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>> Bryan: All right, after a long break, we are back and ready

for departure here at the pilot project podcast, the best source for

stories and advice from the pilots of the RCAF. I'm your

host, Brian Morrison. With me today is my favourite repeat

guest, my wife, Melissa. Melissa, welcome back to the

show.

>> Melissa: Thanks for having me.

>> Bryan: A lot has changed in the last seven months and we figured we owe you some

explanation for our absence as well. So let's dive into it.

As with the last time I had Melissa on the show, we're going to reverse

roles. So at this point, I'm going to hand over the hosting duties to Melissa

and I'll be in the guest seat for the rest of the episode.

>> Melissa: Before I get started, I'm going to introduce

you, Brian, as our guest by reading your

bio. Brian grew up going to air shows and

has always wanted to be a pilot. He got his start flying

in the air cadet programme as a teenager when he needed

money for university and the pilot trade was open.

Necessity and opportunity came together. Brian

joined the Canadian Armed Forces on June

14, 2006, two days after his

20th birthday. He signed up originally for twelve

years through the ROTP programme. After finishing

his degree in commercial aviation management at the University

of Western Ontario, he was posted as a second

lieutenant to 400 Tactical helicopter

squadron, where he worked in Ops while he waited to go to

Moosera. After a 16 month wait, it was

finally time to go to Moosera, where Brian completed his phase two

training and finished at the top of his course.

Brian then went on to complete multiengine training in Portage le

Prairie, where he earned the Hal Wishart award for top

multiengine student. Brian requested and was

assigned to 405 long Range patrol Squadron

to fly the CP 140 Aurora in Greenwood, Nova

Scotia. After working in Ops for 17 months,

he finally began training on the aurora, which he completed

about eight months later. After spending a month in

Hawaii, Brian came home to marry me, the love of

his life. When he requested leave for his honeymoon, he was told

to wait as something was coming down the pipe.

A month after getting married, Brian deployed to Kuwait to fly

surveillance flights in Iraq for Operation Impact. For

roto zero, he was gone for four months, then home for

three and gone for a second three month tour.

It would be over two years before Brian had spent more days home

with me than away on the road. In his first

three years on the Aurora, he was away for 314

days. Highlights from these years included

flying across Canada, including the Arctic, Kuwait,

Brazil, Scotland, San Diego, Hawaii, Florida

and the Azores. During that time, Brian

upgraded to aircraft captain on his 30th birthday

and later upgraded to crew commander.

After their first son, Hendrik was born, Brian took parental leave

and upon return was requalified just in time to be

posted to three CFFTs as an

instructor. After their second son, Theo was

born and while Brian was on parental leave, he was

diagnosed with other specified trauma and stressor

related disorder, as well as generalised anxiety

disorder, which led to his medical release after

18 years of service on July 2,

2024. During his time in

the RCAF, Brian has flown for approximately

1700 hours and has loved every minute of

it throughout his career. There have been many pauses and

setbacks, but he has always persevered, as we know

he will with whatever comes next.

All right, Bryan, let's start with the most obvious question.

Why haven't you been putting out new episodes for the last seven

months?

>> Bryan: So initially when I started doing the show,

I thought that I had followed all the rules and regulations for

what was required, but there are no written

rules that specifically talk about podcasts. So I really just

had to do my best, talk to the public affairs officers

and sort of hope that I had all the t's

crossed and the I's dotted. After about a year,

somebody let me know that

I should have had permission from my commanding officer as well, which

I hadn't done originally. So

I paused the show and applied for permission.

And unfortunately, just the way bureaucracy works

sometimes it took over six months before I

got an answer. That being said, in the meantime, I have

done a few interviews that I'm really excited to air over the

summer and fall.

>> Melissa: When we last checked in and spoke about your mental health, we

noted you were possibly heading for a medical release.

Where is that process at?

>> Bryan: So, as we mentioned in my bio, and as we suspected

would happen, I was medically released from the canadian armed

Forces. My last day was actually last

Tuesday, July 2. So I am now a

civilian.

>> Melissa: How does it feel to be a civilian?

