Episode 51: The Commander: Commanding the RCAF and flying the CF-188 Hornet Part 1 - Eric Kenny
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Bryan:Hey, everybody. It's your host, Brian Morrison here with our standard RCAF senior officer pre episode commentary. We live in a twenty four hour news cycle and comments can be very quickly overtaken by events. So to put things in perspective, this interview was recorded in mid March. Fuel and ignition switches.
Bryan: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. With me today is a very special guest, the commander of the RCAF, lieutenant general, Eric Kenny. Eric, welcome to the show. I'm glad we're able to put this together.
Eric:Thanks, Brian. Thanks for giving me this opportunity.
Bryan:Yeah. And I have to say it's kind of funny having just got out in July to call you Eric. Every every fiber of my being is trying to make me call you sir. So
Eric:It is my name. So please know. Yeah. And like I said, it's very beginning. This is a really unique opportunity, right, to to be able to answer your question and other people's questions and and speak a little bit about the Royal Canadian Air Force, which is what I love doing.
Bryan:Awesome. Today, we will be talking about Eric's career leading up to his time as the commander of the RCAF. But before we get into that, let's go through Eric's bio. Lieutenant General Eric Kenny joined the Canadian Armed Forces in 1989 and graduated from the Royal Military College of Canada, RMC in Kingston with a degree in computer engineering. He completed pilot training at fifteen Wing Moose Jaw in 1995 and was selected to fly the CF one eighty eight Hornet.
Bryan:Following f 18 training, he served as an f eighteen line and instructor pilot and flight supervisor at four three three and four ten tactical fighter squadrons or TFS in three wing Baggettville and four wing Cold Lake. Lieutenant General Kenny has held a number of command positions including commanding officer of four zero nine tactical fighter squadron in Cold Lake, Commander of four wing Cold Lake, and commander of one Canadian air division in Canadian NORAD region in Winnipeg. His staff tours consist of deputy wing operations officer at four wing, a three fighter at one CAD headquarters in Winnipeg, Director Air Force Readiness at RCAF HQ in Ottawa, and deputy director j seven at NORAD United States Northern Command or US NORTHCOM headquarters in Colorado. As a brigadier general, he held the positions of deputy commander force generation at one CAD in Winnipeg and subsequently as director general air readiness at RCAF headquarters in Ottawa. Lieutenant General Kenny has deployed numerous times and participated in multiple operations.
Bryan:He deployed twice to Abiano, Italy to participate in operation Echo in Bosnia and operation Allied Force in Kosovo where he took part in combat missions, and he was the deputy director of the Air Operations Control Center at the International Security Assistance Force HQ in Afghanistan. His deployed command tours include task force commander for operation ignition in Iceland, Detachment Commander of the c f eighteen's c c one thirty h Hercules and c c one fifty Polaris in Trapani, Italy, where he took part in combat missions for operation mobile in Libya, Commander Air Component Coordination Element in Poggio Renatico, Italy, also for operation mobile and commander of Roto Zero Air Task Force Iraq for operation impact. Throughout his career, lieutenant general Kenny has accumulated 2,900 flying hours, 2,200 of them in the c f one eighty eight. He is a graduate of the NATO tactical leadership program, fighter weapons instructor course, Canadian Forces College Joint Command and Staff program, United States Air Force or USAF Air War College, USAF combined force air component commander course, US capstone course, and has a master of defense studies from RMC. He was promoted to lieutenant general in February and appointed commander of the RCAF on 08/12/2022.
Bryan:So let's start with your early days. What inspired you to pursue aviation as a career?
Eric:I wouldn't say that I started early on in terms of wanting to be in aviation, but I lived amongst it. My dad was in the Royal Canadian Air Force. He was a pilot. And my grandfather was a pilot within the Royal Canadian Air Force. He joined in the Second World War, flew Catalina, stayed in after the Second World War, eventually would rise up to the rank of group captain that we had at the time, and command Goose Bay back when it was an American bomber base with Canadians there.
Eric:So growing up across Canada, lived in Germany for many years with my parents, my dad being in the military. I I saw jets and aircraft flying every single day. That, of course, had an effect on me. I didn't join the air cadets. I was in scouting as I went up.
Eric:But ultimately, it was, the desire to to wanna serve. But at the same time, I applied for Hoboken University, so one of them was a military college.
Bryan:Okay. So your desire to serve was combined with your desire to maybe pursue aviation?
Eric:Yeah. So I applied to many universities. I was at an American high school living in Germany at the time. And so I applied to some American universities and subpoena universities. And because this was a transition between grade twelve and thirteen, for those that would know that history decades ago, getting into some of the Canadian universities in particular in Ontario was challenging to go from a US based system.
Eric:So I applied to College Military Royal in Saint in Quebec, and I got accepted. And and with that, you had to pick a trade. And so I picked Air Force and I asked for aircrew, pilot, and that's how I was enrolled.
Bryan:Okay. You started at the College Milletail Royale in Saint Jean, but you graduated from RMC Kingston. Right?
Eric:Yeah. So I did a preparatory year at CMR in Saint Jean plus two more years. And then in my third year, moved to RMC in Kingston to complete my engineering degree for the last two years.
Bryan:And you did, as you said, complete a degree in computer engineering. What made you choose this degree?
Eric:So initially, wanted to go into robotics. This is back when computers were kind of new. Internet was not a thing yet. For some of your viewers that they probably couldn't even comprehend that. But so this is where you had punch cards, you know, going into computers.
Eric:And robotics was really exciting for me. So I actually applied to many universities to go into a robotic or computer engineering field. And I wanted to follow the initially the hardware side of computer engineering, but ultimately, software interested me quite a bit too. So all that to say is I wanted to get into computers, was relatively new at the time, and then see how I can pursue that in an engineering sense.
Bryan:Okay. Did you find that your degree helped you in your future career path?
Eric:Yeah, absolutely. Like I find, I mean engineering is very process and logic based type approach to either looking at problem sets. I love the fact that there's only one answer typically. And when you do, I always enjoy math, not everybody does. And so engineering was just kind of a logical place for me to go.
