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Welcome to The Pilot Project Podcast, your premier source for stories and insights from pilots in the RCAF and mission aviation - brought to you by Skies Magazine! Whether you're an aspiring aviator, navigating flight training, or simply fascinated by the world of military and mission aviation, this podcast is your guide. We sit down with pilots and aviation professionals to hear their thrilling experiences, lessons learned, and expert advice on resilience, training, and the skills needed to succeed in this exciting field. Strap in - we’re ready for departure!
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Bryan:Alright. We're ready for departure here at the Pilot Project Podcast, the best source for stories and advice from RCAF and Mission Aviation Pilots brought to you by Sky's Magazine. I'm your host, Brian Morrison. And here with me today is major Machay Machada, the current Snowbird one and team lead of the Canadian Forces Snowbirds. Mach, I wanna thank you so much for being here today during by far the busiest time of the year for the Snowbirds air show season.
Match:Thank you for having me. I'm looking out a window of, the hotel here in Columbus, Ohio as we enjoy our one kind of day off a week here on the air show circuit. So, yeah. Thanks for having me. Excited to be here.
Bryan:Yeah. That's right. Just for listeners, Match was kind enough to join us. Like we said, you know, the snowbirds are on the road basically all the time during air show season. So Match is sitting in a hotel room in Columbus, Ohio and, taking time out of his day to chat with us.
Bryan:So that is awesome. Match has had a super unique career in the RCAF from flying c f 18 hornets on NORAD and combat missions overseas to flying multiple positions on the snowbirds to graduating from the United States Air Force Test Pilot School. In this first part of the conversation, we're going to focus on Match's path into aviation, his fighter career, and the journey that eventually led him into the world of test flying. But before we get to any of that, let's go through Match's bio. Major Matcha Matchhata was born in Gdansk, Poland and grew up in Milton, Ontario.
Bryan:He is a Royal Canadian Air Force fighter pilot, test pilot, and the current team lead of the Canadian Forces Snowbirds. A graduate of the Royal Military College of Canada, he began his flying journey through air cadets before earning his wings and flying the c f 18 Hornet operationally. Match previously spent a season with the Snowbirds in multiple formation positions and later graduated from the United States Air Force Test Pilot School at Edwards Air Force Base. In 2025, major Hata was selected to return to Moose Jaw with the honor of the team lead position. He brings over 4,000 flying hours to the team across 29 different fixed and rotary wing aircraft types.
Bryan:He credits his achievements to the aviation passion instilled in him as an air cadet and the loving devotion, support, and sacrifices of his wife and daughter. So when you were growing up in Milton, where did aviation first enter your life?
Match:So at first, I always wanted to be either a firefighter or police officer, early in elementary school. And then my dad actually worked for McDon Douglas Canada in Malton, which is was at the north end of, Pearson Airport, in the old Avro Aero plant, actually, the iconic hangars there. And, he worked on that. He was a riveter, a machinist, and worked on MD 11 wings, and I think they made f 18 pylons for external fuel tanks and weapons. And, so that kind of opened the door a bit.
Match:And then, literally, one day, he brought home basically, like, a corporate, very corporate esque VHS tape of q four earnings or something like that or company status at McDonnell Douglas. And at the very end of all the other stuff was a a quick video of the Blue Angels since McDonoughless was the manufacturer of their platform at the at the time, the, the Legacy Hornet. And, I watched that, and I remember fast forwarding to the end all the time and watching that over and over and rewinding it and watching it again. And it was like, it's so cheesy now. I found it on YouTube actually, the original VHS tape.
Match:And so I actually showed the the Snowbirds team a few weeks back, and it's very propaganda esque and cheesy, and the audio track is funny now that I listen to it, but that is actually what got me into flying. So it's a fun little throwback and I smile every time I hear it and then sing the song in my head even though it's American and not Canadian. But, yeah, that's that's literally the video that got me into flying.
Bryan:Oh, that's so cool. We'll have to get you to send us that link and we'll put it in the show notes in case listeners wanna check it out. But, that's so awesome. It's neat that your dad was working on parts of the aircraft that you would eventually well, the legacy aircraft that you would eventually fly. Like, that is that's really neat.
Match:Yeah. The more I spend time in aviation, I find how small and intricate and interwoven all the facets are and, like, how people are connected, and I'll have some more kinda connections back later as we talk. But, yeah, even in the broader North American sense, aviation is still a fairly tight, close knit community. We see that in the air show industry for sure amongst, other places. So, yeah, having been able to tell my dad that I probably flew something that he worked on or a portion of what he worked on, It's a pretty cool story.
Bryan:Yeah. That's amazing. So you're watching this VHS tape constantly. At what point did flying stop becoming something that you were just watching over and over again on a tape and start becoming something that you were dreaming of doing?
Match:I remember two instances. So in one case, my dad took me to the what used to be the Hamilton Air Show, typically on Father's Day weekend. So I remember seeing the snowbirds there. This was probably early nineties. And as well, I remember picking up a 1995 brochure.
Match:They made, like, a special anniversary edition booklet, like a full eight and a half by 11 size magazine booklet for that year. And then then I kinda made the link there between, okay. Well, I can't be a Blue Angel because I'm Canadian. But, hey. Look.
Match:There's this team in Canada that's doing this, and how do I do that? And then at the around the same time frame, there was a an advertisement in the local Milton paper about joining air cadets. I was like, what is this air cadets about? And then my mom brought me into one meeting there with the staff and all of a sudden I was hooked and that was my in.
Bryan:There's a couple common pipelines I find that tend to lead to a lot of inspiration for young people in Canada for aviation. One is air shows. So for me, it was the London International Air Show as a kid. And, the second one, of course, is air cadets, which I was also in. How important was air cadets for you in building the foundation for the pilot you became?
Match:It was instrumental to the point where I even carry my air cadet patch in my left pocket, like, close to my heart, because it is the roots of what started it all. It taught me so many early lessons in discipline, teamwork, camaraderie, I mean, formation skills if you count drill team as a kind of formation on foot, and I still carry that to this day. And and and that's not even counting the bits about ground school and, glider and power scholarships, which I was a part of as well fortunate enough to be a part of as well, in the late nineties. But, yeah. So instrumental would be the single word to kinda describe the architut portion of what got me to where I am.
Bryan:What patch is it? Is it your squadron patch?
Match:Yeah. It's literally the eight twenty patch. I mean, I have it over there where the flight suits hanging in my pocket and I show it occasionally when when I'm doing cadet things to kinda throw back and have that connection back to people because everybody there usually has a patch on their shoulder. I'll be like, yeah. That patch on your shoulder, you know, that can take you as far as you want it to go, really.
Match:And, I mean, it helped that my squadron was eight twenty Milton. At the time, it was Milton and then Blue Thunder squadrons, and then got renamed Chris Hadfield squadron because that was the same squadron that Chris Hadfield went to, as a kid growing up in Milton. So, lots to live up to.
Bryan:Yeah. There's a a big heritage in that squadron. You've got Chris Hadfield. You've got a Snowbird one. Like, that's pretty cool.
