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The Pilot Project Podcast is an aviation podcast that aims to help new pilots learn what it takes to succeed in the world of flight, to help people in the flight training system learn what they may want to fly, and to give Canadians and the world a peek into life on the flight deck in the RCAF. We want to help pilots succeed and thrive! We interview real RCAF pilots for their exciting stories as well as the lessons they've learned along the way. We'll learn their tips to develop resilience and the tools it takes to make it in flight training.
THIS TRANSCRIPT IS AI GENERATED AND WILL CONTAIN SOME SMALL ERRORS. IF YOU HAVE ANY QUESTIONS PLEASE CONTACT thepilotprojectpodcast@gmail.com. We understand the importance of good subtitles but currently as a one-person operation we just don't have the ability to edit these in a timely fashion and keep episodes coming out regularly. Thank you for your understanding!
Further, this transcript does not reflect some late edits made to the episode but are largely correct. Thank you!
All right, we're ready for departure. Here at the Pilot Project Podcast,
the best source for stories and advice from the pilots of the
RCAF. I'm your host, Brian Morrison. Returning with me
today is our guest from Episode 15, newly winged
RCAF pilot Scott Harding. Scott,
congratulations and welcome to the show.
Thanks very much. Glad to be back, Brian. Yeah.
So before we start, let's go over Scott's Bio as a
refresher. Scott joined the RCAF in
2007 as an Air Combat Systems Officer, or
Axo, through the regular officer training program. Upon
completing his degree at the University of Western Ontario, he was sent to
one Canadian Forces flight training school, now known as
402 Squadron in Winnipeg, Manitoba. Here, he
earned his Axo wings in 2012 and was posted to
414 Electronic Warfare Squadron in Ottawa.
After five years of flying, he completed successive staff tours
as an operational planner with the Air Component Coordination
Element, or Ace, in Yellowknife, and then as a senior staff
officer for Electronic Warfare at one Canadian Air Division
in Winnipeg. 15 years after originally joining,
scott finally made the switch to pilot, and as of three days ago, uh, at
the time of this recording, has completed phase three flight training and
earned his RCAF pilot wings at three Cfffts
in Portage. Today, we're following through on our promise to
check in with Scott and hear about his adventures in the flight training
program. If you haven't already listened to Scott's first interview
on Episode 15, I highly recommend you check that one out as
well, to learn about his background and phase one and two.
So, Scott, when I was making this interview, I realized, I
don't think we covered this the first time around. Where did
aviation start for you?
Aviation started for me, like a lot of your guests, I was an air cadet
growing up.
Okay?
But getting me into air cadets was, uh, my grandfather,
who flew for Canada for many, many years.
My mom just sent me a picture of my
grandfather, my grandmother, I think it was 1955,
black and white photo. And it was their wedding announcement
from the newspaper. And they were,
congratulations to Mr. And Mrs. Clark,
who are going to Portage La Prairie, Manitoba,
for their first trip as a couple, because
Dave Clark is posted to Portage La Prairie
for flight training.
No kidding.
1955? Yeah. So he was a pilot
way back in the day. And I remember, uh,
stories of him flying Air Canada, flying prime
ministers around and all that jazz that built
into me joining Air Cadets london Air Show
was a thing every year back in the day, and loved
doing that. And, uh, it just kind of built and built and built. I
did power and glider as an air cadet and then
eventually went well, the next logical step is
joining the military to fly.
Yeah. So, like so many of us. Another air
cadet.
So many of us.
So here we are. You're done. Phase three. How was it? How was your experience
on phase three?
It was fast and furious. The course is
short. It's a lot of effort in a really
short period of time. So it's only about four months
long. And you have a test, like week
one and a half. You're already writing your first exam.
Your second exam is like, a week later. And then
you're right into the sims, right into the airplane.
And, uh, it's pretty constant, but, uh, it
was a lot of fun. It was a great experience. Great
people, great instructors. The cross countries and the
mutual flights, all amazing opportunities. And I
learned a ton. I struggled a bit, but I learned a ton.
Okay, I'm really interested to hear about that.
Yeah.
Did you find the learning curve to be steep?
It was yeah. Like I said, day one,
you do the normal introduction. Hi, everybody. This
is all the people you need to know. Day
two was into the books and be prepared for your
first exam next Wednesday. Kind of deal. Yeah.
Even when I came back to do my instructor course,
we spend the first couple of weeks of ground school with the
phase three course. If there's one starting at that time, and it
is like, boom, here we go. Get ready for your first exam because
it's next week.
Yeah, exactly.
What were the biggest differences between Phase two and three?
So I know I said on phase two or here in Portage, in
general, they treat you like an adult and you're kind
of responsible for your own success or failure. It's
even more so in Phase three. I found there was
more computer based training CBTS in
phase three, and it was really just, all right,
off you go. Come back in a week and we're going to test
you on all the things that you need to know. There were some,
uh, instructor led lessons to confirm the knowledge
and reviews before you write the test, but
it really is the entire course.
