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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!
New here? Start with "Logbook: First 100 Part 1: The Climb".
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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 today, as part of celebrating our first 100 episodes, we're gonna do something a little different. Over the last 100 episodes, we've heard a lot of stories about what it takes to become a RCAF or Mission Aviation Pilot, the training, the sacrifices, the setbacks that stay with you long after you've shut down the aircraft and left the cockpit.
Bryan:So for the next couple of episodes, we wanted to look back at some of the stories that helped build this podcast.
Dan M:It's just this pure feel of power and freedom. I just wanted to be a fighter pilot.
Vince:Those two US blackhawk came. One was orbiting and shooting. The other one came hot and landed in the wheat in front of us.
Brian:The pressure kinda build up.
Pete:Peace for Pilot.
Mike:Open mouth insert fire hose.
Dan C:That was the first time in my life that I had doubts that I was gonna be successful.
Jeff:The skill change is massive.
Dan M:Military life is difficult.
Dan C:Are you guys gonna be able to land?
Dan M:It was just twisted bits of aluminum.
Duncan:Tuning themselves and putting themselves outside the envelope of the ejection seat.
Blake:Most likely person to break you out of prison or stand next to you at a funeral.
Dan M:It was quite an experience to fly that old jet around.
Brian:You're just always kind of on the edge.
Rock:I must be alive because I can
Bryan:feel pain.
Bob:When we lost people, was that because of something I didn't teach them?
Blake:This Air Force gig is like nothing else.
Bryan:This is The Pilot Project, First 100, part one, the climb. Ask enough military aviators where it all started, and you'll hear familiar answers. Air shows, air cadets, family trips to the airport. But the truth is it usually comes down to one moment, one sound, one fly past, one cockpit ride, one impossible thing you witness that plants the seed. And years later, no matter where life took you, over a lake in cottage country, strapped into a fighter under the golden hawks, or watching black hawks fly into combat, every career has its beginning.
Dan M:I remember it like it was yesterday. I'm in this oversized flight suit. It's a hot July day. The sun's beating down. But of course, in Germany at the time, a lot of pollution, so it's really hazy.
Dan M:And it's strapped into the aircraft, and I'm sitting there feeling really claustrophobic in the back of this jet. Dad comes up the ladder, looks at me, says, are you okay? He gives me the thumbs up. I said, yep. Fine, dad.
Dan M:And I realized he can't hear me because I have this mask on my face. And so he says, just nod. And I nodded. And He started up. We taxied out the run down the runway.
Dan M:I'd been on the seven zero seven to get to and from Germany. And so I was used to acceleration, but this was like, oh, this thing accelerates really well. And we got airborne, and then it's just this pure feel of power and freedom. All of a sudden, was just looking around and all I can see is beautiful German countryside and I could spot my house in the Rhine River, the Black Forest next to us, and it was just surreal. It's an experience that I never expected.
Dan M:It was way better than I thought it would be.
Bob:When I was 15, I was out in this field trying to catch a horse. All of a sudden, this huge noise came over top of my head, who it was was the Golden Hawk aerobatic team. They're waiting to go on stage in Edmonton. And, the town that I grew up in was about 60 miles, a 100 kilometers west of Edmonton on the Jasper Highway. That had such a inspirational effect on me that, I just wanted to be a fighter pilot.
Bob:You know? I wanted to do what those boys were doing. I just kinda decided right then. God, I wanna do that.
Mike:Both my grandfathers retired from the Canadian Armed Forces in Trenton, Ontario at Safety Trenton. And my one grandfather on my father's side, he remained working for the RCAF and the supply division as a civilian after he retired. And so I spent all my summers in and around Trenton and Belleville watching the aircraft, constantly flying. And it always captured my attention and my interest. And I remember one time, me and my grandfather, was about six or seven, we were at our trailer about an hour north of Trenton.
Mike:And we were out fishing on our boat. And I saw this Herc come over the ridge over the lake and he dropped down to about 200 feet. And as he approached the boat, he started rocking the wings. But then I noticed another Herc coming behind him and started doing the same thing. This happened six times over.
Mike:So there's six Hercs in a row, all rocking their wings ass. And I turned to my grandma and I said, grandpa, what's going on? He goes, oh, it's just the boys saying hi. And I'm like, are they say really saying hi to us? He goes, oh, yeah.
Mike:They recognize my boat. And he was he wasn't kidding. I, you know, I thought he was putting me on and as a, you know, seven year old Josh and his grandson, but he wasn't. The the first aircraft commander recognized my grandfather's boat, obviously knew my grandfather from supply and started rocking the wings and told the rest of the boys to say hi too. And that's what pretty much had me from the get go.
Mike:So that right there, I was seven years old, I was like, I want to do that. One day, I wanna figure out how to do that.
Vince:We would go and take a village that's called Mushan there in Kandar. And then one of the, leopard tank stepped on a IED and three Canadian members were in it. And I still remember to this day and still drives me. I was 19 years old overseas. And I remember looking at that person that I was treating, he was a fellow Canadian.
Vince:I remember thinking, wow, this is exactly as it was trained for. And then we took those wounded and brought them to a wheat field. I still remember like it was yesterday. It was a wheat field. I was on my knees.
Vince:I remember having wheat up to my chest and those two US blackhawk came. One was orbiting and shooting. The other one came hot and landed in the wheat in front of us. And there's two p g's that step out of it. Kind of the tactical version of a Sartech.
