Episode 64: The Kingfisher: Developing, acquiring and flying the CC-295 Kingfisher Part 2 - Luc Coates, Francois Fasquelle, Dan Faux
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Bryan:Alright. We're ready for departure here at the Pilot Project Podcast, the best source for stories and advice from RCAF and Mission Aviation Pilots brought to you by Sky's Magazine. I'm your host, Brian Morrison. And today, we are doing a very special on location interview in Comox, BC with Lieutenant Colonel Francois Pasquel, CO of four forty two Transport and Rescue Squadron, Lieutenant Colonel Luke Coates, CO of four eighteen Search and Rescue Operational Training Squadron, and Major Dan Fox, a qualified Kingfisher pilot who is a subject matter expert on the c two nine five. Gentlemen, welcome to the show, and thank you once again for having me here in Comox.
Dan:Thank you.
Luc:Thanks for having us.
Bryan:Yeah. Listeners can tune in to part one to hear some questions about what led Luke, Dan, and Francois to aviation and the CAF in general, as well as some questions for Luke and Francois on what led them to the two ninety five. For today, we're going to be talking to Dan about his path to the February as well as all things Kingfisher. Okay. So now we're gonna talk to Dan about his career.
Bryan:Major Dan Fox is currently serving as staff officer SAR Systems three at one Canadian Air Division headquarters. Dan brings over two decades of operational, instructional, and project management experience to Canada's search and rescue enterprise. Dan enrolled in the Canadian Armed Forces in June 1999 and graduated from the Royal Military College in 2004 with a degree in business administration. After completing pilot training, his early career included a pivotal instructional role at two Canadian Forces Flight Training School or the big two in Moose Jaw from 2006 to 02/2011, where he served as a flight instructor and standards officer on the CT one fifty six Harvard two. In 02/2011, he joined four four two transport and rescue squadron in Comox, BC, where he flew the CC one fifteen Buffalo as an aircraft commander, flight instructor, and standards officer.
Bryan:His time at four four two squadron included numerous challenging SAR missions in mountainous terrain, including a notable rescue near Kelowna involving the successful location of a downed aircraft and the deployment of SAR technicians or SAR techs to save a survivor. In 02/2015, Dan moved over to the transport and rescue standards and evaluation team or TRCET as the division level standards officer for four forty two squadron Buffalo and four forty squadron Arctic Twin Otter. Dan was part of the creation of a separate division led standard cell for search and rescue operations, which became known as search and rescue standards and evaluation team or SARCET. He was fortunate to be the first officer commanding of SARCET. His work in the North included memorable missions in extreme weather conditions and unique environments such as the Smoking Hills.
Bryan:He was also able to qualify on skis, which was again an incredible experience. Since the late stages of the fixed wing search and rescue project bidding process in 02/2016, Dan has been deeply involved in the acquisition and operationalization of the CC two ninety five Kingfisher. As an operational subject matter expert or SME, his contributions spanned nonrecurrent engineering and design changes with the original equipment manufacturer, pilot training development, and technical solution planning. He has traveled to Spain multiple times in support of aircraft development and currently serves as a qualified Kingfisher aircraft commander having flown operational missions on the platform. Dan lives in Royston with his wife Sarah and their three children, Maria, James, and Helen.
Bryan:So Dan, your first posting was instructing at two CFFTS in Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan. Was that what you wanted for your first posting?
Dan:Yes. That was definitely what I wanted. So when we finished or I guess it's a bit of a layered story. So we're running the course. It went well.
Dan:Like, phase two was great. I enjoyed it a lot. I wasn't the top person on course, but I did well. And we had one of those natural people. They're hard to take.
Dan:They just come and do everything perfect. Yeah, shout out to that guy. He probably knows who he is. But anyway, I'm the guy who has to work hard. I wouldn't say I'm a fast learner, but I learn well.
Dan:And as we went through the course, I had a lot of friends ahead of me who all seemed to be staying and becoming pipes, whether that meant they wanted to be a pipe first and foremost, or the way it goes is at the end they kind of select you all out to something. And the way ours went was even though the Buffalo was definitely something I was really wanting, the way it worked was our group. If I was an instructor right away, somebody else would get that slot and it would all work well for everybody. Right. My friends were all there, we're having tons of fun.
Dan:So instructor became the first posting for me and it was awesome, honestly.
Bryan:Awesome. And just for the listeners, PIPE is short form for pipeline instructor, right?
Dan:Yeah, like as in you finish your training and right away you stay back and become an instructor, probably in any trade.
Bryan:Yep. So your big reasoning was just basically you're having a blast there and a lot of your comrades were staying?
Dan:Yeah, pretty much. There's not a lot of depth behind a lot of my decisions really. I definitely like to just enjoy social situations. I'm in a great group of people. There's so much positivity flying around there.
Dan:And I had awesome instructors and they put a ton of influence on you, right? They're having fun, it's all going great, and you're just like, yeah, I want to be a part of that. First thing I saw, like I said, I knew very little about any systems in the military. So point and shoot, look good, let's go there Yeah. Type thing.
Dan:Yeah.
Bryan:And Moose Jaw is like it's an interesting place because the the hours are long, like it is a tough think well, at least, I don't know if it was like Yeah.
Dan:No. You can definitely it can be a long day, but I think it's it tended when I was there, it was a real young group. You know, the critical mass was young, so hours aren't really a thing. Yeah. Just, like, go for it.
Dan:Also, the fact that you can take a high performance plane away on your own with your other instructor mates because you have to be proficient because when you're flying with a student, you're not on the stick. So Yep. Oh, man, watching my friends say like, and we're taking, you know, like a four ship of Harvard somewhere away to go for proficiency. I was like, oh, what? Like, okay, I get to do that later.
