Bryan: 00:29

Alright. We're ready for departure here at the Pilot Project Podcast, the best source for stories and advice from the pilots of the RCAF. Today, we'll be sitting down for part 2 of our chat with Dave Chamberlin, former CEO of Canadian Forces Air Crew Selection Centre. Today, we'll be going over some audience questions, especially from the Canadian Forces subreddit, as well as some FAQs that Dave and the folks at the Centre get asked fairly often. If you missed part 1 of our chat, you may wanna tune in to our previous episode before listening to this one.

Bryan: 00:55

Without further ado, let's sit down for part 2 of our talk with Dave. So you mentioned that sometimes you may not be successful for your primary choice, but you may have options as, like, for example, an AEC or air combat systems officer. What advice would you give to somebody who selected as one of those or who has the option to take one of those as their career, but they still wanna be a pilot one day? Do you think that they should try again, or should they take that different trade and hope to switch occupations?

Dave: 01:22

That's a really, really good question because I'm not in the personnel selection business. There's a whole trade of folks who can deal with that. What I would say though, from, from my experience and from what I've seen, if you're willing to accept making a commitment to doing, you know, at least sort of an initial engagement on one of those other trades. So as an AEC or an Axle, and you're you can live with that.

Bryan: 01:48

So like 5 years.

Dave: 01:49

So I'd say that's, that's probably fair. I wouldn't necessarily go into one of those other trades expecting to be able to in service select to Pilot. And it should be noted, I guess, that, when it comes to the number of slots available for pilots, it actually does get broken down between in service selection. So people who are already CAF members versus ROTP versus DEO. So it may be that there are slots open for people coming in off the street, but they've actually closed it to in service selection for a period of time.

Dave: 02:25

So, yeah, we we've tested people in service select, so people who are already members who've successfully passed and even done quite well, but then been told we won't take them as pilot because in service selection pilot slots are currently closed. So I'd say just be very careful with going down that road unless you are at peace and happy to pursue a career in that alternate trade. That being said, I know a very good number of happy Axos and happy AACs. So it might turn out to be something that, you just hadn't considered before and you really enjoy doing, but I wouldn't go into it expecting that you're you're gonna be able to, necessarily automatically switch over to pilot. Every case is different.

Dave: 03:03

I'd say it might get more complicated once you're already enrolled in another trade.

Bryan: 03:08

Yeah. I think that's really good advice. We got very similar advice from I had a previous guest who was an axo and did manage to make the switch to pilot. But, essentially, what he said was, don't take a trade that you're aren't at peace being that trade. Like, if if you don't wanna be an axo and you're thinking, well, this is just my easy step to being a pilot eventually, that's probably not a good idea.

Bryan: 03:29

But if you think, hey, I could do that. Like, that could be fun. And hopefully, maybe down the road, I can make a change if possible. That's then that might be something to consider. Does that kinda make sense?

Dave: 03:37

Yeah. I'd say that's probably more true. And alternatively, for people who are for looking for something to do while they're maybe waiting that year, there's always the reserves. I think, again, anecdotally, and I'm not an expert and I would try to speak to someone before committing down that road, but your reserve service will be taken into account for, you know, sort of pension stuff, as well as your reserve pay. So if somebody just wants to get the ball rolling, that might be a safer option.

Dave: 04:05

But I'd say just be very careful about, signing on a dotted line for a trade that you're not comfortable staying in for a fairly extended period of time.

Bryan: 04:15

Yep. And and I think that that point you made about the available slots is really important, and I just wanna emphasize that for any listeners who are thinking about this kind of a situation because I have had listeners and and people reach out on the Canadian Forces subreddit and various places who have these questions like, hey. I don't get it. I did great on aircrew selection. I had a very competitive file.

Bryan: 04:36

I've it's my 3rd year in a row of not getting picked up. Because I think they said their scores are good for 5 years, or maybe it was 3 years. I can't recall.

Dave: 04:43

That's right. So your your your ASC score is good for 5

Bryan: 04:46

years. Yeah. And and they're saying, like, I'm getting up to the point where my scores are gonna, expire. Why am I not getting picked up? And the like you said, it just really depends on what slots the powers that be decide to put into the mix that year, and I'm sure they have some some kind of formula.

Bryan: 05:03

And, I mean, I'm sure there's deep policy reasons and things that drive those decisions. So you never really know what's gonna be open as far as in service selection versus they're typically, I believe, taking more people off the streets than they are from within the military.

Dave: 05:20

Yeah. Again, without having the numbers right in front of me, but I'd I'd say that that is fair to say based on what I've seen. And And if you think about it, I can understand why we might go that way as a cast because if we've already invested money in training somebody to do something else, it's probably not in the public's best interest to then turn around and not I won't say throw away that training, but like start them over. Because as you probably know, there's no shortcuts just because you've done Axo. You're not going to get through pilot training any faster apart from obviously your basic training and those things that are common core.

Dave: 05:52

So it could be that it's more in the cast best, best interest to recruit somebody fresh off the street and keep that other person who's got experience in their trade now in their current trade. So again, just just a word of caution, anyone who who's been told go ahead and join as an Axo and you can change the pilot in a year. I wouldn't necessarily believe that that's true. I'd, I definitely weigh the decision based on whether or not you're you're comfortable staying in as whatever trade you join us.

Bryan: 06:19

Yeah, totally. I think that's very, very solid advice. We have discussed how age anecdotally may affect success in certain age brackets. One question I've had that I'd like to address is, does being older affect your chances of being selected if you've been successful in completing aircrew selection? So not how does age affect your chances of successfully completing aircrew selection, but does it affect your chances of being selected?

Dave: 06:47

No. The the short answer is, it's it's illegal to discriminate based on on age.