Eric:I wasn't a big person to write essays, it just wasn't my thing. So engineering seemed like the right field. And then I was able to use that as I did my pilot training because a lot of it is reasoning, you know, calculations, things that are all done now by computers that we didn't have at the time. And so I was able to use that quite a bit and just the thought process that goes behind looking at things as well.
Bryan:Yeah, that makes sense for sure. There's a lot of things that I would imagine like a background in science and math essentially would be pretty helpful for.
Eric:Yeah. And now over time, I still I've learned how to write essays. I have learned how to do research papers. I'm actually I think I'm a bit of a I'm not a bit. I do a lot of reviewing of essays and papers.
Bryan:Of course.
Eric:So I think I've gotten good at that. But definitely math, science was my my strength.
Bryan:Okay. You must have done phase one then, right?
Eric:Yeah. Well, I did, but in a different way.
Bryan:Okay. Can you explain that?
Eric:Yeah. So we had the musketeer at the time was the phase one trainer and they're transitioning to slingsby. I graduated from military college in 1994, and that's when they had shut down the Musketeer and Slingsby was not up yet. So what they did is my year only, they sent us to the Victoria Flying Club. We stayed at Royal Roads College for housing.
Eric:Nice. And we did a month of flying at the Victoria Flying Club. A bit of a backstory. I initially went through air cruise selection that was not selected for pilot. I was selected for navigator.
Eric:And what I did not do well on was a simulator. So I was told after that, that if you got your private license, that might help you reapply for pilot. So the following summer, I got my private license on a Cessna. And then I reapplied and I was accepted in my third year to go pilot, did aircrew selection, which was just a simulator, and I was selected for pilot. All that to say is, you know, it was a bit of a path for me to get to pilot training.
Eric:And when I arrived in Victoria, I already had my private license. So I did night flying, I did instrument flying, nobody failed, everybody passed the course. Awesome. You know, it was it was actually a lot of fun, Not what most people would see on a phase one.
Bryan:Yeah. That sounds like a pretty unique experience. So when you did get to Moose Jaw, what was your first impression of flight training in the RCAF?
Eric:It was a bit of a shock, but a pleasant pleasant one. You know, lots of good friends that I did what we call phase one flying in Victoria. And really good feel for, you know, the connection with the instructors at the time. They knew what they were doing. They made us feel welcomed.
Eric:Ground school was a lot of learning because that's some of the stuff that we did not get in phase one.
Bryan:Mhmm.
Eric:And then, flying the tutor was so I flew the tutor as my my trainer aircraft and it was such a fun aircraft to fly. We had so many of them at the time. The flight line was just packed with tutors.
Bryan:Yeah. It was definitely a a different era in Moose Jaw in terms of aircraft number of aircraft on the ramp, flying all at once. Like, it was a totally different operation in terms of scale.
Eric:Much different than today. Yes.
Bryan:Yeah. Did flying the CT one fourteen Tutor solidify your desire to fly jets?
Eric:Yeah. It so we did phase two and phase three, I guess, as we would call it now on the Tutor. And I just really enjoyed flying it, because it was a great aerobatic aircraft. It was okay for instruments. It wasn't the best aircraft for instruments.
Eric:Yeah. But, you know, we did an advanced instrument flying trip where I recall I flew to Chicago O'Hare International Airport in this tiny little tutor. That was a maybe not the best thing to do. But anyways, I did that. And went to many different locations and, and really got to know how the aircraft performs in a way that I don't think we always get to know these days just because it was such a relatively straightforward aircraft to fly.
Bryan:Yeah. Yeah. That makes sense. I wonder, do you remember in those early days taking a young Chris McKenna, the current commander of one CAD on a few flights in the tutor?
Eric:So Chris Chris talked to me about that. I've Chris and I have worked together for many years. So after I graduated from my pilot training, I was selected for f eighteens and I had to wait two and a half years before my f 18 course. So when I finished, a lot of people were going to what we called hotel flight is what it was called at the time, which was a place where pilots that are waiting training would continue to fly on the tutor. There wasn't any room for me.
Eric:So I got sent to Winnipeg from Moose Jaw at the Central Flying School, which had four tutor aircraft Okay. To them. Only a couple pilots. Basically, I had my own plane. And I worked there for a year flying at Central Flying School doing air shows around North America, doing formation flying.
Eric:And Chris McKenna was there on OJT and he was one of the people that I flew. I flew so many people over that one year period before I was eventually posted to Cold Lake to do a staff tour for a year while waiting for my F18 course. So yeah, he reminds me about it. It's in my logbook, whether I recall specifically that trip, not as much.
Bryan:That sounds like a pretty, sweet way to spend a year though going to air shows all around North America.
Eric:It was one of the better years of my life. Yeah. Yeah. It's, you know, because I would often bring people that were not pilots with me or at least not qualified on the tutor. I'd always usually fly with somebody from the Central Flying School.
Eric:And I just learned so much about instrument flying. I went to major international airports throughout The US in particular and in Canada. It wasn't just the air show, it was that learning from doing cross country trips all the way down to Florida, the way to California and a two aircraft that only go so far in each hop.
Bryan:Mhmm.
Eric:And it made me really comfortable with, you know, being an aircraft captain flying and and operating and then fixing it when it got broken or working at MRPs and so on.
Bryan:Well, nothing solidifies your skills and your familiarity with an aircraft like taking it on the road, having those decision making experiences, dealing with problems as they arise. Like that's what really shapes you as a pilot. Right?
Eric:I absolutely agree. Yeah.
Bryan:Yeah. So as we've said, after completing pilot training at fifteen Wing Moose Jaw in 1995, you were selected to fly the CF one hundred eighty eight Hornet. Normally, ask if this was what you wanted, but I don't think too many people go to jets who don't want it, do they?
Eric:I I don't think so. You know, I'm not gonna speak on behalf of everybody, but there was several people in my course I know that wanted to go f eighteens. We were allocated to only one slot and, yeah, for me, it was it's what I always wanted once I became a pilot or, you know, Gus liked to be a pilot. And so I very much, was excited about going f 18 route.
Bryan:How did you find the f 18 after flying the Tutor?