Dan:Yeah. Then I'll add on to that. I love the act of flying so much, so that also moved the decision. Like formation flying was like, I can just feel it right now thinking about it. Like, I loved it so Yeah.
Dan:And I love low level and I love basically, like I said, machines. And it's like a chance to just like go put this machine in pain every time I could and I just
Bryan:And the Harbord is an amazing machine.
Dan:Yeah. Is. It's like I think of it like it's like a John Deere tractor of performance planes, like super reliable, pretty fast, you know,
Bryan:pretty high performance, super reliable. What was the most exciting or challenging thing you learned to do during your time instructing on the Harvard two?
Dan:I would say formation flying was my favorite. And in addition to that, four ship, I was lucky enough as a pipe to be able to be a four ship lead, which is at the time I think it kind of ebbs and flows, but a little unique. I had an amazing boss who was very supportive of like trying to push me as far as possible, amazing person, and They managed to get me through that so I could go do like go to a stadium and do a fly past the four ship or go out and do a four ship mutes on the weekend and travel somewhere. Traveling with a group of people, IFR, is amazing. I would say probably the most intense thing I've ever done in a plane was learning to run IFR in a force ship.
Dan:It's a very strange thing, right? And you're like extremely cautious, you're concentrating on your actual flying to be predictive a lot. And you're IFR. You're, like, taking clearances and getting onto arrivals and trying to explain to them what's happening because, you know, if you arrive in San Francisco with a force, they'll be like, pardon? You know, like, what's going on?
Dan:So it was awesome. Great thing to do. Great parflying.
Bryan:Awesome. You flew the Buffalo with four forty two Transport and Rescue Squadron here in Comox. That's an iconic aircraft. What made the Buffalo so special when it came to Saar in the challenging terrain of the Rocky Mountains?
Dan:The Buffalo, although I'd I mean, it was not designed for that. It was designed, purposely for war and to be a robust aircraft. So it was very maneuverable. The way the Buffalo was designed, they used a combination of spoilers and ailerons. It was to be a STOL aircraft.
Dan:So like to make that point, its roll rate was amazing. Very, very fast.
Bryan:Okay.
Dan:You get in it and be like, right away you'd be demoed as a student. Here we go. Roll like hard right, hard left, like hit the controls on the stop and it's scary to watch a plane move that fast. And then it has a fair bit of horsepower obviously in combination with its STOL design. It has very broad weight and balance envelope with that T tail.
Dan:It was designed to be a truck and it's incredible. Its landing gear was robust. The amount of travel in the landing gear, like if I could explain it, when you go do a Spro takeoff and you're trying to get it off the ground to
Bryan:you explain what Spro is?
Dan:Yep. Sorry. So if you're doing takeoff on an unprepared field, the Buffalo was made to be very good at that. And just to watch the machine, the combination of its props, its blown flaps, it actually blows thrust over the flaps. So only a matter of a few seconds into your ground run, you can see if you're watching the Buffalo from the back, it rise up on its oleos.
Dan:So it takes all the weight off the airframe within a couple seconds of its takeoff run and then you don't have as much issues with traction or with pounding on the plane. Just, it was great for the way I think search and rescue was done and it was a very fun aircraft to fly. So, yeah, when it came to SAR, I think the old SAR that we did and we were out and we were in the mountains and we were searching visually, we had to be low to search visually, it was a great plane to do that task. Hours and hours on end.
Bryan:What was your most memorable rescue mission on the BUF?
Dan:I'd say the most memorable mission we did on the buff was we were after a long training day. We're coming into Komats where I think the gear was down. And like we're ready to land. Okay. The end of a great training day, like smiles all around his blue sky and we get a call on the sat phone, ring ring, so we level off and we just start orbiting over the straits just to see what's going on.
Dan:We have some fuel on board. And they tell us there's just a high flyer report of an ELT. So in other words, airliners between something crazy, it's often like between Cranbrook and Vancouver, they figure there's an ELT going off.
Bryan:Which is an emergency locator Yeah,
Dan:transmitter. So it's going off, could you go try to find it please? That's not an uncommon task. I'd say back then it was quite common. Okay, quickly look at the fuel, I was not the aircraft commander on this, I'm the FO, so I'm in full learning mode, so for starters, kind of like Lieutenant Colonel Coates, I'm excited, I'm just like, all right, we got enough fuel to go try, let's go, we're climbing up, just generally heading towards Vancouver.
Dan:We start to get some ELT hits, we have a needle in the aircraft that literally a needle points and says, I think it's this way. Yeah. But then five minutes later, the needle, instead of pointing towards the Okanagan, it points now towards like Bellingham, Washington. They're not it's not an exact science. So there's some luck and there's some tactics.
Dan:So we fly higher, we try to get it. It now is focusing more on yeah, it looks like it's up in Canada. So anyway, it's still going and we keep chasing, but I gotta say all the while in my heart of hearts, absolutely think that someone's about to turn it off at an airport. You know, some embarrassed pilot's gonna be running for it to turn their ELT off on the ramp because it is often false. So we're flying along though, we're prosecuting, and eventually now it's getting a little more stable and it's pointing up somewhere between Princeton, British Columbia, and the Okanagan Valley.
Dan:It's pointing out, we're like, okay, it's pointing up, here we go, let's chase it. And then still believing essentially that we're going to eventually be turned towards Penticton. It just flashes, turns around. We look out, one of the Sartecs in the back makes an amazing find, I think if I remember correctly, from quite high to say, I think I did just see something. And then we get the airplane all the way down.
Dan:It's an old mine site, so there's a very large dam and we get the plane down and we see, yeah, there's a wreck here. Now it's later in the night, still a nice night, but we're running into challenges like we need support. So the helicopter is quite a ways back. It happens to be Luke Coates again. Oh, really?