>> Bryan: To be honest, Im still processing that. I

have a peer support person that I talk to fairly regularly

and he says that it takes around

three to five years for it to really set in and to come to grips

with a change. So Im trying to take my time and work

through it. In some ways its nice. Im looking forward to

the unlimited vacation time, at least until I figure out

what's next. But there's definitely things I

miss.

>> Melissa: How do you feel about being medically released?

>> Bryan: I have mixed emotions about it, for sure. I'm mostly at peace with

it because I knew that it was what's right for my health and

for the family. But that being said, it's a dream

job, so it's very hard to walk away from.

How would you say the process has been for you?

>> Melissa: It's been rough.

That's my nice way to put it. It's just been a lot of,

like, managing

more of the house and helping you

manage kind of the roller coaster that you've been

on. There's been, like, a lot of highs and

lows with any, like, anyone's mental health,

really. There's. There's good times and bad times. The roller coaster

has just been a little bit more than we were kind of used

to. We kind of stabilised a little bit,

and the whole process has just

had so much uncertainty to it, which

has caused a big spike in your anxiety.

So the fall from that is that

there's more for me to pick up and do because you're

frozen a lot more of the time. So it's

definitely been rough, but at the same time,

it's not as bad as I thought it was going to be

because you've grown so much in the last couple, uh, of

years.

>> Bryan: Yeah. And definitely, like I said, I'm at peace with it, and

that's true. But that doesn't mean that hasn't been a hard process.

For sure.

>> Melissa: Yeah, for sure. All right,

so you're officially done your RCAF

career. So I feel like we need to talk about, you know,

some of your favourite parts of that before we move

on to talk about other things. So, Brian, tell me, what was

your best day flying in the RCAF?

>> Bryan: Brian? So, ironically, even though it led to

eventually a medical release, I would say that my tours

overseas were my best days flying in the RCAF.

It's very satisfying to fly on a

super regular basis with the same crew all the time in

the same aircraft. You really get used to how everything's going to

go. You're working as a team, you get to know everybody

and kind of how all their idiosyncrasies work

together. Also, there was this feeling

of like, okay, we're in Iraq, we're fighting

against ISIS, we're taking part in global events, and

you feel like maybe you're hopefully

helping to make the world a better place. And at least

certainly we were helping a lot of people who lived

in Iraq to not fall under the

subjugation of ISIS. So for that, it

was very satisfying.

>> Melissa: And I think that was, like, the era where you felt like you

were finally trained and actually doing your

job, which for anyone that's gone through the process,

it's just so much learning and so much training through

all the different phases to finally, like, be on

your aircraft, doing your thing for

real, on a real mission, I think that was.

That was huge for you.

>> Bryan: Yeah, uh, 100%.

>> Melissa: What was your hardest day? Flying in the RCAF.

>> Bryan: So I would also say that some of my hardest

days were my tours overseas.

Obviously, I was pretty scared a lot of the

time, which is part of what led to my trauma

injury. I've also never been more tired than

during my first tour. Like, just

totally exhausted. Our schedule was all over the place. It

was really hard to get on a good sleep pattern. We

had challenging conditions, and like I said, there were threats that I

found scary, despite the fact that we were

taking really excellent precautions.

And, uh, as far as, like, how tired I was,

I was actually so tired that when I got back, you know, we

went on our honeymoon within a few days of me

returning home to Canada, and I was

just a wreck. I could hardly keep my eyes open. I was

basically falling asleep at our first night at dinner.

>> Melissa: The biggest party pooper.

>> Bryan: Yeah, it was. It was pretty brutal. We

had fun, but I was exhausted.

>> Melissa: What was the coolest experience you had flying in the

RcAF?

>> Bryan: So I have two coolest experiences. The

first one was getting to take you and your family flying in the

Aurora for family day. The second cool experience

is like, a very quintessentially east coast

experience. I got to do a fly past in

Digby with the Bluenose two.

So for our younger listeners who may

not be familiar with it, if you look at a dime, assuming you ever

carry change, that is the ship that is

on the canadian dime. And they had

that ship and a couple other tall ships that were

sailing up and down the sound in Digby,

and we basically did, I would say, half a dozen

fly pass for the crowd, just going

in at the minimum altitude we were approved

for and doing high speed

passes, climbing up, coming around, and doing it

again. It was just a really cool experience to get to

do that kind of thing. Yeah, it was

awesome.