Bryan: 06:53

Mhmm.

Dave: 06:55

So that doesn't factor in. It will affect your ability perhaps to serve until, you know, you've accumulated a more robust pension, I'll say, because there is still a compulsory retirement age. But provided you are under compulsory retirement age, as far as I know, I I don't get into the policy when it comes to you're over 50, but I'll say for, like, a 40 some odd year old, there's no there's no impact.

Bryan: 07:17

My understanding is essentially as long as you have enough time before compulsory retirement age to complete your contract, whatever that mandatory service is at nowadays.

Dave: 07:26

Yeah.

Bryan: 07:27

Is it 14 years?

Dave: 07:30

So the last I think I think what it is now and, again, I I wouldn't quote me on this, but I think it's 10 years after Wings for pilots.

Bryan: 07:37

Okay.

Dave: 07:38

So that, that would turn into that would be about 14 years probably by the time, you've gone through a couple of years of base training and all your, all your Wings training.

Bryan: 07:47

Yeah.

Dave: 07:47

I think it's, I think it's now up to 10 years. So I think you're probably right. I think you need enough time before CRA. I just, I don't have the policy in front of me, so I wouldn't want to go out and lie to people.

Bryan: 07:57

Right. And CRA is compulsory retirement age is 65 now?

Dave: 08:02

Yeah. I think for for the vast majority case, it's 65. I know there are a few different cases. Like, I think chief law officers, for example, it might be 60. But I think the the majority cases, as far as I know, is still 65.

Bryan: 08:14

Okay. So, essentially, without getting too exact because we don't know exactly what how the training timelines and stuff work out, but if you have enough time left before 65 to complete your contracts and training, then you're good to go.

Dave: 08:28

That's right. And and I know they're probably asking because other Air Forces do have, fairly young cutoffs for especially pilot training.

Bryan: 08:36

Yeah.

Dave: 08:37

I don't know the exact numbers, but I know the RAF and US Air Force both have cutoffs. And I think it's in the, I want to say thirties. If you haven't been selected yet, you're not eligible anymore. That's not the case in Canada. You can you can still be selected above that.

Bryan: 08:52

Okay. So good news for anyone out there who is looking for a midlife or later There you go. Career change as long as you've got the time. How does having previous flight experience tend to affect someone's chances of success?

Dave: 09:07

I don't have any good, hard data on that, and it's sort of hard to quantify what previous experience would mean. I'd say you and I can both speak to, you know, how it will affect your success downstream, right, having already had a commercial multi IFRS license definitely made, phase 2 and onward training much easier. I don't know how much impact it would actually have at the selection level. So if anyone is looking at going to aircrew selection and thinking that they should invest a bunch of time in flying, I'd say maybe don't. I mean, if it's something you want to do anyway, for sure, go for it.

Dave: 09:41

Flying is fun. But, I definitely wouldn't, you know, put myself in debt or anything to try and up my chances at aircrew selection. I think there are better ways to prepare.

Bryan: 09:50

Mhmm.

Dave: 09:51

Including what we talked about, some of the mental math stuff or some of the apps that are out there that help with short term memory and whatever, kind of might be better investments. But if you have the opportunity to fly, it certainly doesn't hurt. And you may discover that flying is not for you or flying is even more for you than you ever thought. So you're willing to work that much harder.

Bryan: 10:09

That's a good point.

Dave: 10:10

But, I would, I definitely wouldn't go into huge amounts of debt to try and get a pilot's license before joining. I think we give people everything they need sort of from 0 to hero. So walking in with no flying experience, I think, you'll definitely have a good opportunity. I don't I don't think you'll be at a huge disadvantage if you've never flown.

Bryan: 10:28

Well, the system is designed to take somebody who's, like, never been in an airplane and make them into a pilot.

Dave: 10:33

Exactly. Exactly.

Bryan: 10:35

Okay. So now we'll move on to some questions asked by our listeners in the Canadian Forces subreddit. So how does our aircrew selection compare to other nations' programs? Is it similar to the Royal Air Force or United States Air Force? And do NATO nations collaborate on the style of testing that's done?

Dave: 10:53

That's a very good question. It is definitely very close to what the RAFs do because, last I checked anyway, we are essentially administering, if not an identical test, a very, very similar one to what the RAFs use for their, their entry requirements. I'm not that familiar with what the Americans do. I know they have sort of similar testing methodologies. In terms of whether or not we collaborate, I'd say we definitely exchange ideas and we definitely have sort of staff visits to other Air Forces where our representatives from from 2 Canadian Air Division who handle all of our Air Force training, They'll go over to say Finland and they'll take a look at their program.

Dave: 11:29

They'll go to the states, they'll take a look at their program and, try to capture some of the best practices or bring back the good ideas. We recently had a visit from the Israeli air force who aren't you know, not necessarily, they're definitely not NATO and are, but they're interested in our processes. So we kind of showed them what we did and they had some good questions about, our testing methodology. They obviously have some different requirements, but there's always good ideas to exchange back and forth. So it's definitely worth looking at what our allies are doing.

Dave: 11:58

But I think we have to be careful about just taking somebody else's methodology and saying, okay, this will work for us too, because we definitely have different requirements in the CAF than say the US Air Force would. We already talked about how like the US Air Force had different gauge cutoffs where they won't accept people anymore, whereas we do. So I think our approach is tailored to what Canada needs, but it definitely mirrors a lot of what our allies do.

Bryan: 12:21

Yeah. And I guess you have to keep in mind when you say not just our needs are different, but our realities are different from various countries in terms of population and recruiting pool and all kinds of different factors that that kind of factor into how we can make this work.