Dan:Stories are connected, small community. So they are the asset, they're on their way, but they're a long way away. So we get our Sartex ready and essentially we go ahead and decide they can't go into the woods where the wreck is, so we put them out into another location not too far away. We do drop the Sartex and then we start, you have to be a little creative, they need to navigate their way to the location, so we're using the aircraft essentially as a conning beacon. So we're doing continuous runs, we have radio contact with now our Sartex on the ground and we're doing these low swoops over top of the actual wreckage And in the meantime, we're attempting to get ambulance, police, everybody into this property because it's on top of a very old mine site or a very large, sorry.
Dan:So anyway, we're working with all those pieces and our Sartecs do eventually get there. It's a serious accident. I believe there were four people on board and unfortunately, that damn site we're sitting at, they were not able to force land, so they miss it. I still remember the Sartecs called up and they were like very worked up. Like I'm almost getting right now just thinking about them, like very emotional about it.
Dan:So we're chatting with them, they're going to help these people. We get critical care eventually comes off. They're brought in who are, I don't know how to explain critical care, I believe they're, technically they're nurses that are trained to deal with really serious trauma and they're often on our air ambulance. In this case, They come down, I remember the Sartec said their support was incredible because the scene was so chaotic. They get there, they're fully in control, we stay in support basically, and at this point the Cormorant does show up, they arrive there, I believe air ambulance arrives there, And critical care, I believe, joined both aircraft.
Dan:Yeah.
Luc:We we took the red patient, the critical alive person, and with the critical care nurse on board that worked with the Sartex to keep that person alive until we got them to a hospital.
Dan:Yep. So they grabbed them and air ambulance leaves. At that point, we hit bingo because we had already been low fuel to start.
Bryan:Can you explain what bingo is?
Dan:Bingo, you decide as you're working and it keeps progressing wherever you are, you keep deciding what's the minimum fuel to get your aircraft safely back to an airport and if it's instrument rules, you know, it grows and you need alternate airports and such, but we keep watching that, it's time to go, it's taken care of at this point, air ambulance, they're there, so essentially it's a classic version of how these rescues happen. Helicopter is there now doing the hands on, and we're out of fuel, so we take off. We go down, land the aircraft, and it's now been like pretty long day and I believe if I remember correctly, we all sit, we decompress, debrief, you know, it's gone as well as it can go. Like we got there, we found them, it was kind of as good that we found them and that the ELT almost took us into The States essentially. So that worked out.
Dan:And then we get the call, we're down to just you guys in the Buffalo, you know, we we need this Buffalo. So we sat, we had another discussion. And then when we all got in the plane, we departed and flew back to Comox after that. And I remember even on the way back to Comox, the sort of exhaustion from all that excitement, I remember looking across at my crewmates, the sun's down now, it's like just a little twilight. I remember the flight engineer was like at his chin all the way back.
Dan:He's like drooling. Oh, cold. Yeah. The flight engineer had been very busy through all that because as the StarTex wanted went out, they wanted much more equipment thrown down. So it was a nonstop evolutions to get all of our gear out and and then get going with the rest of the support piece.
Dan:So, honestly, that was that was memorable and just the voices and how it went with everybody. That person came back to visit four four two squadron several years later. I remember
Luc:yeah. She came to talk to us. It was very nice. I had to to come full circle, and good for the crews to talk with her as well.
Dan:Yep. That was the the sole survivor, I believe.
Bryan:Yep. You don't get that kind of closure too often in in the star world.
Luc:No. Often we don't, but we it's often actually healthy not to because you have to separate yourself from it. So it's a but sometimes it's nice to have that. When there's a positive outcome? Absolutely.
Bryan:It sounds like that was a bit of an emotional mission for you.
Dan:Yeah. There have been a few. I'm an emotional person. I have a feeling I'm in the room with three emotional people. Like, I'll be honest, depending on how fatigued I am, like, I'm pretty good.
Dan:I'll say day of in the moment, I'm not an emotional person. It's funny. It's weird how you can compartmentalize things. I've been in a lot of situations now where it would be better if you're not emotional right now, and I I know myself. I won't be.
Dan:And in the aftermath, I probably will be.
Bryan:Yeah.
Dan:So you just it is what it is. Fatigue is related to it. I'm more tired. I'm more emotional. I can watch a Disney film and get upset if I'm tired enough.
Dan:So
Bryan:And you you said basically, as far as dealing with that goes for you, you find it's talking with your comrades and
Dan:Yeah. I think it's a couple things for me. I think it's very therapeutic to sound it off people. This type of stuff, I'll be I'll be quite honest, I don't bounce work stuff off people, but I bounce a lot off my wife. I guess my habits.
Dan:What's cathartic for me in therapeutic is my life. Yeah. My habits. Like building a fire every morning and just the work I do in the background. And I chase every hobby I can think of.
Dan:Like everything I can do outside I do, and I garden all the time, I have things that I do a lot and I sort of melt into.
Bryan:And those are kind of your therapy? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And I don't mean to, like I'm not trying to pick out wounds, but I just I really believe in trying to bring up discussions about how do people deal with these difficult moments.
Bryan:I think it's really important. So
Francois:Yeah. And I I think it's great that you show the real nature of humans in in the job of Tsar.
Luc:Yeah. Think we're yeah. Where we've come a long way is, I'm not sure here, but maybe twenty years ago, we wouldn't be showing perhaps we would not be showing these emotions. Mhmm. And, like, the taboo or
Bryan:Oh, yeah. I think even in the last ten years, it's changed a
Dan:lot. Yeah.
Luc:I've seen it change, and, it's okay, you know, to to express how how we really feel and Yeah. Actually that makes us stronger.
Bryan:I agree. I
Dan:mean, as we just said, so many people can quietly relate to it.
Bryan:Oh, yeah. You next served as a standards officer for the CC one thirty eight Twin Otters with four forty Squadron in Yellowknife Northwest Territories. What unique operating environments and challenges does the Arctic have to offer?