Eric:Obviously, much different. Yeah. You know, the f 18 is it's actually a relatively straightforward aircraft to fly. There's a lot of ground school, a lot of aircraft operating instructions, AOIs that you guys study. But at the end of the day, the aircraft itself is straightforward to fly.
Eric:The hard part about that F-eighteen is the system integration.
Bryan:Okay.
Eric:And the cockpit management. So you have so much information available to you that you can easily get overwhelmed with that and forget to fly the aircraft. If you just look outside or through the heads up display of the HUD, at the end of the day, put the velocity vector where you want it to go, you got lots of power and you just gotta make sure you don't over speed your gear and things such as that and try to avoid icing as much as possible. But yeah, it was it was so much fun to fly.
Bryan:I've never managed to get up for a ride in one, but they sound amazing. Like, I've never I've never heard a bad review of a Flight in a Hornet. That's for sure.
Eric:Yeah. Well, some it's for some, it's not their thing. Right? And if it's different if you're flying it compared to being in the back seat.
Bryan:Okay.
Eric:If you have control over where you're turning or when you're pulling g or you don't. Yeah. Especially for motion sickness. I was
Bryan:gonna say, must be like especially in terms of if people tend to get airsick, then I can imagine that's true for sure.
Eric:Yeah. I I brought a few people up who I don't think we're gonna go up again.
Bryan:After qualifying as a line pilot and doing your various upgrades, you were eventually an instructor pilot on the f 18. What did you learn instructing on Hornets that you still carry with you on the job today?
Eric:Everybody learns differently. So it took me a while because I, you know, for me, as I mentioned a little bit earlier, kinda logic based and spent a lot of time understanding things. That's not the way everybody operates or learns. So I had to develop a way to recognize the skill sets and approaches of each individual and then try to tailor my instructing to match that. I wouldn't say that that's a strong suit of mine.
Eric:Okay. Some some are much more adept at it than I am. But I by doing that, it's really given me an ability to to think differently and to approach people differently.
Bryan:Yeah. I think those soft skills are some of the most challenging skills that we encounter as pilots, whether you're talking about leadership or mentorship or instructing. The hands and feet, the procedures, you know, emergencies, all that stuff. You can just about memorize all that stuff and and kind of perform it by rote after enough repetition. But those skills with the people skills, think are are the actually the the skills that take the longest to master.
Bryan:And some people seem to be naturals at it. And for others like myself, I find that it takes a lot more work.
Eric:Yeah. I agree. You know, somebody might be natural in hands and feet and flying an aircraft. And so you get comfortable doing instructional trips with them. And then all of sudden, there's a task or a mission where they just aren't able to do it for some reason.
Eric:And then you got to reflect, okay, what's changed? Is it because we've introduced something new? Or maybe I didn't teach it properly? So, yeah, having those people skills to be able to assess the situation and ultimately, they make them a better pilot.
Bryan:Mhmm. Yeah. I really admire those peers of mine that I've seen in the past that are just seem to be naturals that, you know, especially the mentorship stuff, I think is is a very challenging skill to master. And it's really cool to work with someone who's who's got that down.
Eric:I agree.
Bryan:So I'm really interested in hearing your thoughts on this. Eventually, you attended the fighter weapons instructor course, which is essentially Canada's Top Gun course. How did that change how you conducted yourself as a fighter pilot?
Eric:That was an intense course. So at the time, it was a three month course. I was in Bagdiville, and it was all done in Cool Lake. So I was there for three months on TD. Probably about a year's worth of lead up training to be ready to do fighter weapons instructor course.
Eric:And then, a very, very intense course the way it was run at the time. And lots of ground school, lots of incredible flying, not only Cold Lake, but we deployed to other places in The States as well. And it really allowed me to focus on the weapon system and understand explicitly how each portion of that weapon system worked. So how the missile air to air missiles, air ground weapons, how the electronic warfare and the defensive system worked. Not only how it works, but how you can teach others how it works.
Eric:And then provide advice as a tactician to your squadron or to the fighter force to make you the best and most lethal capability that we can employ. And where we can't, make sure you provide that advice for what we need to do to either upgrade or replace specific systems. So I walked away learning a tremendous amount. It probably took me at least another year after the course before I really felt comfortable with everything that I had learned and now processed and really started to get back to the to the squadron that I was on.
Bryan:So it sounds like, you know, I I feel like from, you know, my experience with Top Gun is the movies, which obviously is Hollywood. But my understanding kind of was that the purpose of these courses is to turn you into the most lethal fighter pilot possible. But it sounds like on top of that, a big part of it is turning you into a mentor within the fighter community.
Eric:That's exactly it. You know, we actually had some course plans and lesson plans where we need to present an idea or a tactic and then we would get critiqued on how well we presented it, whether it was a good tactic. Those are the type of skills that you don't always get. An ability to speak in a confident manner in front of a large or very intelligent group in terms of that specific topic. And and come across as somebody with credibility.
Eric:And it actually allowed me early in my career when I did it to better hone those skills as I move forward.
Bryan:Mhmm. Let's talk a little bit about your deployments. You've had quite a few. You deployed twice to Aviano, Italy, once for Operation Echo in Bosnia and once for Operation Allied Force in Kosovo. Can you tell us what the overall mission of the fighter force was in Bosnia?
Eric:The deployment over Bosnia was relatively short notice. I was just arriving at the squadron when it occurred and initially it was going to be about three months long. So I was worried I was going to miss it. It turned out to be turned out to be extended And it was straightforward. We were working, we're flying over Bosnia to do close air support.
Eric:And at the time, we were working with what's called for their controllers now called JTAX, Joint Terminal Attack Controllers now before it used to be for their controllers. And so we it'd be Canadians or other nationalities that were on the ground. And we would practice our procedures just in case they needed to call in a strike. If there's something happening on the ground. While I was there, it was quiet on the ground.
Eric:So we weren't dropping weapons. But we were working every single time in a fairly tight portion, a piece of sky, to do those tactics. And we had just recently introduced a new targeting pod. And we just recently introduced the joint guided bombs at the time or the guided bomb units at the time with laser guided bombs. So we were practicing the use of the the new light or the new pod at the same time as the new weapons.