Dave: 12:37

Yeah. That's absolutely true. Even some of our NATO allies still have compulsory military service, for example. So they know that their candidates are going to be 18 or 19 years old, with a high school education, not having gone to university yet, say, or maybe they have, but they, they maybe have a more uniform entry, than we do. Whereas we take people from all walks of life.

Dave: 12:57

Again, it's just a reflection of our societal values and and just how we recruit and and who our CAF members are.

Bryan: 13:06

The US Marine Corps, Coast Guard, and Navy all use a short online test that takes 2 to 3 hours to complete in place of aircrew selection. Why do we feel we need a longer process? Is it more effective?

Dave: 13:18

So, yeah, good question. I I'm not really familiar with I have heard sort of, a vague idea of what they do and that they do have some kind of online component. I can't speak to whether or not that's their entire selection process or whether they have other things going on. The value of doing a short sort of online component is obviously accessibility. It means that people probably don't have to travel.

Dave: 13:39

It means you could probably process more candidates more quickly. I think what we would lose out on, I think there's value to is the controlled testing environment. Obviously, if somebody's logging in from home, even without getting into, you know, who's actually writing the test, is it actually a candidate? I'm sure they have controls for that, but I can't necessarily control the room they're in and whether it's temperature controlled or whether they're able to focus properly. Whereas with our testing system, everyone's in the same room.

Dave: 14:06

We know everyone's on an even feel going into it in terms of the resources they have, in terms of the peripherals we use. So imagine we have a joystick and a set of pedals, and we actually have a custom made keyboard that has the buttons that we need on it. And we know that it responds correctly. We have control of whether or not it's calibrated properly, so we can make sure that everyone's on an even, uneven keel doing that. As well, the longer testing is probably in better depths.

Dave: 14:35

Again, I haven't looked exactly what the USMC or Navy use, but I know I can say that our test is definitely validated for pilot success downstream. I'd be hesitant to say that we can go ahead and shorten it to try and get more candidates through, you know, unless we had a very, very good reason to do that. Mhmm. I do I do think our system provides the other benefit of them coming to Trenton and getting to speak with, you know, real pilots, real ACs, hopefully soon Axel as well, and getting that opportunity to talk to us about what the, what the life is like. Because at the end of the day, we aren't recruiters at the selection center, but we are still part of that recruiting process.

Dave: 15:13

So we are still very interested in attracting, good quality candidates. I think that giving us that FaceTime with the candidates gives us opportunity to to talk to them, as opposed to being that more isolated online experience where they wouldn't get the the face to face interaction. Or like I said, just the the controlled baseline of what they're going to run the test.

Bryan: 15:35

Yeah. You know, something that also struck me as you were talking about the differences there was they are dealing with, as we kinda mentioned before, like, a far larger recruiting pool. So I guess if you think about the size of the facilities that would be required and the staff that would be required to process and to have all these people come through would be, like, immense just for their yearly recruiting. So it might make sense for them to do initial testing online, whereas we can kind of because we have a smaller pool of not just of not just a smaller recruiting pool, but also smaller needs in terms of the amount of candidates we're letting through, we can afford to take that time and that in person have that in person approach.

Dave: 16:18

Yeah. That's definitely a good point. Again, this is all just, you know, Dave Chamberlain speculation. But, I'd say the other side of it too, though, is that because our training resources downstream are maybe less available. Again, we are a smaller Air Force, so, I think we, we are trying to front load selection and front load training at the lowest possible, I'll use the least expensive possible level.

Dave: 16:43

So investing more heavily at the selection and being careful about who we choose and then investing in a phase one on a relatively simple and inexpensive to operate aircraft and really making sure that the people who get through that are properly prepared for the more and more complex and expensive machines that they'll fly later. I think it's probably important that they get, it also ensures that we're not wasting anybody's time, be it either the cast time and training somebody who's not going to make it or the members time because it doesn't do anyone any good to get them all the way through to almost their operational functional point where they're, they're just about to get an operational airplane and then they're unsuccessful because really all along, they probably shouldn't have been there, but they sort of managed to just kind of keep making it through. And then, unfortunately, they now wasted maybe years of their lives, pursuing something that wasn't going to pan out in the 1st place.

Bryan: 17:35

And 1,000,000 of dollars.

Dave: 17:37

And and not to mention that. Yeah. The minor detail of a of a few 1,000,000 taxpayer dollars.

Bryan: 17:42

Yeah. Absolutely. So we already know that success on aircrew selection is correlated with success in flight training. But have there been studies on whether scores in 1 or more of the 7 cognitive categories listed in the after test report are correlated with success in certain types of airframes or missions? For example, do certain cognitive areas benefit a fast jet pilot specifically?

Dave: 18:04

Yeah. So it's a really good question and it's one that the air force also wants answered, but we want it answered in a sort of academically rigorous and valid way. So work is ongoing, to continue to validate the testing that we're doing. As of today, I don't have sort of good information on that because the testing just hasn't progressed that far. Part of that is, is just the fact that the testing isn't hasn't been around necessarily long enough to compare it against somebody's whole career.

Dave: 18:32

So we might, as of now, be able to start to address whether or not, those candidates who've gone through on this test are successful at the operational training units. But whether or not they're successful at the more advanced levels throughout their career, again, we wouldn't have any data on that yet. Certainly not enough data points to kind of come up with a robust conclusion on that. The short answer is we don't have good information. We basically have our intuition and we can look at what our allies, again, like I said, the the RAF run a very similar test.

Dave: 19:02

They probably have some better data than we do. We're working on getting that information from them, but we don't we just haven't had enough time to study, the data to come up with a really good answer to that question.

Bryan: 19:13

Okay. That makes sense. It's interesting to hear that that is something they're looking into, and it'll be very interesting to hear what comes of that. Maybe something we can follow-up on in, a couple years with whoever's in those positions at the time. Yeah.

