561
00:25:09.400 --> 00:25:12.320
ejection seats. I did things that I

562
00:25:12.390 --> 00:25:15.264
just smile thinking about. And there got

563
00:25:15.302 --> 00:25:18.096
to a point, though, where I showed up in

564
00:25:18.118 --> 00:25:21.104
Musha and I told my girlfriend at the time, hey, we're going to be here eight months,

565
00:25:21.142 --> 00:25:23.728
and then we're going to be in Cold Lake and we're going to be flying fighters. It's going to be

566
00:25:23.734 --> 00:25:26.436
amazing. Well, twelve years go by, and when we

567
00:25:26.458 --> 00:25:29.380
finally left Musha, I had two kids in the backseat. And so

568
00:25:29.450 --> 00:25:32.084
your priorities change a little bit, so your

569
00:25:32.122 --> 00:25:34.756
decisions making in life takes on new

570
00:25:34.778 --> 00:25:37.636
routes. When it comes to actual airframe, why didn't I

571
00:25:37.658 --> 00:25:40.424
just go multi engine, fixed? Wing I guess it comes back to

572
00:25:40.462 --> 00:25:42.916
me being a little crazy. Helicopters

573
00:25:43.108 --> 00:25:45.128
look like they have an amazing

574
00:25:45.294 --> 00:25:48.084
capability. Operation demands

575
00:25:48.212 --> 00:25:51.212
the SAR world looks like something I want to do.

576
00:25:51.266 --> 00:25:54.172
So despite the fact that I've got many years

577
00:25:54.226 --> 00:25:57.196
flying for the Air Force, none of it was ever in

578
00:25:57.218 --> 00:25:59.916
a fully operational role. And the job that was most

579
00:25:59.938 --> 00:26:02.924
attractive was getting out there on the front line in search and rescue

580
00:26:02.972 --> 00:26:04.160
and helping Canadians.

581
00:26:04.160 --> 00:26:06.864
Mhm I think SAR is so amazing.

582
00:26:06.982 --> 00:26:09.936
There's not too many people that I admire as much as I admire people

583
00:26:09.958 --> 00:26:12.684
who work in SAR, especially Sartechs, but SAR

584
00:26:12.732 --> 00:26:14.896
pilots who are making tough calls and flying in tough

585
00:26:14.928 --> 00:26:17.908
conditions, and it's just like, such good work.

586
00:26:17.994 --> 00:26:20.916
That was my next goal, was to go SAR before

587
00:26:20.938 --> 00:26:23.744
I had my health issues. That led to a, uh, break in flying,

588
00:26:23.792 --> 00:26:26.772
but I got all the time in the world for SAR. So I think it's going to be

589
00:26:26.906 --> 00:26:29.816
really great. And I think if I had to pick a

590
00:26:29.838 --> 00:26:32.756
helicopter, the Cormorant, I think, would be the one that I'd

591
00:26:32.788 --> 00:26:32.888
want.

592
00:26:32.894 --> 00:26:35.320
To do, you know? Man, there are not a lot of bad

593
00:26:35.390 --> 00:26:38.232
rides in Air Force, so no matter.

594
00:26:38.286 --> 00:26:41.212
Where you end up. You're going to have a challenging career trying to

595
00:26:41.266 --> 00:26:44.060
employ an aircraft in the way that the caf needs you to do it.

596
00:26:44.130 --> 00:26:46.876
And so, uh, the Cormorant just is the one that I was most

597
00:26:46.898 --> 00:26:47.580
attracted to.

598
00:26:47.650 --> 00:26:50.396
Yeah, I had a listener call this week. Every now and

599
00:26:50.418 --> 00:26:53.296
then, someone will ask me some questions by email, and

600
00:26:53.318 --> 00:26:56.256
if it's enough questions, I'll say, hey, here's my number. Give me a call

601
00:26:56.278 --> 00:26:59.090
and we'll chat. And I was telling that to someone,

602
00:26:59.460 --> 00:27:02.448
a lot of us get that you join and you're like, well, this

603
00:27:02.454 --> 00:27:05.328
is the plane that I have to fly. That's my plan. It's got to

604
00:27:05.334 --> 00:27:08.036
work out that way. And I'm sure you've seen 100 students

605
00:27:08.138 --> 00:27:11.088
freaking out about selection and, well, my plane's multi,

606
00:27:11.104 --> 00:27:13.988
so I better get multi. And then once you're on multi, that's the one I

607
00:27:13.994 --> 00:27:16.116
need. Like, my girlfriend thinks I'm going to live in

608
00:27:16.138 --> 00:27:19.096
Trenton, and I was just telling them how I

609
00:27:19.118 --> 00:27:21.684
don't think I've ever met anyone, or at least they're an extreme

610
00:27:21.732 --> 00:27:24.296
exception who hates what they ended up

611
00:27:24.318 --> 00:27:25.912
on. They're all awesome.

612
00:27:26.046 --> 00:27:28.936
Oh, I 100% agree. And you

613
00:27:28.958 --> 00:27:31.692
can't get upset about things you can't control, like people's personal

614
00:27:31.746 --> 00:27:34.572
lives and the impacts they have on their families, I 100%

615
00:27:34.626 --> 00:27:37.356
appreciate. And those things have to come into players when you make your

616
00:27:37.378 --> 00:27:40.184
requests. Um, but ultimately, it is the Air Force's

617
00:27:40.232 --> 00:27:43.184
decision if you want to be part of this voluntary force and

618
00:27:43.222 --> 00:27:46.096
all you control is how well you move that switch, and

619
00:27:46.118 --> 00:27:48.976
then you change that dial and then you set that attitude and then you

620
00:27:48.998 --> 00:27:51.792
fly that speed. You can only do your best

621
00:27:51.846 --> 00:27:54.448
flying and your best officership every day. And

622
00:27:54.614 --> 00:27:55.888
the rest of it is luck.

623
00:27:55.984 --> 00:27:58.484
Yeah. You can, I'm sure, speak to the fact

624
00:27:58.522 --> 00:28:01.428
that behind the scenes, everybody's working as hard as

625
00:28:01.434 --> 00:28:04.100
they can to have it work out for as many people as possible.

626
00:28:04.170 --> 00:28:07.092
100%, especially our course directors, are working

627
00:28:07.146 --> 00:28:09.848
every day trying to do the best for their students, but they're working within the

628
00:28:09.854 --> 00:28:10.980
confines of the institution.

629
00:28:11.060 --> 00:28:13.576
That's right. And that was another thing I said, was

630
00:28:13.678 --> 00:28:16.536
ultimately there's some skill involved there's. What can you

631
00:28:16.558 --> 00:28:19.516
earn with your performance? But there's also some luck involved because

632
00:28:19.618 --> 00:28:22.444
they may say, hey, there's three helo spots and

633
00:28:22.482 --> 00:28:25.304
two multi spots and no jet spots. And hopefully

634
00:28:25.352 --> 00:28:28.156
jet wasn't your dream because that's not

635
00:28:28.178 --> 00:28:29.368
happening this round.

636
00:28:29.544 --> 00:28:32.244
If your dream was to be an astronaut and go to the moon,

637
00:28:32.392 --> 00:28:35.344
there was, like, a 50 year period where we weren't doing it.

638
00:28:35.382 --> 00:28:38.256
So now that opportunity is opening up again

639
00:28:38.278 --> 00:28:41.024
for Canadians. And so I'd say the same is true for air

640
00:28:41.062 --> 00:28:43.936
Force platforms, capabilities and operations. You're going to

641
00:28:43.958 --> 00:28:46.612
have an amazing career. It's just a matter of what timing you

642
00:28:46.666 --> 00:28:49.284
get and what the world presents you.

643
00:28:49.482 --> 00:28:52.228
Can you take me through a day in the life of a helicopter student?

644
00:28:52.394 --> 00:28:55.156
Yeah, man, totally. So, first off, we live here in

645
00:28:55.178 --> 00:28:58.052
Porridge the Prairie. So I'm away

646
00:28:58.106 --> 00:29:00.836
from my family, who's back in Trenton, where I was, so I got to throw

647
00:29:00.868 --> 00:29:03.656
props to my wife Jacqueline, who is a rock, and

648
00:29:03.678 --> 00:29:06.520
taking care of, uh, the house while I'm away for this

649
00:29:06.590 --> 00:29:08.988
long course. It's about seven months I've been here in Porridge the

650
00:29:08.994 --> 00:29:11.836
Prairie. Typical, uh, day. It's a lot

651
00:29:11.858 --> 00:29:14.580
different than the staff job I used to have, for sure. Waking, uh,

652
00:29:14.872 --> 00:29:17.756
up at 630, hitting the mess for food,

653
00:29:17.858 --> 00:29:20.764
hit the weather brief at 745. Usually we

654
00:29:20.802 --> 00:29:23.740
walk the airplane before our brief just so that our instructors, uh,

655
00:29:23.740 --> 00:29:26.636
don't have to do it. And then you brief with your instructor. It's

656
00:29:26.668 --> 00:29:29.296
about an hour maybe. You go to Ops, you get your

657
00:29:29.318 --> 00:29:32.256
airplane. You go flying for 1.5. You come

658
00:29:32.278 --> 00:29:34.976
back, you debrief for an hour. And then you have to

659
00:29:34.998 --> 00:29:37.684
absorb all that. Grab a sandwich in there at some point,

660
00:29:37.802 --> 00:29:40.596
maybe have some water cooler. Talk with your coursemates about who

661
00:29:40.618 --> 00:29:43.568
did what and why and what did you learn just so that you can't

662
00:29:43.584 --> 00:29:46.260
make all the mistakes yourself. You have to learn from other people.