Bryan:Yeah. So you did your glider and power through air cadets as well?
Match:That's right. Yeah. I did glider 98, which was easy to remember because that was the VNE, the never exceed speed on the glider in, CRGS, Central Region Gliding School there in Mountain View, Ontario. And then I did power scholarship for my private pilot's license in Lindsay, Ontario at the Lindvik Flying Club. I think it's now called Coeur D'Alenek Airport, but, yeah, just north of Northwest of Peterborough.
Bryan:Oh, cool. I was there in CRGS in 2003, power in London in 2004, and then I instructed in CRGS in 2005.
Match:Oh, nice.
Bryan:So I'm sure as we were talking about, oh, you know, common people, I'm sure we have a ton of circles that intersect.
Match:Yeah. And I remember distinctly, like, all the signatures on, I think it was a glider ring that was out there in Mountain View, and just looking back and seeing, again, Chris Hadfield's signature on a panel and all the other people that have then gone on to great careers in aviation or otherwise throughout Canada and and abroad.
Bryan:So you have the VHS, you have the air cadets. What was actually involved in you making the jump to joining the military?
Match:Even early on during air cadets, I always wanted to be a fighter pilot, and fighter pilot and test pilot all sounded cool. And then the link back to the Blue Angels video and and the snowbirds made me wanna also do that. So I was, like, kinda grasping at everything that sounded cool, as a young kid growing up in Wilton. And, so, yeah, it was almost like a fait accompli, for me at least to try to get there and and try to realize those dreams.
Bryan:So, like, when it came to joining, basically, it was like, okay. This is my path. Like, I graduated high school, and and now it's time to join the military, or was there any uncertainty, or you're right into it?
Match:I'd say I was pretty much right into it. I mean, I would dress up every Halloween as a fighter pilot. So, I mean, if if that doesn't, that doesn't do it justice, then, yeah, I don't know what else would. But, no. I mean, it was always, like, for a stubborn, big headed Polish kid, like, yeah, it was that or the highway.
Match:And then, what I didn't realize at the time was, yeah, life's gonna throw you all sorts of curveballs and, trials and tribulations and, you know, how you make it through there or persevere through there is kind of what defines a bit of your character as well.
Bryan:Yeah. And I guess one of the first curveballs that you ran into was you nearly lost your pilot eligibility because of vision issues at RMC. Can you walk us through that?
Match:Yeah. So I remember it fondly, actually. It was, I was in my last year of school at the time we did, the OAC grade thirteen year in, Ontario. So I was pretty active there playing football, playing tennis, doing pretty well in school and everything, and, and then I get this callback from the recruiting center, which was the Hamilton Recruiting Center. That's probably the closest one to Milton at the time.
Match:And they said there was a Post it note on my file, actually. It's what they said. I remember this distinctly. And it said, unfit pilot and then airy so aerospace engineering officer or air navigator, question marks. So, presumably, those were the two other RCF trades available to me, and they were asking, you know, which of these do you prefer?
Match:And I told them I need to think about it and get back to them and, then proceeded to tear my room apart and have some anger, at my dream kinda hitting its first roadblock. But, thankfully, my mom insisted that, hey. Go anyways. Because this was, coincident with the Royal Military College application as well, so I wanted to go to RMC as well. I had gone through a tour, that the recruiting center put on.
Match:So they organized a bus, and we went down there one weekend to kinda check it out. I thought, hey. This is for me. So, yeah, when I heard that first roadblock, I was obviously upset. But, yeah, thankfully, my parents insisted, hey.
Match:Do it anyways and see where you go from there. Maybe there's another avenue in. And, luckily, I followed that advice, which, you know, is pretty at the time, again, being a stubborn little Polish kid, I was, like, frustrated. But, yeah, sometimes that sound sage wisdom is, is warranted and, you know, clears the path up a bit for you, and then you find other ways to kind of persevere through there. So I originally enrolled in the Canadian Armed Forces as an aerospace engineering officer.
Bryan:Oh, really? So what was the issue exactly at the time?
Match:So the the amount I learned about, optometry and ophthalmology in that time just and this is I'm not predating the Internet, but the Internet still fairly
Bryan:Early days.
Match:Early days. Yeah. Like, we're talking 2000, 2001. So I'm going to library. I'm reading about the ophthalmology and the eye and all sorts of optics and stuff, which was interesting given that I'm a camera guy anyways.
Match:But yeah. So I, yeah, I was failing the cycloplegic test. So when they do eye drops and dilate your pupils and have you read through different lenses, the Snellen chart or whatever projected, eye chart there is on the wall, that I was failing. But on the military side, So I passed an equivalent version of that on the civilian side, just borderline passing the, like, max diopter there, but I failed their military version of that test. And so, that was another kinda instigator there.
Match:So I kept I keep a lot of things in my pockets, I guess, figuratively or whatnot, but I literally kept the paperwork from that civilian medical in my pocket. And the argument was always like, well, I am past the civilian version. Why am I failing this military version of this? And, and it was always such a borderline fail that, yeah, I I thought, hey. I can pass this.
Match:I just gotta, you know, eat a bunch of carrots and blueberries and train my eyes and learn how to relax and all sorts of kinda homeopathic type things, but but, in the end, it worked out.
Bryan:How did you end up getting through that? Like, in terms of actually passing the test? Like, what was the difference?
Match:So sometimes the stubbornness pays off and I don't know how I pulled it off at RMC, but I would, like, book my own eye exams at CFP Kingston. Like, during my RMC years, I'd have, like, a morning off from classes and be like, I'm gonna go do an eye exam and somehow get through to base hospital at the time and walk up there, bus up there, and do an eye test and be like, yeah, you're borderline this. Be like, I don't know why nobody ever questioned me. Like, why is this kid doing so many eye exams and stuff like that? But, yeah, it was always like and I'd ask each, medical clinician at the time.
Match:Be like, hey. Why did I pass this here downtown Kingston, but I failed it with you guys and stuff? And then I started to learn the intricacies of some of those tests where they dilate your pupils and how results can vary from morning to night and, depending on your diet and everything like that. And so I found that I was so borderline, and I guess they got so annoyed with me doing all these tests that, thankfully, there's a flight surgeon at, RMC at the time that realized that and was like, you know what? Well, you're so borderline, and we're probably so tired of hearing your name go across our desk that we'll send you to aircrew selection backwards.
Match:So I basically did what was DCIEM at the time, the medical, division there in Toronto. I did the medical portion first and then went on to do at the time, we were still doing the CAPS simulators, the little kinda Mhmm. Flight simulator there you would do for the for the aircrew selection bit. So I would do that after the medical portion, whereas traditionally, you would do the Trenton bit with the simulators or whatever they do now first and then do the medical afterwards. I did it in reverse to make sure the eyes passed, and they were borderline enough, but I passed and and then went on to do the cap simulator.
Match:And then ironically, after all that effort and perseverance, the next year, they lowered the vision standards.
Bryan:Oh my gosh.
Match:So there you go.
Bryan:What was that like for years to fight to keep that dream alive?