Dan:Okay. Easy question to answer. The Arctic is a forbidding environment. So right away, go to the Arctic, when you layer on the temperatures and the remoteness, so how far it is between fuel stops, how much service you'll get at that fuel stop, like is the weather going to shut down? You need to be aware of you really, really need to be aware of your environment.
Dan:Would suggest experience is so essential up there. Like operators that know where they're going and they can mentor their junior FOs and crew. That is one thing that makes it unique. Mean, at the end of the day, in the South, I gotta say, it is a forgiving place to fly in comparison to the Arctic. Like, you just kind of can't make mistakes.
Dan:It's like you can head out over the Atlantic towards the Azores, you pretty much need to do that correctly. And if something goes wrong, it's very serious and you must make a decision quickly
Bryan:to deal
Dan:with it in a small aircraft. Well, I'd say four 40 squadron that operates our Twin Otters, It's a serious environment and they need to take it seriously. So that's like one aspect is flight planning and then the other one is that it's also very hard work to operate in the Arctic. When the twin lands, it puts blankets on the aircraft, covers it almost entirely because when you're in a remote location, don't have access to de icing. De icing might not work at minus 40.
Dan:So they get out and they set up ladders and it can be minus 40 with a little wind, which is really cold. And if you arrive on scene, it's an incredible piece. The whole team gets together, wakes the plane up, puts the plane to bed, and does the jobs there to
Bryan:do. So it's very involved?
Dan:It's very involved. Very hands on. It is an amazing location. It's a tight team, so it kind of reminds me of Moose Jaw. It's like so many amazing people and they have these like, it's a unique thing to them, then I don't know too many squadrons well, but they had a couple of very experienced operators embedded in the squadron, which I love.
Dan:I go up, even though I was their standards officer from a sort of divisional level, I think I pictured my job as coming in as a second set of eyes. So I'm sort of sober second thought, they had a lot of experience. The truth was I was getting mentored a lot as I went there, learning to fly, learning from them, just like soaking up as much as I can, provide what I can provide, which is I haven't sort of emotionally connected with the people that they're teaching, so I'm great in the sense that I can parachute in and look at somebody somewhat without bias, you could say?
Bryan:You could, yeah, come in with a bit of objectivity. Yeah.
Dan:I mean, that's I think that's an important role anyway of that standards body as they go and do check rides. Yeah. So I would just say incredible environment, not forgiving, amazing to see and to experience, but different and hands on and tough.
Bryan:Yeah. What's the most memorable site you encountered while operating in the Arctic?
Dan:Yeah, I used the Smoking Hills. So for anybody looking, I go on, just go on Google and look it up. It's a thing. I had to look it up and be like, did I just call it that? Or is that what it's really called?
Dan:So hills that have essentially been burning for who knows how long. I tried to find information and people really don't understand them well, but there's coal veins inside these hills, they burn, we fly up and someone says, oh, those hills, they've been smoking basically forever. I'm like, no kidding. And then look to your left. That's a swirling dust devil coming off that mountain over there and say, what is that, Chuck?
Dan:Or whoever was there and say, oh, that's a small herd of musk ox. Getting excited and running around here like, you know, I I blew my mind. Yeah. Almost every day we'd be up
Luc:there and I'd just be
Dan:looking at these Arctic plateaus. Musk ox would be walking downtown Yellowknife. I'd look down, there'd be like an Arctic fox beside me one day walking with me, like, really close. I was like, that's strange, you know. It's just an incredible spot to be and yeah.
Dan:Incredible people. Yeah. So many things.
Bryan:You've been pretty fortunate to be in some really unique places that most Canadians don't get to see.
Dan:Absolutely. I mean, I'm not trying to specifically recruit here, but I would say I have had a chance to see some incredible corners of Canada. Places that feel like I'm in a new country with new people and new ways of being experiences and land, like the land changes so much. Just to do a flight from Southern Saskatchewan to Yellowknife, the first time I did that and looking at true raw shield and I can't tell you how many massive beaver dams. Like, I didn't realize there are that many beavers in Canada.
Dan:It's new. Wow. I you know, something else.
Luc:Yeah. It's funny. Francois, I wonder if you've had that same thought, but I remember landing in these remote little mountains in Yukon or way up Northern Canada. I'm wondering I wonder if I'm the first person who may have land here or, like, been here. I can't imagine that there's been many few, but I've had those those same thoughts where I feel so so fortunate.
Luc:I don't maybe I'm the first one here or one of the very first anyways.
Dan:Yep. Yeah. For new people, and for everybody, I still try to soak it up. The flight we did last night.
Bryan:I was just gonna say that when
Dan:I'm I'm cliche. I still talk about it all day long, like, oh my god. I can't believe we're looking at this this, like, this like aggressive terrain backed by Toba Inlet and, you know, wow, look at that waterfall and the way the glacier is calving off there and oh my god, like, it's a real opportunity
Bryan:to
Dan:say the least.
Bryan:Yeah. I was gonna say, like, just in our flight yesterday, the amount of times I was thinking, like, has anyone ever been here before? Like, on the ground? Like and how many people even in the air get a chance to fly here and are flying, you know, between mountains in in, like, this awesome aircraft and getting these experiences and views, like, it's Yeah. It's pretty amazing.
Dan:It is pretty amazing.
Bryan:So we've talked about your time on the BUFF as well as the Twin Otter. How would you say operating these two legendary aircraft prepared you to take on work with the Kingfisher?
Dan:I would say very well. I mean, I think that the Buffalo gave me all of the basic SAR tactics, which still mean a lot in the Kingfisher. The basic prosecution of a SAR case in fixed wing, I think the Buffalo was amazing. It gave me experience in the mountains, which of course, the Kingfisher has to move around the mountains. And it does a great job of it, but that experience, brilliant.