Dave: 19:29

For sure.

Bryan: 19:32

Has it ever been necessary to increase or decrease what a passing score is?

Dave: 19:37

Again, a really good question. Something that is being looked at, specifically for one of the trades. I won't open up which one, but, short answer is yes and no. So it's not something that's done lightly. It's not something that's done often.

Dave: 19:55

Right now there is a review process underway. I guess I can I can say it's the AEC Trade specifically, and that's based on feedback from the AEC school saying that they would maybe like the bar raised a little bit so that we're doing a little bit more filtering in our end because what they're finding are candidates are showing up and they're not successful? And right now, so before we ever do, before we ever move that bar, we want a validation study done, which is a can be a lengthy process, very academic, and they want lots of data and they want to be able to correlate everything properly. So we don't do it willy nilly. Absolutely not.

Dave: 20:34

But, it is a valid and a good question because we are actually currently, looking at the score and the bar for the AC trade, possibly having to move up a little bit, just to give them the results that they wanted the trade to cut down on downstream failures. I'd say for for pilot, it hasn't changed anywhere. I did go back and look, and I I I don't see any evidence of it of it changing anytime recently anyway. Certainly not since our validation study for pilot was completed. But once the validation came in, I think that that sort of locked in the bar for pilot and it'll stay there for, until someone can can show that there's value in moving it in terms of us getting a better result.

Dave: 21:11

But I think right now we're pretty well dialed in on the pilot side.

Bryan: 21:14

That makes sense.

Dave: 21:14

But, as I said, the AEC side is is definitely being looked at very carefully right now because there has been an ask about whether or not we could, we could change the bar. And that may mean a couple of things. It's not as simple as just maybe raising a bar because as discussed, there are multiple domains, different, different tests can be weighted differently. So part of that process will be looking at whether or not different tests should be weighted differently or whether or not certain tests need their own individual cutoff score. Even though maybe a candidate overall did well enough to meet the minimum cutoff, there may be certain tests that are so important where if they didn't make a certain bar, then we'd look at maybe them being disqualified.

Dave: 21:56

But again, that's that's a very rigorous process that takes, takes quite a bit of time on the order of years.

Bryan: 22:04

Mhmm. Two takeaways for me from that. One is, first of all, it's a good thing that we have a responsive program where we can where we can adjust things as is being requested for AECs. The second takeaway, though, is it's good that we aren't doing it willy nilly. I think the the intent behind the question was people were wondering, do we change this based on our needs within the trade versus based on results?

Bryan: 22:26

And it sounds like to me that we definitely don't do it based on anything but results. And it makes sense that we wouldn't be changing the scores, for example, for pilot. Because for one thing, we're never gonna need to lower the score to, say, allow more people in. Because in the pilot world, you're never hurting for applicants. There's way more people who wanna be pilots than we have a need for pilots.

Bryan: 22:48

And and this is my interpretation anyhow. And as in terms of raising it, that would happen if, like, you were just discussing downstream, we were seeing, like, a ton of failures and, like, okay, maybe we're not weeding out the people that need to be weeded out, basically. But we're not seeing that. So, therefore, we don't adjust the scores.

Dave: 23:08

Yeah. And to add to that, what what I'd say is and this is, you know, me speculating, I guess, a little bit. But if we were to lower the bar, say, just to get more candidates through selection, I think you just see those failures pop up down stream.

Bryan: 23:20

Yeah.

Dave: 23:20

So it wouldn't get us more winged graduates. In terms of raising the bar, I think we already take care of that by the fact that you can pass through through selection, but that only gets you to the next selection step. So if we have a lack of spots and an overabundance of successful applicants, we don't necessarily take all those applicants. We just take the best of those applicants. But I think we mentioned already, your test is good for 5 years.

Dave: 23:45

So you could still be selected later on when maybe there is, there are more slots open based on your successful test though. We wouldn't be doing anyone any favors either by raising the bar because you might, it might be short sighted. You might be cutting people out who otherwise we would have been willing to take, but at that moment, maybe we didn't need them. I think by leaving the bar where it was validated as being a good tool for screening out downstream failures, we leave the door open for for candidates' supply. And even if we don't need them now, we we might still wanna take them later.

Bryan: 24:13

Candidates and staff are required to sign a nondisclosure agreement to attend or work at aircrew selection. What is the primary purpose of this? And do you feel it is effective given the amount of preparation material that exists for aircrew selection?

Dave: 24:26

Yeah. So definitely a fair question. The non disclosure agreement is a requirement from our software vendor, because it is commercial intellectual property. So they want to protect their commercial interests, which is fair enough. And they don't want their test against being duplicated or or being invalidated by information being released.

Dave: 24:46

So whether or not it's effective, I think you you kind of pointed to the fact that, yes, there's a lot of information out there. So effective, maybe, maybe not. What it does prevent is somebody plunking the entire test down on the Internet somewhere. I don't know if that would ever happen, but it definitely makes it much more likely or much less likely rather. And it gives the vendor a recourse if I guess that ever happened.

Dave: 25:08

It'd be very difficult to do that because our testing equipment is all air gapped. We can't hack into it because it's not connected to the Internet or anything, but it just protects the commercial interests of the software vendor. And I'd say if you were to violate the NDA, you'd be far more likely to be hearing from their lawyers than from ours. But that goes for us as well. So we we as you said, the staff members are also not allowed to to go and release all the information of of what's in the test either.

Dave: 25:34

So and I think that does help to at least give some protection to the integrity of the test. And like I said, it avoids the the whole test being released for for someone to go and and run 17 times before they show up for testing there.