Vince:And I remember looking at those guys in awe. Like, okay. Those guys are freaking heroes. I wanna be that person.
Bryan:And while the spark can come from anywhere, for a lot of Us military pilots, it's the air cadet gliding program that first made it feel real. I was on
Rock:the Guider site every weekend in spring, fall till I think it was 2022. On my group, most of us went in the air force after that. Like Francois Roy is at 04:30, he's a helicopter pilot, his brother Martin Roy is a colonel somewhere in the air force. Maxime Renaud was with us too. He was a he's a fighter pilot.
Rock:So all of us were like just sitting in the weekends pushing gliders around and just like enjoying our life. So we're flying the Schwarzer two thirty three. In Baguerreville, we're flying in the winch. So every flight was about three minutes just going up like to 800 feet and just like emergency return all the time. So that was like amazing for Logbook.
Rock:I have like so many Logbook of three minutes flights. What I really enjoy about lighting is like how calm it is. You just hear like the sound of like the the wind, you know, like there's no engine. Everything is like no, it's not assisted by hydraulics. So everything is like you feel everything, you control the gliders and you just have one landing.
Rock:So like you better be good at it. If not, that would be a difficult one. In Baja De Ville, the the course was was actually very nice. Towing planes, flights were a little bit longer. But again, like the glider course is very good to learn like how to fly a plane.
Rock:Like I said, like you have one approach to do. So like you cannot do a go around. So this is why like I really enjoy the gliders. You have one shot at it and we're getting good at it. Like I remember like in Bargainville we have like those orange cones and I was like where like the the site commander was saying like you need to stop by there because like to just like change a passenger and like the air cadets.
Rock:So we're like inside one meters like of the cones all the time. So we're getting very precise and at the end of the day, like that's all you wanna do. Like you wanna be very precise when you're flying and gliders is a great way to learn that. It's not like, oh no, it's Saturday and I would like to be in the on a gliding side at 07:30. Like I'm tired.
Rock:I was like, we were like going out on Friday night all together in the same group. And like the next morning I remember like untying the the gliders pushing them like for the launch. Yeah. It was just like this nice group of people that I really enjoy working with them and I'm still like every time I go home like I wanna meet them and just chitchat just like catch up. So yeah, that was that was great.
Rock:It's a good time. It's just a good time. By the end of the day, we're like so tired. So going back home, eat a little bit, go for a long night of sleep and Sunday morning we'll do it again.
Bryan:It's one thing to know you want this. It's another thing entirely to survive the process of becoming it. Flight training has a way of humbling everybody through failure, long delays, self doubt, and the constant pressure to perform. For most of us, this is where the dream gets tested and where a lot of people realize just how badly they want it.
Mike:The adage open mouth insert fire hose was not a lie. You really had to be on your game every day. In other adage that you say you're always two fights away from failing. And so you are constantly studying hard, putting in a lot of effort into learning the theory and learning the skills in the simulator and then putting it to practical use every day when you went up flying. And it wasn't the easiest thing to go through, but I'm I'm very glad I went through it and it helped chart my way forward in my learning throughout my aviation career in the Armed Forces.
Mike:You have to take time for yourself. I mean, yes, you're studying all the time, but you always have to take at least a day for yourself. So on Saturday, Saturday was downtime. Actually, I'd say Friday at four, it was downtime, me time, do whatever I had to do, relax with the guys or by myself. And then Sunday afternoon, generally, is when I started to get it back into the books for another five day push.
Dan C:That was the first time in my life that I ever had doubts that I was gonna be successful. And I was relatively, you know, middle of the pack. It was not a disaster, but I was making backup plans for if it didn't work out.
Brian:Sometimes you would just let the pressure kind of build up and then you would get frustrated and just have to temper your your emotions sometimes. But a lot of times, the best strategy I found was just talking to the other guys, especially on Friday night. And that's half of what it is really that sort of team cohesion is you can just go to them and be like, I don't know what happened on that flight. I was completely tumbleweed the entire time. I couldn't find the route.
Brian:I was off my altitude. You can go and they can sympathize with you and vice versa. It was one way of outletting it compared to just, you know, completely internalizing it. But sometimes back then, you know, it's nice just to go out to the mess with everyone, enjoy some drinks on Friday night, and then decompress from the entire week, talk about all the new things, complain about all the things we didn't like. I think it's a pretty much a international hobby for pilots.
Brian:And then just having Saturday free and then back back to it, back in the books on Sunday. You know, it's hard to not let it build and get frustrated. And then, you know, that that leads into nerves for your next flight. So if you keep keep letting it stack, then it just builds and makes your performance worse. So, you know, the the Friday night get together and just talking about your your week was a good way of doing it.
Bryan:So you were selected to go Jets. You did go down to the Euro NATO Joint Jet Pilot Training Program or NGEP in Wichita Falls. At the time, I heard this course was exceptionally tough.
Brian:Yeah. It was definitely walking into quite a strict regime, especially the phase three there. So they do phase two, three, and phase four, or they call it IFF introductory to fighter fundamentals. But for the phase three there, from basically get go, you're there twelve hours a day every day. You show up at the report time.
Brian:Everyone stands up and the emergencies in the jets down there referred to as boldface. One at a time each morning, you stand up, you recite your emergency and get it right or get it wrong. If you get it wrong, there'd be a follow questions, but they move down the line every morning. Everyone has to recite one of the emergencies, and then you can start your day. At that point, you're going on the schedule for whatever events you have, sims, flights, ground school, whatever it is.