It's dependent on you and the work that you do
in order to pass. Yeah.
And there's a good reason for that, too. Right. As you can attest
to as an axo and being out in the real
world, when you get to a squadron, they're not going to hold your
hand. They're going to give you an upgrade booklet and say,
okay, we'll see you in two years. You'll get
mentorship and training, of course, but it's going to be up to you to complete
those things and to take the initiative.
Yeah, exactly. So I think it's really good. I think it
builds upon what they did in phase two in the sense
of getting you to be successful on your own
and then this really just takes it the next step.
Yeah, for sure. So can you take us through a
day in the life of a Phase three student?
Yeah. So ground school is very much the same as it was on
phase two. Wake up in the morning, go get breakfast,
head into the study lounge, and you're either doing
CBTS all day or, uh, you're in the classroom
with an instructor.
And for the listeners, CBTS is computer based
training.
The difference between phase two and phase three in the flying portion
is more so there's a lot more prep and planning I
found for the phase three flying.
So where in phase two there was a little bit of
map prep and then route study. In phase three,
there's a lot of understanding the rules and
regs a lot more in detail. M, can I
take off today? What's the weather going to be like
tomorrow? Is it VMC? Is it, uh, VFR
meteorological conditions? I e. Is it nice
outside? Can I go fly? Or is it IMC
IFR meteorological conditions wherein
I need to use my instruments? Well, we're doing a VFR portion
today, so it has to be nice outside. We have to
have 3000 foot ceilings and 3 miles
visibility, that kind of stuff. So understanding those
rules a lot more in depth than we had
to in phase two. A lot more of the decision making
is on the students, seemingly anyways. I know
the instructors are making all the calls in the background, but they
rely on us to brief them. Hey, this is the weather today
and this is what we can and can't do.
Yeah, I've seen that too. My observation has been that
obviously the instructor has the final say, like
you said, but the students have to take ownership in the process and
they have to be actively involved in, like you said, not just
knowing the rules, but interpreting and applying them. Which is like
a whole other level.
Yeah, exactly. Yeah. It's one thing to know what the
words say, but to be able to understand them and apply
them, uh, is really a key to phase three, for
sure.
Yeah. And that's kind of the difference between being
able to select the right bubble on a multiple choice
test and then actually being a pilot.
Yeah, exactly.
So when we last checked in, you said that you found the
hands and feet to be the biggest challenge of the flying
course. Did you find that change in phase three?
No, it was still the biggest challenge. Uh,
I mean, when you look at it, I had a bunch less hours
than most guys coming onto the course, save for
guys like yourself that got to skip phase one with the commercial
license. But then you already had the experience in order to
do that. That's right. So for me, it was still the most
difficult thing. The difference being in the
King Air versus the grove. The King Air. We're not doing
aerobatics. We do steep turns
once in the practice area, and then everything
else after that is circuits and
normal flying stuff.
That's right.
So the hands and feet were still not a problem,
but still the struggle that I had. But for
the most part, I was able to get over that by, again,
just doing the chair flying and making
sure I can offload some of the other
mental stimulation so that I could put
more towards the hands and feet.
Yeah. The good thing about that
being an issue, if I could put it that way,
is it's better than, say, your decision making being your
biggest struggle. Hands and feet will come with time and practice.
Yeah, exactly.
So will most things, but I would argue that
as long as you're able to have good enough hands
and feet to earn your wings, the rest will come in time.
Yeah, exactly.
It's actually a fairly small problem to have.
And, I mean, really, the hands and feet piece
was really only important on landing and
takeoff. Not that those aren't critical times of flight,
but those were the only times that it was really obvious
yeah.
During literally what are known as the critical phases of
flight.
So you just mentioned the simulator. Phase three has
a significant amount of simulation, or roughly about
50%. How did you find that?
It was interesting. A little bit of a change from what I
experienced on the grove side. The simulator for the King
Air has much better fidelity and is actually, uh, a
certified simulator. So when we did our
IFR practice, we were actually
getting actual IFR time that we could
log. So it was interesting
knowing that the first, I think,
18 missions that we did were all in the
simulator. And then you go into the airplane, and
it's like, all right, well, you've already done this 17 times.
You should know how to do this. But wait a minute.
I've never been in this airplane, so it was a bit of a leap
from that. But when you look at, uh, what industry does
I know a couple of guys that are Air Canada pilots and have
never seen the inside of the aircraft until their first
passenger flight. Now, obviously, there's a guy that knows what
he's doing that's flown a bunch beside him. But
for new pilots in our Canada, it's the same kind of
thing. So the fact that there was a lot of simulation,
I think, also takes away, uh, the weather
factor. Uh, it meant, no matter what, every
single day we could be in the simulator.
Yeah. It gives you great continuity.
Exactly. Yeah. So we flew for the first three
weeks we were in the simulator every day.