663
00:29:46.410 --> 00:29:49.112
And then you're right onto prepping for the next day.

664
00:29:49.166 --> 00:29:51.992
And if you got a little bit of time, maybe you hit the gym, but

665
00:29:52.046 --> 00:29:55.032
mostly you hit the books. Another example might be

666
00:29:55.086 --> 00:29:57.976
ground school. So much like university or high school, you're going to

667
00:29:57.998 --> 00:30:00.844
spend most of the day in classes. And then the other

668
00:30:00.882 --> 00:30:03.564
thing. And the biggest change that I noticed from when I went

669
00:30:03.602 --> 00:30:06.412
through back 20 ish years ago

670
00:30:06.546 --> 00:30:09.244
was, uh, the use of simulators. So with

671
00:30:09.282 --> 00:30:11.696
a, uh, crew environment and the

672
00:30:11.798 --> 00:30:14.704
technological advances with simulators, we do a lot

673
00:30:14.742 --> 00:30:17.536
of our 412 training, about half of

674
00:30:17.558 --> 00:30:20.528
it in a full motion simulator. And so

675
00:30:20.614 --> 00:30:23.276
those are much longer days. Prepping for that flight

676
00:30:23.388 --> 00:30:25.796
is more intensive because they can throw a lot more at you

677
00:30:25.898 --> 00:30:28.868
pretend than they can in real life. The brief can be

678
00:30:28.874 --> 00:30:29.316
an hour to.

679
00:30:29.338 --> 00:30:30.100
An hour and a half.

680
00:30:30.170 --> 00:30:31.892
The sims are 3 hours. So

681
00:30:31.946 --> 00:30:34.932
1.5 evaluating one student

682
00:30:35.066 --> 00:30:37.812
and then 1.5 on the other, where you just swap seats between

683
00:30:37.866 --> 00:30:40.856
pilot flying and pilot monitoring or pilot and copilot. And

684
00:30:40.878 --> 00:30:43.832
then you come out and you debrief that whole thing. And that can be like a

685
00:30:43.886 --> 00:30:46.756
full seven or eight hour day, and you're just exhausted.

686
00:30:46.788 --> 00:30:48.504
And I know you've been through it yourself.

687
00:30:48.702 --> 00:30:51.656
Yeah, SIM days are exhausting because you're

688
00:30:51.688 --> 00:30:54.556
dealing with tons of stuff. Like you said, you have no idea what they could

689
00:30:54.578 --> 00:30:57.356
throw literally anything at you. The briefs are long, the

690
00:30:57.378 --> 00:31:00.172
debriefs are long. And it's all the work

691
00:31:00.226 --> 00:31:02.460
with none of the excitement of actually flying.

692
00:31:02.960 --> 00:31:05.856
Like the SIM is great. It's where you're going to do a ton of your

693
00:31:05.878 --> 00:31:08.528
learning and it's an amazing tool, but you know what I

694
00:31:08.534 --> 00:31:08.944
mean?

695
00:31:09.062 --> 00:31:09.648
Oh, man.

696
00:31:09.734 --> 00:31:11.756
It's all the work without the payoff.

697
00:31:11.948 --> 00:31:14.612
You got to ask my wife about my staff tour, but

698
00:31:14.746 --> 00:31:17.444
flying recharges my batteries and yeah,

699
00:31:17.482 --> 00:31:19.380
sims don't do no, no.

700
00:31:19.450 --> 00:31:21.270
Sims are a drain for sure.

701
00:31:22.680 --> 00:31:25.056
Where do you think students tend to struggle learning to fly

702
00:31:25.088 --> 00:31:27.892
helicopters and what can they do to overcome that?

703
00:31:28.026 --> 00:31:31.016
Well, we were joking about how much you have to prepare for, and I think

704
00:31:31.038 --> 00:31:33.956
it's that it's the rate of learning. The Air Force has figured

705
00:31:33.988 --> 00:31:36.824
out that you should be able to absorb this amount of information at this

706
00:31:36.862 --> 00:31:39.720
rate, and it's just in time training. You

707
00:31:39.790 --> 00:31:42.488
just figure something out and they teach you something new and you're

708
00:31:42.504 --> 00:31:45.496
expected to be good enough at the other thing. So drinking

709
00:31:45.528 --> 00:31:48.456
from a fire hose is a common expression that we do. I've

710
00:31:48.488 --> 00:31:51.192
never been the most natural or talented of pilots, so

711
00:31:51.266 --> 00:31:54.144
how I deal with all of that is both through

712
00:31:54.182 --> 00:31:56.972
enthusiasm I love being here, but also through preparation.

713
00:31:57.036 --> 00:31:59.936
So I think some of my coursemates, uh, looked at me

714
00:31:59.958 --> 00:32:02.928
sideways for the amount of time and effort I was putting in. But I did

715
00:32:02.934 --> 00:32:05.600
a lot of late nights and practice simulators,

716
00:32:05.680 --> 00:32:07.860
which students are allowed to do on the side

717
00:32:08.010 --> 00:32:10.996
extra um, in order to make sure that I

718
00:32:11.018 --> 00:32:13.936
felt prepared for those flights and those sims, because feeling

719
00:32:13.968 --> 00:32:16.804
prepared is half the battle. If you go in there confident, then

720
00:32:16.842 --> 00:32:19.224
you can roll with the punches a lot better. Yeah.

721
00:32:19.262 --> 00:32:22.216
There's a huge mental game to flying, and when you're down

722
00:32:22.238 --> 00:32:25.140
on yourself, your confidence is not there. Those flights are awful.

723
00:32:25.220 --> 00:32:27.752
They're scary. Like, you feel shaky even sometimes.

724
00:32:27.886 --> 00:32:28.392
Yeah, man.

725
00:32:28.446 --> 00:32:31.356
But when you're confident and you're feeling like, okay, I've got

726
00:32:31.378 --> 00:32:34.316
this, there's no better feeling. Everything's going great. You're ahead of the

727
00:32:34.338 --> 00:32:35.116
game because that.

728
00:32:35.138 --> 00:32:38.012
Confidence is going strong and those curveballs are fun.

729
00:32:38.066 --> 00:32:40.956
Yeah. And you got to do whatever it is that gets you to

730
00:32:40.978 --> 00:32:43.600
that point of having that confidence. Totally.

731
00:32:44.100 --> 00:32:46.592
You and I spoke previously about the importance of being

732
00:32:46.646 --> 00:32:49.504
vulnerable to learn something new and that it can lead to some

733
00:32:49.542 --> 00:32:52.016
really exciting adventures. Can you elaborate on

734
00:32:52.038 --> 00:32:52.704
that?

735
00:32:52.902 --> 00:32:55.756
Yeah, man. I'm a big fan of balance in life. It's

736
00:32:55.788 --> 00:32:58.676
great to become an expert in something and it's important, and we need those in the Air

737
00:32:58.698 --> 00:33:01.556
Force. But at the same time, you want to make sure you're growing and

738
00:33:01.578 --> 00:33:04.564
not stagnating. If you stagnate, you're not getting

739
00:33:04.602 --> 00:33:07.476
new ideas or fresh ideas. And those are the people that

740
00:33:07.498 --> 00:33:10.264
I tend to notice, complain more. And if you're not

741
00:33:10.302 --> 00:33:13.256
enjoying your time in the Air Force, I would say that you're part

742
00:33:13.278 --> 00:33:15.992
of the reason you're not enjoying it. So,

743
00:33:16.126 --> 00:33:19.008
as I've alluded to, the path in the Air Force isn't always going to be

744
00:33:19.034 --> 00:33:21.516
determined by you and it might not be straight to where you want to

745
00:33:21.538 --> 00:33:24.380
go, but there are a lot of things you can control.

746
00:33:24.450 --> 00:33:27.404
You can control what opportunities you volunteer for.

747
00:33:27.442 --> 00:33:30.028
So the Air Force is always coming out with, hey, we need a

748
00:33:30.034 --> 00:33:32.784
volunteer to go to Japan to do this, or we need someone

749
00:33:32.822 --> 00:33:35.484
to go overseas, or hey, there's a master's

750
00:33:35.532 --> 00:33:38.368
program. We'll pay you your salary plus all the

751
00:33:38.374 --> 00:33:41.264
fees for you to do a master's in a topic that you

752
00:33:41.302 --> 00:33:44.272
are interested in. Or, uh, the snowbirds, hey,

753
00:33:44.326 --> 00:33:47.156
you have to apply for that. It doesn't matter whether you're Army, Air

754
00:33:47.178 --> 00:33:50.048
Force or Navy. You can apply to be Joint Task Force too. There's

755
00:33:50.064 --> 00:33:52.724
all these opportunities out there that you have to ask

756
00:33:52.762 --> 00:33:55.668
for. A lot of people, when they get higher in rank, start noticing that there's a

757
00:33:55.674 --> 00:33:58.440
lot of foreign jobs, whether it's in the US.