Match:It if anything, it taught me perseverance, grit, and finding a way to continue when, you know, you weren't getting the answers you wanted. I mean, obviously, you know, in military flying and everywhere else, there's rules for a reason, stuff like that. And I'm not talking about circumventing rules or getting annoying to the point where, you know, it's okay. It's not gonna happen. But recognizing that, you know, it was such a close value and I was failing by, like, just being over the diopter limit or whatever on that one test on one eye, by the way.
Match:It was it wasn't even both eyes. It was my left eye dragging me down. And, and it was so close that I kinda recognized that, okay. I can make this work. I just gotta keep finding ways to either, talk to the right people or find out about the test and see if there's anything I could do myself to improve.
Match:I mean, I had at RMC, I had a little eye chart on my wall, and I would just practice with, like, reading glasses and practice focusing my eyes that way on a poorly lit back of my door in my in my dorm room. And, yeah, whether that did anything or not or or made things worse in that poor lighting, I don't know. But but if anything, yeah, taught me perseverance. And, you know, if you have a dream and a goal, sometimes there's a way. It might just not be obvious at the time, and you gotta find ways to to get there.
Bryan:Were your buddies like, oh, yeah, match. Like, he's obsessed with his eyes. He's he's he's always doing these tests.
Match:There's some early photos in my first year at RMC where, like, my skin is tinted from probably overeating carrots, I think. And, like, I don't know if that's jaundice or something, or the or whatnot. So carrots and blueberries, yeah, I ran the mess hall on short supply of those.
Bryan:There's actually a very interesting and funny history behind the idea that carrots improve vision or night vision. During World War two, the Royal Air Force had developed a top secret airborne interception radar to locate and shoot down German bombers at night. To stop Germany from discovering that this new technology was being used, the British government launched a propaganda campaign where they claimed that their pilots had superior night vision because they ate a ton of carrots. They even went as far as to put bowls of carrots out in the crew ready rooms. However, this is a complete myth, and carrots don't actually help your vision.
Match:I still have a good friend of mine who's, actually is Finchley up at tours commanding officer of four two five there in Beggaville who always tells the story of, yeah, he'd come in and into my dorm room to chat, there'd be, like, an eye test on the wall that I was, like, reciting or practicing or focusing my eyes on.
Bryan:Yeah. Oh my gosh. So you did eventually get the switch to pilot. When did you do phase one then? Was that after RMC since you had changed later, or when did that happen?
Match:Yeah. So I got my voluntary occupation transfer after the medical thing worked through and then backwards aircrew selection worked. And so in between my third and fourth years, I went to primary flying training in Portage.
Bryan:How did that go?
Match:It went well. By that point in time and kind of building a backup plan for myself, I had already gotten a commercial pilot's license. Okay. I basically, upgraded my private pilot's license from air cadets. During those summers, I had, you know, a bit of reserve time.
Match:So I had an abbreviated PFT, primary flying training in Portage. I think we if you showed up with commercial license at the time, you could do what they called an advanced PFT, which was literally just three or four hours less than the kinda twenty five or so hours everybody else got, and I think you missed out on two or three flights. But it was good. It, it taught me about the discipline required in military aviation and kinda how the mindset's slightly different and, things like boldface or red pages and and that kind of thing and served as a good introduction and, with lots of other with lots of other, kind of stories along the way from ex, RCF instructors and everything.
Bryan:So would that have been the last years of the Slingsby firefly, or was that the early years of the Grobe?
Match:That was on the Slingsby firefly. So I think it went on for a few more years after that and then transitioned to The Grove.
Bryan:Yeah. Because I know The Grove I joined in 2006, and The Grove, I think, was basically brand new then.
Match:Right.
Bryan:Yeah. So you get through PFT. Sounds like that was kind of just a non event with the experience you had. You would have graduated from RMC and then really the first kind of big course that pilots get to after they make it through the hurdle of PFT anyways is is Moose Jaw for basic flight training. What do you remember most about arriving in Moose Jaw?
Match:I mean, even circling back to the non event bit, I was readily aware that, hey, there's been previous instances of people showing up with high levels of aviation background already and not doing as well as they had expected. So I was I was aware acutely aware that, hey. You gotta come in this with a fresh attitude and be willing to learn. Because if you have hard ingrained habits already that you are not willing to acclimatize and adjust to military flying in particular, then you're gonna struggle. So so between PFD and even definitely showing up in Moose Jaw, I was aware of that and just a sponge basically ready to ready to learn.
Match:And then in Moose Jaw, it was trying to remember the first instance of getting to Moose Jaw. I remember looking on I think Google Maps was around at the time or just looking at a map and being like, hey. I could probably run to base when I wanted when, you know, it was ground school season or or something like that. Because we ended up, like, renting and then buying a house in town. And then that's kinda where my hey.
Match:Using running as a way to work on red pages or memorize things or go through checklists and, and critical numbers started to become a thing. I could kinda double tap that, you know, getting the fitness in and, and still studying at the same time, which I still use to this date.
Bryan:That's like a big method for you, is read pages and stuff while you're running?
Match:Yeah. Exactly. Yeah.
Bryan:What kind of a student pilot were you?
Match:I'd say I was a nerdy yet studious, well, kinda hand in hand studious, nerdy, prepared, or trying to be as prepared as possible, pilot. I did get a few bouts of air sickness occasionally Oh. Especially as we started the Clear Hood aerobatic sequences and everything like that. And it was it was sporadic, mostly to do with heat and not being the one at the control sometimes or in control, I'd say. So there were kinda notes of that that I had to fend off.
Match:And one of those things if you've ever been here sick or close to it, it's such a distracting and almost debilitating, feeling knowing that, like, your mind is set on all this, flying, and now all of a sudden you have this wicked distraction that's right in your face and in your way, and you're trying to, you know, suppress it as best you can and and still perform. So there were a few instances of that. Nothing serious enough to put me on that kind of Moose Jaw spin course they had or anything like that, but a few instances. And then even going into, fighter lead in training in Cole Lake, there were a few instances of that.
Bryan:Oh, really?
Match:And then, and then eventually, I I tackled it. Yeah. We can talk about how I tackled it, but, it's not a pleasant story. And, usually, I try to avoid telling it when people are eating because, yeah, it's disgusting.
Bryan:Okay. So listeners, stop eating because I have to I have to hear this.
Match:It's actually it's actually pretty simple. So I remember on a one BFM, basic fighter maneuvers, trip out in Cold Lake, and we had just gotten down in the Hawk, and the air conditioning wasn't that great. I was already hot and sweating and everything from an exhausting trip, and then that was basically the end of the trip taxiing back, and I just felt like I couldn't hold it anymore. And, and so my stomach was given away. And then, yeah.
Match:And, obviously, I didn't have a boarding pass with me or a puke bag or anything, so and there's nowhere to go really. So I just, threw up in my mouth and swallowed it and, then became a snowbird and never threw up again. So at least at least it worked for me. Not the most pleasant experience at the time. And thankfully, I've never had to do that again.
Bryan:Oh my gosh.
Match:Yeah. That was my way to get around it finally. Brutal. Yep. Yep.