Bryan: 25:46

I think another aspect of it too, you mentioned protecting the interests of the vendor. That in turn also means that we can attract high quality vendors. Because if we don't have those rules in place, what company is gonna say, hey. We spent tons of money developing this process, but go ahead and release it and just basically make it so that all of our patented work is out there for anyone else to use or to to basically invalidate. I mean, you wouldn't be able to attract anyone to that contract.

Dave: 26:16

Yeah. And that's a really good point, and I I I'm almost positive. In fact, I am. We're not the only, organization within the CAF or DND who have the sort of proprietary software and NDA type relationship with our vendors. There's lots of computer based training, that folks will see throughout their phases of flying training that is generated by civilian companies and is their intellectual property.

Dave: 26:39

So that's just something we live with now. And I think, as you said, it allows us to ensure we can have good relationships with our commercial partners who provide us with services that we cannot, They do things for us that we can't do ourselves Mhmm. Or at least not cost effectively. So it is important to protect our relationships with, our civilian partners.

Bryan: 26:58

Okay. So next, we're gonna go over some FAQs that get asked often at the Air Force Selection Center by candidates. What does a pilot trainee do between flying courses?

Dave: 27:09

That can be a really varied experience depending on where you are and sort of what you ask for. But typically, you find yourself on, OJT, so on on the job training, often within either a staff, for environment or on a squadron. And ideally you'll be exposed to what life is like, you know, the pilot or Axle or AC. In reality, we we tend to integrate our OJTs into our squadron probably more than more than you'd expect, and they end up doing real jobs. So Yep.

Dave: 27:42

For example, we we have OJTs who, right now, we have one who's just about to go on flying training. And, he's a key member of our plan staff and is helping to manage upcoming exercises and and coordinate things for us. And, I mean, that experience is gonna be valuable to him later after he completes his flying training. So it's definitely not wasted effort. The side benefit for for those members is that they they tend to be able to like, our OJTs, anytime they want to go flying along, they can just ask and we'll usually let them go.

Dave: 28:14

So it's an opportunity to go flying and if they want to, they can definitely go see firsthand, you know, the real job and people are usually happy to talk to them about, how things are, once you get through your flying training. They can also get lots of, lots of solicited and unsolicited advice about what to do during their flying training.

Bryan: 28:33

Yeah, for sure.

Dave: 28:34

Oh, yeah. They do tend to get integrated into, various organizations, especially if they're going to be there a while. Depending on the trade and depending on other things, they may end up for a couple of months being on OJT. So it's a chance for them to to actually provide something useful. If they're only around for a few weeks, then we tend to focus on just letting them have a bit of a good time, go flying, you know, try to motivate them to to work hard in their their upcoming trainings so they wanna come back, especially if a candidate has a good personality for the unit they're at.

Dave: 29:05

You know, different different trades and different fleets are looking for different different things in in their sort of people. So if we think you'll be a really good C130J pilot crew member and you'll get along with everybody and and work hard, then we'll usually try to, you know, try to convince them that they wanna come back to us. We use it as a bit of an opportunity for us to pitch ourselves to potential high caliber, people.

Bryan: 29:29

Yeah. For sure. It's like an opportunity to kind of scout, scout the town

Dave: 29:33

Exactly. Yeah. Essentially.

Bryan: 29:36

How often does an RCAF pilot fly?

Dave: 29:39

So that really depends on fleets that you're on. And it also depends a little bit on your stage of life, your stage of career, but I'm sure most people are interested in their first tour on squadron. Right? So for the average line captain, depending on what we're doing as a unit. So right now we have one sort of perpetual deployment we got we have going on called, reassurance.

Dave: 30:03

We have a detachment in Prestwick. So when when somebody shows up at the squadron after their, initial C130 training, They'll be around for a little while. They'll probably fly, it really depends, anywhere from a couple of times a month to a couple of times a week. For local trips, they'll generally get a couple of trips away every month or 2, which could be like a week or 2 at a time. But within their 1st year, they can expect to deploy to Prestwick where they'll be flying basically every day.

Dave: 30:30

So it kind of depends on what you're doing. I think almost everybody would like to fly more, than they do, but I'd say our average new line captain on the J model right now is probably getting somewhere between 3 400 hours a year.

Bryan: 30:45

That's pretty solid.

Dave: 30:46

Yeah. And whether or not 3 or 400 hours is a lot really depends on the mix of whether it's what we call straps. So you're you're going away on strategic sort of airlift missions where you're taking stuff from a to b. Those can be longer trips in terms of hours or whether you're doing sort of local training, which is called a J Trainer, where you're in our local area where you're doing that, those tactical skill sets where you might only log 2 or 3 hours that day, but you definitely probably got a lot out of it.

Bryan: 31:12

But those are intense hours.

Dave: 31:14

Exactly. It's a lot of planning. It's a lot of intensity. You wouldn't want to do 10 hours of that in one day. You should avoid it.

Dave: 31:19

Yeah. Whereas the Strat stuff can be you definitely can end up in some interesting places, but it tends to be sort of interesting for the departure as you get out of there and then interesting on the arrival as you land. And it could be a lot of, just chatting about your plans for the weekend, as you're out there cruise. Yeah. So definitely different kinds of flying and and some people really, really like doing strat flying where it's you get to go places and and see different things and other people try to avoid that and prefer to try and fly lots of tap.

Dave: 31:50

And there's definitely opportunities for both. I know again, other fleets. So if you were an instructor in Moose Jaw, you could probably expect to fly 2, maybe 3 times every day.

Bryan: 32:01

Yeah.

Dave: 32:02

At various times because they're doing those high reps. They're shorter trips, but they're they're definitely flying a lot. And like you said, high intensity.

Bryan: 32:07

Yeah. Those are busy days.

Dave: 32:08

So it really depends on where you find yourself and, are they the individual roles that you're you find yourself in?