Brian:And then, you have to be there for the dismissal at the end of the day. So twelve hour day every day pretty much for, the first third of the course or so. It was like that. And then you get a little bit more freedom to come and go later on, but it was still definitely long days. And then you would go back and do some studying in your room afterwards.
Brian:And it always was, again, that self induced pressure, but it's a very fast upgrade as well. It's a wings course on a jet, so they have some high expectations. And coming out of there, you know, it wasn't a guaranteed fighter slot either. You still had to perform and meet expectations. So it definitely was a challenge.
Brian:And the the jet was also quite a step up from the the Harvard because the aircraft itself, if you, take a look at that, like very small wings, very fast, a lot of thrust compared to what I'd previously been flying. So always felt like you're behind the jet just trying to keep up with what's going on next, what's happening because it wasn't something that you can really prepare yourself for going from a a turboprop up to a jet anymore than just having to get in there and try and do it.
Pete:I did the Harvard and Moose Jaw. It was humbling. I led from the rear, sixteenth out of sixteenth of, my course.
Bryan:P is for pass. Right? P is for pilot.
Pete:P is for pilot. Sure. I wanted to be a jet person. And, they said, no, Pete. That's that's not for you.
Pete:And I I couldn't agree more.
Bryan:I was gonna say, yeah, you agree with that assessment?
Pete:Yeah. Absolutely. A 100%. I learned a lot, and there's a lot of resilience in there that I learned. I also have a lot of, healthy respect for people who struggle to make all those grades that are are difficult.
Pete:It's given me a lot of empathy while I'm an instructor myself. My head was definitely squashed.
Dan M:When somebody tries to present a facade where they make no mistakes, where they are basically golden and nothing can go wrong, they're lying because everybody's human. And I consider myself to be a relatively competent pilot. I know I've done well. Yet at the same time, I've done some really stupid things. And it's much more interesting for students to learn from somebody else's experience that maybe it can prevent an accident one day.
Jeff:You get your wings flying a c 90 turboprop plane going to a wide body jet flying globally around the world. You go from having a helmet fire flying in a ILS in Dauphin, Manitoba, and now you are, you know, going into Heathrow or Dubai with 180 passengers on a 350,000 pound plane. The scale change is massive.
Bryan:And just when you think you know where you're going, this life has a way of changing the plan.
Dan M:Military life is difficult. It's extremely rewarding, but it's not easy. I'd finished up in Moose Jaw. I was on my way to Bagotville, Quebec, which was where I wanted to be. So I was posted from Moose Jaw to the course in Cold Lake, and I was supposed to go to Bagotville on the f five.
Dan M:Partway through the f five course, wing spars cracked on the aircraft. There was special inspection. They found out that, like, two thirds of the fleet had big cracks in the wing spars. So they grounded the fleet. They closed four three three squadron and four three four, the two operational f five squadrons.
Dan M:Four nineteen, where I was on the training unit, there were 21 of us on course. They had nine or 10 students continue with just a tiny number of aircraft that were actually still flyable, and they were busy repairing the rest at the two other bases where they had these aircraft and then ferrying them to Cold Lake. About the other half of the course was delayed four months. And myself and another guy who had flown T Birds in Germany before, Mario Giedmette, we both got delayed by one year. And Mario was sent to base flight to fly t birds.
Dan M:I was sent to North Bay to take a two and a half week, not month, but a two and a half week t 33 course because I had lots of similar time in the tutor. And I came back to base flight in Cold Lake, and I flew T Birds for six months. And then I redid the entire f five course and then the f 18 course. T 30 threes were what were called, utility aircraft. So we did things like, for example, I would take an oil sample for the rescue helicopter in Cold Lake, and I would fly it to the Edmonton Municipal Airport, and I'd drop it off so that they could get it tested at the labs there to make sure that the helicopter was safe to fly.
Dan M:There were no metal chips in the engine oil. And that was an urgent thing. The lab was in Edmonton. It was a 300 kilometer drive. So just fly the T Bird there, drop off the soap sample, and at that point, they could have a rapid turnaround because during that time, the fighters couldn't fly because it was the middle of winter.
Dan M:And, without the rescue helicopter, there was no flying. So we we did stuff like that. We carried people from place to place. I picked up a full colonel in Calgary, took them to Ottawa for a meeting, and then we did exercises with NORAD. We were the targets for, say, f fourteens off the coast of San Diego, so that was real hardship.
Dan M:And then we do also local target things for the f eighteens. We would be targets for them as they're doing the student training. It was great. We went all over the place. I flew three hundred hours in six months, and it was a vintage airplane.
Dan M:It was quite an experience to, fly that old jet around.
Dan C:We're on approach going into Calgary, and they clear us for the ILS, which is, like, one of the easiest approaches that you can fly. And I decide to be fancy, and I start asking him for things. And I'm like, hey, you know what would be really cool is if you program this and you do this and you do that. And he just turns to me and he's like, know what would be really cool is if you descend so we can land. And I look out because I hadn't looked out in a while.
Dan C:And we are at 5,000 feet, like four miles from the airport. Like, so high. Which is really high to the point where they had already switched us to the tower and tower's like, are you guys gonna be able to land? And my instructor's like, I don't know. We'll see.
Dan C:And we did. We landed. We made it work. But it was very humbling. You start to feel comfortable.