And for the SIM anyways, we got pretty good at
it. Now, there's some things that the SIM doesn't do great. You
can't taxi in the SIM and basically anything
below 100ft in the SIM is
a bit off. It's not perfect
anyways. Uh, but all of the airborne stuff is
exactly what it's good for. And then the emergencies was the
other piece. So we don't do any actual emergencies in the airplane
anymore. Everything is done in the SIM.
So they can do anything they want in the SIM because you can't
kill yourself. It's all engine failures
and yellow page. So non critical
emergencies, uh, take time, open the checklist and see
what's going on. But also all the critical ones like engine
failures, engine fires, anything that requires you
to take action right away. We can do that all in the
SIM. And then you don't ever risk the airplane or risk
the air crew.
Yeah, and like you said, this is sort of industry
standard and I think it's something we're going to see more and more in the
Air Force. Like it or not. We're always looking
for ways to do things with lower
cost. And obviously it costs less to operate a
simulator than it does to operate an know
as pilots, we all want to fly, we all want to fly the airplane.
And I think it's natural sometimes to have a bit of a,
uh, the SIM again. But the truth is you get great
experience out of it and you go in with a positive attitude and it
can be an awesome learning experience. And like you said,
I bet you the progress you folks made
in those three weeks or so in the SIM was crazy.
You probably went from literally what's, a King
Air to I can operate a King Air.
Yeah, exactly. So we did that three weeks of
simulator stuff and then jumped into the airplane the next
day. And while there's some differences, like I said,
I knew where all the buttons were, I knew how the airplane was going
to react. So I could basically just hop in the
cockpit and go. And there wasn't a lot of get to know
you time with the airplane because I already knew it, it was good to go.
Yeah.
So the training plan, essentially the curriculum
has changed some since we covered it with an instructor.
What are some of the new elements?
So from what I understand from the instructors,
the two big new elements I guess are mutual, uh,
flights, which I think we'll get into, and the
fact that we don't do all the training in Portage anymore. So
from what I understand, the previous training plan,
almost everything was done in portage until you do a couple cross
countries and then you come back and you finish off with
like an iron triangle to Dolphin and Brandon and
back.
Yeah, that's right.
We don't do that anymore. So all of the circuit work that
we do VFR, we do a little bit in portage just to
get comfortable with the airplane and then we leave. We go to Gimli
and Lactobani. We go to Russell.
You know, all these communities around here that have airports,
and we go there to fly mhm for a couple of
reasons, I think. One, because it
forces you to understand different
airports, different procedures. You're not always
under control. So none of those airports that I just mentioned
are controlled airfields like here in Portage.
So you're dealing with Brandon radio, which is just
a guy on the ground who you say, hey, this is what I'm doing. And he
says, cool, here's the other people that are in the area. Or
a Gimli where there's nobody. And you have to talk to the other
traffic directly. Hey, helicopter over there,
I'm over here, I'm doing this. Okay, what are you doing? Okay, now
we all know what we're doing. We'll stay out of each other's way,
deconflict in between, uh, each other. So
it was really good for that. And the other piece is you get
used to different airfields itself.
So if you always land on 31 left
or one three right here in Southport, you're always
going to have Pappies to tell you
where your glide slope is. Right?
So which we just googled and it's precision approach
path indicator. It's a series of lights. There's four of them.
They turn from white to red as you're in the right
position on the glide slope.
Yeah, so in Portage, you always have Pappies if you're on the
outer runway. So you always know what your glide slope looks
like. You're always going to have the same shape of the
runway, you're always going to have the same length of the runway. So
you're going to get used to that. And then you're going to get
into a herc and go fly somewhere in, I don't
know, Africa, where it's a 3000 foot runway
that's only 50ft wide, and you have to figure
out how to land on that mhm. So by going to Gimli,
by going to Lactabani, by going to Brandon and
Verdon and Russell and all these other places, all of the
runways are different shapes and sizes. Uh, obviously they're all
rectangles, but they're all 3000ft
long and 50ft wide, or 7000ft
long and 100ft wide. And it changes the
view and it gives us the perspective of, okay,
I can't always look for the same picture in
front of me. I have to adjust it based on the runway.
Yeah, that's a huge advantage. When I went through,
we focused a lot more on steep turn
stalls, slow flight out in the area, and then we'd come
back and do circuits in Portage, like you
said, almost exclusively. And while I think that was a
good, strong training course, I do think this is going to set,
uh, up pilots for a stronger start
just through the breadth of experience that they're getting.
And also, it's crazy to say,
but sometimes you'll run into people or even you'll
find in yourself, you'll get to a squadron, you'll
learn to fly this new operational aircraft that's super
complex and amazing. You'll have
no problem transiting around IFR because you've done a lot of that kind
of work. But the first time you have to transit somewhere
VFR or the first time you go into an uncontrolled
airport and it's been a while, you got to look up all the
rules, obviously, but it can be like, wow, it's a bit
daunting. I haven't done this much before, so
hopefully we'll have less of that kind of thing going on with this
new training plan.