Bryan:So while you were in Moose Jaw, what parts of training came naturally to you and what parts humbled you?
Match:The the first bits of Clear Hood being, okay, being a new airframe were humbling, but the rote skills you get in the simulator and just practicing through checks and everything, definitely helped with that. I remember building a little mock cockpit out of, like, some Styrofoam panels from the dollar store and, and just large full scale printouts of the of the panels and putting that around like a relaxing chair I had in the house and stuff like that and just working through all the all the checks that way helped. Once we got to instrument flying, that was definitely humbling, especially coming from an instrument background. I had a single engine instrument rating on a Cessna that I got while I was in Greenwood on airy phase summer phase training. And so I flew all around the the East Coast in, you know, East Coast weather as well, like IFR, not so much low fog, but doing NDB approaches in Greenwood and going down to Halifax and, Liverpool and Yarmouth airports and everything.
Match:Yeah. So I thought I had and that NRAT exam was pretty hard from what I remember studying and writing it in Halifax. Definitely. So I thought I had a good background of instrument flying. And then I got to Moose Jaw, and it was like an eye opener on, you know, woah.
Match:Like, I was missing all this or these factors or this to consider. And it was like, wow. I'm glad I didn't do a lot of instrument time on my own for real in, like, a single engine Cessna, you know, not knowing all this breadth of knowledge that they give you in ground school and then instrument flying once you get to Moose Jaw. Mhmm. So that was definitely humbling and and a good eye opener.
Bryan:Yeah. I had a similar experience because I had a commercial multi IFR showing up to Moose Jaw, and I I didn't even do PFT. Then I got there and started doing the instrument stuff, and I was like, holy cow. Like, I must have learned the bare minimum to get a ticket before. Like, I I thought I was pretty deep into the knowledge, and then I started learning from Lopi.
Bryan:I don't know if if Lopi was was teaching instrument stuff when you were there.
Match:Yep.
Bryan:I think he'd been there for a long time. Lopianowski, I think. Mike Lopianowski?
Match:That's right. Fellow Polish or Eastern European name there.
Bryan:Yeah. He started going into the intricacies of instrument flying and I was like, holy cow. Like, I barely learned anything before. So I definitely definitely know what that was like. So for years, you've been wanting fighters.
Bryan:You've been watching this VHS tape with the Blue Angels. At what point at Moose Jaw did you start to feel like fighters might be realistic?
Match:So we had a selection. At the time, we did, like, a phase two, which was the initial course in Moose Jaw and the Harbor 2, and then there was a phase two bravo for those that got selected jets.
Bryan:Mhmm.
Match:And so that jet selection had happened. I was lucky enough to, have been selected jets. And then that kind of moment and going on to phase two with some additional formation flying, tactical navigation, fluid maneuvering, and long cross countries was kind of the moment where, okay, starting to fit in. I'm starting to feel at home with the airplane and the flying bit. And, and, yeah, I was paired with a great friend at the time, a student friend, and then great instructors on that long cross country.
Match:We went out to Victoria and all the way up to Whitehorse, along the West Coast there, and, yeah, really started to feel at home there. Particularly when the instructors took away our preplanned cheat sheets that we would write out the night before of, like, expected clearances and everything and cross country information and forced us to basically grab a loose leaf piece of paper from the printer and then write everything out real time, which I'm thankful they did because that is a lot more realistic once things start changing airborne or even on clearance delivery frequencies when, you know, things don't go as expected and you end up having to go elsewhere or file a different routing and and treat things, more real time.
Bryan:So Yeah. That's such an essential skill. Like, one of the dangers of flying as a student in Moose Jaw is there's tons of what students call gen. So, like, general knowledge stuff that gets handed down from course to course. And sometimes, you know, the roots are fairly canned when it comes to the instrument roots.
Bryan:So, oh, you're going to Regina? You know, here's the printout and it'll tell you, like, these are the expected clearances. This is the radial you're gonna follow. This is the altitudes you should plan for and all that stuff. And, like, you know, that can help to hold your hand through a a trip or two, but that's not realistic when it comes to actually being a pilot, right?
Bryan:Like, the real world is not like that. I I never bothered memorizing frequencies or, you know, approach minima or things like that. I just treated every single approach. Even in Greenwood when I flew there for years and years, I just wrote it down every time because that's the skill you need to have.
Match:Exactly. And the one time it changes or you miss it and now you're in a world of hurt. Right? I remember even my instrument rating test on the hawk, still in Moose Jaw and phase three it would have been with the dragon flight, and we did an instrument rating test to Regina. And then on the way back, something had closed off Moose Jaw unexpectedly.
Match:It was it was weird. I can't remember exactly what it was. Might have been a power interruption or something like that. And so we basically diverted on my IRT to Saskatoon. And I was like, okay.
Match:Well, the test is over kinda thing. And the backseat instructor, pretty senior instructor, I don't remember his name, unfortunately, but, no. He was like, no. The test is going on. As long as you're as long as things are happening up front and correctly, then, we're pressing.
Match:And sure enough, that was a real world kind of application. So we got a reclear to land in Saskatoon, and then IRT was done after that, thankfully passed, and we turned the jet and had a nice casual flight home once the Moose Jaw situation got resolved. And yeah. So and that was more realistic than, yeah, your standard kind of round robin, you know, Jen prepared trip that, you know, goes canned as expected. So.
Bryan:Yeah. I mean, there's a certain amount of canned scenario that is good for a student at a certain point. Right? But when you are getting ready to become a winged pilot, like, you know, like you said, you're on phase three on the Hawk with Dragonflight. You're getting ready to be a winged RCAF pilot.
Bryan:You need to be able to handle a change in expected clearances and being cleared to a different airport, especially as a jet pilot, right, where you're gonna be alone in a jet fairly quickly.
Match:Exactly. Like, the canned scenarios and canned information definitely help from the outset. Otherwise, you don't know what you don't know. Right? Mhmm.
Match:So you can be like, okay. Well, I can take off from Moose Jaw and end up in Swift Current or Saskatoon or Regina, and then it's just chaos. There's no planning to your flow or your study patterns or anything like that. So canned from the beginning makes sense, but at some point, yeah, and making that transition to, okay, now let's go less canned and open up the option space to other locations or, say, for example, emergencies or contingencies that come up. I know what they used to give us in, like, the advanced formation test, and Moose Jaw was okay.
Match:There was some lead had a failure of some sort, and then you got the passing of the lead on the on the return to base, and then you gave them the tap on the shoulder, hey. Land on my wing kind of thing, and you led back. And that was, you know, your pop up surprise emergency to handle the formation, which then pays dividends later on because now it's not the first time you've seen unexpected problems. And even nowadays, I deal with unexpected problems basically every flight, whether it's personnel or or aircraft or airspace or airshow contingencies that you have to deal with. Right?
Bryan:Yeah. There's always something. It's dynamic. So we've talked a bit here about kind of the process from Moose to getting into the Hawk where you do phase two on the Harvard, phase two Bravo, which is a little more advanced on the Harvard, phase three to get your wings on the hawk jet still in Moose Jaw, and then next is fighter lead in training or flit in Cold Lake. So what was the jump into flit like?