Dan C:You start to get cocky. And then you realize you forgot to do the basic fundamental things. That was the best debrief I've ever had in the military. Because when we landed back in Portage, he turned to me and he said, Dan, that was 98% awesome and 2% what the
Bryan:As the training progresses, the pressure changes. It's no longer just about passing. It's about pushing yourself closer and closer to your limits and sometimes beyond them.
Skye:I think I've always kinda struggled a little bit with, like, impostor syndrome. So when I showed up at the unit, I'm, like, this young. I'm the only female pilot there. And there are all these guys with this ton of experience, like, really kinda, like, hardened. The unit has spent the last, you know, seven years at that point, eight years in Afghanistan.
Skye:You look around and you go, woah. K. Like, I really have to have my act together here because you want to bring something useful to the table. So at the beginning, I felt like I was almost a little bit out of place. But once I got some reps in and realized that, you know, I was a trained qualified pilot who could do all the things that I needed to do in order to bring value to whatever mission we're doing.
Skye:That point, I kind of relaxed and thought, Okay, I do belong here, and I'm useful. And then it started to really be able to enjoy myself at that point. Just once you kind of take a breath and say, okay, like I'm where I should be. Once the confidence caught up to the competence, it was a lot more fun.
Bryan:I went to Moose Jaws my first flight training, which was a bit of a culture shock because I had skipped phase one. So I only had like the civilian view of what flying was. And Moose Jaw had all these different terms and, you know, these things called overhead brakes and closed patterns and everyone else had done aerobatics and all those things. So it was kind of intimidating at first, but at the same time, I was ahead on just number of hours. So I had seen more different scenarios.
Bryan:I had more flying under my belt. But I found that whatever advantages I had quite quickly disappeared as other people caught up. So I was really impressed with the military training system and how quickly it got people up to speed. Phase two was definitely high stress, the most stress up to that point in my life.
Ian:The most challenging part was the humbling experience of realizing that you're terrible at flying helicopters. The experience of being given one flight control and barely being able to keep yourself in one position is wildly challenging. And there's no knowing when you're gonna get that moment where it'll just click for you. The difference between the helicopter and multi engine training is notable too. The multi engine guys always seem to be super chilled out, super relaxed.
Ian:Whereas the helicopter courses about to go learn, go learn something completely new. Flying a helicopter is not flying an airplane. Physically flying a helicopter is unlike anything else that you can really do. So there's, there's no way to get good at it without doing it. So there's a lot of pressure to be successful doing something you've never done before.
Ian:Nobody can hover a helicopter on their first try. But at some point between kind of like hour one and hour ten, you actually figure out how to make both hands and both feet work in coordination. And the most rewarding part of phase three, I would say, is having that sense of accomplishment from going in the span of a few months from I have absolutely no idea what I'm doing to I am flying a multi engine glass cockpit helicopter, across an international border. And I know what I'm doing and I'm being successful. So I I think just helicopter training in general has that challenge of going from absolute zero to success.
Ian:And the transition and the curve you see in that is is really rewarding.
Rock:I finished phase two on a Friday. And on Monday morning I was on the jet course. Now like the real work starts. Now it's a fast aircraft. Now we're talking about tactics.
Rock:We're talking about like bomb droppings and some people will say like you strap the jet on you like you're not strapping yourself in the jet. Like that's the the way the Hawk feel. So like for the first time, like you're sitting on an aircraft, like there's no prop in front of you, like everything is behind you, you know, like the jets and you're like you're you sit like right at the pointy end of the aircraft. It's very tight. It's a British design.
Rock:So I'm a little bit of bigger guy. So, yeah, you first time you sit on the jet, like, the only thing you see, it's like a canopy bow. You see like the HUD, like the you have the instruments a little bit lower and that's what you see. Like, you really feel like you strap the jet on you and like the side of the cockpit, your elbow, like, touch both side and like it's a go kart. It's super nice.
Rock:Like, even like the yoke, the the control columns is bending in the middle because there's not enough room. So it's not like a full stick. Like, it's a full stick in the middle. Like, it bends left and right. That's for your aileron.
Rock:But, like, you're so tight that, like, you cannot go like a normal stick thing. And you close the canopy and everything and you're like in this very small bubble and the instructor is a little bit back to you. There's like a window between you and the instructor. So you don't really see the instructor and you go. I remember like my first takeoff on the Hawk, you're like sitting on the bottom, you do a slam check, so you go full power and like you have like the engines pulling up and you have like this amazing like jet engine sound.
Rock:And I remember like releasing the brakes and it's not like a car that it just goes. Release the brakes and it just slowly goes forward. And you're like, seriously? That's what happened. And few seconds after it just it kicks and now like you just holy and now like you're going you're going down the runway.
Rock:And you pull and then the aircraft once fly and boom, you zoom up. The first time I almost over speeded the gears because the acceleration is so high. So you really have to keep the nose up as soon as you're out, gear up and up for a very good ride.
Brian:So once I got to four ten and then same at four zero nine, it's usually starting with your BFM, which is your one v one maneuvering. So your instructor in that case is in the other aircraft and, you know, at 410, you'd have someone in your backseat. But now at 409 on your combat ready upgrade, it's just the instructor is the lead aircraft and he's in the other jet and you set up for that one v one fight, it always usually goes offensive. So you start from a position of advantage, somewhat behind the other aircraft, defensive where they start in a position behind you, and then high aspect where you're merging neutral. So it's usually a few of those trips each, and then you move on to ACM, is your two v one maneuvering.