Yeah, we get a lot of really good experience doing that kind of
stuff.
Yeah, I think that's a great way of conducting the training.
Yeah, for sure.
So you mentioned this briefly before. Can you tell us what a
student mutual is and what it's like to fly one?
So a student mutual is essentially a solo
for a multi engine pilot, if you will. Normally, an
instructional trip is you as a student in the left seat
and the instructor in the right seat of the cockpit. A
student mutual is a student in the left seat and a student in the right seat
with no instructor at all. So very similar to what you would have got as
a solo on a Harvard or in the Grove. And
we have three of those on the course now. The first one is just
in the circuit itself. So you and your
flight partner just go up and beat the pattern a bit,
come back down, land, park it, swap
seats, and then do it again so that the other guy gets the flying
experience and you get, uh, the right seat experience.
The second one is exactly what we just talked about, a
VFR round robin trip. So for my mutual, we went to, uh,
Gimli and then Lactobani and then came back and it
was a lot of fun. So it's just you and another student. You
guys are fully responsible for yourselves, your
airplane, your procedures, and it's really good
for building confidence. The last mutual you do
after your final test, so it's a weird one
in that you're already done. You have essentially
completed the requirements to graduate, but you still have one
flight to go. Mhm, and uh, that's your
first, quote, unquote, solo
IFR trip. It's on what we call
your ticket. So when you pass your final instrument test,
we get an IFR ticket, a license essentially, that
allows us to fly IFR. Normally we've been doing
that with an instructor under their ticket. Now it's
under our ticket. So myself and my partner
got the airplane, made sure it was all gassed up,
figured out what the plan was, flew off to Saskatoon, did
an approach on the way, had lunch in
Saskatoon, got the airplane gassed up, paid
with the credit card given by the school, and then we jumped back in the
airplane and flew back to Portage. So it's really,
you know, we've done all these procedures. I've done this with an
instructor a couple of times. This is the first time where
we get to go out and really do this by ourselves. And
it really solidifies all of the training, all of the
things that we've done to get to that point to pass
the final instrument test. It solidifies all that
in, like, hey, we trust you to go out and do this
by yourselves. Have fun.
That is so cool. I didn't realize that there was a
mutual like, I knew about the mutes that were
going to the circuit doing around Robin. I didn't
realize there was an actual IFR trip
where you shut down and had lunch. And IFR I think we've mentioned,
is instrument flight rules. That's just so cool, because
honestly, it's not something you're going to do until
you're an aircraft commander. And even then,
depending on what aircraft you fly, if you have a flight engineer or
whatever, you're not involved in every single step of that, like the fueling
and stuff. So you might not do that until you're
back at portage as an instructor.
Yeah, exactly.
What a cool thing to do as a new graduate.
Yeah, it was so cool and so much fun to just
get up airborne and then go, wait a
minute, it's all on there's.
There's nobody here to know. Oh,
no, that's what ATC just told you. Or no one to, uh,
okay, let's do this procedure or this kind of
landing. No, no, it's all you. You get to choose what kind
of approach you want to do. If you miss a clearance, you're
calling back to say, hey, sorry,
guys, can you say that again? Because I missed it. It's all on
you. So it's a real good confidence booster, and it was such
a cool experience.
Yeah, I was just going to say the same thing. Um, what a
boost for your confidence to just really show yourself,
like, I can do this, let's go.
Yeah, exactly.
That is awesome.
And as far as I know, between my partner and I, we did
not lose our tickets on this first flight.
You wouldn't know by now, I think. So
one of the other big adventures you take on phase three
are two multiple day cross countries. Can you tell us about
those?
Yeah, sure. So there's two cross countries, like you said, uh, one is to
the US. And the other is to western Canada.
So the idea is we want you to get some experience
in US. Flying. Similar, but slightly
different ATC, but, uh, they want you to have some
experience in that, and they want you to have some experience flying in
the mountains. The mountains in Canada, there's no
difference in terms of the actual procedures, but you
do have a bunch of granite around that you want to avoid.
So they want to send you out there with an instructor
and give you some time to really, uh, get comfortable
flying in slightly more
dangerous, uh, locations. So,
for my first cross country, we ended up doing the US. Cross
country first, and we went down to, uh,
Minnesota, Nebraska, and Missouri.
So we started the first day, flew down to St. Louis with
a stop in Rochester, Minnesota, to clear customs.
And then the second day, we flew, uh,
into Minneapolis, uh, Minnesota. Uh, at the end of
the day, that was really cool. Very busy
airspace. Uh, and then on the third day, we went
through Duluth, Minnesota, and then,
uh, back into Portage.
Okay, so how did you find that experience?