Dan:I would say that the Twin Otter taught me a lot about the Arctic. Honestly, this plane needs to go up to the Arctic. So just to have the a little I'm talking like I got the tip of the iceberg experience compared to the guys that know the Arctic, but just to see it and touch it and understand that it's challenging, it's unique, not to mention that they were in a more of a transport role and better linked to, I think, how the transport world operates, which was a little bit more regimented in how they plan out a task and how they execute a task. I think I just saw through a little window that, sorry, we are more in the moment like
Bryan:But you have to be.
Dan:Yeah, we are. Well, we're doing it right. Built to react and to go and execute. But I also appreciated some of the sort of strategic and regimented nature of how the Twin Otter is operating and I think I took a lot of that with me as well. So I think they were both great for preparing me.
Dan:Awesome.
Bryan:So let's talk about the Kingfisher itself. Why this aircraft and why now? Dan, when did we first start looking at a replacement for the Buffalo
Dan:and the Herc? So before I came on and became directly involved with the project, I believe the Buffalo has been up for replacement since, I wanna say, into the late eighties. I remember hearing stories. This is me just talking about lore a little bit. Sure.
Dan:But I know that the people that mentored me would often joke, oh, that's funny because they were going to replace it when I was learning to fly. These were like those old people we're talking about earlier that feel felt like they were very old, but they were probably 47 or my age or something like that. So I think a long time ago, it was starting to become an old plane considering it was, I believe, purchased in or delivered in '67 or something. But in 2015, there was an idea afoot that the Buffalo would be improved again, maintained, engines, wiring, etc. That seemed to be replaced later on that year and quite quickly, I would say, somewhat all of a sudden with no, we're moving ahead with the fixed wing SAAR replacement later in that year.
Dan:Now that was me receiving on the sort of almost on the public end or the wider military population, me hearing it. But I believe if we talk to DAAAR, they would say that they were hard at work on the requirements back in, say, 2010 probably in earnest.
Francois:That's about accurate, yeah. I was at DAAAR. I was in DAR as a major Sorry.
Bryan:What's
Francois:DAR? The directorate of air requirements. Okay. So it's the air staff portion. It's the project director staff for a major capital acquisition project in the CAF.
Francois:So you have the the project management office that falls under ADMMAT and the project director office that falls under the RCAF staff. So DAAAR is a section of the project director, the director of air requirements. So that's where we we set all the high level mandatory requirements and make sure that a project is implemented respecting the high level requirements of a project.
Bryan:Okay.
Dan:That's probably the best timeline sort of in the background, 2,010 in the foreground really starting to come out in the end of fifteen.
Bryan:Okay. And that sounds about right to me too because I remember I had a guy on my when I was doing my multi engine course in 02/2011, There was another guy on the course who was doing like a refresher, a multi engine refresher, and he had been part of that. At the time they were looking at the C27 J Spartan was a big name in the project world, I guess. But so yeah, it sounds that timeline sounds about right. What was Canada looking for in a replacement when we decided it was time the BUF and the Herc had to retire?
Dan:I think the best way of looking at it is that we build requirements. So what we're looking for is the effect in the end. So we said, we have this fixed wing SAR service in Canada, which was served by two aircraft that were adapted to it, the Hurricane and Buffalo. And we're looking to replace both the service that both those aircraft provide. So you could say that it was a combination of the effect that both those provide.
Dan:The Herc is sort of a longer range asset that operates essentially East Of British Columbia, Yukon and the Buffalo because it was placed here a long time ago and it's found to work well. We serve this area of responsibility that goes up the Western Side Of Canada. And we do what we've been talking about, which is we are the asset that reaches out far and fast if we can. And we search. And if we need to, we rescue or we get ready to support a helicopter coming in.
Dan:So that was the model that was already sitting there. I think that effectively was the major building block of the requirements. Okay. Yep.
Bryan:What stood out for you during your trips to Spain during the Kingfisher's development?
Dan:I think the first thing that stood out for me was other than all the excitement of being there and seeing this new plane, because right away we got to see this new aircraft on the assembly line being built. We got a a course for about a week to have a better understanding really of some of the technical details of the aircraft. I realized how broad the contract was because I got to learn and see what a full in service support contract looks like that includes the aircraft being built but the aircraft being maintained for years to come, the training system to be built and supported for the aircraft and then the logistics. And then maybe right after that, I start to realize that it's significant. This aircraft has been provided to Canada to meet these requirements.
Dan:It has some significant design changes. So then for the next several years, you know, what stands out is wow, all the engineering time in the background and all the technical machinations that occurring. I never had to deal with that form, Line Pilot. I'm just like, I'm coming to work. I have my snack.
Dan:I get on a plane. I do some flying. It's great. And now I get to see behind the scenes how many people are working to get
Luc:this
Dan:aircraft approved to do its job and ready to do its job. So that stood out for me. Airbus is huge. You go there and you're like, wow, there's a lot of this organization is massive and it's gonna essentially bring all these aircraft to Canada and everything else that comes to this contract to Canada. So I guess I was just in total awe for our first few trips to Spain.
Bryan:Just by the size and complexity of the operation.
Dan:Yep, absolutely. And what they plan to do, how big the operation and the contract was to deliver to Canada. You're like, wow, that is a lot of moving parts.
Bryan:So we heavily modified the Kingfisher to suit our purposes to the tune of over 20 fairly major modifications. Can you tell us some of the most interesting or important ones?
Dan:Yeah, I think the first one I can talk about is the cockpit in the offer from Airbus. We have brand new avionics. So we have truly state of the art avionics in the cockpit, that's the Collins Fusion system and it includes features like four large touch screens which include all of your FMS maps and the moving map functionality is incredible. The amount of layers and symbols you can add into those maps. We run the heads up display.