758
00:33:58.510 --> 00:34:01.476
Or Europe or overseas, where you can do what we call outCan

759
00:34:01.508 --> 00:34:04.312
out of Canada postings. Those are amazing

760
00:34:04.446 --> 00:34:07.224
adventures where you go overseas and you do a job for three or four

761
00:34:07.262 --> 00:34:10.156
years and then you come back to Canada. So I

762
00:34:10.178 --> 00:34:12.972
would encourage people to be vulnerable. If you try

763
00:34:13.026 --> 00:34:15.804
for all these amazing opportunities, which there are a lot

764
00:34:15.842 --> 00:34:18.684
of, if you look, you could have one heck of an

765
00:34:18.722 --> 00:34:20.309
adventure. Mhm.

766
00:34:20.309 --> 00:34:23.264
Does that kind of blend in with what you were talking about? With being

767
00:34:23.302 --> 00:34:25.020
comfortable being uncomfortable?

768
00:34:25.100 --> 00:34:28.064
Comfortable being uncomfortable is a way to summarize one of my

769
00:34:28.102 --> 00:34:31.040
approaches to life. Like, uh, you talked about the mental game

770
00:34:31.110 --> 00:34:33.856
of going in the airplane and being prepared at the same

771
00:34:33.878 --> 00:34:36.784
time, knowing that you're going to get a curveball, having the knowledge

772
00:34:36.832 --> 00:34:39.588
that no flight is ever going to be perfect. You're going to step on the

773
00:34:39.594 --> 00:34:42.452
flight, there's going to be errors, you might do everything you plan

774
00:34:42.506 --> 00:34:45.452
correct, and then all the things you didn't plan will go sideways.

775
00:34:45.536 --> 00:34:48.280
But, uh, adapting to that. So having the mental model

776
00:34:48.350 --> 00:34:51.204
of I'm going to be okay and I'm

777
00:34:51.252 --> 00:34:54.216
okay being uncomfortable, I'll make it work, is one of the

778
00:34:54.238 --> 00:34:56.292
things that, uh, I advocate.

779
00:34:56.356 --> 00:34:58.444
So it's kind of like one of your tools for success.

780
00:34:58.562 --> 00:35:01.320
It is, yeah. It is one of my tools for success. Be comfortable

781
00:35:01.400 --> 00:35:02.328
being uncomfortable.

782
00:35:02.424 --> 00:35:05.244
Cool. What would you say is your

783
00:35:05.282 --> 00:35:06.620
most memorable flight?

784
00:35:06.960 --> 00:35:09.564
Yeah, most memorable flight. Man, that's super hard to

785
00:35:09.602 --> 00:35:12.204
choose. If you had asked me 20 years

786
00:35:12.242 --> 00:35:15.168
ago to imagine what my most memorable flight would

787
00:35:15.174 --> 00:35:18.096
be, I would tell you about a flight like going up on the Hawk, which was a

788
00:35:18.118 --> 00:35:21.056
great jet with like three or four. Of your buddies and doing a

789
00:35:21.078 --> 00:35:23.716
low level tactical navigation ripping over the prairies at

790
00:35:23.738 --> 00:35:26.592
250ft 420 knots, cranking

791
00:35:26.656 --> 00:35:29.632
and banking in double attack, setting up for simulated

792
00:35:29.696 --> 00:35:32.576
bomb runs. And then, like, breaking

793
00:35:32.608 --> 00:35:35.024
out over the base, coming back, landing

794
00:35:35.072 --> 00:35:37.896
debriefing. And then you're still drenched in sweat as you walk to the

795
00:35:37.918 --> 00:35:40.504
mess. That's the Top Gun version, which is a great

796
00:35:40.542 --> 00:35:43.496
day. It's a phenomenal day. It's a day where you

797
00:35:43.518 --> 00:35:46.216
go to bed so good, tired that you pass right out

798
00:35:46.238 --> 00:35:49.144
and your heart is full. But there's a different

799
00:35:49.182 --> 00:35:52.172
type of memorable flight and those are the ones that fill your heart in other ways.

800
00:35:52.226 --> 00:35:55.212
So, like, a unique opportunity came up where

801
00:35:55.346 --> 00:35:58.200
we got to fly formation with our families.

802
00:35:58.280 --> 00:36:01.196
So one of the small perks about being

803
00:36:01.218 --> 00:36:03.780
with the snowbirds was that oftentimes transport

804
00:36:03.800 --> 00:36:06.496
airplanes like C Polaris or a

805
00:36:06.518 --> 00:36:09.456
herc would be going to the same air show that we were at. And since we

806
00:36:09.478 --> 00:36:12.224
spent so much time away from home, we would

807
00:36:12.342 --> 00:36:15.328
negotiate or ask if our families could be picked up

808
00:36:15.334 --> 00:36:18.036
on the way. And when they were, we would try to set up a

809
00:36:18.058 --> 00:36:20.432
formation flight. So that means that you'd have eleven

810
00:36:20.496 --> 00:36:23.236
tutors flying off the wings on both sides of

811
00:36:23.258 --> 00:36:26.184
this, call it a C 130 J or something. And

812
00:36:26.222 --> 00:36:29.124
inside are 30 crazy kids under twelve bombing

813
00:36:29.172 --> 00:36:31.976
around and maybe ten adults. And then you've got

814
00:36:31.998 --> 00:36:34.984
another Air Force crew that maybe you've trained or are

815
00:36:35.022 --> 00:36:37.860
friends with. And they're doing this and we're flying alongside.

816
00:36:37.940 --> 00:36:40.940
And it was super cool. The first time I did it. My kids were like

817
00:36:41.010 --> 00:36:43.864
four and six. Ah, and my wife

818
00:36:43.912 --> 00:36:46.856
had bought little red flight suits for them and they were allowed

819
00:36:46.888 --> 00:36:49.788
up into the cockpit and they were put on headsets. And kids don't know how

820
00:36:49.794 --> 00:36:52.492
to use a push to talk button, push talk, release,

821
00:36:52.556 --> 00:36:55.376
listen. And they press and they would

822
00:36:55.398 --> 00:36:58.352
just babble away and never release. You can't really talk,

823
00:36:58.486 --> 00:37:01.296
you'd be echelon. So kind of like if your

824
00:37:01.318 --> 00:37:04.240
audience can imagine Canadian goose in the V formation off

825
00:37:04.310 --> 00:37:06.836
with the herc at the front. And you as an

826
00:37:06.858 --> 00:37:09.604
individual, when your kids were up in the cockpit, would

827
00:37:09.642 --> 00:37:12.564
fly, head forward a little bit of the V so that the kids knew which

828
00:37:12.602 --> 00:37:15.556
one was you. And you'd turn your smoke on, uh, you'd waggle your wings and so

829
00:37:15.578 --> 00:37:18.456
then they'd wave at you. So looking across into the eyes of

830
00:37:18.478 --> 00:37:21.476
my four year old, my six year old, my wife in her cockpit

831
00:37:21.588 --> 00:37:23.432
was pretty darn special.

832
00:37:23.566 --> 00:37:24.648
That's pretty all time.

833
00:37:24.734 --> 00:37:27.192
Oh, man. The, uh, year previous we'd done something

834
00:37:27.246 --> 00:37:30.024
similar and my buddy was up and

835
00:37:30.062 --> 00:37:32.956
kids will say the darnedest things on the radio and he was

836
00:37:32.978 --> 00:37:35.884
like, daddy, daddy, do you have your helmet? Yes,

837
00:37:35.922 --> 00:37:38.764
Oliver, I have my helmet. Daddy, daddy, are you

838
00:37:38.802 --> 00:37:41.644
wearing your helmet? Yes, Oliver, I'm wearing my helmet. Okay, good,

839
00:37:41.682 --> 00:37:44.240
daddy. Because I want you to be safe over there. I'll talk to you later.

840
00:37:44.310 --> 00:37:46.928
Bye. And then just pieced out to the back of the

841
00:37:46.934 --> 00:37:47.756
airplane.

842
00:37:47.948 --> 00:37:50.130
So cute. Uh, that's so cool.

843
00:37:51.220 --> 00:37:53.084
What was your hardest day flying?

844
00:37:53.212 --> 00:37:55.984
Hard days flying are usually unexpected.

845
00:37:56.112 --> 00:37:59.076
At least they have been for me, because I haven't been overseas, I haven't been in

846
00:37:59.098 --> 00:38:01.748
combat zones where lives are on the line

847
00:38:01.834 --> 00:38:04.768
yet. And so hard days of flying were often

848
00:38:04.874 --> 00:38:07.816
tests or evaluations or times where

849
00:38:07.838 --> 00:38:10.616
I struggled. So I remember very early in my

850
00:38:10.638 --> 00:38:13.144
career, I had a flight. Just I knew

851
00:38:13.262 --> 00:38:15.848
from the way the ground checks were going

852
00:38:15.934 --> 00:38:18.250
and the first part of the trip that just

853
00:38:18.800 --> 00:38:20.952
things were off and I had maybe potentially.

854
00:38:21.016 --> 00:38:22.252
Already failed the flight. Yeah.

855
00:38:22.306 --> 00:38:25.256
And we talked about mental game and being resilient, mentally

856
00:38:25.288 --> 00:38:27.852
resilient, and having to know that, okay,

857
00:38:27.986 --> 00:38:30.876
that might have happened, but I've got to press forward no matter what.