Bryan:Was that the sniper pod that they have on the f eighteens now or was it a precursor?
Eric:It was actually the precursor is called the Nighthawk pod. Okay. Which was in hindsight was not that great. It was it was way better than we had before, which was just looking out visually. Yeah.
Eric:But once we got the sniper pod, it was night and day in terms of the clarity and range. Yeah.
Bryan:Operations in Bosnia were renowned for putting Western forces into very difficult circumstances. What were your experiences with that in Bosnia?
Eric:Much different. Because we were in there. So I'm operating out of Aviano, Italy, just North of Venice. We take off, you know, do our mission over Bosnia and fly back. At the time, there's no direct threat to us, and we weren't dropping into weapons.
Eric:So somebody that was on the ground in Bosnia had a much different experience to us. And that was something else that I learned in all my missions is that the reality is you're often for at least fighter operations, not staged out of the same location as where the hostilities are occurring. And so you need to make sure you're connected to the mission and what's going on on the ground. Because if you don't understand that, you're not going be as effective.
Bryan:Yeah. I think it would be pretty easy to sanitize kind of your experiences and just confine it to take off, do the mission, land, that's it, with no real connection to what is going on outside the cockpit.
Eric:Yeah. Exactly.
Bryan:Yeah. What would you say was the greatest challenge you experienced while flying in Bosnia?
Eric:I was brand new on squadron. I just got combat ready. There was a need to get more pilots over there, so I was fast tracked through my my training. So I went from just learning how to fly the f 18, getting on squatter and quickly doing a combat ready upgrade, be a wingman to now flying over Bosnia in a completely new country, flying out of a different country. So just the domestics of takeoff, traveling, you know, refueling, working with the forward air controller was a little bit overwhelming at the beginning.
Bryan:No kidding.
Eric:So you need to do it multiple times after you do it a couple times. Now you're comfortable with just getting there and back and then you can really focus on making sure you can do the mission set when you're over there.
Bryan:So I believe the mission in Kosovo was far more kinetic and involved combat. Can you tell us what your mission there was?
Eric:One of the reasons that we were extended for the Bosnia mission is because we were watching very closely what was happening at Kosovo. I came back February, or mid February, sorry, from OpEco in Bosnia. And when I got back, I was asked if I can be put on a twelve hour notice to fly back if something was gonna happen in Kosovo. I said, absolutely, I'm ready to go if you need me. And a couple weeks later, was called up and on a flight within twelve hours and flying back.
Eric:And a couple days later, the Kosovo conflict kicked off. That one was Serbia attacking Kosovo. And really doing heinous and horrific things to the citizens there. And NATO came in and was my first combat experience. And when I mean combat, it was combat.
Eric:The very first mission. So the very first night, we thought it was gonna last three nights, maybe two nights, and obviously went much longer, I think it was seventy nine days total. The very first night I was put on ground alert for closer support. Myself and other individual sleeping by our jets loaded ready to go. We never got a call.
Eric:Thank goodness because I didn't sleep that whole night. Was quite awake watching what was going on. But the very first Canadian force ship that went up, I watched a Dutch f 16 shoot down a Serbian MiG 29.
Bryan:Really?
Eric:Surface air missiles being fired at us, triple a being fired at us. When I did several of my missions, which most of them were at nighttime, and I didn't have a lot of night experience. The AAA, you see it in the movies. Holy smokes, when you're flying, even if you're at 22, 20 four thousand feet, and the AAA only goes to 18,000 feet. I could tell you, and we didn't have goggles back then, just to be clear, we didn't have night vision goggles.
Eric:It felt like the AAA was going way above me. Yeah. And, and it, you have to do a couple missions before you start feeling comfortable. And you probably should never feel overly comfortable. So I was able to do I ended up doing six missions total dropping weapons there and in different locations.
Eric:And I was very proud to have been part of that. At the end of the day, we were able to to resolve that after this the air war.
Bryan:That sounds really intense. What was your most exciting experience during operations in Kosovo?
Eric:Flying night with very little training, trying to do a four ship formation using, lights that are turned down without night vision goggles, using a radar where you could. Super challenging. The one I will recall the best is besides the AAA that I saw was we were flying as a force ship. I was, number two. We just passed our target.
Eric:And as we're, going past it, number three, who was a couple miles behind us, called, an SA five, missile, which exploded in between us. Wow. Just just above us. They were shooting. They weren't radar guided at the time.
Eric:They're shooting optically.
Bryan:Oh.
Eric:So you can imagine that, you know, the heart's pumping and
Bryan:That's a pretty good shot optically.
Eric:They were just there was a lot of aircraft flying. We we tend to follow kind of the same route because we wanted to make it as simple as possible. So we didn't run into each other in the And many of us were relatively new to this, what we call medium altitude operations. My first part of my training had all been done low level. So going me and altitude with laser guided bonds was all new to us at the time.
Bryan:Yeah. And I wonder, there's probably listeners who are who are saying, well, why did they take the same route every time? But it's about, I would imagine mitigating risk. Right? And the higher risk with a bunch of lesser experienced pilots was potentially running into issues from making things overly complicated, I would think, versus the risk of of surface to air fire.
Eric:Yeah. It's weird to have packages of a hundred aircraft, a mix of airborne early warning, tankers, fighters, EW
Bryan:Wow.
Eric:To do suppression. And we would do a lot of that coordination right in Aviano. I would sit there with the mission commander. We would plan the whole package out. You take off out of Aviano, fly down the Adriatic.
Eric:I would air to refuel off of Italian Boeing seven zero seven or American KC 10 or you pick the country, we would tank off of it. We'd consider go all the way down and then go feet dry South Of Kosovo and move in. Total flight time was typically about five hours. Oh, wow. And if you did if you did a longer, mission, some people did an eight hour missions.
Bryan:That's a long time in a fighter.