Dan:It's all prepared for night vision operations. We have enhanced vision system cameras built into the nose of the aircraft. So they look out in IR, in infrared, they see all the environment in front of you and then they project it into your heads up display in three-dimensional monochromatic displays. So if you could imagine, I look through the HUD and I see the mountain where the mountain is despite the fact that it's dark out.
Bryan:Mhmm.
Dan:The mountain has been displayed in infrared. I see it where it is. I have that situational awareness, which is incredible. And then we have a second layer called synthetic vision system that came with it, which is the same monochromatic environment in my heads up display, but this time it's driven by a database. So if the cameras tonight aren't working well because there's moisture, say, in the way, I can now switch to a database driven, so an electronic version of the environment inside of my HUD.
Dan:So there's just a couple ideas of how modern the cockpit is. So we had that. That was one modification, and that includes all the warnings and cautions that are fed from the aircraft, all the different pages that explain how every system in the plane is doing, all built in. That's why it's called Fusion. And then we had our landing gear assembly.
Dan:So where the old plane had small sponsons where the gear tucked up but not quite into the aircraft, for the Canadian contract they redesigned full enclosures into the aircraft to improve its efficiency range. Those are important ones. We had a hatch built into the top of our aircraft. So we had a requirement that if this aircraft dishes into the ocean that we would have a top hatch to escape out of and that our airframe would be strengthened in certain ways to demonstrate that it was more likely to survive, ditching into the ocean. So couple examples of very significant, design changes wound in the aircraft.
Bryan:Yeah. And just for the listeners, I had the opportunity to have a look at that synthetic vision yesterday when we went for a flight and it absolutely blew my mind. It was amazing. There was some haze and especially if we were looking into the sun, into the haze, like you couldn't see the mountains in the distance. Just for fun, I clicked it on and it was like, there's the mountains.
Bryan:Like, they're right there. It's amazing. It's it's gonna I think at some point, it'll probably save lives. And certainly, it will reduce the amount of attention that a crew has to put into are we safe right now and have more of an ability to focus on the search or the job at hand. Absolutely.
Dan:Anecdotally, I tell crews because I'm still marveling at it, we'll land and I'll say, you just can't imagine the front end how much more situational awareness we have in this aircraft than the Herc and the Buff. I mean, it was a it's a bit of a dark art how you make sure that you are absolutely certain you're safe. This one is just it's literally on the TV and it's in your heads up display. It's right there. It's incredible.
Bryan:Luke, one of the reasons the Kingfisher stands out is its sensor suite. Can you tell us about how the Kingfisher performed with four eighteen Squadron in the National Search and Rescue Exercise or SAR X twenty twenty four?
Luc:Absolutely. We had a newly qualified search and rescue crew during that exercise, And then we had multiple SAR fixed wing assets from across Canada involving the h model Herc Jace, and we also had fixed wing aircraft from the US Coast Guard. And we ran two separate scenarios where there were lost hikers or hunters in the wilderness. And we're all a bit nervous to see how how the Kingfisher would perform because it was very it's still at the initial stages. Not super well trained crew, like, just minimal training.
Luc:Yep. It was on both scenarios. It on each of them, it took the Kingfisher crew ten minutes on the first one, eleven minutes on the second scenario. The second quickest aircraft, it took them thirty minutes. Another one, perhaps around forty five, and all of the other aircraft, like eight of them, they never found the both targets.
Luc:Wow. Which is super impressive. It wasn't a fluke. It was done back to back. And that really that was kinda like a a TSN turning point where all of a sudden the narrative started to improve, where we saw the capabilities of this aircraft, that it was just so much better and superior than traditional SAR aircraft to to find Mhmm.
Luc:A missing person or vessel or aircraft.
Bryan:Yeah. It kinda showed how the game is is changing with the evolution of these sensors.
Luc:Absolutely. Yeah.
Bryan:Francois, operationally, how have those sensors performed so far in the early missions that Kingfisher has flown?
Francois:Yeah. We've done a handful of missions already, a few post, 05/01/2025 and two before the May 1. And all of those missions used sensors one way or the other in some sort of capacity. The the most recent ones that unfortunately had no positive outcome because the two bodies had been had drowned. We're talking about a person in the water who had gone overboard from a vessel.
Francois:Their heat signature wasn't able to be detected, but the the kingfisher was there. They had all the sensors out there, and and they they did lines. And if a body with even minimal heat signature had been at the surface or on the shoreline or just subsurface, they would have found it. Mhmm. Another positive example of a unfortunately, a body recovery was a tasking back in March where the cormorant and the kingfisher collaborated.
Francois:The the cormorant hoisted a person out of the water that that person had unfortunately been deceased. The the cameras and the detectors of the Kingfisher easily detected that person in the water even though that person had been in the water for a few hours.
Luc:Mhmm.
Francois:And and very recently, the and we can talk about it a bit later on if you want specifically for that mission, but the the plane crash up in Northern BC where we had one survivor, the the pilot, the the Kingfisher was instrumental to the rescue operation of that.
Bryan:Okay. Yeah. And I'd love to get into that in a bit. Dan, what sensors did past platforms have compared to the Kingfisher? And what about its competitors when we were still choosing an aircraft?
Dan:So in the past, our fixed wing aircraft had the ability to search for radio frequency or to search for an emergency locator transmitter. So anything emitting frequency, we had a needle essentially in the aircraft. We kind of term it now as an electronic search And then we searched visually. So that was it. Those were our two abilities to search in the old aircraft.
Dan:And this one adds in more than one thing actually. So our sensors are a combination of this one adds in electro optical infrared camera which of course everybody knows is a very fancy and capable camera to look in both the day in low light conditions and then at night. It can use different cameras. And then we have the ability with the same tool to laser illuminate. So if people are on night vision, we can point things out on the ground, which is a tool that we add.