Brian:You have your flight leads slash your instructor is in the other aircraft, but the same formation as you. And then the red aircraft, the adversary is the third aircraft, and you're trying to get two versus one scenario, which in theory should make it a lot easier because you're outnumbering them. But it also brings in another layer of safety. Whereas when it's a one v one, you just have to avoid the other aircraft you're fighting. Now in a two v one, you have to keep track of both aircraft and do it safely and effectively.
Brian:So the lead aircraft and the red aircraft are doing the BFM, the one v one maneuvering, and now you're trying to stay above or below the fight to try and shoot into there and kill the red air without affecting the fight by you know, if you put yourself in the way of lead that he has to maneuver away, now you've essentially disrupted how his flow is or it could even develop into a safety issue. So it's just a a layer of complexity that you have to add on to there. And then from there, it usually goes into some sort of, beyond visual range type engagements. Previously, in the one v one, one v two, you're employing your heat seeking missiles. Now you're using the airplane's radar to find aircraft with the help of ground based controllers.
Brian:And with that, then you can try and employ your radar guided missiles to them. After that, then you start bringing into it all the air to ground components. So you switch phases, you go into an air to ground mentality, and now you think about all the weapons that you're trying to employ, whether it's the, you know, mark 82, which are just unguided bombs or bring into GPS bombs, laser guided bombs, the 20 millimeter gun on the Hornet. And so you'll learn the basics of those at the range, and then you start to build a scenario from there. You know, close air support.
Brian:So troops on the ground that could potentially be in some sort of conflict, you're providing support to them, you know, near the front line, air to ground deliveries, but without contested air picture. So you don't have to worry about any sort of threat from the air, and then you build out from there. Now thinking about air interdiction, which is employing weapons into contested airspace behind enemy lines. So now that brings into the whole beyond visual range air to air employment with now all the weapons employment air to ground, that sort of strike fighter capability that the Hornet excels at. So you have to kind of meld all of those together into one final phase.
Brian:So it really brings in all the pieces, which is really the culmination of each of the courses slash upgrades that you're going through. It leaves a lot of room for error, so you really have to mission plan for it, brief it, and then you're gonna just debrief everything that you can to pull all those lessons learned on the mission. Some of it, you know, your target, you might not even have exact coordinates on. So you have to use the targeting pod to look around, try and find your target while operating in this contested environment. So how was your air to ground targeting?
Brian:Did that match up with what you mission planned? And then when there was any sort of pop up threats, how did you react? Even just one flight was pretty much an entire day's effort. And then it was immediately into planning for the next day. You know, it's it's not for everyone.
Brian:I was young and didn't have kids at the time, so I could devote a lot of time on the squadron. Definitely, as experienced Grozo, your capacity, your bucket is opening up. So as long as you're keeping up with that learning curve throughout, you're never really over tasked. You're just always kind of on the edge.
Bryan:We always talk about how aviation is a small community. And interestingly enough, this next story features someone who we've been hearing a lot from, Roc Vea.
Skye:I remember in the form phase of phase two, I was struggling with. It just made me really anxious being that close to another aircraft. So I remember I went up on a flight with my instructor. Do you remember Rock Faye? He was awesome.
Skye:Such a chill guy. And he suggested to me in the middle of that flight because he could tell that I was anxious because he says, Simpson, you're breathing like a horse up there. What's going on? And I'm like, I just I'm just trying to I'm just trying to relax. And he's like, you know what helps me?
Skye:He said, just sing a song. So I I started singing on the intercom. And I don't know if he appreciated it or not because he was a he was a Franco guy, but he made me feel a lot better. And at that point, I realized, like, I really have to figure out a way where I can just calm myself down in the middle of a flight. Think I'll take that's what I took from that flight is this is something that I have to work on.
Skye:Just some sort of little thing like a trigger. You figure out what your own thing is, like take a couple breaths or or whatever is a standard, but it wasn't singing because now that I fly a crew aircraft, probably drive everybody nuts. But this is my secret hack, I guess, is I never go anywhere on any flight without a pack of gum in my pocket. And every single time throughout my career that something's been really spicy or it's gotten really, like, interesting in flight, I just take a second and grab a piece of gum and chew my worries away, and then it it helps me really, like, focus on the on the situation at hand. Still, like, I'll swear to I'll do that till I die for sure.
Bryan:But in this world, even when you slow down, stay calm, and do everything you've trained to do, sometimes the machine gets a vote.
Rock:We got like a weird sound, just like something like something is different, you know, like not broken, but like almost like somebody hit the side of your car, like this sound of like a bit of bang. And like I'm just froze. And I remember like in the back seat that was a Frank Wagner is a German instructor like f four pilot. He was on t 38 like full experience. And he just came with his German accent and said like, just do your emergency response.
Rock:So like I'm almost thinking that is just like a simulated emergency. Back then, we're still doing a simulated emergency in the flight. So, like, I was expecting him to say, alright, emergency secure. Keep going. So, like I'm doing like easy zoom trying to just like I don't remember if I bring back the power, but I was part of the emergency checklist.
Rock:And slowly starting a right turn towards the field like beautiful weather. I see the field 10,000 feet, like very high. And I remember he took the control and said like Dragon six two declaring emergency for engine. And I'm like, I got surprised. I said like, what do you mean like, the current emergency?
Rock:Like, what happened there? So he took control. We start turning our right towards middle of the field. And this is when like the engine and the old aircraft start vibrating. It was vibrating so much as like you are in a spinning cycle on your on your washer.