>> Melissa: What are your feelings about the military now that you have

released?

>> Bryan: So, overall, my

experiences and feelings with the military are

positive. I still think its an

amazing institution. Ive enjoyed my career in the

military a tonne, and

truthfully, I cannot think of another

one that im going to enjoy as much. Thats one of the hardest

parts about moving on is that this was a

dream job and im trying to imagine

what else would I enjoy as much and its so hard to think of something

that I would like that much. So obviously I feel really

positive about it. I'm not going to miss the bureaucracy.

I won't miss working in a place where it takes six

or seven months to get a response on if you can do a podcast or

not. I found that pretty frustrating. But every

organisation has its faults. I am

looking forward to the freedom of not being in,

but I recognise that we have it so good in the military

and there's going to be a tonne of things that I'll miss.

>> Melissa: Oh yeah, I think it's going to be interesting watching your

transition to what I like to refer to as the real world.

>> Bryan: Yes, definitely. I've already had to learn about

healthy insurance and dental plans.

>> Melissa: And you made your first visit to a real

doctor in pharmacy.

>> Bryan: That's right. It was eye, uh, opening.

>> Melissa: What will you miss the most about being in the military?

>> Bryan: So the first thing that I'm going to miss is the

camaraderie. I think that that is something

that I'm just not going to find anywhere else. I think just by

the nature of the organisation and what we do and

the shared experiences we all have and the hardships we go

through that the camaraderie that that builds is just second

to none. I'm also going to miss. I know we're both

going to miss when we move next the instant friends

factor of being in the military. When you move,

you go to a new posting, you go to a new unit.

Hopefully there's some people there that you already knew. But if not,

like you definitely meet a couple people in the first week. By

the end of the week you've got a few buddies, your spouse meets

their spouses and everybody has friends. You're going

to barbecues and all that kind of stuff. So

that we're going to miss because the next place we move

we're not going to have a base, we're not going to have a

posting to go to. We're going to have to figure out how to make friends

as adults in the real world and I think that's going to be really

weird.

>> Melissa: Yeah, I think the military

families in general do a really good job

of just welcoming new people

into that community and helping you find your place in

your community. It's awesome.

>> Bryan: Yeah, for sure. And then of course the other thing I'm going to miss is

just the adventures and the variety of experiences

and seeing the world for free and all that kind of

stuff.

>> Melissa: So what's next for you?

>> Bryan: So the short answer is, I don't know, but I think

that's okay, at least at first. It's going to take some time

to kind of get my feet under me, figure out

what else do I want to do and

go pursue that. But I think, like I

said, I think it's okay at first to not be sure what you're going

to do, especially with a medical release,

because the release was unplanned. The release was something we knew was

probably coming, but it wasn't part of my plan. So it kind

of makes sense that I'm not ready to go with this second

career, and I'm trying to kind of give myself grace with that

and take some time to figure that out. In the short

term, I'm basically just going to focus on getting better,

staying in good shape physically, because I know that that also leads to

better mental health for me and doing the podcast.

>> Melissa: I'm sure your listeners are excited to hear more podcasts

coming.

>> Bryan: I hope so.

>> Melissa: What are the biggest challenges ahead you see for restarting the

show?

>> Bryan: Initially from behind the scenes? I'm definitely going to be rusty

in terms of conducting interviews, editing,

getting the show online, just all the little things that it takes

to make a podcast happen. It is a lot of work,

and there's going to be some steep learning curve

again with just getting things back online. The other

two things that I see as a challenge, which luckily the audience can

help with both. The first is regrowing the audience.

I can only imagine that in seven months, a

fair number of people have given up on the show or thought

that it's not coming back or lost interest.

So obviously you, the audience, can help

us by spreading the word that the show's

back online, by telling some friends about it,

telling people, you know, who may be interested in aviation,

or especially with aviation within the

RCAF about the show. The

third challenge is

going to be coming up with new ideas, new

ideas for shows, which again, the audience can help

by suggesting guests, topics,

all that kind of stuff.

>> Melissa: So now that you're out of the military,

how will this change the show?