858
00:38:30.978 --> 00:38:33.840
And I did. I failed that flight. And

859
00:38:33.990 --> 00:38:36.988
the instructor was super professional about it. We figured

860
00:38:37.004 --> 00:38:39.936
out what the root cause was. We went up the next day, we

861
00:38:39.958 --> 00:38:42.930
fixed it, and I put that flight behind me. But

862
00:38:43.300 --> 00:38:45.812
those skills don't go away. And being able to

863
00:38:45.866 --> 00:38:48.804
compartmentalize a term I used earlier, being able to put things

864
00:38:48.842 --> 00:38:51.684
in boxes and then put the lid on and forget about it

865
00:38:51.722 --> 00:38:54.612
for a moment in time and pressing forward is super

866
00:38:54.666 --> 00:38:57.252
important. So one of my hardest flights

867
00:38:57.396 --> 00:39:00.052
was actually only a couple of years ago. So now I'm

868
00:39:00.196 --> 00:39:02.616
fairly experienced. And I was flying a tutor from

869
00:39:02.638 --> 00:39:05.476
Musha across the country, east to Trenton,

870
00:39:05.508 --> 00:39:08.248
where they do second line maintenance. And

871
00:39:08.414 --> 00:39:11.256
everything had gone wrong that day. The weather was bad. I'd gotten

872
00:39:11.288 --> 00:39:14.236
behind the timeline. I was solo, and I

873
00:39:14.258 --> 00:39:17.036
was coming into Trenton after clearing customs in the

874
00:39:17.058 --> 00:39:20.024
US. The weather that was there, like a winter

875
00:39:20.072 --> 00:39:22.672
storm was still kind of there and kind of

876
00:39:22.726 --> 00:39:25.536
stalled, and it hadn't moved through enough.

877
00:39:25.718 --> 00:39:28.544
And I was launching from a place where I was just on the

878
00:39:28.582 --> 00:39:31.552
IFR weather limits for fuel. And

879
00:39:31.606 --> 00:39:34.564
I was coming in, and my alternate on this time was

880
00:39:34.602 --> 00:39:37.508
Pearson, which is downtown Toronto. So not a place you want

881
00:39:37.514 --> 00:39:40.052
to kind of fly to unexpected all that

882
00:39:40.106 --> 00:39:42.932
civilian traffic. So there's a little bit of get

883
00:39:42.986 --> 00:39:45.736
homeitis or get the mission done. Itis to

884
00:39:45.758 --> 00:39:48.296
fly into Trenton. And so I'm, um, low on

885
00:39:48.318 --> 00:39:51.192
fuel. It's nighttime now because the day's gone long.

886
00:39:51.246 --> 00:39:53.332
The weather is stalled and it's

887
00:39:53.396 --> 00:39:56.312
turbulent, uh, over the airport. And I came in

888
00:39:56.366 --> 00:39:59.096
high and fast, and I was not set up

889
00:39:59.118 --> 00:40:01.756
nicely for the approach. So I'm shooting an Ils for the

890
00:40:01.778 --> 00:40:02.232
listeners.

891
00:40:02.296 --> 00:40:04.972
Ils is instrument landing system and is a

892
00:40:05.026 --> 00:40:07.592
system that pilots can use to land in bad weather.

893
00:40:07.656 --> 00:40:10.252
And you know how sensitive an Ils is when you're trying to track

894
00:40:10.306 --> 00:40:13.296
it. I'm fast. I'm trying to slow down, to put the gear down. And I

895
00:40:13.318 --> 00:40:16.304
realized nine or 10 miles back

896
00:40:16.342 --> 00:40:19.104
on final that I was just all over the place

897
00:40:19.222 --> 00:40:22.064
and I had to talk myself into going

898
00:40:22.102 --> 00:40:25.024
back to basics. So as an instructor, we always talk about performance versus

899
00:40:25.072 --> 00:40:27.668
control instruments. You want to put the control

900
00:40:27.754 --> 00:40:30.580
instrument in so that it will have the effect you want,

901
00:40:30.650 --> 00:40:33.412
instead of just trying to fly the airplane by looking at

902
00:40:33.466 --> 00:40:36.416
the effect. So you want to put the input in, not fly

903
00:40:36.448 --> 00:40:39.256
the effect and so I had to talk myself back to

904
00:40:39.278 --> 00:40:42.200
basics, doing the things that I know will work

905
00:40:42.270 --> 00:40:44.952
and letting them patiently get to where they need to.

906
00:40:45.006 --> 00:40:47.860
Like, basically remembering attitude plus power equals performance.

907
00:40:47.940 --> 00:40:50.744
Totally man type of stuff. Uh, like the stuff I had learned on Moose

908
00:40:50.792 --> 00:40:51.052
job.

909
00:40:51.106 --> 00:40:53.150
Yeah, the stuff you were teaching me.

910
00:40:54.160 --> 00:40:57.016
So I had to revert to the basics, which isn't

911
00:40:57.048 --> 00:40:59.944
cosmic to anyone who's been there. But you can find yourself complacent

912
00:40:59.992 --> 00:41:02.876
when you get used to doing things. And

913
00:41:02.898 --> 00:41:05.836
then you cause your own error. So there was no one sitting next to me that would have caught

914
00:41:05.868 --> 00:41:08.432
my error if I had continued down that bad

915
00:41:08.566 --> 00:41:11.072
track. I broke out. Not on center

916
00:41:11.126 --> 00:41:14.080
line. Uh, it was not pretty. I wasn't on perfect

917
00:41:14.150 --> 00:41:16.996
Airspeed or L Two, but it was a capable approach. I

918
00:41:17.018 --> 00:41:19.808
landed taxied off in the dark. I took a couple of deep

919
00:41:19.824 --> 00:41:22.480
breaths on that taxiway that night and kind of reevaluated

920
00:41:22.560 --> 00:41:25.476
that maybe, uh, I

921
00:41:25.498 --> 00:41:27.272
was not as proficient as I thought I was.

922
00:41:27.326 --> 00:41:27.592
Okay.

923
00:41:27.646 --> 00:41:30.616
And needed to, uh, dig in a little deeper. But it was

924
00:41:30.638 --> 00:41:33.480
a hard trip only because it was completely

925
00:41:33.550 --> 00:41:35.780
unexpected. It should have been an easy flight.

926
00:41:35.940 --> 00:41:36.792
I got this.

927
00:41:36.846 --> 00:41:39.724
And then I got behind my own power curve and maybe

928
00:41:39.762 --> 00:41:42.332
complacent, and, uh, made a couple of bad

929
00:41:42.386 --> 00:41:45.164
decisions that cascaded. And I had to

930
00:41:45.202 --> 00:41:48.156
then solve it using the basics. So that was

931
00:41:48.178 --> 00:41:48.652
hard.

932
00:41:48.786 --> 00:41:51.664
Yeah. What would you say was your best day

933
00:41:51.702 --> 00:41:53.904
flying? That's an interesting one.

934
00:41:53.942 --> 00:41:56.768
I think you're going to be surprised because there's a lot

935
00:41:56.774 --> 00:41:59.264
of amazing things that I could say here, uh, on

936
00:41:59.302 --> 00:42:01.580
experiences I've done. But there's a certain

937
00:42:01.750 --> 00:42:04.180
magic to the simplicity of flying,

938
00:42:04.520 --> 00:42:07.344
um, on, like, Sunsets or dawns.

939
00:42:07.392 --> 00:42:07.796
Yeah.

940
00:42:07.898 --> 00:42:10.404
And so I remember very clearly in

941
00:42:10.442 --> 00:42:13.044
2016, we were taking a two ship of

942
00:42:13.082 --> 00:42:15.956
tutors into, uh, Brunswick, Georgia, on the east coast of the

943
00:42:15.978 --> 00:42:18.824
US. But Hurricane Matthew was coming

944
00:42:18.862 --> 00:42:21.476
up the coast. And so we arrived as the advanced

945
00:42:21.508 --> 00:42:24.484
party. And the weather is horrible and it's just torrential.

946
00:42:24.532 --> 00:42:27.192
And we're trying to set everything up. But, uh, my team

947
00:42:27.246 --> 00:42:30.104
lead called us and said, hey, you know what? We've come up short,

948
00:42:30.222 --> 00:42:33.148
200 miles in land. We want you to spark up

949
00:42:33.154 --> 00:42:36.108
and get out of there before the hurricane hits. Which made all the sense in the

950
00:42:36.114 --> 00:42:38.784
world because the air show was going to get canceled anyway. So we

951
00:42:38.822 --> 00:42:41.664
launched near Sunset, and we flew up through

952
00:42:41.702 --> 00:42:44.384
this torrential weather and we popped out on

953
00:42:44.422 --> 00:42:47.340
top. And it was just heavenly.

954
00:42:47.420 --> 00:42:50.224
The sun was just setting over on the

955
00:42:50.262 --> 00:42:53.024
overcast layer. There were these huge thunderstorm

956
00:42:53.072 --> 00:42:55.668
systems to the south, the giant animals up to

957
00:42:55.754 --> 00:42:58.452
60, 70,000ft. And

958
00:42:58.586 --> 00:43:01.316
it was serene, man. The top of the clouds looked like

959
00:43:01.338 --> 00:43:04.308
candy floss. And, uh, I just remember looking over at my

960
00:43:04.314 --> 00:43:07.272
wingman and just being like, man, this is the flying I saw

961
00:43:07.326 --> 00:43:10.136
in movies. This is amazing. And there's been a lot of

962
00:43:10.158 --> 00:43:13.112
moments like that. Some of my most favorite things in the world

963
00:43:13.166 --> 00:43:16.024
was doing dawn or sunset flights, often

964
00:43:16.062 --> 00:43:18.824
with training and having students see that stuff for the first

965
00:43:18.862 --> 00:43:21.356
time. So there's that moment of magic. It's pretty

966
00:43:21.378 --> 00:43:22.140
memorable.