Rock:You know the old washer where I did just bang bang bang and that's how he feels. Like I'm trying to read a checklist and like everything is like crazy and cannot read the checklist, go by memory, do my my thing and switch to tower. He said Dragon six two, Mayday, Mayday, Mayday, we have a t six and l. This is the last stage of the turbine on the Hawk, but Tower didn't know that. And that that was that would be a lesson learned I will talk after.
Rock:But so like, we have like some engine issue in the past and Tower thing and just a Hawk coming back with a normal engine issue. So we came back, we did like the PFL. That was a practice forced landing. So like that's the three sixty degrees to come back to land if we have like any like emergency. That was a very stressful situation at this point, the aircraft is vibrating.
Rock:Currently, did a 360 degree over the field. I don't remember it. Like Frank doesn't remember it. And we established ourselves in downwind to come for like the the final turn. At one point, there's like this big log bang.
Rock:That's where all like the emergency panel light up. That was the first time I saw some like emergency lights coming up and like the warning section and everything. Frank said he saw it before. I just don't remember. But at that point I remember like in my mind, was like super real.
Rock:The engine just sees this like this huge bang and now we're coming down and people don't understand like when a engine jet engine sees, it's like a speed break. So like the air, even it's like the inlet like stop going through. It's like you have like this big panel like slowing you down. So like the rate of this on like increase like crazy. And now we're like in the final turn going to, I'm looking at the runway.
Rock:Frank asked for the flaps. I asked if I give him like a takeoff fly ups or approach flap. And I know like the next step is I do gear. So like my my finger is on the on the gear and I'm just like, I'm waiting. And he said like, we're making it.
Rock:We're making it. I look up. Yeah. Everything looks good. And I pushed the button for the gears.
Rock:And at one point, like he just said eject. And and I I'm super surprised. I'm not expecting it. And you know, like you always say like you will do eject three times. I'm pretty sure that eject, he pulled the trigger and he was still saying eject when he was gone.
Rock:At that point, what I remember because I was like bent a little bit to the front waiting to put the gear down or the flaps. I remember like bending push back. So that was like the the seat pulling the the strap back. And I remember trying to grab my ejection seat, like just like go between my legs, but I didn't didn't have time to get that. I remember the the seat moving.
Rock:So like, yeah, like the the canopy bow was like just above your fill of you. I remember the bow going from just above my head to about in front of my head. And the Hawk is not like in Top Gun that the old canopy goes out. So the Hawk have those small NDC cords, miniature detonation cord. It's like c four and I will explode.
Rock:And so what this what happened is like the seat and the pilot just go through like this cloud of small debris and like you you get out of the aircraft. So as soon as like the bow went down, I blacked out. And I remember we've seen to be like a very long time, like, sitting in this, like, movie theater. You know when you're waiting for the movie to start, you're all by yourself. The lights are down, so it's dark, and you're waiting for something to happen.
Rock:You're waiting, like, for the projector to start shooting the movie. And I I remember being like in this room for a very long time. And I remember saying like, well, maybe that's that's what dying is. And like I'm sitting in boom, the the shoot opens and like the shock opens, like wake me up. I remember seeing like the jet crashing.
Rock:I see like this big ball of fire going like towards me. The next step is always like check canopy. So I don't I don't have time to check canopy, but we have like an injection like two years before people like just broke their legs. So they were always talking about releasing the surreal kit like where we're sitting on. So I'm trying to release it.
Rock:So I'm really trying to go down. And the next thing I remember is like the ground is coming super quick. So I'm trying to put my hands up to just grab my stringer and I just land, boom. I landed on the side. So I just pancake on the ground like and now like everything is silence.
Rock:And I'm sitting on the field like few seconds before I was on the plane trying to land it and now like I'm I'm in the field and I must be alive because like I feel pain. I'm trying to move my fingers, my toe. I said like, okay, everything seem to be moving. And I'm saying to myself, I said like, I will stay here. I'm on the field.
Rock:Somebody will come for sure. Somebody saw the aircraft crashing, so somebody will come get me. So I would just stay here. I came in pain. I guess like the best thing is like not make it worse.
Rock:And the next thing I remember is like the fire. So we we landed like very close of the aircraft. Of course, the wind is blowing the fire towards us. And I remember saying like this grass fire coming into me. And like, again, like it's the the first very dry day in in spring and like everything is dry.
Rock:And like if you've in prairies and when it's dry, it's dry. And I it's just coming. And as it's going through and it seemed like two running towards me. So I'm trying not to stand up and like I'm a little bit confused. I have a broken elbow.
Rock:I don't know that at that point. But like my elbow is sitting like few centimeters lower than it should be. My forearm is like free and I'm just pushing and then the fire is over me. I push down, able to stand up, and I'm starting to run. And I'm running.
Rock:I do a couple of step and something is pulling me back. So I look back and all my parachute's on fire, the line's on fire. And somehow what I need to do is just like to release the parachute and on the Hawk is like this big buckle, almost like World War two style that you have to push and twist. So like normally like it's super easy but now like I have a broken arm, I'm trying like to just push it with that, but like I have no strange. I don't know why I can do it like but at one point like just panicking and everything, I'm able to release like the parachute and I do another like couple of step And now it's my surrogate kid that I was supposed to to release that is pulling me be like this big plastic box is like like pulling me back like an anchor.