It was very cool. So, uh, it's basically normally
what happens when you have a full course of four people,
two students and instructor in each airplane. So
one student is flying, the instructor is in the right
seat, and then the second student is in the back
doing the comms. So talking to ATC,
requesting clearances and all that kind of stuff. So
the original plan was I was going to be in the backseat at the beginning, and
then fly the second leg. There was a little bit of shuffling,
and, uh, if, uh, my partner's listening, he's probably
laughing about this, but I ended up flying the first
leg, and I wasn't totally prepared for
that because I hadn't done the planning for that leg. But
I ended up flying the first leg into the US. And
figuring out how to clear customs, uh, in Rochester,
Minnesota. And it was an experience I've never done that
before. When I was flying the Alpha jet, I would fly in on Air
Canada and meet the airplane wherever it was.
Oh, wow.
So this was really my first time being on board
or being in charge of a military aircraft and landing
to clear customs. And it was a super cool experience.
Yeah, those trips are really very formative.
A lot of learning takes place on those. I would say
that in those three days, you probably learn as much as, like,
ten other flights back out of Portage. You're just
doing so much, and you're seeing so many new things. What do you think
is, like, the biggest thing you learned flying into the States?
So, I mean, really, it's kind of like we said earlier with,
uh, the simulator missions, it's continuity. So
you fly three, four days in a row. You do
three or four approaches every single day, and
maybe two touch and goes, or a touch and go and a
final landing. So the amount of experience that
you get in that three day period, you're doing
nine approaches, you're doing probably six to
eight landings. All of that together will
combine to make you just such a better pilot.
Aside from, okay, now you're talking to us, uh,
ATC. Sometimes they talk
extremely fast. Procedures are slightly
different, but nothing too crazy.
Uh, just a couple of things you have to learn before you go down there.
Yeah, exactly. And they teach you all of it and then test you on
it before you go do it. Mhm, but it was such a cool experience
to listen to the ATC, to do all
of these approaches. And the approaches themselves
are exactly the same as what we do here in Canada. So you're
really getting the same experience and the same ability
that you're going to have to do on your final test.
Yeah, it's really kind of like the hero's quest where you go
out and prove yourself and you come back a different
person.
Almost exactly, yeah. So then the second cross
country is the, uh, western Canadian cross country. The
design is get you out in the mountains and get you some mountain
experience. So we left here, flew through Medicine
Hat, and then, uh, I did an approach in Castlegar, BC.
Which was super cool, like you're
doing an approach through a valley, you have
10,000 foot mountains on either side of you,
so you really have to pay attention to what you're doing. There's a lot
of autopilot that we're using at that point.
So the autopilot is going to do what the autopilot
is going to do, but if it does something that you don't expect, you got
to be ready to take control. So just because the plane's flying
itself doesn't mean you're not paying attention. So
Castlegar was really cool. Then we went into Calgary.
Can I ask you a question about Castlegar?
Yeah, go for it.
Were you there, uh, in good weather or was there clouds?
No, it was pretty good weather, which was one of the only reasons why we did
it was because we could go down, do the approach. I
think we even did a touch and go that day and then
did, uh, what we call a spec vis departure. So
essentially, you have to climb to a certain altitude
visually in good weather before you can enter
cloud. And in doing so, that will kind of, quote
unquote guarantee you that you're not going to hit a
mountain as you're climbing out or going en
route. Uh, so we had the weather in order to do the spec
vis departure, which was great. It meant that I did do
a touch and go and was able to climb up and see the
mountains and go, okay, don't go over there because
that's going to hurt and the little King Air is
not going to win against the 10,000 foot mountain.
No, I did an approach into Castlegar, which we were only going to do
to the low approach because we did not have the weather.
And let me tell you, it is a weird, weird
feeling when you know there's mountains all around you and you're
in cloud and you just have this magenta line on your
GPS and you start descending and you're like, well. I
just trust that the GPS and the autopilot and
we're all in the right place and we know where we are and there's
nothing in these clouds. Like, it is a weird
feeling.
It is a very weird feeling. So after Calcigar,
we did Calgary for the night, mhm, and then after the next
day, we went to Comox Victoria. And then on the way back
from Victoria, we did Kamloops. And it was
exactly that. The weather was crap, the clouds
were right down to the ground. So my partner was
flying the approach. I was in the backseat, uh, and
I'm looking out the window going, man, I hope he knows what
he's doing because I have no control of this
situation and I can't see anything other than
cloud. And like you said, you're just diving through the cloud,
following the Magenta Line, hoping that things are going to work out.
They did. I didn't crash into a mountain and neither did my
partner. And, uh, back to Calgary for that night and then we came
home the following day.
That's an awesome trip for people listening, just to take a
second to think about the geography of that. You guys went
from Central Canada all the way to the west coast,
to the tip of the west coast and back, all in this
little King air and hitting all these spots along the way.
Think about what an adventure that is.