>> Bryan: So I think to the audience, hopefully it will

be fairly transparent, like, there won't be

a big change, like in terms of the quality of the show,

in terms of how often it comes out. I'm hoping to keep all that kind of stuff

the same, but potentially, I'm hoping that

now that I'm out, there will be a little less red tape

in terms of me accessing certain guests. And I

believe I should have access to some fairly. I don't want to give

anything away yet because I'm not sure what's going to come

together, but I think I should have access to some fairly high

level guests in terms of people

positioned fairly senior in the RCAF. So hopefully we should

have some really cool guests for the audience to listen to soon.

Awesome.

>> Melissa: Uh, any other future plans

for the podcast?

>> Bryan: Basically, the plan is to keep it going as before, as long

as we have enough content. I'll keep putting out episodes every two

weeks, but we recognise that once we cover

all the fleets, we've kind of picked a lot of the low hanging

fruit. And it's going to be harder to

come up with unique ideas for shows. So it may

come to a point where we need to slow down and put out episodes monthly

just to sort of give us time to come up with

ideas. But again, that's where the audience can help with suggestions

in bringing forward guests, so you can reach out to

the show with topic ideas and guest ideas.

Toddpilotproject on all social media and

thepilotprojectpodcastmail uh.com dot.

>> Melissa: So in case you didn't know or your

listeners, the RCAF has a podcast.

Now. Why should people listen to your

podcast?

>> Bryan: So the first thing I'd point out is that we aren't in

competition. I actually was involved with that

show. It wasn't my idea, but I was involved with the

early stages of it, and I actually hosted one of their first episodes.

It's a cool show, but it's focused

on the RCAF as a whole. So

not just pilots, it focuses on all

trades, all walks of life within the RCAF, which I think is

great. But our show is more pilot focused, is the

goals of the show are to help pilots in

training and to help pilots succeed and to learn.

So I think we offer fundamentally different

things, but like I said, we're not in

competition. And I think more podcasts on

RCAF Aviation is a good

thing.

>> Melissa: When do you expect the first episode of the, uh,

podcast to be released? After this one.

>> Bryan: So we're going to start releasing episodes again on the

30 July and every two weeks after

that.

>> Melissa: All right, now, before we wrap up, I've got a few

retirement jokes for everyone, including you.

Um, great. Brian doesn't know I'm doing this.

I mean, he does. Cause I told him I was gonna do it, but he doesn't know what

I'm gonna say.

>> Bryan: I can't wait.

>> Melissa: All right, why did Brian

decide to retire so young?

>> Bryan: Uh, why?

>> Melissa: Because he finally reached his cruising altitude in

life. Oh, my gosh, that's the

worst one. The next year, better. All right.

Why did Brian decide to retire?

>> Bryan: Why?

>> Melissa: Because he was tired of always winging it.

All right, last one. Why did Brian

decide to retire?

>> Bryan: So they're all the same joke with different punchlines?

>> Melissa: Yeah.

>> Bryan: Okay. Why?

>> Melissa: Because he realised life's too short to always have his head in

the clouds.

>> Bryan: Oh, my gosh. I said I was trying to gain listeners,

not lose them.

>> Melissa: Come on, those were good.

>> Bryan: It was fine. All right, Melissa,

thank you so much for taking the time from your busy schedule to hang

out and do the show with me. I'm really excited for

releasing a bunch of shows and for getting this back on

the road.

>> Melissa: Oh, uh, thanks for having me. It was fun.

>> Bryan: All right, that is going to wrap up our reintroduction

episode. For our next episode, listeners

will remember a former guest we had named Scott

Harding. We caught up with Scott when he was just finished his

phase three multiengine flight training about six months ago.

So we'll be hearing all about phase three multiengine flight training

and a little bit about where Scott is heading next.

Do you have any questions or comments about anything you've heard in this

episode? Would you or someone you know make a great guest

for the show, or do you have a great idea for a topic for the

show? You can reach out to us at Pod pilot

project on all social media or the

pilotprojectpodcastmail.com dot. We

love hearing from our listeners. We'd also like to take a

moment to thank all of you listeners for coming back and having a

listen to the show. We know it's been a while, so we really

appreciate your time. In the meantime, you can help us get that audience

back by liking and following us on social

media, sharing the show with your friends, and following and

rating us five stars wherever you get your

podcasts. That's all for now. Thanks for

listening. Keep the blue side up. See ya.