Bryan: 32:15

Yeah, for sure. I mean, you can only give answers from your own experience and knowledge, right?

Dave: 32:19

Yeah, that's right. I could say like when I was flying at 419, it was a lot more like the Moose Jaw experience as an instructor at 419. You could fly if you wanted to definitely every day, if not more like 2 times a day. Whereas on the Hornet, it was a little bit less, but again, more planning, more intensity.

Bryan: 32:34

Mhmm.

Dave: 32:35

And if you're going on doing a training sortie on a Hornet, there's a lot more money involved. So a little bit more deliberate in the planning and debriefing. And so a 1 and a half hour flight on a Hornet might be a 12 hour day.

Bryan: 32:46

Yeah. Yeah. For sure. Can a pilot trainee bring their family with them on training?

Dave: 32:52

So again, very case by case. It is definitely possible. At least I can speak to my own experience. I was common law when I went to Moose Jaw. So I was actually posted to Moose Jaw.

Dave: 33:03

I was able to move my spouse with me. Whether or not that's something you would want to do is, you know, it's a family discussion because Moose Jaw, you may only be there for 5 months, and then you're moving on to somewhere else for your next phase of training. So whether it's, in your family's best interest to to move that frequently is maybe up to you. I will say I've heard of other people being posted for, you know, say to Cold Lake for their more advanced training and then being unsuccessful with that training and that having some, definitely some downsides to it. So I'd say it is it is possible.

Dave: 33:32

There are definitely cases where people bring their families, but I think it may or may not depending on resources available at the time that you're going through and what the policies of the day are because it is going to be somewhat dependent on how much money there is available to move folks around.

Bryan: 33:47

Mhmm.

Dave: 33:47

And then the, you know, the need to move you versus somebody else who needs a full posting who's already operationally functional versus someone who's essentially a student who's going to be bouncing around bases for Yeah. For a couple of years. So it's definitely something to think about. And depending on when exactly you're joining and exactly what route you're going, like if you're going to go through Moose Jaw or if you're planning to say you're going to be helos only and you only ever want to go to Portage that might have different implications for whether or not you can actually get posted. I will definitely say for the shorter courses like your and for like your basic training you cannot bring your family with you.

Dave: 34:23

There are definitely courses where postings are heavily restricted or or impossible, but it is possible for some of the longer courses, depending on the fleet and and sort of what the what the resources are available.

Bryan: 34:34

The other thing when it it comes to places like Moose Jaw, I think, is you have to consider if that's the best thing for everybody. There's the, can you do it? And then there's, like, the should you do it? Yeah. Which is a whole different discussion, of course.

Bryan: 34:46

But it's a very intense course. Your time is almost entirely taken up by it. If you start devoting too much of your time to other things, you're gonna start to really struggle within your flight training. So that's a whole other discussion, but it's probably something worth if you're asking this question, it's probably also something to think about.

Dave: 35:04

For sure. And it's, I think it's important to keep perspective. Phase 2 is somewhere between 4 6 months, depending on the time of year you do it in. So if you, if you just think about it as a deployment and you will have deployments more than likely in your career and treat it as such. And maybe a better way to think about it where, hey, I'm just going away temporarily.

Dave: 35:23

It'll be 6 months. But then as you said, you're 100% focused on what you're doing there and you're more likely to be successful versus maybe bringing your family along, which may or may not be the best.

Bryan: 35:34

Mhmm. So the final FAQ we have is can a RCAF pilot change aircraft after their initial tour?

Dave: 35:43

Yes. I'm living proof that it can be done. Again, this is a case by case thing. So a couple of things would have to happen. There's always anytime a decision like that is made, there's a needs of the member.

Dave: 35:54

They'll look best for the member. That's what's best for the CAF and the needs of the CAF. Right? And these are all things that need to be taken into account. So, you know, it has to be to a fleet that needs you and you have to be coming from a fleet that can afford to let you go.

Dave: 36:09

And again, that's going to be weighed against, you know, what what you need. If you have a special personal situation, that means that if you're let's say you're in one area of the country and you're very, very far away from your support system and maybe you have a difficult sort of family situation with kids and that and say, hey, look, I'm at the point where, you know, this isn't workable anymore. You might be able to make a request based on that and say, look, if you move me to, say, Trenton, I don't have family nearby. I'll be that much more deployable. I won't have any of these family impacts anymore.

Dave: 36:40

That could be a reason to do it. There are other ways to switch fleets. Some folks will go from from particular community and they'll go do an instructional tour and say Moose Jaw. And then that's probably the easiest way to get it done in terms of changing to a whole different fleet. So to go from like helicopters, you wanna be a fighter pilot, you go do a little bit of time in Moose Jaw and now now your previous fleet has lived without you for a couple of years as it is.

Dave: 37:03

They might be a lot more willing to sort of let you go to another another community. So another avenue. So like a lot of things and like we talked about with joining one trade expecting to be a pilot later, I would say definitely be at peace with whatever fleet you end up on and and try to make the the best of it. And I I know people who are happy on every fleet in the in the CAF. I think it's largely a matter of attitude.

Bryan: 37:25

Absolutely.

Dave: 37:26

So don't count on it, but it is possible if, you know, at a later date that, there is a need or a want. It's really not impossible. There's no rule preventing it.

Bryan: 37:35

Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. So now we'll finish off with a few questions about your time at the selection center. What was your best day at the selection center?

Dave: 37:44

Well, the selection center is is a bit of a steady state machine. I I won't say it's Groundhog Day because that makes it sound negative. It's actually a good place to work. But I'd say the best days at the Selection Center were the days where we had high success and all the debriefs were, you know, enjoyable and we're giving good news. Obviously being, being at the selection center and giving debriefs involves a lot of bad news and a lot of, you know, dealing with people who are, you know, maybe maybe seeing their dream crushed or

Bryan: 38:15

Yeah.