Match:So it was, yeah, a move up to Cold Lake at the time. My wife and I were still down in Moose Jawan. She had a stable job there, so I basically went attach, posted up to Cold Lake for 04/19. And it was an eye opening experience. It was, okay, you know how to fly the hawk.
Match:Now here's how to fly it tactically. So a lot of things you have to consider that consider are new to somebody flying who's, okay, done landings and takeoffs and point a to b flying and, you know, maybe some aerobatics, but now you're flying in relation to somebody else who's flying against you and having to maneuver your aircraft to gain advantage that way. So that was definitely a challenge. It also became more challenging because this is where the eye struggle came back again. So now I'm looking across a turn circle, so a diameter's worth of aircraft maneuvering space at another Hawk, which is a relatively small aircraft, and you're looking across at that aircraft for very minute hints of their aspect, their shape, how they are pointing at you or not pointing at you.
Match:And some of those small changes make a difference between when you decide to pull in for a simulated weapon's shot or, you know, lag their circle or reposition or otherwise maneuver in relation to them. So those minute little differences in how the airplane looked and the shape of it were becoming harder to recognize from a farther away distance. So I ended up failing. It was definitely more than one trip. I think I hold some kind of record for the amount of red ticks on a single flight at four nineteen.
Match:It was, yeah. They had to basically pull out the black pen for the the one or two black, non red ticks. But yeah. And it was all in relation to this kinda or combat maneuvering. So once you get more than two airplanes dogfighting together, some of the setups and the timings required and seeing across the circle.
Match:And so, luckily, the leadership there was kind of aware of this being a problem area for a few students and got me to go get my eyes checked again. And just in the time between, you know, years of RMC and studying and, presumably all the work in Moose Jaw and all the eye fire work and everything, my eyes just naturally degraded just past that kind of threshold that I was meeting before. And so I went in, and they were like, yeah. You're now a little more borderline than you were before. You know, here's some glasses.
Match:And, eventually, contact lenses to kinda help improve the field of view instead of having frames, which I personally, preferred. But, yeah. And then that made it way more apparent about what these tiny changes were in the other aircraft. You know, we're talking about distances that are, you know, typical turn diameter for the hawk fighting at another hawk could be, you know, on the order of a mile, a mile of spacing, and you're trying to distinguish between, you know, 20 or 30 or 40 degrees of nose angle or something like that. So it was definitely challenging Wow.
Match:At the best of times. If you picture, like, a gate guardian rolling up into Lake, the base of Cold Lake or even in Moose Jaw or you see an airplane on a stick, then you, you know, drive out for a mile and try to tell exactly what direction that airplane is pointing at or something like that. So and and doing that while the airplane is moving instead of fixed to a pedestal or base, then it becomes a challenge. And, luckily, they saw that, hey. This is a common point, a common weakness for some students with the with the eye portion, so I ended up getting, correction for that.
Match:And then eventually ended up passing those those trips with rewrites and and then went on from there.
Bryan:So when you're on flit, do you know at that point if you are gonna go back and teach on the hawk or if you're going f eighteens, or does that get decided while you're there?
Match:I honestly can't remember. I imagine it's changed several times over the years. All my course ended up going to the Hornet afterwards, but I did recall instances of people going back to Moose Jaw after that. That might have been after my time or, like, the course immediately after or a few courses after. But, yeah, for our course in particular, everybody ended up in the Hornet.
Bryan:Okay.
Match:What was challenging was, the time difference. So 04/19 had dragged on due to weather up in Cold Lake. So what was originally a four month course ended up doubling in time to be eight months. Oh, wow. And then literally was right on the heels of what our slated four ten course was to, transfer over transition over to the Hornet.
Match:And so it was a really fast, switchover. And I'd just gotten married when I was on course at 04:19. We took a weekend and a few days off to go to Ontario and, married my longtime, high school sweetheart. Awesome. Yeah.
Match:Life was pretty compressed, and it was like, you know what? I could use some downtime. And then I remember talking with the, deputy commanding officer there at 04:19 and talking about options instead of going directly to the 04:10 course. And, thankfully, he was a real great guy and, and, you know, shed some light on the fact that, hey. This opportunity may not present itself again.
Match:So sometimes in life, you just gotta take the shots while you're giving them. Mhmm. And so that kinda convinced me to be like, okay. I'll get my nose back in the back in the books and, switch right over to, the hornet. Because I think we graduated from four nineteen in April of this would have been April 2009, and then 04/10 started in May 2009.
Bryan:Wow.
Match:So I think we had three weeks off or something like that. So
Bryan:That's a lot. Like, professionally, to be on those courses for that long, it's a long grind. And then also personally for you to be away from your wife, did she move up to Cold Lake at that point, or was she still down in Moose Jaw?
Match:She was down in Moose Jaw until we found out where we were posted after 04:10.
Bryan:Okay.
Match:Well Yeah. And then we eventually moved up. Yeah. So I would I mean, luckily, it was a seven hour drive, so made the occasional long weekend, visits back home and everything. But, and 04:10 was busy enough as it was, so, you know, maybe that was a blessing to kinda focus on the studies.
Match:But, obviously, being away from home and family for that long time is strenuous on everybody.
Bryan:Yeah. It's hard. So you did your flit. You move on to the Hornet at 04:10, with a very short break. How steep was the learning curve moving up to the Hornet?
Match:So it was it was neat in that you were no longer flying a blue airplane. Mhmm. And what I mean by that is, hey, this airplane's gray now. That means something in that. It's gray for a reason.
Match:It's gray to be tactical. It's gray to be low visibility. It's gray because you could be doing the job of, you know, fighters defending Canada or applying a government in Canada pressure elsewhere. And so that was a mindset shift for me. I mean, a good one in that you're finally here on this final for now platform that you've been aspiring to.
Match:But at the same time, it was okay. Brand new airplane, way more advanced systems, you know, quad channel redundancy, flight control systems. I'm gonna try not to get too test pilot y in the in the verbiage. But, yeah, advanced aircraft, even though it's a fourth gen fighter advanced aircraft compared to all the training aircraft up until that point in terms of much larger dual engine. That's your kind of first foray into dual engine for those going the jet stream.
Match:The hydraulic flight controls, yeah, fly by wire, like I mentioned, and then just having to learn the airplane in a short period of time and then learn how to apply it tactically is the larger part of the course, essentially. So that was definitely a challenge.
Bryan:Yeah. It sounds like a pretty steep jump up in especially in terms of the complexity of the technology.
Match:Yeah. Absolutely. And a lot of software technology. So you had, yeah, very minimal kind of software handbooks in the previous two fleets of Harvard and Hawk, and now you have basically what they allude to as a gray book, the software version of the aircraft operating instructions Mhmm. That's equally long, if not lengthier in in thickness as a book than than the aircraft operating instructions.
Match:So you're talking about, you know, a thousand page software manual for a maybe 500 page aircraft operating instruction set for the airplane, and you having to know kind of the intricacies of what page do I find this on, what page is this on, and what do these soft keys around the multifunction display do, and and and all these kinda intricate software features to basically get you to where you need to go and what you need to do.