Dan:We also have a dedicated search radar, which is like adapting, I guess, maritime patrol aircraft radar capability into our aircraft to find and interrogate targets faster, particularly in the water, but we're learning to use it on land too. So we have that very fancy search radar and we have AIS, which is essentially for the aviators like Mode C or your What do we call that? Transponder? Your transponder. Well, commercial traffic also has to have transponder.
Dan:So we have the ability to communicate through those transponders. So we can pick the ship out immediately, its information, title, and then text back and forth. So we've added those sensors into the mix. As far as the idea of what do people have around us, I would say we're a front runner as far as I can tell, you know, from my experience. And we've had a fair number of chances to interact with other militaries.
Dan:We're out in the front. I mean, we're taking it as far as can go adapting these tools and focusing them primarily on SAR. I think, there are only a couple other organizations like, the Spanish Coast Guard Organization, I believe, SASMR, something similar, but they don't carry SAR techs and get ready to actually jump and deploy. They just use those sensors. Yeah.
Dan:So we're in the front.
Bryan:That's awesome. Yeah. Luke, another great feature of the Kingfisher is the ability to train wholly in the sim, which you yourself did to get qualified on the aircraft. I had a chance yesterday to try the non motion sim, and I was super impressed. What does the full motion sim fidelity like?
Luc:Perfect example I can give you is, well, as you know, I flew helicopters my whole career. The last time I flew a plane was in 02/2008. I did all of my training for the Kingfisher in the simulator. And then a few months ago, on my first flight, I was flying and I asked my AC, I'm like, hey. Are you nervous?
Luc:I haven't flown
Dan:I haven't landed an aircraft since 02/2008, which is a long time ago.
Luc:And they're like, nope. I'm like, okay. Well, I was a bit nervous. But anyways, you go and I landed and it was honestly 98% accurate just like the sim. Like, even the little bumps and the way that the the yoke feels and the and it was identical.
Luc:I it blew me away, and it's very realistic. Yeah. It's a great, great tool to have the train. You know, another example is I flew an approach. A while ago, kinda messed it up.
Luc:I got behind the aircraft, and I was a bit mad at myself. I'm not used to having to lose all that altitude, you know, being helicopter always low, and then we're coming in at 20,000 feet. Anyways, I got to go in the sim the following day. I programmed myself at the exact same spot, same altitude, and then flew the approach and went way better. So it's a great learning tool to have in your back pocket in your backyard where we can utilize when we when we need to.
Bryan:For sure. And, I mean, there's just some stuff that you can't train in the airplane that you can do in the sim, like, especially emergencies and things like that that especially with a high fidelity sim, it's like an amazing training tool.
Luc:Yeah. Absolutely. Our crews will be much safer for that reason that we get to to simulate actual, life threatening emergencies, which you can't you can't do in the real aircraft. It'd be too too dangerous. So it's
Bryan:Not with any fidelity. Exactly. Yeah. And we've kind of strayed into this, but what is the good for and what needs to be seen in the aircraft?
Luc:For a pilot's perspective, I believe the sim is good for every transport and SAR maneuver. Where you need the real aircraft experience is some of the some glitches or comms with ATC aren't the same sometimes or some of the vibrations are a little off Comms, sometimes we don't always have Sartix on board, so having all the cons with every crew member, dealing with other traffic for real.
Bryan:Yeah. So, like, sort of some of the stuff that forces you into, like, airmanship decisions.
Luc:Exactly. Yeah. Those are some differences.
Bryan:Okay. Yeah. Because, like yeah. I guess, like, a sim is gonna be you can make it pretty realistic, but ultimately, real life is what really throws you those curveballs.
Luc:Yeah. We still need both, but the majority is all done in the in the sim, which saves time on the aircraft.
Bryan:Yeah. And and for listeners, this is standard practice within, like, airlines, for example. Right? Like, people literally get completely qualified on the sim, and their first flight is their first time on the line. Like, they don't go and WestJet doesn't have a training fleet of aircraft that they burn a bunch of gas and maintenance and all that stuff training pilots.
Luc:Yeah. We're we're just catching up to the the private industry, I would say.
Bryan:Yeah. For standard practices.
Dan:Maybe I could add a teeny bit to that. Just for the someone out there who might be thinking critically of the idea that, yeah, but they're just taking off and, you know, their mission is take off, fly to, you know, a to b and land, you know For
Bryan:the airlines.
Dan:And that's what gives them the ability to go sim to plane. I'll say that our training, almost half of it is mission simulation. So the back enders are actually linked in from their own simulator and we beat them up in the sim with full mission scenarios and like run all the way through their tactics and in their interactions with the other crew members. So kind of a neat way to say we can take a sim to the next level and get them basically mission ready.
Luc:It's getting there. You don't need very much real flying.
Bryan:Yeah. And that's huge because, like, in the Aurora world, we had a mission simulator, which was pretty good. And they had sort of mocked up a flight deck, but it wasn't actually like, it wasn't a simulator. Like, it had some visuals and stuff, but it was almost like a flight sim, like a game. And the there wasn't a super high fidelity in the cockpit.
Bryan:Like, we had a really great full motion flight sim, but that was not connected to our mission simulator. I think this is like that next big step of having, everybody in the crew being able to be in a high fidelity simulator. Like, that's huge. Absolutely. Francois, we've been talking about why we picked the Kingfisher.
Bryan:How has the transition to the Kingfisher impacted four four two squadron on the ground?
Francois:Well, operationally, this aircraft is a game changer. We we've stepped into the twenty first century. We've modernized what SAR is all about. The the legacy platforms, both the Hercules and the Buffalo, made sense back in the the last twenty, thirty, forty years. But now we've stepped in to modernizing how the search of the acronym SAR is implemented.