Eric:It's a long time. Fly in, hit and for about an hour of that, it's super exciting and nerve racking and the rest of the time is transit nerve wracking part is air refueling, especially when there's thunderstorms around. So yeah, the complexity, not to be hopefully not lost on people is to coordinate that many aircraft, make sure that you're suppressing the because they had an active integrated air missile defense system. So suppressing their IADS system while you're going in with the bombers, while at the same time you have air to air activity going on with their MiG 29 and other aircraft, which eventually went away once we suppressed them. And doing that in a you know, often without it's deconfliction in altitude and time was driving a lot of it.
Bryan:Now there's a lot more to that than I was pretty young when that happened. I remember seeing it in the papers. Honestly, I think I was in was it '98?
Eric:It was '99.
Bryan:'90 '9? I think I was in grade six. But I remember hearing about it and I remember hearing about it as more of a bombing campaign. So I didn't realize there was so like that there was air to air and surface to air and all these threats involved in this conflict.
Eric:Yeah. I mean, there was some some fighters were shot down in particular US Fighters that were shot down. Might recall a Nighthawk f one seventeen fighter got shot down and then some f sixteens as well got shot down with combat search and rescue. So we had combat search and rescue, CSAR available ready to go in and pick up pilots.
Bryan:Wow.
Eric:We did not lose any Canadian aircraft or crew in that conflict. But it was pretty intense. As it went on, it became less so. Because we were able to suppress their eventually their defenses air to air and air to ground. But in the early stages of that conflict, it was quite intense.
Bryan:Wow. What did you learn by operating in this combat environment that later informed the way you led pilots into combat operations?
Eric:Everybody reacts differently. Your training is effective to be able to do the missions. But at the same time, you need to experience it probably a few times before you can really become able to be truly effective. So when we used to do exercise maple flag in Coal Lake, and we would fly the first ten missions of combat replicated over the two week exercise. Doing things such as that are critical to being successful on day one.
Eric:Otherwise, you have a whole bunch of people that have never seen it. Who training will work, but they're not going be as effective. If you've never seen AAA, you've never been shot at by a surface air missile. Doesn't matter how many times you've done it in the sim. Or you've replicated it by somebody calling it out.
Eric:It's just not the same. So you gotta you actually need to to see it to be the most effective.
Bryan:Well, and I can only speak from my experience flying in op impact over Iraq. But even just knowing that there is some level of threat for real is a is a totally different experience than training and seeing the threat ranges on, you know, on your display, but it's it's all for training. Like, it's totally different when you see the first time you see that a targeting radar is picking you up is, like, real world is a totally different feeling.
Eric:I absolutely agree.
Bryan:Yeah. So you also deployed to Afghanistan where you were the deputy director of the Air Operations Control Center at the International Security Assistance Force HQ in Afghanistan. Can you briefly outline what your job there involved?
Eric:So I worked for an American colonel. Our role was in the joint operations center. There was an air section within the joint operations center, and that was the joint operations center for the commander of ICESAF, which at the time was General McChrystal who came in, American four star. And our role was to coordinate all air requirements and allocations for Afghanistan on behalf of the Combined Air Operations Center, the Kayak and L UD. Because LUDEED at the time had multiple theaters that they're servicing and they, in fact, not delegated, but they left it to us to do that coordination.
Eric:So we would work with each of the different regions within Afghanistan to gather their air requirements. We would then prioritize them based on the commander of ISAS priorities and feed that back to the CFAC and L UDID and then they would apportion us the assets. Of course, never got everything you needed. So then we make sure that appropriate support. One of the other things I did was, I was the air briefer every single day.
Eric:So every day that Commander Vaisnav was there to get his morning brief, I would be the one that briefs him on all the air activities, the strikes that occurred during the day. And that was interesting because General McChrystal came in with a plan to really connect with the population and reduce civilian casualties, of course, which is what we want. Mhmm. But he would use every strike that we did as an opportunity to reinforce how he didn't think we should be doing strikes. Oh.
Eric:And and because I was the one briefing it, he he asked me to explain every single strike in great detail, and asked why the ground commander called in the strike and why the aircraft commander agreed to do it. And I would have these joint task force commanders, regional commanders, usually two or three stars, I was a lieutenant colonel, listening to me describe the situation in their region, and talking about what their ground controller had authorized for a strike. But I would take pretty much the heat for for doing that strike. So it was it was an interesting dynamic. I learned so much, and I worked with many NATO nations.
Bryan:That's a difficult position to be put in as a lieutenant colonel.
Eric:I would say that my you know, we go back to fighter weapons instructor course, and some of these other things I've done help, I guess, provide me some of the skill sets that would help me in those situations.
Bryan:Yeah. I can imagine. What were the biggest challenges you faced coordinating air operations in a complex environment like Afghanistan?
Eric:It was understanding the the written and unwritten caveats of all the different nations and what they would accept, what the level of risk acceptance was amongst different nations as well. Mhmm. The and then trying to be the go between with the kaok and then the requirements. One of the biggest moments I would say was during one of their elections, which happened to occur when I was there. And we would have about 20 troops in contacts per day.
Eric:Okay. We call them ticks that would And so typically, those are what would I brief the commander of ISF on on the next day, whereby normally, we would drop weapons to support the troops in contact. On the day we did election, there was 80 of them. Wow. And it was and I was getting called from all over Afghanistan, from many Afghan National Guard, or army personnel directly, through any not through their regions, saying I'm under attack at this spot, you need to call aircraft in right now.
Eric:And we were able to do that using what's called the US ASOC at the time. And they were able to quickly shift and send a fighter over or send whatever asset was available to go over there. And it just showed the agility of air power. In my mind, that solidified how quickly we could react to a situation on the ground. And sometimes it was just presence, the fact that there's something there, made people feel more confident.
Eric:They didn't necessarily they probably weren't always in a troops in contact situation, but they felt like they were.
Bryan:Okay.
Eric:But seeing that aircraft overhead really, allowed them to be, feel much more confident. And sometimes, adversaries also went away.
Bryan:Yeah. You talk about the agility of airpower. That's pretty amazing that if you were normally expecting 20 ticks in a day to go to four times out at 80 and still be able to support everyone. That's pretty incredible.
Eric:Yeah. Felt like it was the longest day No doubt. I had when I was there, but at the same time, it was the most satisfying.