Yeah. 22,000ft going over the mountains. We flew
directly over top of Whistler. I actually have a
picture looking down on Whistler, and you can see the snow
and the ski runs and everything. And then leaving Victoria, we
were climbing up, I forget where we were, probably like 21,000ft
going eastbound and there was a cloud deck and you
could see Mount Baker, uh, down in the States
poking out through the top of the clouds. Wow, such
a cool experience.
Yeah, that's awesome, man.
Yeah, so cool.
So like we said, your graduation was on Friday.
I can still clearly remember getting my wings put on
my chest. And I remember that after I
marched back to the flight, I kept looking down at these wings,
like almost in shock that they were there.
It was kind of like, wow, I can't believe I have
wings. What was the feeling like when you had your pilot wings put
on your chest?
So there were nine of us that graduated last week.
Six from the Helo flight and three on my course.
So I actually happened to be the last person
among all nine of us to get my wings. So I had to
sit there and watch eight other people get their wings ahead of
me. And then when they called my name and I marched up
and my mom and my dad, my wife are there, my
in laws, my two brothers are all there waiting to
watch and watch me get my wings. It's
such an amazing feeling. Uh, such a relief at
the same time. Uh, the course is
short, but it's intense. And
getting to that finish line is such
an achievement and a relief when you get there and you
can finally, like, now I've got these wings on my chest.
It feels heavy, but, man, I'm so relaxed
right now. And then, exactly the same thing.
I got my wing stepped back, salute, and I start
marching off. And I did kind of peek down at it. I looked
at all my buddies, the, uh, eight of them standing there behind
me that all had their wings on already. And I'm like, man,
we did it. I can't believe we did it. This is
amazing.
Honestly, it'll rank as one of the best days of your
life. It's so memorable.
Absolutely.
Yeah. I hope that alone, hearing that alone
inspires some people to go for it because it's just such an
incredible thing. It's such a crazy thing to
achieve, and so much work goes into that point, and
then you're there.
Yeah. And for those listening, remember,
this was 16 years after I joined the
military, trying to join the military as a
pilot. I waited 16 years for this moment,
and just incredible, man. Incredible.
Yeah. That is something.
Yeah.
So now that you've graduated, can you let us know where
you've been posted?
Uh, yeah, so we found out the day before. I am posted
to Four Three Six Squadron in Trenton to fly
the CC 130 J model Hercules. It
was my number one choice, and I am so excited to
go do this, man.
That is so cool. What are you most excited for at
four? Three, six?
There's so many things, man. Like the travel. First
of all, they get to go to some really cool
places. The C 17 and the Polaris, they get to
travel, too. But when it's an airport that's too
small to take a C 17 or a Polaris, who
do you call? You call the herc? And in goes the J model
to drop off whatever you or pick up whatever you need. So
I'm so excited about the travel and the places that I'm going to get
to go. But for me, the big thing and the reason why I
pushed for a pilot transfer this late in my career
was because I wanted to be operational. I wanted to be,
I say near the pointy end. I know they're not pointy,
but I wanted to be near that tactical
doing things on the ground kind of deal without
having to be on the ground. I joined the Air Force for that's. Right.
It can get pretty pointy for the Air Force.
Yeah, absolutely. So I wanted to do something
operational, and I don't think there's anything
other than maybe flying a fighter jet. I don't think there's anything
quite as pointy in the Air Force as a, uh, J model
Hercules. So I'm so excited to go get to
do some of that tactical airlift,
dropping paratroopers, high, low level,
whatever, just to get into it, uh,
and really be operational. It's exciting. Yeah.
For listeners. We've done two shows that kind of relate to
this. One was with Sky Simpson on the C 130,
J Super Hercules. We also, for Remembrance
Day, interviewed Mike Cool about his time in Tactical
Airlift, which was at the time, on the H model Herc in Afghanistan.
And interviewing those two people really gained
me an appreciation for what that community does, how intense
some of the flying is, and just how cool it is.
Yeah. And I've listened to both those episodes again since I
got my selection, and it made me even more
excited to be able to go do this.
That's awesome.
Yeah.
What do you think will be the biggest challenge at four, three,
six?
As much as I'm going to love the travel, the travel is also going to be a
challenge.
Yeah.
Uh, I know a lot of the other folks that have come on the
podcast have talked about it. You're away a
bunch. There's no tactical airlift
into Trenton.
That's right.
It's all away with
that. It means I'm going to be away a lot. It's going to be a bit of
an adjustment for my family. We've talked about it.
I didn't really think about it until they,
you know, give me your selection choices. And then
we started looking at it and I went, oh, jeez. Other than
maybe search and rescue, there's no
job in air mobility where you're staying home
on a regular basis. Mhm, everything is away.
Auroras you go away for maybe a longer period of time, but
you're still away a bunch. Uh, J model C
17s. There's a lot of out and back trips, so there's
going to be a lot of time away and that's going to be tough on the
family. So I've listened to the spouses
episode and I took a lot of what was
said on there from the spouses that
you had. And I think that
taking some of those lessons learned will help ease the
pain of being away so much. But I really think that
that'll probably be the biggest challenge.