Rock:And at that point, Frank came, so my instructor came through the fire. He got like metal of bury for that. Just come disconnect me and both we we run towards the ambulance. And I'm just running. I'm in pain.
Rock:I'm trying to hold my my elbow, like just a lot of emotion going through me. And you run like you go through the fires to the smoke. And at one point there's an ambulance coming up. So we run to the ambulance. They sat us in the ambulance, like, at us, do the start, and now they just bring us to the hospital.
Bryan:And even in peacetime, even in training, service and flying carry a toll. Not every loss happens in combat. Sometimes the hardest lessons come long before the mission ever begins.
Dan M:It was a senior from RMC who graduated a year before I did. He was doing a navigation trip, a low level navigation trip, and he did what's called C FIT, so controlled flight into terrain. He was distracted. We don't know what it was, apparently, maybe a battery overheat or something like that. And he just slowly flew into the ground.
Dan M:The aircraft was destroyed, and he died. Walking towards the flight line from the barracks, there was this fenced off area, and I looked through the fence and somebody had pointed out and said, that's the wreckage from the crash. And it was it was just twisted bits of aluminum, and I thought, wow, That that is something. It's it was physical evidence of how a little bit of distraction can be quite deadly in this business.
Duncan:I remember that day like it was yesterday. The first we heard of it was on the news, of course, and I was driving into work and unheard that the crash had occurred. Bob was my roommate up until, come home at Christmas time to get married. I know that the person who became his roommate after I got married, he did not finish the course. He didn't finish the Pilot course.
Duncan:So certainly what they did was turning away from the populated area. They knew what they were doing. They knew exactly turning themselves and putting themselves outside the envelope of the ejection seat made them unlikely to have a successful ejection. So they knew exactly what they were doing and it's just part of the job. When you are talking about a veteran, you are talking about someone who would sign the blank check.
Duncan:And whether that check gets cashed or not, it quite often depends on what kind of situation you're in this is on. One of the things about being a pilot and what you have to do is make decisions very rapidly sometimes based on circumstances. And they did. They made that decision and it cost them lives. But how many lives did they save?
Duncan:Probably a lot.
Dan M:I had finished up early on a Friday, gone into Winnipeg with a couple friends, watched a movie, went out, had a good time, drove back to Portage, stayed overnight. The next morning, I walk to the mess. And as I'm walking to the mess, I noticed the flag, the Canadian flag in front of the mess is flying at half staff. Okay. That's interesting.
Dan M:So I get into the mess. I sit down for breakfast and I ask the people sitting at the table. So who died? Some politician kicked the bucket? And they all look at me and said, you don't know?
Dan M:No. Oh, Claude. And they told me the story. One of my course mates in Moose Jaw, who had been assigned as an instructor in Portage, he'd done his instructor course on the musketeer a few months before I did, so he was already instructing. Well, beautiful Friday afternoon, he took up two officer cadets who were waiting for a course, and they went flying in a musketeer.
Dan M:And somehow, I think he was probably showing them a spin, and they didn't realize that the center of gravity was not in a good place in that little musketeer to do a spin with three people on board, one in the back seat. And, they ended up smacking into the ground and all three of them died. And that was a a real eye opener. I'd seen it before. I'd when we got to Germany, one of my father's friends, died about a few months after we got there.
Dan M:But I it wasn't up close and visceral. But now this was a guy that I'd I'd played crud and other games with. We'd hung out. We joked around. His girlfriend was there.
Dan M:Life was good for Claude. And then all of a sudden, bam, it was over.
Bob:I think my biggest contribution to the military was as an instructor. That's so important in the military that you have experienced guys that can teach the younger fellas that job and keep it safe. And that's part of my PTSD, I guess, is that when we lost people, was that because of something I didn't teach them? And, I know that. I know when OP was killed up in a newbie, you know, I felt bad because he just got into an unusual attitude and pushed it in the ground.
Bob:You know? And if he had been taught better how to do unusual attitude recoveries, he would have lived. And so I felt bad that I didn't do that for him. And, you know, once you get operational training, there's so many other things that they have to learn. Sometimes you forget about the basics.
Bryan:And for those who do make it home, the toll doesn't always end there. Sometimes surviving is only the beginning.
Rock:I remember like they called my mom. They just like cutting my flight suit and everything. At that point they were afraid that somebody will call my family saying something happened. So like they wanted me to call my mom first. So much emotion is coming out at that point and I'm crying on the phone and talking about the fire.
Rock:Like, it's like in the next few minutes after. I got a compression fracture on my back. I broke my elbow. I got a couple of discs broken too. I got burned by the fire in my face, wrist, and on my knee.
Rock:You know, when I was saying like the all the canopy, the MDC shattered the canopy in all those million of small pieces. I still have some of those MDC pieces in my skin that was like all those small, like, shattered glass. And, like, four months after I was picking that all those small, like, pieces was coming up to my my skin. For the burn, I got very bad burn on my knee when I stand up. I put my knee in the fire.
Rock:I pushed down my face. So I have like the helmet, the mask. So I remove my mask. So all my side of my face was burned and my wrist too, where like the glove and the fly suit starts, like where the skin were exposed. I remember being out of the hospital, they have like this this lotion for third degree burns.
Rock:And the nurse was putting a little bit in my face. And every time she would turn around, I would just like dig my end into it and just put like as much as I could. I didn't want it to burn my face. And he spent one week at the hospital and they sent me back home in Junkia for recovery. In my mind, will take a few months and I will be back in Moose Jaw.