Bryan:Yeah. What lessons learned from the Afghanistan mission will shape the Air Force's approach to future operations and conflict zones?
Eric:So that was a counterinsurgency. And the reality is we went from the cold war to, you know, going over Gulf War one and then Kosovo to counterinsurgency for twenty years.
Bryan:Mhmm.
Eric:And we just assumed that's the way it's always gonna be going We assumed we would always have, ear superiority that we would have unlimited access and not be threatened in different locations. So we learned in a very positive way how to do counterinsurgency and provide best effects. That's why we got our Chinooks. That's why we got our C130Js and C17s was because of that specific one. And we rented or leased some Chinooks, and then eventually bought our own Chinooks.
Eric:So we were really good at counterinsurgency by the end of the Afghanistan war. And we assume that that's where we're going forward. And we have shaped our current Air Force and our current military because of what we saw ten years ago. Of course, now we recognize that that's not necessarily the case anymore. And so we're trying to modify that.
Bryan:Yeah. And we'll talk we'll talk more about that later in the interview and possibly in part two about kind of where we're heading with current challenges and threats. So you took part in combat missions for OP Mobile in Libya. During this, you were the detachment commander for the f eighteens Hercules and CC one fifty Polaris in Tripoli, Italy. What were your roles and responsibilities there?
Eric:It's about two months into Operation Mobile. My good friend at the time, Lieutenant Colonel Sylvain Gogo is his call sign, Menard, who was commanding officer of four two five Squadron, was the first one to go in. He did the Roto Zero into Trepenny with f eighteens and he brought, the tankers, which weren't supposed to stay, the Airbus tankers, which weren't supposed to stay, but then they did. And they started the initial strike missions into Libya. I came in two months later, which was always a plan.
Eric:And then we were gonna stay my squadron was staying for six months. And then we're gonna set up a six month rotation. So he went in with his squadron for two months, because it was such short notice, like literally days notice. And then then we came in for a six month deployment. While I was there, one of the Airbuses had to go back to do its long term maintenance.
Eric:So that's when we brought in the Herc tankers, which ended up doing other things outside of Herc tanking.
Bryan:Yeah, of course.
Eric:They flew the Minister of Foreign Affairs into Libya to meet with some of the forces that were trying to overturn Gaddafi at the time. So it was an a tremendous opportunity to not only do FAT missions and leads my squadron at the time for those that went over, but also to really understand how tanker operations work and to command the Airbus and the Herc, detachment when they came in. And if you were to ask me out of all my deployments, what was the highlight? That was the highlight. That deployment was the highlight for me because I felt like it was all those things that we talked about before had led me to that point to be ready to to be a part of that.
Bryan:Did you find it was difficult to balance flying in a combat zone while also commanding several detachments of aircraft?
Eric:Yes. I got my crew rest whenever I was flying and I flew quite a bit. But it was challenging because I was flying at nighttime, flying during the daytime, the schedule was pretty fluid. Sometimes as the package commander, mission commander with multiple nations involved, do strike operations within Libya. So I had a lot of energy, and I got my sleep, but I tell you that to manage the day to day personnel and the detachment effectively while also trying to do the combat missions can really weigh on you.
Eric:But when you do a mission like that, everybody is absolutely focused on the mission. There's very few distractions or other things going on that you would see day to day back home, particular in a training environment. So everybody's very motivated to be there. They're energized by what they're doing, contributing. And so the amount of time required to make sure things were going well there was not as much as you would see back home, which which afforded me an opportunity to do some flying too.
Bryan:Yeah. I mean, I experienced that as well during my tours. It's just a different world when you're when you're in the the combat zone when you're or when you're in an operational flying capacity. Like you said, there's just less noise. You're able to focus on the mission and make that your priority, and that's basically what everyone around you is doing too.
Bryan:So everyone's got that focus. Absolutely. It must have been pretty cool to command a diverse group of aircraft in a combat environment though.
Eric:It was. And in many cases, we would take off and then use our tankers, go and do so you would take off out of trapping is in Sicily, Western Portion of Sicily, you take off, you would tank just North Of Libya, often with our Herc tanker or bus tanker, but sometimes other tankers, either from the RAF or from The US, etc. You would fly into Libya, we did a different types of mission. Some missions where we're just doing reconnaissance effectively. If we find some artillery or personnel shooting at populated areas, then we get authorization right there to strike them and stop them from doing that.
Eric:Other times we went after ammo depots or after deliberate targets. So you do that mission set, sometimes go back and tank multiple times and then eventually fly home. So missions would be four to eight hours, depending on what you're doing on that particular day. And we're we dropped a lot of weapons while we were there as well.
Bryan:Yeah, That was just before my time on the Aurora, but I know that was a very kinetic mission set. I had heard a lot of stories about it from from my peers on the Aurora squadrons and at four zero five squadron. So, I heard it was quite something.
Eric:Yeah. So I didn't command the roars but we worked directly with them. And so once they got over land, because initially they were over water as you know and then they went over land. And so they would, we would coordinate directly with them. We had put some of our JTACs into the back with them.
Eric:Oh, we had a JTAC in the back working with taco, working with the sensor operator to then talk us on or others onto targets as we're moving forward getting approval. So we're we're doing true integration across Air Force, our tankers, our Aurora, our fighters, or and then with allies as well.
Bryan:That's awesome. And that's, what's cool is, especially after chatting with, Chris McKenna, that's something we're gonna be able to do more and more in the future, which we can talk a bit more about later. Yeah. So you did a second tour for OP Mobile as the commander air component coordination element in Poggio Renatico, Italy. What did your job involve in this tour and what was the biggest challenge you had to overcome in that role?
Eric:The combined forces air component commander, Lieutenant General Joyce sorry, Jotis, US three star. He was the CFAC for Operation Unified Protector, which was a NATO operation overall commanded by Canadian General Bouchard. So his KAOC that he used was in Pozhoi Bernadico, which is where I was. And so each nation had a senior national rep, which was me in this particular case. We had all Wichitaeans that were working as embeds within the Kayak, because it was a NATO fill.