Yeah.
It's something that's really important to be aware of.
There's almost no multi engine
cockpit you can end up in that doesn't end up with quite a bit
of time away. SAR like you said,
sometimes you're home more, but at the same time, it comes with a very
challenging schedule. So you're home, but
your schedule is all over the place. You do a lot of standby, and a
search can come up where, hey, I'm going up
to Ekaluit for the next who
knows how long, weeks or whatever. So
that is definitely a tough part of flying in general.
Yep. Yeah, for sure.
What would you say was the single most helpful tool
that helped you succeed in flight training?
So, for me, I think the most helpful tool was
talking to other people, talking to the course ahead of
you to get some information, lessons learned
from them, things that they messed up and maybe can help
you not make the same mistakes. Talking to courses behind
you because there's a lot of knowledge in the building in
general, and maybe someone else can help you. Talking
to the hilo dudes next door, talking to the
instructors, talking to friends. So
one of the guys that was there and you've already interviewed him, Blake
McNaughton. Blake, um, is actually a friend of my
brother's. So when I got to Portage back in
January and I met Blake and he went, oh,
you're Scotty Harding. And I went, you're Blake McNaughton. And then we took
a picture together and sent it to my brother. Blake and I became
really good friends after that. And I remember a couple of
times sending Blake a message saying, hey man, I'm
really struggling with this. Form was the first
one on phase two. I had a bit of trouble
towards the end of my phase two with form, and he called me
instantly and said, hey man, how's it
going? Here's some tips and tricks that might
help. But really just talked me down, gave me a
little bit of confidence, like, hey man, you've made it
this far, you can do this. But also imparted some
wisdom in the sense of, here's some ways that you
can get through what you're doing. And he did it again.
Uh, when I was flying night flights, I struggled a
bit on the night flying. And he
called and said, hey man, here's some things that you can
think, uh, know, he sent me a couple videos of him
flying nights. So Blake's my
example of a really good person to talk to,
but we all have those kind of people. And I think learning from
others and talking to other people was, for me, probably
the biggest tool to success on phase
three and in flight training in general, being able to learn
from other people and take their knowledge
and apply it to your training. Yeah.
No person is an island, and if you try to get
through flight training alone, you might be able to, but
it's going to be a lot harder. It's going to be a lot more stressful, and you're giving
yourself a lot of unnecessary pain. I have so many
mentors I can think of that, uh, have helped me get
through really difficult times, either in training or operational.
Flying could be just when you need advice
on leadership. As pilots, we get all of
our training on leadership through mentorship.
Ah.
Um, we don't get very much formal leadership
training. There's just so many things that you need to rely
on other people to help you learn and get through.
Yeah, exactly.
I also think it's important to acknowledge that you did have
a couple spots where you struggled and it's important for people to
hear. You will have times where you struggle in flight training.
You will have flights that you fail. That doesn't mean
that your time is over. It's just time
to learn from it and reattack.
Absolutely. We've talked about mental
resiliency before and I know that, uh, came up on a couple of
your podcasts that mental resiliency is
key because you're going to struggle. I know one
dude who graduated a few courses ago
who never had any failures throughout his entire
training. And good for him, great on
him, but he's the outlier
mhm everybody else at some point is going to struggle with
something. Uh, and maybe it's hands and feet for me,
like it was on form and mineral landings
was the other thing. And night flying and okay,
there was a couple of things, but, uh, it
was critical to have that mental resiliency. And I
won't lie, I struggled with it when I
failed. Uh, my pretest, uh, for
Clearhood Phase, I did some ed, some extra
dual for it. Uh, and it wasn't
sufficient. And I was really
angry. Not at my instructor. He didn't do
anything wrong. He's just evaluating what I'm
doing as a student. I was angry at me
because I knew I could do this and I still
struggled. Um, and so for, uh,
me at that point, I was breaking down
and I went back to what I know best and
went, I'm just going to go for a run. And it was
chilly outside, but not cold. And I just went for a
run. And I think for the first, like 600 meters,
I was running like three minutes and 30
seconds/km, which is ridiculous. That ended
after about 600 meters. But the whole point was I got
out there and I released a lot of that stress and
a lot of that anxiety and anger. And that
for me, that's one of my outlets. Uh, you need
to know what that outlet is because you're going to struggle
and you need to know how to make it through that struggle.
Yeah. I would also say it's probably good to
struggle while you're in flight training. You mentioned some
people make it through without failures. I was
lucky enough to be someone who made it through without failures,
but I think that actually set me up
poorly to I didn't learn how to deal with
adversity until I was on an operational squadron. And
that's a hard place to learn that.