967
00:43:22.960 --> 00:43:25.804
We've talked a little bit about how sometimes the needs

968
00:43:25.842 --> 00:43:28.716
of the service might trump your own needs, and you may end

969
00:43:28.738 --> 00:43:31.564
up in a situation that is maybe not the one

970
00:43:31.602 --> 00:43:34.560
you've wanted to find yourself in. What's the toughest situation

971
00:43:34.630 --> 00:43:37.376
the RCAF has ever put you in and how did you make the best of

972
00:43:37.398 --> 00:43:38.016
it?

973
00:43:38.198 --> 00:43:41.068
So, first off, I want to say that tough is relative. I've

974
00:43:41.084 --> 00:43:43.972
got a lot of friends who've gone overseas and done some real tough things

975
00:43:44.026 --> 00:43:46.804
in their careers, and so mine paled to

976
00:43:46.842 --> 00:43:49.620
that. But in the concept of doing the business,

977
00:43:49.770 --> 00:43:52.670
my toughest challenge was the fact that, uh,

978
00:43:52.670 --> 00:43:55.636
when I came out of a flying tour with four through one squadron, I was

979
00:43:55.658 --> 00:43:58.596
looking for another flying tour. I wanted to go directly onto Quorums

980
00:43:58.628 --> 00:44:01.480
and scratch that SAR itch. Instead,

981
00:44:01.630 --> 00:44:04.424
the Air Force posted me to Trenton, which turned out to be

982
00:44:04.462 --> 00:44:07.256
wonderful, to a unit I'd never heard of, the Canadian Mission

983
00:44:07.288 --> 00:44:10.172
Control Center. So the Canadian Mission Control Center's job is

984
00:44:10.226 --> 00:44:12.972
to receive satellite information on

985
00:44:13.026 --> 00:44:15.916
detected beacons, canadian beacons all around the world,

986
00:44:16.018 --> 00:44:18.956
or any beacon within Canada's area of

987
00:44:18.978 --> 00:44:21.744
operation. So 18 million km² is

988
00:44:21.782 --> 00:44:24.768
our responsibility. And so then we take that information and

989
00:44:24.774 --> 00:44:27.356
we disperse it to the appropriate joint Rescue

990
00:44:27.388 --> 00:44:30.288
Coordination Center, who will then task airplanes or

991
00:44:30.374 --> 00:44:33.188
police or whomever to go help find the people in

992
00:44:33.194 --> 00:44:35.824
distress. So I got there and it was a highly

993
00:44:35.872 --> 00:44:38.800
technical job, all this satellite stuff with international

994
00:44:38.880 --> 00:44:41.844
communities and partnerships, and I was way

995
00:44:41.882 --> 00:44:44.816
out of my depth. As a fixed wing jet

996
00:44:44.848 --> 00:44:47.464
pilot who had taught a few people and done a few

997
00:44:47.502 --> 00:44:50.196
loops. I had a lot of learning to do. I'd

998
00:44:50.228 --> 00:44:53.128
never been in charge of reservists. I'd never been in

999
00:44:53.134 --> 00:44:55.976
charge of civilians. There is a lot that goes into the

1000
00:44:55.998 --> 00:44:58.764
back picture of running a budget of a unit and all these

1001
00:44:58.802 --> 00:45:01.324
other such things. So I

1002
00:45:01.442 --> 00:45:04.280
was assigned to be the officer in charge.

1003
00:45:04.360 --> 00:45:07.340
I jumped in 2ft to try to help some of the issues

1004
00:45:07.410 --> 00:45:10.368
and resolve things. It was a steeper learning curve than I'd ever had in

1005
00:45:10.374 --> 00:45:13.056
pilot training for sure. And

1006
00:45:13.238 --> 00:45:16.208
my takeaway after a year, after maybe spinning my wheels a

1007
00:45:16.214 --> 00:45:18.912
little bit and trying to do everything, was to

1008
00:45:18.966 --> 00:45:21.872
reduce my focus. So I remember

1009
00:45:21.926 --> 00:45:24.612
attending a change of command of a

1010
00:45:24.666 --> 00:45:27.376
Marine, US marine Co of a Herc

1011
00:45:27.408 --> 00:45:30.260
squadron back in 2010 at Cherry Point.

1012
00:45:30.410 --> 00:45:33.264
And he mentioned when he was handing over command

1013
00:45:33.312 --> 00:45:35.956
that he realized the only thing he could control was his

1014
00:45:35.978 --> 00:45:38.856
people's time. So I stole that. The only thing you

1015
00:45:38.878 --> 00:45:41.736
can control is your people's time. Whether you give them leave,

1016
00:45:41.918 --> 00:45:44.788
whether you employ them with value when they're

1017
00:45:44.804 --> 00:45:47.704
at work, and whether what they're working on is of

1018
00:45:47.742 --> 00:45:50.664
value to them and rewarding or to the organization.

1019
00:45:50.792 --> 00:45:53.420
If you waste their time, prevent them from

1020
00:45:53.490 --> 00:45:56.408
spending time with their families, you're just hurting them. So that's

1021
00:45:56.424 --> 00:45:59.084
where your true power comes in. As a

1022
00:45:59.122 --> 00:46:00.652
CEO or an OIC.

1023
00:46:00.796 --> 00:46:03.776
A CEO is a commanding officer, and an OIC is

1024
00:46:03.798 --> 00:46:05.372
an officer in charge.

1025
00:46:05.516 --> 00:46:07.952
And so I tried to

1026
00:46:08.006 --> 00:46:10.656
refocus on the things I could affect on my

1027
00:46:10.678 --> 00:46:13.524
people, helping them with their postings, helping them with

1028
00:46:13.562 --> 00:46:16.500
the courses they need to get promoted, things that will better

1029
00:46:16.570 --> 00:46:19.316
their careers. The Air Force and the

1030
00:46:19.338 --> 00:46:21.792
institution and the demands on the operational

1031
00:46:21.856 --> 00:46:24.644
capabilities will always be there. We can every

1032
00:46:24.682 --> 00:46:27.530
day try our best to keep that machine running, mhm,

1033
00:46:27.530 --> 00:46:30.376
but we can't do it at the detriment of our people as

1034
00:46:30.398 --> 00:46:33.368
Fodder. So that was my takeaway, and it was

1035
00:46:33.454 --> 00:46:36.276
hard. I learned that not because I remembered

1036
00:46:36.308 --> 00:46:39.268
what that other CEO had said, because I had to relearn

1037
00:46:39.284 --> 00:46:40.360
it by making mistakes.

1038
00:46:40.440 --> 00:46:43.404
Yeah. Did you find that despite the fact that you wanted

1039
00:46:43.442 --> 00:46:46.428
to go straight into a flying posting, like, in the

1040
00:46:46.434 --> 00:46:49.164
end, do you think you were better for the experience that you

1041
00:46:49.202 --> 00:46:50.716
had? Oh, very much so.

1042
00:46:50.738 --> 00:46:53.728
The SAR community sent me there, and it was a

1043
00:46:53.734 --> 00:46:56.656
partial education in how SAR works, both at

1044
00:46:56.678 --> 00:46:59.280
the operational and strategic level. I learned a great

1045
00:46:59.350 --> 00:47:02.168
deal from my people on how that plays

1046
00:47:02.204 --> 00:47:05.080
out in a real operational mission. And, uh,

1047
00:47:05.080 --> 00:47:07.520
I also got to know a lot of the upper

1048
00:47:07.600 --> 00:47:10.176
echelon of our SAR Tag, our career

1049
00:47:10.208 --> 00:47:13.124
advisory group, um, which helped guide me

1050
00:47:13.242 --> 00:47:15.430
for a better footing in the SAR community.

1051
00:47:16.760 --> 00:47:19.496
What is the most rewarding experience you've ever had in the

1052
00:47:19.518 --> 00:47:20.520
RCAF?

1053
00:47:20.860 --> 00:47:23.796
I've taken a lot of ribbing over the years for putting on a red flight

1054
00:47:23.828 --> 00:47:26.324
suit, but it's got to be hands down, the most

1055
00:47:26.382 --> 00:47:29.164
rewarding. You meet thousands of people

1056
00:47:29.282 --> 00:47:32.156
who are super enthusiastic. You have, uh, a

1057
00:47:32.178 --> 00:47:35.096
positive work environment every day. Like, you fly

1058
00:47:35.128 --> 00:47:38.028
around North America and every air show is like a

1059
00:47:38.034 --> 00:47:40.876
wedding. They've been planning it for a year or two, and they

1060
00:47:40.898 --> 00:47:43.708
want to make it go perfect, and they want to have a party afterward,

1061
00:47:43.804 --> 00:47:46.736
which can be exhausting, because on the snowbirds, every night is

1062
00:47:46.758 --> 00:47:49.664
a Friday night, but every morning is a Monday morning where you have to be

1063
00:47:49.702 --> 00:47:52.236
ready to work. So, uh, it's

1064
00:47:52.268 --> 00:47:55.044
exhausting. But the people you meet traveling around

1065
00:47:55.082 --> 00:47:57.812
Canada, all these small towns and all these big

1066
00:47:57.866 --> 00:48:00.788
towns has been super, super rewarding. And I'll tell you a couple

1067
00:48:00.794 --> 00:48:03.572
of anecdotes there was a Grad here only a couple of months

1068
00:48:03.626 --> 00:48:06.440
ago in Portage, where there was about

1069
00:48:06.510 --> 00:48:09.044
ten newly winged pilots.