Eric:We had some that were one way, you know, we provide them there because we needed them there to coordinate our activities as well. My job was to be the liaison with General Jonas to see fact to make sure Canada's interests were being met. At the same time, my job was to be the Canadian record holder. So any targets that were approved for strike by NATO had to be approved individually by nations. Just because NATO has approved the target doesn't mean Canada will strike that target.
Bryan:Right.
Eric:So as a record holder, I would have a board with my league ad and ops, and we would run a board and we would determine whether Canada wanted to strike that target. That was a unique role, because you don't actually report to the joint task force commander who was there in theater, I reported directly to the Chief of Defense staff, as the Canadian Red Card holder.
Bryan:Okay.
Eric:Separate from that, as a senior rep on the ground, and as the air coordination element, I was also for the Joint Task Force Commander, the Canadian I would speak to CFAC about apportionment of assets and use best use of our air power that we're providing.
Bryan:Okay. You were the commander of the Air Task Force Iraq for Roto Zero of Operation Impact. For listeners, RotoZero is the first rotation, the one where everyone is still feeling out what is required and setting up things for follow on rotations. What was the biggest challenge of setting up the Air Task Force on RotoZero?
Eric:Each RotoZero is different. Each one is challenging and exciting. For as seems to happen often, we didn't have a lot of notice for this deployment. I was I had just taken over as a four wing colleague wing commander in April. And in September, I got a call from the air division commander saying, hey, this thing is happening over in Iraq and Syria.
Eric:Canada may want to commit. If we do, I'm looking at you as a potential Air Task Force commander. But he said, I also am looking at one other one other individual. So I'll let you know.
Bryan:Okay.
Eric:I asked him, should I start preparing? Because I haven't done my nine mil training and my CBRNN. He goes, I'll leave it to you decide. Two weeks later, we're having a conference in Winnipeg or commanders training session. And just before that, he says, I think we're going to do a recce the week of this training session in Winnipeg.
Eric:So I said, am I doing the recce? And should I be training? He said, I'll leave it to you. I started by training. I think I did gas at nine mil, and a whole bunch of calls within two days.
Eric:And then and first aid. And then I went to Winnipeg. He said, don't worry, there's a recce, you're not going to go. We finished the meeting on Wednesday. I got to the airport to fly back to Coal Lake.
Eric:And he called me at the airport and says, we're going with Iraqi, you're doing it, you're leaving tomorrow.
Bryan:Oh, wow.
Eric:And I said, am I gonna come back from theater when this occurs? And he goes, I don't know, you might stay there for six months. So needless to say, it was an interesting discussion with my family.
Bryan:No kidding.
Eric:I got home, they packed my bag for me. And when I got home, I picked up my bag and then drove back to the airport and flew. Not knowing if I was going to come back. I did. I did the recce for a week and a half.
Eric:And then I flew back for two weeks and then was deployed for six months. So all that say it happened very quickly. On the ground, I was with a whole group of people were there strictly for the recce. And they're all looking at me as to what I want, how I want to set up their task force. Three different locations, what's the command and control, you're going off very little sleep because of the jet lag.
Eric:So it was a bit of a stressful time. At the end of the day, all those things I've done in the past that we just talked about, made me very comfortable with the decisions that needed to be made about basing location, what type of risk we would accept, how we can best sustain the force, what type of targets we might want to go after. And so I was able to feed that back through the recce and then and then kind of lead it during road to zero. But there's, there's just so much going on. We arrived at a base that had nothing like it was a desert.
Eric:There were some marines there. There was no infrastructure. We built our tents, which was our headquarters and our sleeping quarters. There's no WiFi. There's nowhere to get a haircut.
Eric:There was nowhere to go shopping. Like it was the Marines offered free haircuts.
Bryan:Yeah.
Eric:So it was it was it was interesting. And then by the time the six months was done, we had so much infrastructure built up and much more comfortable for roto one.
Bryan:Yeah. Yeah. The difference so I was on roto zero and on Roto 1. And the difference was night and day. It was crazy.
Bryan:Even through Roto 0, things built up. And obviously, being on the Aurora, we were in Camp Canada and LA SLM. So it was different from where you guys were at. Like, there was a previously existing camp. But the rate at which Canada was able to build and develop a fully functioning camp was amazing.
Eric:Yeah. And I it was me that made the decision to make sure we prioritized Aurora over the f eighteens because when I asked, I said, okay, is it gonna take to get an Aurora capability? I was told one c 17. And I asked what will it take to get an f 18 initial capability? It would be five c seventeens.
Eric:Wow. Okay. Well, c 17 chalk number one will be the Aurora. And then after that, we'll do the f 18 so that we have an initial capability. You would have been there with lieutenant colonel yeah.
Eric:He was still lieutenant colonel at the time, Brennan Cook. Yep. And and just watching the DMSC and and how you quickly move forward. LAL Slim was a bit more built up. I think we kicked some people out as well in some of the accommodations that they had to camp Canada there to at least for the air crew and things like that.
Eric:But, yeah, much more established than what we had in El Jabber, as you would recall.
Bryan:Yeah. We felt we felt quite fortunate. We didn't know what to expect. It was also a very quick deployment from notice to to move for us, and we weren't really sure what to expect when we got there. I was imagining tents in the desert, basically.
Bryan:We had hard shelters, port you know, portables, and they were air conditioned. And I think we had some WiFi pretty quickly, telephones, computers to call home. So it was it was quite good.
Eric:Yeah. With the LA Slim there with the camp Canada or Canada host set up and everything, it was a good spot to fall onto. Although, like I said, we had to we had to remove some people that have been there for quite a while to privilege others. Yeah. And I went back there many years later, and it was, you know, every year was so much different than the previous year.
Bryan:Yeah. The mission for OpImpact was very clear for the ATF, at least from my perspective, flying the missions, find and kill ISIS. Did you find that any of your pilots or crew struggled with the realities of that mission or the inherent risks? And if so, how did you deal with that?
Eric:Yep. You would recall, in particular on the roar side. So this goes back to understanding the threat and training within the threats. And there wasn't a ground threat to aircraft as you would recall. So what's the level of risk we're willing to accept to maximize the Aurora's capabilities in terms of altitude it's going to fly at, while minimizing the risk and a lot of discussions to make sure that people truly understand that even if a triple a can go up to 17,000 feet, that's a straight shot.