Bryan:Yeah. I seem to recall when we sat down with Dan McWilliams, who was one of the early Hornet guys, that he said the Hornet was really nice to fly, fairly easy aircraft to learn to fly, but to learn to operate it with all the systems management and stuff was very complicated, especially as a single pilot.
Match:Yeah. Exactly. So it's got basic autopilot features, attitude hold, autopilot hold, weight point steering, tac end steering, that kinda thing. You can do a couple of ILS. It's basically the flight controls allow you to point and go wherever you wish for the most part within the envelope.
Match:But, yeah, that's the easy job of flying it and purposefully designed to do so because all the other hard stuff, you need brain capacity to be able to handle and concentrate on and and apply workload to. So if if the aircraft is hard to operate, then it only detracts from your final mission. Whereas here, having a relatively simple aircraft to operate, once you do learn the ins and outs of it, you can now apply all that extra bandwidth, if you will, and capacity to operating the systems and, and taking care of your your wingers or as a winger looking out after lead and and checking six and all the other tactical considerations that are required.
Bryan:Yeah. We seem to realize this often on the show, but it's kind of funny that in military aviation, the flying isn't the point. The point is the mission and the operating and taking care of that stuff. The flying, you want to be as easy and, instinctual as possible so that you can focus on everything else.
Match:Exactly. Yeah. The the more that becomes a burden and a and distracting almost from the mission set, the less likely the mission is gonna succeed.
Bryan:Mhmm. So you finished your training on the f 18. You get to an operational squadron, four nine Nighthawks in Cold Lake. What surprised you most about operational fighter life?
Match:Again, it's almost like this is a common theme. Every step up you get is how little you know. So even coming off of four ten after spending let's see. It was from May 2009. We graduated in January 2010 just before the Olympics.
Match:So in that amount of time, you thought you knew quite a bit about the airplane and the basics of operating it tactically, and then you get to the squadron, which at the time, there were four or five of us. We had a large four ten course. We had 10 people. All 10 graduated successfully, which was incredible. And so, yeah, four or five of us went to, four nine.
Match:And, immediately, the squadron was deploying, and some had already deployed out to Vancouver and Comox in preparation for the twenty ten Olympics op podium Mhmm. Security, aspects of, of protecting the games there. And so we had gotten to squadron, did a few sims from what I remember, started some NVG work, and then basically brought a few jets out to the West Coast and then started our, combat ready upgrades to be combat ready wing wingers out there. And, again, it was just eye opening to see how little we knew at the time of tactical employment and other considerations that, you know, there wasn't space in the four ten syllabus to teach, and and we were just learning it as part of upgrade syllabus syllabi in on squadron.
Bryan:It's a lot that comes at you. I was actually in the process this weekend of going through some older interviews to kind of do a a look back on our first 100 episodes, And I interviewed Brian Kilroy Hamza who is teaching in the lead in fighter training in Italy right now and was the CF eighteen demo pilot at one point as well. And I went through a sequence where he describes the progression of becoming a combat ready pilot and it's insane. Like, the amount of complexity from, you know, you start out with basic dogfighting like one v one and by the end, you're you're doing an infiltration into a contested airspace to support ground troops by hitting a ground target and then you have to fight your way out and, you know, like, the the the layers and layers and layers of of, considerations is is really intimidating.
Match:Yeah. And even to think about the threats, like, threats are always modernizing Mhmm. Surface to air missile systems and everything. And you can't just go writing those numbers down on a piece of paper and, you know, memorizing them that way. You go into a vault and you learn about it as, you know, classified material that way, and you can't just go loosey goosey, you know, jotting that number down every time.
Match:So the the amount of stuff you have to commit to memory and and and keep evolving in terms of keeping up with the threats and those things that are gonna potentially take you down Mhmm. You need to be aware of and always always kinda learning as best you can to to be the best person. You don't wanna be the liability on the squadron and nobody wanted to fly with you because, you're weaker or don't have the knowledge or the, or the skill set to perform. So you always wanna be in the books and, and, you know, in the vault studying and everything.
Bryan:Mhmm. Yeah. It's, it's extremely demanding. So we're talking about getting ready for combat. You eventually did fly, combat sorties.
Bryan:But before we get to that, can you tell us about NORAD flying and what that looked like?
Match:Yeah. So a lot of it involved, sitting around and playing the waiting game or just being on call. And, early on so going back to op podium, we had response timings out there on the West Coast, and so we would basically hold a QRA out there during the Olympics. And I didn't get to fly any Olympic sorties, and I think I missed out on one Paralympic security flight there. But then afterwards, it made sense at the time given Maple Flags timing on the heels of a podium to just leave, the footprint out in Comox.
Match:And so a lot of us knew wingers that weren't, destined for the first, vaults or the first large force exercises of maple flag would also go up there with some seasoned leads and basically hold cue from from Comox out there. So it was nice, and the the scenery was great, and it was Comox Island life. And, you know, on your days where you weren't on call, you can go out and explore with the leash, the island and and the local area. And and and the flying was great as well, so we would frequently fly and and go, into the airspaces north of Comox and and train that way. And, yeah, for it was it was a good experience for the first several months on the squadron.
Match:And then occasionally, you'd get a a NORAD call out from there and have to respond, either up north or in some kind of exercise or simulation or evaluation that they would often do as well to just make sure alert forces were on the ready. And, those always amped you up, that you always had the adrenaline pump in there, and then often you'd meet an air refueling tanker out of Spokane, Washington or something on the way, tank up late at night. Sometimes a lot of people, their first exposure to some of the harder tanking was doing it for real. You would do it in the simulator maybe in in Cold Lake, but it's the fidelity of close in work that is formation flying or tanking on a simulator is always more challenging than the other benefits of having a simulator just because depth perception and cues and everything are are a lot harder to simulate that way. So seeing it for real, and I'm thinking of one aircraft in particular, the the Iron Maiden as it's affectionately known, basically, a KC one thirty five r Stratotanker with its boom, and then they have a boom drogue adapter.
Match:So they add eight feet of hose to it with a 300 pound Iron Maiden basket. And, so this basket's dangling off the very end of this boom, and you have to plug into that basket and move it just the right way to open up some check valves. So you basically have to put two ninety degree kinks in the in the hose to open up some check valves to allow fuel to flow. Wow. And so that is quite challenging when you're doing it for the first time, possibly on goggles, possibly on a real mission going up north.
Match:I think I'd seen it once in the daytime, so it wasn't as drastic and fearsome as as some folks have encountered, but it's definitely a challenge to see that for the first time. And your lead is with you there, probably talking. You have words of encouragement over the over the interflight, But, yeah, it's definitely a challenge and one of those things where you just have to, you know, approach it with calm and respect. Otherwise, there's been stories of, you know, it not going well for for some people or scratching the nose or damaging some critical components on that side of the fuselage that give you angle of attack readings or airspeed readings. So it's it's definitely a challenge.