Yeah. Because you're going to be maybe not fail, uh, an
upgrade flight or something, but you're going to be put in a
situation that is going to have some
adversity to it 100%. And if you
haven't had a chance to work through some of those demons
already, then that could be detrimental
to your performance. So not suggesting that
anybody should try and fail a flight so they could feel adversity, no,
but it is a good experience to
have.
Yeah, I think what we're saying is embrace it as a learning experience.
Absolutely.
If you do run into that situation and I did personally, like
all cards on the table, I did need some extra training on
one of my upgrades on the Aurora, and it was a hard pill to
swallow, and I really wish that I had had to learn that
lesson earlier. I did learn it. I had great mentorship at
the time and I got through it, but it's tough. So hopefully
you learn those lessons earlier and you move on
and you just keep on, uh, with
learning and growing.
Yeah, exactly.
Okay, we are down to our last three questions
already. They're going to be our standard last three,
but we're going to kind of tailor them to your flight training
experience. So what was the most important thing
you did to keep yourself ready to succeed in flight training?
So studying, for sure, staying in the books,
like I said, for phase three, the rules and
regs and being able to understand and apply them
was huge. So just reading the book once
wasn't good enough. So really getting in the books
and getting back in the books. So you study
a bunch for the simulator phase, and then you just go do a
bunch of VFR flying for a while and then you're back in the
simulator to do IFR. Well, you still need to know all those
IFR rules, so you got to get back in the books and restudy.
So studying was one of the big ones. Make sure you stay
in the books and stay current with what's going on, but then just
having that outlet as well. Make sure that you're
not always in the books. Make sure you're not always prepping for
flights. You have a way to relax and
separate your mind and relax your body.
Now that you're a qualified pilot, I'll ask you this. What do you think
makes a good pilot?
I think being humble, and I think some of your other
guests have said this, but being humble, being
willing to recognize your mistakes or recognize the
spots where you're going to struggle is critical. Because
if you go into it thinking that you're the
best thing since, uh, Maverick and you
think you can do everything better than everybody else, you're going to
struggle. And maybe it won't be in the cockpit, but it
will be personality based. So you need to
be humble enough to recognize that you
don't know everything, that you're not the best, and
maybe you are the best, but you need to be able to step back and go,
hey, I'm still willing to learn from whoever I'm
talking to. I think being a pilot, especially
in the RCAF, is a constant learning
experience. And if you're not willing to
continue to learn, then you're going to
miss it. So being humble to know your
shortcomings and make yourself better, yeah, I
like that.
And even you mentioned, even if you are the best, every course has a
top candidate. But like you said, there's still
so much to learn. Everyone has something to learn. And you'll see
people who are on squadron who've been
there, who've been in that community for decades, and they're still
learning. And they might learn something from you, even, that you bring through
from that you learn in flight training, some trick you've learned or
whatever everybody's constantly learning. So
even if you are like the top candidate of your course, you've still got
tons to learn.
Yeah, exactly.
You've been the senior course for a while now in the multi engine
section of the school. As the senior course now leaving the
school, if you ran into someone just arriving to start their flight
training, what advice would you give them?
Talk to the people ahead of you. Talk to the guys ahead of
you. Make sure you stay in contact with the guys that are
leaving the course that's behind. My
course hasn't even completed their clearhood test,
so they haven't even made it to that automation IFR
phase yet, which means when they get there, they're going to have all
these questions and I'm sorry, but we're not there
to answer them. So make sure you got contact with guys
and talk to the people ahead of you because they're going through all
the same struggles that you're about to go through. Um, when
we went into nights and I struggled, I
went and talked to the course ahead of me. Hey guys, what did you
do? How did you get through this part? Both
not sleep deprivation, but a little bit of
not being at the top of your game because you're flying off your
circadian rhythm. How did you get through that? How
did you adapt to not being able to see the
airport as well? Talk to the people ahead of you because they
know the struggles that you're going to go through and might have
ways around it. So if you're showing up in Portage right
now, talk to the people ahead of you. Yeah.
And also the people who have just finished a
course. You won't meet anyone who has been in the books as
much as those. Like, they've just worked as hard
as they possibly can to achieve this
crazy thing. So they're going to know their stuff.
Yeah, absolutely.
Okay, so Scott, I know that you're on leave today,
so I really appreciate you taking the time to drive to my
place from Winnipeg to do this interview. It's really cool to
check in with you and see how the next phase of your flight training
went. And who knows? I'd love to connect again
once you get some training under your belt at four three
six and just hear how things are going there too.
Yeah, absolutely. Brian? Yeah. You got my phone number. Give me a call. Okay,
happy to do it.
Awesome. All right, that's going to wrap up
our chat with Scott about phase three, multi
engine and life as a student. For our next
episode, we'll be doing a shorter episode featuring
Mike Baring's experiences being deployed for Op
impact over Christmas. Do you have any questions or comments
about anything you've heard? Or would you or someone you know make a great
guest for the show? Or is there a topic you'd love to see covered on
the show? Please send us an email at
thepilotprojectpodcast@gmail.com
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