Dave: 38:15

Or setback. So definitely it can definitely take a toll. So the best days, yeah, I'll say are the days where you don't have to debrief any failures and you get to tell everyone that, they're getting the best news they've they've probably ever had and big smiles and everything. But I I will say overall, working at the selection center, every day was great. There's a really good team there.

Dave: 38:33

Maybe partly because it's a small team, so everybody kind of knows each other and it makes for a really, close knit team of people who, you can go for lunch together and laugh together and have a good time. And, they're all folks who are sort of down down the road a little bit in their careers. They've got a couple of tours under their belt. Everyone knows what they need to do and they and they just get it done and they're total professionals so it makes it a really pleasant place to work.

Bryan: 39:00

Now we've kind of touched on this, but in 30 seconds or less, why would a pilot ever want to do a ground tour? What did you find the pros were to being in that situation?

Dave: 39:09

Yeah. So it's a good question because I think a lot of, pilots, especially at the, you know, as they should be at the very beginning of their careers, just want to fly. And that's great. And, I think for 1 or 2 tours, which is pretty normal, 1 or 2 back to back flying tours initially is great and is what guys can expect. I think by the end though of 8 years of continuous, especially if you're a frontline squadron or maybe even a Moose Jaw where you're flying a couple of times a day as an instructor, You've worked a lot of long days for a lot of years in a row.

Dave: 39:44

And whether they realize it or not, when folks get posted to a Ground job, I think there's a little bit of a decompression period of a few weeks or months where they're not really sure what to do with themselves in an 8 to 4 job. And then you can you can see when they when the when they kind of realize that, hey, I can have a life now. And, I know for a fact because I've I've had some family members, you know, comment, but the family members can see it too. It's like, wow. You know, they're home for dinner every night now and they can see the kids off to school and we can plan stuff on a weekend and know that even without a leaf past them, like, that's not gonna get interrupted.

Dave: 40:20

So there's a great work life balance that comes with being in a lot of ground jobs. One ground job that I did was like the duty operations officer at Wing Operations when I first came to Trenton. And part of the beauty of that job is it was about 12 or so shifts a month and longer shifts averaging about 12 hours a day. So you're still putting in the same number of hours if you worked 8 to 4, but you did 12 shifts a month and you had the rest of your month off. You had 17 or 18 days where, you know, you just you could make plans and it was great and the schedule came out a month ahead of time and it was all stable.

Dave: 40:52

Or as anyone who's on an Ops Squadron knows that you can't even confirm plans sometimes 2 weeks ahead of time, depending on what's going on, who you are, what your goals are. Yeah. You might have a really hard time committing, like if your mom asks you, Hey, can you guys come over for dinner next 3 Sundays from now? And you're gonna well, I'll let you know the Saturday before.

Bryan: 41:10

Yeah. Yeah.

Dave: 41:11

And that's that's definitely a reality of life on an Ops Squadron, whereas that's usually not the case in a ground job. Usually ground jobs are very steady. So there's that side of it. The other side of it, I'd say is, and I think we were talking earlier about it allows you to sort of peek behind the curtain. So depending on the ground job you're in, maybe now you're in a ground job that's in more of an ops headquarters and you're you get to see the other side of the coin whereas you used to be on the end of the web just reacting to what the headquarters is telling you to do.

Dave: 41:38

It allows you to sort of gain some perspective on the reasons why And it allows you to bring that when you do return to flying, return to the Auto Squadron later, you can come back with that understanding of sort of how things work and maybe some of the reasons why. So whether or not you'd enjoy that part of the process, I don't know. But, I think the squadron benefits when we do send someone to a ground job like that and then bring them back. They can inject that sort of understanding of what's happening, in the background.

Bryan: 42:05

Yeah. I like that. Those are really solid reasons. And like we said, we've touched on this earlier, but it's always been my philosophy. Or I shouldn't say always, but in recent years, I've realized the value in a ground tour for a pilot.

Dave: 42:17

Yeah. For sure.

Bryan: 42:18

So we're down to our last few questions. We always ask these questions. What is the most important thing you do to keep yourself ready for your job?

Dave: 42:26

That's a good question because my stage of life being a little, a little more senior, a lot of my job is now sort of running of squadron and the running of operations, but I'm still ultimately liable to be like I'm an instructor pilot and an officer aircraft commander and need to sort of maintain a deployable readiness officer. So the most important thing that I do that's outside of sort of the bare or the daily doing of my core job is to actually force myself to stay in the books. So I think it's important maybe to and this is more for people on Squadron so I don't know how many of your listeners will relate, but finishing your pilot training and finishing your type course is not the end of studying. It's just it's the end of a phase of training but the studying never stops. So

Bryan: 43:10

Mhmm.

Dave: 43:11

Yeah. I'd say getting getting in the books on my own time is probably the most important thing I do to maintain for my own readiness to do my real job which outside of my day to day is is to deploy and and go conduct operations.

Bryan: 43:23

Yeah. That's interesting what you said about once you finish your flight training, that's the end of a phase, essentially. I know I was personally I don't know if I could say surprised exactly, but I don't necessarily think I expected to do the amount of studying that I did once I was on an operational squadron. And certainly, while I was training on the Aurora, I thought, okay, this makes sense. Like, I'm still in training.

Bryan: 43:47

This is still a training course. But then I was a first officer, and I okay. Well, now I'm training to upgrade. So I've got a ton of studying to do on systems and limits and procedures. And then, okay, well, now I'm training to be a crew commander.