Bryan:Yeah. I was gonna ask if, like, your your lead is, like, walking you through it on the radio while you're doing it. Or and so you're saying you actually have to so with most droves, you just plug in and then it goes, but on this one, you have to, like, bend the hose certain ways to make the fuel flow?
Match:Yeah. And this is going full circle because I've flown this airplane from the front seat.
Bryan:The KC one thirty five?
Match:Yeah. From the front seat at test spot school and from the back laying down on the on the, boom.
Bryan:Oh, wow.
Match:So I've seen all the aspects from being the receiver to being the, the fueler, and it is challenging. So, basically, I'm talking approximations here, but we're talking about a boom that's maybe 30 feet long with some small wings to help stability that gets extended down from a faired kinda trailing position in flight and drops about 30 degrees to, to refuel most of United States Air Force, assets. And then when it comes to aircraft that have probes, they had to find a way to make that connection work. And so, basically, they added a bit of flexible hose and, a fairly small basket actually on it. It's one of those things where to plug in because the basket was so heavy, it was actually fairly stable flying there behind the rest of the boom, but then manipulating it once you got in and staying in position was a challenge.
Match:You'd have references, and your leads would typically brief this to you, and we watched some HUD tapes from others and everything where you'd have a reference and you'd fly formation off the tanker itself and cover up one of the engines with with parts of the hose or or the parts of the boom itself, and then that would be the rough approximate position you need to kinda maintain that while you're getting the gas. Typically, the gas would flow pretty quick on some of those larger tankers, so you weren't there for a long time. But depending how long the mission was, you would see multiple tanking evolutions and have to do it multiple times over the course of you know, I remember one Q mission that was we saw two sunsets and a sunrise in one flight.
Bryan:What?
Match:So figure that out because we were going up north, sun had set, sun rose again once we got far enough north, and then it set again on our way home somehow, and it was like, wow. This is kind of surreal. But, yeah. And so to incorporate all that with just being able to get gas to maintain the mission and and get up north was was daunting at first, but you got used to it and trusted your training and trusted, you know, to keep your nerves at bay and and stay calm through the process to to make it work. The more edgy you got, the worse it typically got.
Match:Especially when you consider your approach to this large airplane is under all the jet wash of the engines, large vortices off the wings, and, oh, by the way, your own bow wave off the hornet nose displaces the basket. So as you get closer, you gotta consider that everything that you're just seeing as you're approaching is gonna slide to the right because your bow wave's gonna move it off Yeah. To the right because the hornet probe is on the right side of fuselage there, the forward fuselage.
Bryan:And it's getting pushed by your the air that you're pushing out of the way.
Match:Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. Wow. And then full circle going to test pilot school, I got to fly that airplane from the front, which was eye opening, and then from the back, you got to fly the boom around, and the boom operator literally lays on their stomach, on their chest, and manipulates the boom with I think there were two Inceptors, two little joysticks that manipulate the boom.
Match:And, you know, we always joked at 04:09 that, hey. You can just ask them to lock the boom in place, and it makes it easier, and it just doesn't move. And then when I got to the KC one thirty five at Edwards, I asked them about that, and they're like, yeah. I'll show you how to lock the boom. And the guy literally grabbed his right hand with his left hand.
Match:Yeah. And that was locking the boom. So all these times we thought there was a feature to do that. It was all it was it was the skill and discipline of the boom operators that made it happen. So so thanks to them for, for all the gas we ever got off those, airplanes.
Bryan:That was just them letting you feel more comfortable.
Match:Exactly. Exactly.
Bryan:Yeah. I was gonna ask if refueling, does it ever stop being intimidating? Like, I remember watching when I was in Moose Jaw as a student. I don't know if you ever saw it. I feel like a lot of fighter people probably would have watched it.
Bryan:It was a documentary about the last people who trained on the f 14. It was kind of popular when I was in Moose Jaw. But anyway, they go. They they do their f 14 training. They end up doing a mission over Iraq, and one of them tries and tries and can't refuel and finally has to go, like, do an emergency landing.
Bryan:Like, I remember thinking like, holy cow. That must the pressure of doing this and not messing it up must be huge.
Match:But by the same token, the yeah. So not falling to the complacency and sometimes the kinda slowing it down. Yes. There's pressure to refuel before you hit your bingo or tanker bingo and have to consider other options. But at the same time, sometimes taking an extra breath or wiggling your toes on the pedals before you approach, the final stages of of contact with the basket helps helps a lot.
Match:The last thing you wanna do, and the running joke was you never make fun of somebody's tanking. Even airborne at the time when they're bouncing around there because the next one to struggle is gonna be you, and it's probably gonna be worse than what you just saw. So everybody just kinda stays quiet on the interflight, hopes for the best, is wondering when they're gonna get their gas, and it's like a bunch of little, ducklings waiting to, you know, cross the road safely. Right? So, yeah, it it's humbling for sure.
Bryan:Yeah. You've mentioned holding the cue a couple times. That's holding the the quick reaction force for NORAD. Right?
Match:That's right. Quick reaction alert. We basically, as our commitment to NORAD, kinda have fighters on call 247365 to defend North America from, aerial threats.
Bryan:So you did end up flying, as we said, 22 combat sorties overseas. Those missions took place in Libya as part of OP Mobile. What was the context of those missions at the time?
Match:So, again, the government of Canada had decided with in support of UN security resolution Security Council Resolution nineteen seventy three, I think it was, to help support, what was happening in Libya and prevent civilian casualties and and loss of life there based off the pro Gaddafi regime. And, so the government had sent, hornets into the fray there as well through our bases in Italy. We were out at at Sicily. I think it was, Trappany, Burgea Italian air force base there. It was a joint field with a civilian, airport there.
Match:So we based out of Sicily there, and, the first roto had gone in March, I believe, of twenty eleven. And then by the time I got there, it was the end of June, beginning of July beginning of July in 2011.
Bryan:What was your first mission, like, over Libya?
Match:That mission in particular was we did a lot of SCAR type missions, so strike coordination armed reconnaissance. So basically, ISR, intelligence surveillance, reconnaissance type missions overhead just to kind of feed the picture of what was happening on the ground and everything. So a lot of just reporting back of, target locations and what was happening to to the larger leadership. Yeah. So so on that first one, it was I remember it was a mission, so we wore goggles, and then, I think the light was setting.
Match:So I remember a distinct kinda greenish glow to the light over the desert out there at the time over kinda Northern Africa that I don't remember ever seeing back home in Canada. Maybe it was just all the all the sand particles in the air or something. But, so that was kind of a unique experience. And then, my second flight was actually more interesting, where, basically, my lead at the time had doubted some of my targeting and and wanted reverification. And so in doing that and I mean rightly so.
Match:I mean, it's we're doing things for real, dropping bombs for real in support of force employment. And, but in doing so, I base I missed a critical laser arming switch that gets reset when you take your eyes off a target or or manipulate your your targeting bot or something like that through some software settings. And then I didn't catch it on the second run-in as part of my my run-in checks, my air to ground checks. And so that basically led me to drop a a GB twelve five hundred pound bomb, unguided in the desert. Now, thankfully, it was a I think it was I can't remember what the target was.