1070
00:48:09.172 --> 00:48:12.136
And while they were reading their BIOS, it's common for people to say

1071
00:48:12.158 --> 00:48:14.920
what inspired them to become a pilot. And

1072
00:48:14.990 --> 00:48:17.736
seven of the eleven BIOS mentioned the

1073
00:48:17.758 --> 00:48:18.812
snowbirds by name.

1074
00:48:18.866 --> 00:48:19.228
Really?

1075
00:48:19.314 --> 00:48:22.188
So it wasn't me directly, but it

1076
00:48:22.194 --> 00:48:25.132
was that unit. Like, when you're there,

1077
00:48:25.266 --> 00:48:28.076
you're Batman. You don't own the suit, you don't get to keep it

1078
00:48:28.098 --> 00:48:31.036
forever. You get to wear it for a few years. Hopefully. You

1079
00:48:31.058 --> 00:48:33.936
don't mess it up and you hand it off to someone else. And

1080
00:48:33.958 --> 00:48:36.816
so it's the legacy of the snowbirds that I'm very

1081
00:48:36.838 --> 00:48:39.648
proud of. I was in the mess hall here in

1082
00:48:39.654 --> 00:48:42.576
Portage a couple months ago, and this young man was

1083
00:48:42.598 --> 00:48:45.524
sitting next to me. I'm not going to say his name for his benefit, he'd kill

1084
00:48:45.562 --> 00:48:48.372
me. But when he realized, because we just met

1085
00:48:48.426 --> 00:48:51.296
who I was, he pulled out his wallet and he pulled

1086
00:48:51.328 --> 00:48:53.988
out my business card. And we had sat at a

1087
00:48:54.074 --> 00:48:57.060
community charity dinner at Brantford, Ontario air show

1088
00:48:57.130 --> 00:49:00.104
in 2016, and he had asked me questions about

1089
00:49:00.142 --> 00:49:01.012
joining the Air Force.

1090
00:49:01.076 --> 00:49:01.832
No way.

1091
00:49:01.966 --> 00:49:04.660
I had given him my card and said, if you ever run into trouble,

1092
00:49:04.740 --> 00:49:07.544
call me. And he presented it to me at

1093
00:49:07.582 --> 00:49:10.488
that meeting in the mess. And he's getting his wings in a couple

1094
00:49:10.494 --> 00:49:13.100
of weeks, and he's going to be a multi engine pilot. So

1095
00:49:13.170 --> 00:49:15.192
man, that stuff's pretty rewarding.

1096
00:49:15.256 --> 00:49:15.870
Yeah.

1097
00:49:16.240 --> 00:49:18.924
You look at you. My

1098
00:49:18.962 --> 00:49:21.776
students have gone off and succeeded in

1099
00:49:21.798 --> 00:49:24.656
ways that I never could and given far more back to the

1100
00:49:24.678 --> 00:49:26.764
Air Force. So that's what I find rewarding.

1101
00:49:26.812 --> 00:49:29.664
That's really cool. What's the

1102
00:49:29.702 --> 00:49:32.356
craziest situation you've ever found yourself in flying with the

1103
00:49:32.378 --> 00:49:33.456
RCAF?

1104
00:49:33.648 --> 00:49:36.512
You might not guess that photosHIP

1105
00:49:36.656 --> 00:49:39.524
chase flying is that crazy,

1106
00:49:39.722 --> 00:49:41.472
but it's far more dynamic.

1107
00:49:41.536 --> 00:49:42.868
Can you explain what that is?

1108
00:49:42.954 --> 00:49:45.236
Yeah. So, like, if we put up either the

1109
00:49:45.258 --> 00:49:47.968
snowbirds or another airplane,

1110
00:49:48.144 --> 00:49:51.128
and you put a second airplane where the photographer is sitting, you

1111
00:49:51.134 --> 00:49:54.036
have to imagine anytime you see a picture of an airplane, there's a photographer

1112
00:49:54.068 --> 00:49:56.856
behind that camera. And if it's from the air, they were also in an

1113
00:49:56.878 --> 00:49:57.284
airplane.

1114
00:49:57.332 --> 00:49:57.784
Yeah.

1115
00:49:57.902 --> 00:50:00.828
The other thing you have to remember is that when you take a

1116
00:50:00.834 --> 00:50:03.612
picture on your iPhone, remember how everything always looks really

1117
00:50:03.666 --> 00:50:06.380
small. So you often have to get a lot

1118
00:50:06.450 --> 00:50:09.400
closer to these airplanes in flight than

1119
00:50:09.410 --> 00:50:12.160
you would ever imagine. So doing

1120
00:50:12.230 --> 00:50:15.212
that, coordinating that is both really challenging.

1121
00:50:15.276 --> 00:50:18.156
It's time consuming, but it's very, very rewarding

1122
00:50:18.188 --> 00:50:21.100
when you get the shot. I've got a couple amazing

1123
00:50:21.270 --> 00:50:24.260
examples of photo shoots that just

1124
00:50:24.330 --> 00:50:27.204
were phenomenal. The first one was my first

1125
00:50:27.242 --> 00:50:30.144
year. We heard that there was a possibility to fly

1126
00:50:30.192 --> 00:50:32.852
over downtown, uh, Washington DC. So there's a

1127
00:50:32.906 --> 00:50:35.776
especially after September 11, a very restricted airspace.

1128
00:50:35.808 --> 00:50:38.744
P 56 Alpha is what it's called.

1129
00:50:38.862 --> 00:50:41.684
And not only is it in the restricted airspace

1130
00:50:41.732 --> 00:50:44.728
around all of Washington DC. But it's a smaller restricted airspace that

1131
00:50:44.734 --> 00:50:47.640
covers the Capitol Building, the Wall, Lincoln Memorial,

1132
00:50:47.720 --> 00:50:50.568
White House, that type of stuff. Pentagon, Arlington Cemetery. It's

1133
00:50:50.584 --> 00:50:53.548
all that area. And so we did

1134
00:50:53.634 --> 00:50:56.440
months of high level coordination

1135
00:50:56.520 --> 00:50:59.356
with the Homeland Security Czar and his team and all those

1136
00:50:59.378 --> 00:51:02.240
people to get permission to fly our nine ship

1137
00:51:02.580 --> 00:51:05.388
1000ft, right down the mall. And I was the photo

1138
00:51:05.404 --> 00:51:08.150
chase. So I was the 10th airplane and so I'm, uh,

1139
00:51:08.188 --> 00:51:11.024
up above them banked as close to

1140
00:51:11.062 --> 00:51:14.032
the limit of legal aerobatics as possible because

1141
00:51:14.086 --> 00:51:16.976
I have to move my wing out of the way so the photographer

1142
00:51:17.008 --> 00:51:19.956
sitting next to me can shoot without the wing being in the way. So

1143
00:51:19.978 --> 00:51:22.928
I'm cross controlling flying. We're

1144
00:51:22.944 --> 00:51:25.300
all smoking and I'm not. But near

1145
00:51:25.370 --> 00:51:28.280
aerobatic over the house crazy

1146
00:51:28.430 --> 00:51:31.336
and it's super cool. We did something very similar at

1147
00:51:31.358 --> 00:51:34.328
Cape Canaveral. We reached out to them and said we needed

1148
00:51:34.414 --> 00:51:37.336
some training and we need to find some sterile restricted airspace to

1149
00:51:37.358 --> 00:51:40.060
do it. They were super accommodating at NASA there

1150
00:51:40.210 --> 00:51:42.988
and, uh, we actually put a show on for them

1151
00:51:43.074 --> 00:51:45.964
and the Canadians that are down there working. But we also

1152
00:51:46.002 --> 00:51:48.776
did a photo shoot where we're flying over the exact launch

1153
00:51:48.808 --> 00:51:51.584
pads that are now launching Artemis into space, but also

1154
00:51:51.622 --> 00:51:54.352
launched Apollo to the moon. And it was

1155
00:51:54.406 --> 00:51:57.024
phenomenal, but the whole time it's very

1156
00:51:57.062 --> 00:52:00.060
dynamic. Whether it's a big airplane or a formation of nine airplanes,

1157
00:52:00.140 --> 00:52:03.072
you're the 10th and you're trying to get as close as possible with the right

1158
00:52:03.126 --> 00:52:06.032
angle, with the sun, with the thing in the background

1159
00:52:06.096 --> 00:52:08.932
and you're trying to set it all up. And the tutor is very power

1160
00:52:08.986 --> 00:52:11.812
limited, so, uh, you have to use

1161
00:52:11.866 --> 00:52:14.756
angles to make it all work. You mentioned the beginning of the show,

1162
00:52:14.778 --> 00:52:17.656
Skies magazine. One of the founders is Mike Reno and

1163
00:52:17.678 --> 00:52:20.664
I did the photosHIP for the

1164
00:52:20.702 --> 00:52:23.576
CF 18 demo team in 2017 with Mike, so he can

1165
00:52:23.598 --> 00:52:24.868
tell you about that offline.