Eric:It doesn't mean it's gonna go up to 17,000 feet. And it has to be really, really lucky to get there. So it doesn't automatically mean you default to 18,000 feet or higher as an example. So lots of discussions based on many years of training and experience to try to educate and make sure people are comfortable with the tactics that we put in place, the mission acceptance and launch authorities that we put in place to maximize the capabilities that we had available to us. And then trying to establish a battle rhythm where you normalize combat operations.
Eric:There is absolutely people that were affected by it. I was affected by it. I think it would be abnormal if people were not affected by doing combat operations. But how you internalize that is different for each person. I have friends who have been impacted by missions that they've done either combat operations or not.
Eric:And some of them were from that particular operation and what they saw.
Bryan:Mhmm. Yeah, I know. One thing I learned from that tour or those tours was it affects everybody differently. And it's really an individual experience, even though you're going through it together. People react differently.
Bryan:And it's just sort of an inherent thing. And you have to see how it shakes out over time. And sometimes you don't know how it affected you until years later. And then you got to deal with that.
Eric:Yeah. For me, it was all my other deployments, I came back and I think I was back to work right away, you know, after your post deployment leave, not necessarily thinking much about it. That one affected me more. I watched Debbie Strike Mission as my role as commander. I think because of how quick it happened, as well as my position back at the wing, my family would tell you that I was not the same person when I came back.
Eric:And it took me many, many months to kind of get back to what would be viewed as more normal
Bryan:Yep.
Eric:In terms of how I would react. And so that is the case for many, many people.
Bryan:Yeah. Yeah. Totally agree. Did you find that it was challenging to command an air task force that was operating out of, by my count, three different airports in Kuwait rather than having them all at a centralized location?
Eric:I was initially hoping to have all the assets in one location as part of my recce, but I quickly realized that their bus was not going to get into El Al Aslem or into Al Jabber and then it made sense to be at the International Airport. And the fighters were not going to fit either in El Al Aslem. So we had to disperse the forces. At the end of the day having all the members actually sleep at two locations but operate out of three locations was helpful. I did a lot of travel between all three locations, many times daily to go and visit folks.
Eric:But because of video teleconference, voice and the fact that we have incredible leaders and aviators. At the end the day, it was not hard to do and very common, as you see with coalition operations around the world, particular air operations whereby assets are dispersed, that they meet in the air and they're able to accomplish their mission.
Bryan:Yeah. It's the nature of the business.
Eric:Yeah.
Bryan:So you've held a number of command positions, including commanding officer of four zero nine tactical fighter squadron in Cold Lake, Commander of four wing Cold Lake, and commander of one CAD in the Canadian NORAD region, amongst the many other jobs that the commander of one CAD does. How did these roles prepare you for your current role as the commander of the RCAF?
Eric:One of the roles I filled as a one star was deputy commander of force generation at one Canadian Air Division. That's probably where I got to know the Air Force the most. Because I was responsible for the readiness of all the capabilities that we have. Where I got to learn every single unit, what the composition of the unit was, what the mission of that unit is. And plus my time as a a wing commander understanding the rules of a wing.
Eric:One CAD puts all that in a larger perspective. Now stepping into the Air Force, what it gave me was a real sense of what our role responsibilities are and how our aviators and families operate and what they need to support them. What I didn't have coming into this job was a lot of Ottawa time. I had spent some time as a colonel, some time as a one star, but not a tremendous amount compared to some others. So I had a real sense of the air force and how it operates and what it requires.
Eric:I didn't know a lot about space. And I've learned a lot about space, in the last three years. And then, I've since learned all about force development projects, how things work in Ottawa. That if you can put all those together in a person, you know, that's kind of the ideal, but fundamental would be a really good understanding of what the Air Force needs.
Bryan:Yeah. I can imagine that after spending pretty much your entire career within the air force, it would be a whole different animal to approach the the workings of Ottawa and and basically the forces as a whole and not just the air the air force in the stovepipe.
Eric:There's some skill sets that can only be learned here. Yes.
Bryan:So you have accumulated 2,900 flying hours, 2,200 of them in the f eighteen. What is the value of having so much experience as a pilot when it comes to leading the RCAF?
Eric:So I think it's experience in multiple different environments, whether it's on operations at home, base or wing commander, staff, expectations of staff, and then understanding of how, Ottawa works and how other organizations work. So I say all that with one, you don't need to be a pilot to be the commander of the
Bryan:Air Force.
Eric:What you do need to have is a good understanding of what the Air Force needs and how it operates so that you can explain that and then advocate for, the future requirements for Air and Space Forces.
Bryan:Do you think we'll see more non pilots commanding the Air Force as time goes on?
Eric:There's been several already. And I don't see that trend changing. It's about having the right individual with the right skill sets, irrespective of what trade that they occupy. And, you know, just as a reminder, when you become a general officer, you're you no longer have it, your trade is now general officer. Right.
Eric:So it's having, and so each one will bring different skill sets that will make them likely better in certain areas over others. But I know we have quality individuals that are outside of just the pilot trade for sure, who can easily command the Air Force.
Bryan:I would imagine that a big part of that job at that point becomes relying on your experts, right? You're standing on the shoulders of other people basically who are who are advising you and and helping you do your job.
Eric:Yep. Absolutely.
Bryan:Okay, Eric. That's gonna do it for part one of our chat. I really enjoyed learning about your deployments and leadership experiences today, and I'm really looking forward to discussing your current role in the future of the RCAF when we return for part two. Thanks for being here today.
Eric:Thanks.
Bryan:Okay. That wraps up our chat with lieutenant general Eric Kenny looking back over the early part of his career leading up to now. Stay tuned for our next episode where we will sit down, talk about his current role as commander of the RCAF, as well as the RCAF itself. Where we are currently, where we're going, what our threats and opportunities are, and who our adversaries may be. Then we'll take some questions from the audience.
Bryan:Do you have any questions or comments about anything you've heard in this show? Would you or someone you know make a great guest, or do you have a great idea for a show? 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 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.