Match:It wasn't, it was like a a vehicle of some sort, an empty vehicle that was just sitting there, and so it had missed the target had missed and dropped a 100 meters short or something like that and, didn't impact anything except dirt. So, thankfully, it had hadn't hurt any innocent civilians or anything, but that was kind of an eye opener as well. And now it's, again, another lesson in humility and compartmentalization, which is also a theme throughout my aviation career, especially considering that I have now a two hour flight home back to Sicily, over a hostile region initially to get back to base, and, you know, I can't just be thinking about what I just screwed up. Yeah. Because if I do, it's gonna distract everything else.
Match:I still have a, you know, 35,000 pound airplane to land. And that was a day trip, so it wasn't on goggles or anything. But but, yeah, it definitely teaches you to be humble and, you know, know your stuff and, when in doubt, crosscheck. But it also taught me to empower and trust my professionals around me. Mhmm.
Match:Because, basically, that's a skill that I'll take and use again to this very day in the current job I have.
Bryan:Yeah. And it really shows how those fundamental skills that you learn at Moose Jaw keep being useful through your career as well. Like, one of the core skills of being a student at Moose Jaw is when you make a mistake, take a breath, shake it off, and move on because you're gonna deal with it in the debrief and learn from it and all that stuff, but you still have a whole flight to do and a and a job to do. And, obviously, that becomes even more true when you're flying in combat.
Match:Absolutely. We've all had cases, maybe not in flying hopefully, but, you know, just in life where you've struggled to not stop thinking about one thing or worried about one thing Mhmm. So much that it's now trickled down and had compounding effects on the next thing and the next thing, and it's just a kinda snowball effect. Right? If you can stop that snowball by standing in front of it and just being like, okay.
Match:Yeah. I recognize the snowball's there, but I also have to get up the hill and or get down the hill and get my sled or something like that. It, it really helps you kinda put that in the box for the time being. Obviously, you're gonna talk about it and ways to improve once you're on the ground, but, yeah, we're still flying an airplane or you still have wingers off your wing or, your lead is still expecting you to do this and that and protect the package, and and then that's the priority at the time.
Bryan:So what was the feeling like flying over Libya?
Match:It for sure made it real. I mean, we were wearing different color flight suits. We're wearing tan flight suits, tan boots. We had pistols with us that we would normally also carry back home for NORAD operations, but, so we were armed, and, the biggest thing was taking off the patches. Mhmm.
Match:So I had my dog tags on. I had a military ID, I think, if I recall correctly, and squadron patches were coming off. Yep. You know, affiliations were coming off that way. If you had any other kind of, you know, proficiency badges or something like that, those were all coming off and you were just flying around with empty Velcro on your sides and a Canada flag on your shoulder.
Match:So that kind of made it real for sure.
Bryan:Yeah. You just brought back a wave of memories for me flying over Iraq against ISIS. And, yeah, sanitizing your flight suit, getting rid of all of your notes in your pockets, and any identifying stuff besides dog tags. And that definitely brings it home because the whole reason you're doing that is in case you go down and get captured. That's the only reason that you would do that.
Match:Exactly. Yeah. And, I mean, I had done advanced Siri, which is our kinda survival, evasion, resistance, and escape course in, just outside Winnipeg there in Springer Lake, Manitoba. I had done that, I guess, it would have been a few months prior. Mhmm.
Match:And I've always been a runner, so I like running through the woods, trail running. That was kind of my my thing. So it's like, this is an awesome course. Right? But it really dawned on me since that course was also after the announce the initial announcement in March here of this operation was made.
Match:So it had dawned on me even during that course that, hey. I gotta take this for real. Like, if somebody's hunting you down in in the woods or, I guess, you know, probably a lot easier in the wide open desert, but, you know, your goal is to try to evade evade that capture and everything. And and so lessons like that from the ground training were kinda forefront in my mind as we were as we were going, over the Mediterranean there. And then one one specific mission that kinda brought that focus home again was, again, a nighttime mission.
Match:So we were on, goggles, and I remember just employing pretty heavy ordnance. I think it was, GPU tens, so, like, 2,000 pound bombs. And only one of them so now one of them came off, and all of a sudden, there's a huge lateral asymmetry in the aircraft that you kinda have to fight because the other wing that's still carrying one of these bombs is now 2,000 pounds heavier, like, in an instant. And, so you're kinda fighting the airplane there, and you turn around and head back for for home after employing here. And then my goggles gain down as I look over my shoulder, and they basically, brighten up and then gain down and get really dark.
Match:And then I look under the goggles over at my tails, and my tails are kind of lit up a bit. And it's like, okay. I realize that's probably from me going to burner, so I go out of burner. And there's still a tiny bit of kind of light, although quite a bit farther away from the tail. And then I realized that it's actually it looks like fireworks, and it's triple a coming at me.
Match:Oh, wow. From the ground. Now we were well outside the threat envelope of of that triple a, but you still saw it. And trust me, like, when you're there and it's being shot at you, you don't think you're outside the envelope at all. Yeah.
Match:So you're, like, booking it out of there and and trying to get out of dodge as quickly as you can. Even though in your heart of hearts, you know that you're protected by where you end up flying and, and the envelope you're in, it's still unnerving to see it for real being fired at you after stirring kind of the nest with you employing. So so that was where it really kinda stayed with me that, hey. Yeah. I've been shot at in the hornet with, anti aircraft artillery.
Match:Wow. Yeah. It was it was, again, just another kind of down to earth, bring it home kind of moment about, okay. This this is real now. You know, we're, again, no longer in a blue airplane Mhmm.
Match:In training. We're now doing the the real things in a in a gray airplane.
Bryan:Okay, Mats. That is gonna do it for part one of our conversation today. It was really awesome to hear about kind of how you got started going through air cadets. The VHS story is, so cool. And, you know, just getting into fighters in your combat experience.
Bryan:I really appreciate you sharing that with us. In the next episode, we are going to jump into test flying, and your work at AT. And then in part three, we're going to cover your two different times flying with the snowbirds. So thank you again for being here today. Appreciate your time.
Match:Awesome. Thanks for having me. Look forward to the next one.
Bryan:Alright. That wraps up part one of our chat with major Machay Machada, Snowbird one aka the boss of the RCAF Snowbirds. Stay tuned for part two where we will go through an in-depth look at what it takes to become a test pilot and what matches work with the aerospace engineering test establishment or AT involved in Ottawa. Do you have any questions or comments about anything you've heard in this show? Would you or someone you know make a great guest, or do you have a great idea for a show?
Bryan:You can reach out to us at the pilotprojectpodcast@Gmail.com or on all social media at at pod pilot project. And be sure to check out that social media for lots of great videos of our RCAF and Mission Aviation aircraft. As always, we'd like to thank you for tuning in and ask for your help with the big three. That's like and follow us on social media, share with your friends, and follow and rate us five stars wherever you get your podcasts. That's all for now.
Bryan:Thanks for listening. Keep the blue side up. See you. Engineer, shut down all four. Shutting down all four engines.