1166
00:52:24.964 --> 00:52:25.320
Okay?

1167
00:52:25.390 --> 00:52:28.296
But we went up into some real interesting

1168
00:52:28.398 --> 00:52:31.256
weather on a dark afternoon and went

1169
00:52:31.278 --> 00:52:34.140
up there with Glib who was the, uh, demo pilot at the time. And

1170
00:52:34.210 --> 00:52:37.096
trying to get all these angles on this tutor, it was a heck

1171
00:52:37.128 --> 00:52:40.016
of a lot of work. We were both drenched with sweat by the time

1172
00:52:40.038 --> 00:52:42.480
we landed. So photo chase

1173
00:52:42.900 --> 00:52:45.676
looks simple, can go sideways

1174
00:52:45.788 --> 00:52:48.768
real quick mhm, and an hour of planning on

1175
00:52:48.774 --> 00:52:51.676
the ground will save you hundreds of pounds of gas in the Airborne

1176
00:52:51.708 --> 00:52:54.624
trying to sort it out and also allow you to come back with something

1177
00:52:54.662 --> 00:52:56.076
that's super spectacular.

1178
00:52:56.188 --> 00:52:59.028
It sounds like there's a lot more to it than you would expect on the

1179
00:52:59.034 --> 00:52:59.664
surface.

1180
00:52:59.792 --> 00:53:02.756
Well, think about it. If you're flying, so this is one of ours. If you

1181
00:53:02.778 --> 00:53:05.764
have to fly by the Hollywood sign in California, what

1182
00:53:05.802 --> 00:53:08.536
angle do you have to be at what time of day and where do you have to put your

1183
00:53:08.558 --> 00:53:11.284
airplanes? The photographer has the right angle

1184
00:53:11.412 --> 00:53:14.312
and sometimes I wasn't even flying with professional photographers, so sometimes

1185
00:53:14.366 --> 00:53:17.176
we only have a snowbird tech in the seat next to

1186
00:53:17.198 --> 00:53:20.120
me with a good camera. And we had some minor training

1187
00:53:20.190 --> 00:53:23.116
on it, but I had to use my eye. And I'm a

1188
00:53:23.138 --> 00:53:25.916
bit of a visual person, but I would have to put him

1189
00:53:26.018 --> 00:53:28.956
in a way that the angles would line up. Like, what do

1190
00:53:28.978 --> 00:53:31.836
the snowbirds look like over the Golden Gate Bridge when you need the

1191
00:53:31.858 --> 00:53:34.712
skyline and elcatras in the background at ah. What altitude

1192
00:53:34.776 --> 00:53:37.772
do I need to be high? Do I need to be low? Do I want Top Side. Do I want bottom

1193
00:53:37.826 --> 00:53:40.820
side? Do I want to see the smoke? Do I not what do I want want?

1194
00:53:40.890 --> 00:53:43.284
And getting front side photos are the most

1195
00:53:43.322 --> 00:53:46.160
challenging. In 2018,

1196
00:53:46.320 --> 00:53:48.996
we did a photo chase over Hamilton, Ontario with the

1197
00:53:49.018 --> 00:53:51.796
Lancaster oh, um, cool. The CF 18 demo

1198
00:53:51.978 --> 00:53:54.836
and flying in formation. I was actually

1199
00:53:54.858 --> 00:53:56.988
with one of my best buddies, Robbie Hindel.

1200
00:53:57.104 --> 00:53:59.928
Oh, I was on squatting with him when he was an Aurora guy.

1201
00:54:00.014 --> 00:54:00.616
Oh, yeah.

1202
00:54:00.718 --> 00:54:02.568
Because he was an Axo first, right?

1203
00:54:02.654 --> 00:54:05.528
Totally. Yeah. So Rob was snowbird eleven when I

1204
00:54:05.534 --> 00:54:08.436
was ten in 2018. It made it easier to pass the camera

1205
00:54:08.468 --> 00:54:11.208
and then pass control so we could fly both sides of the formation

1206
00:54:11.304 --> 00:54:13.560
and up there with, uh, that priceless

1207
00:54:13.640 --> 00:54:16.536
Lancaster and a Hornet, and you're only operating feet

1208
00:54:16.568 --> 00:54:19.288
from each other at high speeds. And we're

1209
00:54:19.304 --> 00:54:22.156
like, flying around all these cumulus cloud over Southern

1210
00:54:22.188 --> 00:54:24.960
Ontario and trying to get these angles. It was

1211
00:54:25.030 --> 00:54:27.520
very memorable. But, uh, yeah, man,

1212
00:54:27.590 --> 00:54:30.048
photoShips are definitely the craziest stuff I've done.

1213
00:54:30.134 --> 00:54:32.804
It sounds like a lot of fun. It's so much

1214
00:54:32.842 --> 00:54:35.604
fun. We're getting into the

1215
00:54:35.642 --> 00:54:38.468
last few questions here. What is the

1216
00:54:38.474 --> 00:54:41.270
most important thing you do to keep yourself ready for your job?

1217
00:54:41.720 --> 00:54:44.256
I've mentioned learning new things, and I think that's

1218
00:54:44.288 --> 00:54:47.172
important. But you also have to relearn

1219
00:54:47.236 --> 00:54:50.216
the stuff you've forgotten. A colleague of mine recently said that

1220
00:54:50.238 --> 00:54:53.080
there's like, an acceptable level of knowledge loss in pilot training.

1221
00:54:53.150 --> 00:54:56.004
You cannot absorb every number in the Aois,

1222
00:54:56.052 --> 00:54:58.860
you cannot absorb every procedure. You can't read

1223
00:54:58.930 --> 00:55:01.708
every publication every week and have everything

1224
00:55:01.794 --> 00:55:04.684
at your fingertips. So you've got to go back and

1225
00:55:04.722 --> 00:55:07.404
refresh and relearn all that stuff,

1226
00:55:07.522 --> 00:55:10.476
because not only will you start to misinterpret it or

1227
00:55:10.498 --> 00:55:13.296
apply it incorrectly, but they go off and they do things

1228
00:55:13.318 --> 00:55:16.176
like changing the orders. Man, I remember I

1229
00:55:16.198 --> 00:55:19.136
got here as a seasoned pilot and the

1230
00:55:19.158 --> 00:55:21.984
instructors are saying one thing and I'm like, no, I know that that's not

1231
00:55:22.022 --> 00:55:24.852
correct. And then we pull out the pubs and they go and change

1232
00:55:24.906 --> 00:55:27.632
stuff on me. Their knowledge isn't applicable

1233
00:55:27.696 --> 00:55:30.640
anymore. So staying in the books

1234
00:55:30.720 --> 00:55:33.696
and being able to humbly go back, knock

1235
00:55:33.728 --> 00:55:36.436
off the rust and relearn things and knowing that we're all

1236
00:55:36.458 --> 00:55:39.288
human and you can do that and it's still cool

1237
00:55:39.374 --> 00:55:40.840
is something that I have to do.

1238
00:55:40.910 --> 00:55:43.588
Yeah. So for you, the big thing is staying in the books.

1239
00:55:43.684 --> 00:55:43.992
Yeah.

1240
00:55:44.046 --> 00:55:46.996
It's important to and you know what? It's not just books.

1241
00:55:47.028 --> 00:55:49.996
It's also procedures, it's also proficiency. As I

1242
00:55:50.018 --> 00:55:52.748
alluded to one of my hard that hard flight going in the winter and

1243
00:55:52.754 --> 00:55:55.752
trend, I think I was not as proficient

1244
00:55:55.816 --> 00:55:58.540
hands and feet wise. I had not done enough

1245
00:55:58.690 --> 00:56:01.404
current training to keep the skills where my

1246
00:56:01.442 --> 00:56:02.640
mentally thought I was.

1247
00:56:02.710 --> 00:56:05.248
Yeah, that can be a pretty easy thing to do, especially

1248
00:56:05.334 --> 00:56:08.144
depending on what job you're doing. Right. Like,

1249
00:56:08.182 --> 00:56:11.148
if your job is instructing and 90% of the flying you're

1250
00:56:11.164 --> 00:56:14.084
doing, you're very knowledgeable, you're very

1251
00:56:14.122 --> 00:56:17.056
proficient in your instructing. But if 90% of the flying

1252
00:56:17.088 --> 00:56:19.300
you're doing is someone else doing it and you're

1253
00:56:19.800 --> 00:56:22.436
critiquing and you're just doing a few

1254
00:56:22.458 --> 00:56:25.316
demos every now and then, and even then, once you get further into the

1255
00:56:25.338 --> 00:56:28.136
course, you're not demoing anything anymore. Right. So I would

1256
00:56:28.158 --> 00:56:30.936
imagine that that would be a really easy thing to have creep up on

1257
00:56:30.958 --> 00:56:31.240
you.

1258
00:56:31.310 --> 00:56:33.832
Yeah, I think it happens to everyone, given enough time.

1259
00:56:33.886 --> 00:56:36.756
Yeah, for sure. What do you think makes a good

1260
00:56:36.798 --> 00:56:37.580
pilot?