Bryan: 43:59

So, now I need to understand tactics and procedures and how to mentor a first officer. And then and then okay. Well, now I've been doing that for long enough. Now I'm qualified as a crew commander. But now I really need to start reviewing the systems and things again because it's been a while since I was making myself an expert in that.

Bryan: 44:16

And it just keeps it's just a cycle that's ongoing.

Dave: 44:19

Yeah. Definitely. There's never time to be complacent. Yeah. And information changes.

Dave: 44:23

I think every fleet gets new or different capabilities over time. And so if you ever let yourself fall too far out of the books, you'll you'll end up find finding that you're falling behind.

Bryan: 44:35

And rules change and things too, right, over time? Exactly. Like flight flying rules change and policies and procedures change and all that kind of stuff.

Dave: 44:41

Yeah. Definitely.

Bryan: 44:44

What do you think makes a good pilot candidate?

Dave: 44:47

So I think a good pilot candidate is somebody who a) really wants to be there. I think you could be very, very capable, but if the motivation isn't there, I think just the sheer amount of work that needs to be done to get through the training, will probably overwhelm you and you probably won't be successful. So definitely a good mental attitude, good desire to be there, good self motivator because I don't think that your instructors should be more interested in your success than you are. So you need to be self motivating for sure. Lots of good instructors out there, don't get me wrong, but they will they should only work as hard as you do to get you through.

Dave: 45:24

So somebody who can self motivate is very important and somebody who is disciplined. So what I mean by that is just able to sort of prioritize their time, able to force themselves to study, even though I'd much rather go out for lunch with my friends on a Sunday, but I've got a I've got a flight tomorrow, so now I've got to stay home and study here. And that that's definitely true throughout training. It remains true once once you hit the the squadron though. Once you hit a squadron, you're gonna have to be self disciplined because there's no way that, you know, the the majors and supervisors are gonna have time to babysit the the, you know, the new captain who's just posted him.

Dave: 46:02

They need to be where they need to be on time. They need to do their reading and do their own studying. No one's gonna push them to do it. So if they're not able to be disciplined and just do it on their own, they may successfully get through all of their training, but they may ultimately sort of fizzle out when they hit the squadron if they're not able to do that on their own and have that discipline.

Bryan: 46:23

Yeah, nobody's going to be holding your hand through the process once you get to a squadron.

Dave: 46:27

And I think the third thing I'd say is, especially if you're going to what the vast majority of our, aircrew positions are in a crew cockpit, meaning not single seat, meaning you're always going to have to deal with other people. So you need some reasonably good interpersonal skills. You need to be able to deal with conflict in a professional but in a diffusing way. So if you don't get along with somebody, you still need to be able to fly with them for, you know, maybe hours on end for days in a row. So So if you're not the kind of person who's able to to kind of make those bridges and and has a good personality for just getting along with people, I think, we've seen some folks struggle who are just maybe not the best personality to be in a crew environment where you are very close.

Dave: 47:10

You're having to work very closely together. So that's not always true if you're going to a single seat. So like a fighter cockpit, maybe it's less true. But again, then you're still on squadron with people.

Bryan: 47:20

You're still a team.

Dave: 47:20

Those interpersonal skills, you're still a team. So if you're not a good team player, then you might you might struggle a little more than you need to.

Bryan: 47:28

Yeah. Yeah. I definitely agree with, all those points. So our final question is if you were to run into someone today who was about to attend aircrew selection, what would your advice to them be?

Dave: 47:40

Get a good night sleep. If you are just about to, to hit the selection center, there's not much you can change in a couple of days beforehand. So yeah, really focus on rest and focus on getting good sleep. So you're as sharp as you can be when you show up on day 1 and take a deep breath. The test works.

Dave: 47:59

If your abilities are there and you show up well rested, you're gonna be fine. So if I was talking to somebody a year beforehand, I'd say, you know, get on Google, research some apps that can be helpful, work on your mental math skills, do all that work, and work hard at it and do it every day. But But then, like I said, in a couple of days or the week beforehand, just try to relax, get on a good sleep schedule. If you're not an early riser, maybe force yourself to get up early, early to rise and early to bed for those few days beforehand so that you're not disadvantaged when you get there. Mhmm.

Dave: 48:30

Because fatigue is definitely going to have an impact on your success. So I'd say if there's anything you can control on those days before, like, just in those for a couple of days before your test, focus on sleep and nutrition and just being as or as ready as you can, like, physically.

Bryan: 48:46

Okay. I think that's really solid advice. Okay, Dave. I think that does it for our chat. I really wanna thank you for your time today.

Bryan: 48:52

I know you're a busy guy and, really appreciate you taking some time of your day today to, be here with us. Thank you.

Dave: 48:58

Okay. Thank you, Brian, for the opportunity. I appreciate the chance to, to get a message out to folks and hopefully, arm them with knowledge that they're more successful coming forward. I will send you those links to, those couple of web pages that I think are really important for candidates to check out. And, good luck to everyone who is showing up to aircrew selection in, the next little while.

Bryan: 49:18

Alright. Right on, man. Thank you. Alright. That wraps up part 2 of our chat with Dave Chamberlain about aircrew selection.

Bryan: 49:25

For our next episode, we'll sit down with Ben, a special operations forces operator who decided to switch to pilot. We'll talk about why he made the switch, what his experience has been like on phase 1 flight training, and what his successes and challenges have been so far on the next episode of the pilot project podcast. 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? Do you have a great idea for an episode of the show?

Bryan: 49:50

You can reach out to us at the pilot project podcast atgmail.com or on all social media at atpodpilotproject. As always, we'd like to thank you for listening today and ask you for your help with the big three that's like and follow us on social media, share with your friends, and follow and rate us 5 stars wherever you get your podcasts. That's all for now. Thanks for listening. Keep the blue side up. See you.