Rock:And I remember when they removed my cast, my arm was cast at 90 degrees. And I remember putting it over my head in the shower, trying not to wash my head and the elbow was not moving. So I was not able to touch the top of my head. That was like so painful. That was a long recovery.
Rock:When I came back, I went back to the Hawk. I wanted to go fly the jet, show everybody that like, I'm the one who will just like make it happen. And I start flying and I was not as easy as I thought I will be. I was afraid of the aircraft, like to be honest. And I remember like doing the departure and like looking at the altitude and the buildup of like emotion and stress and everything and going through like the altitude.
Rock:When I get back to 10,000, I was sure that something will happen. Like, I was super sure nothing happens, but I wasn't there. We finished the mission. I remember like the instructor at the debrief, like, was emotionally drained. I was almost crying red eyes.
Rock:I remember like you didn't debrief me, just give me a hug. I was still have like some mental issue regarding the Egyptian seat. I was afraid of the of the seat. I remember, like, just like sitting every morning in the seat, like even like three times a day and like thinking like, alright, that will not happen today. That will not happen today.
Rock:Trying to just talk myself into it. And, you know, when I was removing, like the safety pin you put on the handle, some other the seat is live. I've always had this like this stress, this ball of stress was sitting on me after you take off. Like this thought of the seat and the fear was like slowly like going in the back of your mind and few minutes into the flight, like, I was not thinking about it. But this fear stay with me like for like, I will say like a couple of years.
Rock:Even when I was an instructor, I was every morning I was thinking about it. And at one point, like, you know, like a lot of water under the bridge. And at one point, like, I was not thinking about it when I was putting the pins in, I was thinking about it when I was taxing out to at one point I was like in my bed at night thinking about what happened today. And I just realized that I didn't think about like ejecting today. And a few weeks after is I didn't think about it like during the week.
Rock:And you feel like this like release that like is not holding you back anymore that this fear is gone.
Bryan:If any of this episode brought something up for you, support is available. The Canadian Forces member assistance program offers confidential twenty four seven mental health support for current and former CAF members and their families. You can call 1802687708 or visit canada.camemberassistance for more information. You don't have to carry it alone. In this line of work, loss and trauma are things many of us will encounter and dealing with it, processing it, matters.
Bryan:But a big part of moving forward is remembering why we chose this life in the first place and why we still do.
Blake:Some of the most memorable moments are not the the most stressful moments. They're the they're the hilarious moments with your crewmates. And that's part of it too. You gotta you gotta treasure your course mates, your squadron mates, and the crews because they're most likely gonna share most of your big milestones in your life. They're your pseudo second family.
Blake:They're the ones who are gonna lend you a drill if you need it. They're gonna have a beer with you after a really bad flight, which happens to everyone. They're the most likely person to break you out of prison or stand next to you at a funeral. So having those air force brothers and sisters is something you kinda have to cherish as you step to that airplane every single day.
Rich:My most memorable flight, I think I always say, is a flight I did with Jen during Opt Inspiration where we were leaving Nova Scotia. We went over to PEI, kind of overflew the bridge, then came back. I overflew Sackville, New Brunswick, my old cadet town. I was able to smoke one jet over the city, a circle or two, and then head up towards Moncton. And, just that route basically overflew the road that I grew up on.
Rich:So I was able to overfly my house and overfly the city of Moncton Dieppe land in Moncton where I did all of my private pilot training at the Moncton Flight College, and my parents were there. My brother was there, and it was my mom's birthday. But there's just a lot of elements there. There's like, you know, I got to overfly my house, my old cadet town. Yeah.
Rich:That's my most memorable flight of my career.
Jeff:My first trip as an aircraft commander, I had my wife in the back with my two month old daughter, and we're going to the Abbotsford Air Show. And being able to flip the switch and say, busy aircraft commander speaking, I could hear my wife way in the back just, you know, squealing. Because, you know, it's just as much a win for her. Supported six, seven years of all of this to
Dan M:get here,
Bryan:and here
Jeff:I am, you know, my own plane near the guy going to take these people on my first flight having them as cargo, second to none.
Rich:Moncton and Dieppe was one of our show sites this year. So I kinda had that moment again where we're parked at the ramp right next to the Moncton Flight College. The Moncton Flight College were basically our our hosts there. So it's 2023. I did my private license in 2003.
Rich:So twenty years after, having started flying at MFC there. Pretty cool to be bringing the team back to where it all started for me, you know, and to watch kids on the other side of the fence there was like, that you know, twenty five years ago, that was me.
Bryan:That might be another snowbird.
Rich:Yeah. Exactly.
Blake:This air force gig is like nothing else. And the road, as I said, may not be straight for everyone, but, man, it's pretty phenomenal. And I'm confident that whether you're new or old, there's a way to have an absolutely epic experience.
Bryan:Alright. That wraps up part one of our look back at the first 100 episodes that built the Pilot Project Podcast. The climb is never just about earning wings. It's about the people, the pressure, the sacrifice, and the moments that shape who we become along the way. Next week, we'll be taking a short break for a vacation, but you can tune in the week following for part two, the wait, where we look at what service can demand and what it can leave behind.
Bryan:Do have any questions or comments about anything you've heard in this show? Would you or somebody you know make a great guest, or do you have a great idea for a show? 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.
Bryan: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. Thanks for listening. Keep the blue side up. See you.
Bryan:Engineer, shut down all four. Shutting down all four engines.