Francois:The Kingfisher can now essentially detect, interrogate, investigate victims within minutes to hours. They can pinpoint a location, bring the helicopter, the rescue helicopter into location within minutes and within square meters. So it's a game changer. Air crew who have been reluctant and even ground crew have been reluctant to work on the Kingfisher, the moment that they stepped onto that aircraft and stepped back off of it after a couple of hours, were instantly convinced. This was highly needed for Canada, for the variety of topography, the large, land mass and ocean mass that we have.
Francois:So definitely very beneficial for the SAR enterprise in Canada.
Bryan:Yeah. And that's kind of going to be a theme today is basically like, like you said, there's there was hesitancy. There has been rumors. We're going to discuss a lot of kind of some of the things that need to be overcome and some of the rumors that did or didn't have any substance to them. But that's going to be the big theme is kind of like, you know, why are obviously something's going on here that or not something's going on, but there's a reason that everybody who interacts with this thing is like, oh, I'm I'm a believer now.
Bryan:Like, like I said, I was absolutely floored by my experience on the aircraft yesterday. Like, it's a very, very impressive platform.
Francois:Yeah. I think just humans are resistant to change. Mhmm. So that that was probably one of the factors.
Bryan:For sure.
Francois:But as soon as we tried this aircraft and operationalized it and implemented it, everyone is convinced that this is the way to go for SAR.
Bryan:Perhaps you can all address this. In early April, a CTV news article was widely circulated that criticized the removal of legacy h model Hercules from the West Coast, claiming that the military quietly pulled the aircraft. In fact, an Ottawa based defense analyst claimed that Canadians were now at increased risk. Can you tell us if this was true?
Francois:I can take this one. Sure. Yeah. Yeah. Definitely fake news, honestly.
Francois:When I saw the article, it was almost laughable because there was there was no there was no meat to that article. They were they excluded many facts. It was a false narrative. They said that we quietly pulled out, which it was anything but that. If anything, public affairs officers and leaders at all levels were super transparent about this change.
Francois:We sent letters. We communicated to all the relevant SAR stakeholders, whether they were partners, provincial agencies, fisheries entities. Anyone that would be impacted by the potential change of SAR coverage had been communicated to. So we stayed very transparent about communicating the situation. And what was the situation?
Francois:It was in January, the C-130H was removed from Comox due to several reasons, but that came with some some strategies to make sure that that coverage was maintained just alternatively. So, a, we were able to respond from Winnipeg with the CC one thirty h. They still fell under the SR commander of Victoria. B, we had the ability to return to Comox with the h model if needed because we still had technicians here. We still had tools and and all the support platforms.
Francois:Serviceability in Winnipeg was actually better because now they had a pool of more depth of aircraft. So their their availability for SAR coverage from a total aspect was was heightened. The CH one forty nine, the Kormorant, had a an elevated SAR posture during that time frame just to make sure that the coverage was taken care of, and unofficially, we consistently had backup crews as well on the Kormont to make sure that if a second aircraft needed to be launched, a second Kormont aircraft had to be launched, we had the capability to do so. And the Kingfisher was actually able to be launched. So officially, of May was the operational date, but actually two SAR launches were prosecuted before the May 1.
Francois:So so, yeah, that that that was essentially fake news. The SAR coverage was modified, but there was no gap to it.
Bryan:Right. So basically a nothing burger. Like, somebody made a big deal out of something that maybe they didn't fully understand or I won't I won't speculate as to motivations and and all that kind of thing, but it sounds like, what was presented was not really what was going on.
Francois:Yeah. They just didn't have they didn't include all the facts.
Luc:They didn't paint paint the full picture.
Bryan:Yeah.
Dan:And some points were just wrong, which
Francois:was Yeah.
Dan:Exactly. Trust Like, I read the news and I love the news. But in this case, someone was, had their facts wrong.
Bryan:Yeah. Yeah. And the reason that I bring this up is just because I think that article, from what I saw anyways received a fair amount of like I saw a lot of people sharing it. I saw it on on Reddit and various, platforms. And I just thought it would be important to kind of bring up and give you guys a chance to address that.
Luc:Thank you.
Bryan:Yeah. So let's talk about training and building up a force that can operate the Kingfisher. Luke, what is four eighteen Squadron's role in preparing aircrew to operate the Kingfisher?
Luc:So we are currently able to take new ingrads and new aircraft technicians and bring them up to the level where they can perform operations or get aircraft serviceable so that they can go and conduct these operations, as well as taking folks who are trained on other airframes and convert them over to the Kingfisher where they can also be called to via JRCC and and Canucks' rescue operations and missions.
Bryan:So, basically, your role is taking aircrew, whether they are straight out of their wings train air aircrew and ground crew, whether they're straight out of their trades training, or whether they're on a another fleet and converting them and making them, operationally ready to to, use the kingfisher use and maintain the kingfisher.
Luc:Exactly. You said it, better than myself.
Bryan:Okay, guys. Just for time, that's where we're going to take our episode break. We will pick up in the next one, picking Luke's brain about how the crews have been trained. Again, guys, just thank you so much for having me here on location in Colmox. It has been such a blast.
Bryan:Alright. That wraps up part two of our chat with Luc, Francois, and Dan. Tune in next week as we finish up our chat going through all the considerations of how the aircrew are trained as well as going through and addressing every rumor I could find about Kingfisher and the problems it has had. 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?
Bryan:You can reach out to us at the pilotprojectpodcast@Gmail.com or on all social media at at pod pilotproject. And be sure to check out that social media for lots of great videos of our RCAF and mission aviation aircraft. As always, we'd like to thank you for tuning in and ask for your help with the big three. 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.
Bryan:Thanks for listening. Keep the blue side up. See you. Engineer, shut down all four. Shutting down all four engines.