1261
00:56:38.160 --> 00:56:41.084
I've known a lot of good pilots, but I've only known a couple

1262
00:56:41.202 --> 00:56:44.124
great pilots. And what makes

1263
00:56:44.162 --> 00:56:47.036
a great pilot is their ability to roll with

1264
00:56:47.058 --> 00:56:49.884
the punches in a flight or a mission. They

1265
00:56:49.922 --> 00:56:52.572
were never rigid in their ability to

1266
00:56:52.626 --> 00:56:55.504
flex during a during a flight. And I

1267
00:56:55.542 --> 00:56:58.476
kind of compare it to a duck. Like, you look at a duck and they're

1268
00:56:58.508 --> 00:57:01.260
just gently floating upon the surface of a pond.

1269
00:57:01.340 --> 00:57:04.236
But we all know that underwater those feet are

1270
00:57:04.278 --> 00:57:06.884
flapping at 1000 beats a minute to make it all

1271
00:57:06.922 --> 00:57:09.844
happen. And so the best pilots might be

1272
00:57:09.882 --> 00:57:12.804
working really hard, but they don't show it in their

1273
00:57:12.842 --> 00:57:15.524
calm demeanor. They also listened. The great

1274
00:57:15.562 --> 00:57:18.536
pilots will listen to a crew. They'll listen to their

1275
00:57:18.558 --> 00:57:21.368
peers, their wingmen. They'll take all the info in,

1276
00:57:21.454 --> 00:57:24.408
but then they'll be decisive. And that also makes leadership on

1277
00:57:24.414 --> 00:57:27.364
the ground is very similar. But you need leadership

1278
00:57:27.412 --> 00:57:30.396
in the air. Whether it's making a decision about flight safety or

1279
00:57:30.418 --> 00:57:33.292
a mission parameter, that decisiveness is key.

1280
00:57:33.346 --> 00:57:36.284
And in making that decision, they also take full

1281
00:57:36.322 --> 00:57:39.276
responsibility for any errors. And so they get on the ground

1282
00:57:39.308 --> 00:57:41.932
and they wholeheartedly accept

1283
00:57:42.076 --> 00:57:44.636
that weather happens, that mission

1284
00:57:44.668 --> 00:57:47.616
tasks change, that traffic conflicts are

1285
00:57:47.638 --> 00:57:50.384
out of their control. The decisions on how

1286
00:57:50.422 --> 00:57:53.264
they deal with those things, though, are on them and they own

1287
00:57:53.302 --> 00:57:53.480
it.

1288
00:57:53.480 --> 00:57:53.840
Mhm.

1289
00:57:53.862 --> 00:57:56.692
So those are the attributes that I aspire to.

1290
00:57:56.746 --> 00:57:59.684
I'm still far off, man, but, uh, that's what I'm trying for

1291
00:57:59.722 --> 00:58:00.404
each day.

1292
00:58:00.522 --> 00:58:03.348
Okay, that's cool. I like that you took this up a

1293
00:58:03.354 --> 00:58:05.956
level from what makes a good pilot to like,

1294
00:58:06.138 --> 00:58:08.936
here's the greats. You've known such a large pool of

1295
00:58:08.958 --> 00:58:11.876
pilots by the nature of the jobs you've done, so it's neat

1296
00:58:11.908 --> 00:58:13.060
to get that input.

1297
00:58:13.220 --> 00:58:15.864
I'm very humbled to have worked with some

1298
00:58:15.982 --> 00:58:18.716
amazing people, like really, really

1299
00:58:18.898 --> 00:58:21.816
high functioning people. I actually feel spoiled

1300
00:58:21.848 --> 00:58:24.808
sometimes because we surround ourselves with these air crew

1301
00:58:24.904 --> 00:58:27.256
and very intelligent technicians

1302
00:58:27.368 --> 00:58:29.640
and it's really a blessing.

1303
00:58:29.720 --> 00:58:32.648
Yeah, absolutely. So if you could

1304
00:58:32.674 --> 00:58:35.468
give some advice to a new pilot, let's say there's

1305
00:58:35.484 --> 00:58:38.384
somebody who's thinking that aviation is for them and they want to

1306
00:58:38.422 --> 00:58:41.216
try out this pilot thing. They're about to join the Air

1307
00:58:41.238 --> 00:58:44.176
Force or just start flying, what advice would you

1308
00:58:44.198 --> 00:58:44.930
give them?

1309
00:58:45.300 --> 00:58:48.176
You know what? I'd almost say the same thing to a new pilot that I'd

1310
00:58:48.208 --> 00:58:51.108
say to an old pilot, which is like, you got to enjoy

1311
00:58:51.274 --> 00:58:53.716
every single day. You're going to do things

1312
00:58:53.898 --> 00:58:56.744
in your new training or in the Air

1313
00:58:56.782 --> 00:58:59.700
Force, in your old training or new opportunities that will simply

1314
00:58:59.780 --> 00:59:02.456
blow your mind. And most of it's going to be

1315
00:59:02.478 --> 00:59:05.272
unexpected. It's going to be exciting, but

1316
00:59:05.326 --> 00:59:08.168
you got to savor the quiet moments. We kind of spoke

1317
00:59:08.184 --> 00:59:10.904
about that earlier between the exciting

1318
00:59:10.952 --> 00:59:13.804
times. Some of the most memorable moments are

1319
00:59:13.842 --> 00:59:16.716
not the most stressful moments. They're the

1320
00:59:16.738 --> 00:59:19.676
hilarious moments with your crewmates. And that's part of it,

1321
00:59:19.698 --> 00:59:22.576
too. You got to treasure your coursemates, your

1322
00:59:22.598 --> 00:59:25.424
squadron mates and the crews, because they're most

1323
00:59:25.462 --> 00:59:28.316
likely going to share most of your big milestones in your life. They're

1324
00:59:28.348 --> 00:59:31.276
your pseudosecond family. They're the ones who are going to lend

1325
00:59:31.308 --> 00:59:34.096
you a, uh, drill if you need it. They're going to

1326
00:59:34.198 --> 00:59:37.188
have a beer with you after a really bad flight, which happens to

1327
00:59:37.194 --> 00:59:40.132
everyone. They're the most likely person to break you out of prison or

1328
00:59:40.186 --> 00:59:43.044
stand next to you at a funeral. So having those

1329
00:59:43.162 --> 00:59:46.144
Air Force brothers and sisters is something

1330
00:59:46.202 --> 00:59:48.936
you kind of have to cherish as you step to that

1331
00:59:48.958 --> 00:59:51.816
airplane every single day. So, yeah,

1332
00:59:51.838 --> 00:59:54.712
man, this Air Force gig is like nothing else. And

1333
00:59:54.766 --> 00:59:57.436
the road, as I said, may not be straight for everyone,

1334
00:59:57.538 --> 01:00:00.396
but, man, it's pretty phenomenal. And I'm confident that

1335
01:00:00.418 --> 01:00:03.164
whether you're new or old, there's a way to

1336
01:00:03.202 --> 01:00:05.550
have an absolutely epic experience.

1337
01:00:06.640 --> 01:00:09.096
That's great advice. I like that. I'm

1338
01:00:09.128 --> 01:00:09.900
inspired.

1339
01:00:10.480 --> 01:00:12.050
Well, then I've done my job.

1340
01:00:13.860 --> 01:00:16.736
Okay, man, that's pretty much it. Thanks so much for being here

1341
01:00:16.758 --> 01:00:19.536
today. I really appreciate you taking the time out, especially when you've got

1342
01:00:19.558 --> 01:00:22.464
your last flight coming up tomorrow. But, uh, I

1343
01:00:22.502 --> 01:00:25.340
know it's going to go great, and I'm just really thankful that you took the

1344
01:00:25.350 --> 01:00:26.788
time to be here. Thank you.

1345
01:00:26.874 --> 01:00:28.128
Absolutely. My pleasure.

1346
01:00:28.304 --> 01:00:31.284
Okay, that's going to wrap up our episode with Blake talking about

1347
01:00:31.322 --> 01:00:34.256
his time on the snowbirds as well as his experiences on phase

1348
01:00:34.288 --> 01:00:37.236
three helicopter. For our next episode, we'll be talking with

1349
01:00:37.258 --> 01:00:40.056
air traffic controllers who were on duty for 911 and

1350
01:00:40.078 --> 01:00:42.984
its aftermath. Do you have any questions or comments about

1351
01:00:43.022 --> 01:00:45.976
something you've heard in the show or would you or someone you know make a great

1352
01:00:45.998 --> 01:00:48.556
guest for the podcast? You can email us at

1353
01:00:48.578 --> 01:00:51.404
thepilotprojectpodcast@gmail.com or

1354
01:00:51.442 --> 01:00:54.252
reach out at at podpilot project on all

1355
01:00:54.306 --> 01:00:56.936
social media. We love hearing from our listeners.

1356
01:00:57.128 --> 01:01:00.044
As always, we'd like to thank you for spreading the word about the show.

1357
01:01:00.082 --> 01:01:02.956
We continue to see growth every month, and we're so thankful for

1358
01:01:02.978 --> 01:01:05.884
that. But we still need your help with the big three that's like

1359
01:01:05.922 --> 01:01:08.876
and follow us on social media, share with your friends and

1360
01:01:08.898 --> 01:01:11.872
follow and read us five stars wherever you get your podcast.

1361
01:01:12.016 --> 01:01:14.816
That's all for now. Thanks for listening. Keep the blue

1362
01:01:14.848 --> 01:01:16.550
side up. See you.

1363
01:01:18.120 --> 01:01:21.076
Engineer. Shut down all four. Shutting down all

1364
01:01:21.098 --> 01:01:21.680
four engines.