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Bryan: 00:58

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. With me today is Trevor Juby, a retired RCAF lieutenant colonel and current base chief pilot with Powell Aerospace in Curacao, and Pat Lalonde, a retired RCAF master warrant officer and current tactical coordinator and mission commander with Powell Aerospace in Curacao. Guys, welcome back to the show.

Bryan: 01:25

I've been looking forward to this.

Trevor: 01:27

Thanks, Brian.

Pat: 01:29

Thanks, Brian. Happy to be here.

Bryan: 01:31

Listeners can check out part one for some stories about the early days of Pat and Trevor in the RCAF and the CAF in general. They can check out part two to hear about their operational experiences and what led them to PAL as well as some of the general descriptions of the mission with PAL and Curacao. Now for today, in part three, we'll be diving deep into what their mission is, what it consists of, and how they prosecute it. So let's talk a bit about you've mentioned that your primary role is SAR. Let's talk about SAR in The Caribbean.

Bryan: 02:00

So as in any maritime setting, SAR calls happen. Trevor, you've mentioned that SAR is actually officially your primary mandate. Can you tell us a little bit about, how that works on the Dash eight?

Trevor: 02:12

Yeah. For sure, Brian. So we have two Dash eights down here, and then our sister company, Bristow, has two rotary wing assets. And we have one crew that is always on call, ready one as we call it, ready to respond to an operation, and with SAR being obviously the primary. So the the SAR rescue chain goes something like this.

Trevor: 02:39

You know? So we get alerted that there is a missing fishing boat, for example. The dash will be launched for the SAR. We'll head to the last known location through coordination with, the taco in the back, like Pat. He'll be talking back and forth with the rescue coordination center about, you know, what's the what's the size of the boat?

Trevor: 03:03

What does it look like? Where was it last seen? Last port of call, next port of call. All those standard things you'd expect with maritime SAR. And then we start trying to build a picture as we are arriving on scene.

Trevor: 03:15

So we're using non visual sensors to try and pick this target up either by radar or other sensors. And let's say we have a successful SARS, we locate the target. We'll get on scene. We'll get visual with them with our camera systems, probably descend low level to assess if they need assistance. The dash sheets down here have an ability to drop their search and rescue rafts that will inflate.

Trevor: 03:46

We have smoke markers that can be dropped. We have drift markers as well as satellite drift markers that can be dropped. So we are able to get, you know, long distances fast to a to a scene, establish on scene commander, establish what the need is. And then if there is no surface vessels in the general vicinity, we will call the helicopter who will then come in as lowboy. We will climb to unseen commander at a higher altitude.

Trevor: 04:18

They'll wedge their, survivors on board, and then we'll fly back. And, usually, as you've heard the term duck butting, which basically escorting the helo back to base to successful end of a SAR, where the ambulances or further rescue coordination people will arrive at the Haddock Air Base. We actually have a, we have a really cool wooden, board outside of the base. And I'll get I'll get a picture for you so you can put I know that you kinda do some social media stuff. But every year, we keep track of the lives that are saved either through us or through Bristow and and their their crews.

Trevor: 05:02

And every year, it's in the 30 to 40 range of people that are saved.

Bryan: 05:07

Wow.

Trevor: 05:08

So we are very busy. Wow.

Bryan: 05:13

You mentioned that you bring in the helicopter if there's not another surface vessel in the area. What do you think is more common to have to call in a helicopter or is it is it are you often able to work with another surface vessel to affect a rescue?

Trevor: 05:26

Yeah. I mean, Pat, feel free to chime in. But I mean, a lot of times, you'll see the larger tankers, moving, you know, east to west, west to east. And, you know, if we call them while the sea is is that they shall respond to a search and rescue and help us. And we'll try to use vessels like that, especially if it's outside of the range of the helicopter.

Trevor: 05:51

But a lot of times, if, especially, for example, a drifting fishing boat where they may have been drifting for a certain amount of time, we need specialists to to winch down and get them on board immediately so they could be treated.

Bryan: 06:07

Oh, yeah.

Trevor: 06:08

And we have some amazing rescue swimmers, winchmen and winch operators that work at Bristow. You know, some of them coming from British, very very close to our Sartex that we have in Canada.

Bryan: 06:20

Oh, Are there any do you know if there's any ex Sartax there or

Trevor: 06:25

We don't have any Canadian Sartax down here only because I think that they we haven't recruited them yet. But now that they hear this show, they might be giving us a call.

Pat: 06:35

Yeah. Probably just did some recruiting for Bristol there.

Bryan: 06:38

There you go.

Pat: 06:40

No, there is a large amount of commercial, vessel traffic throughout The Caribbean. So in a lot of cases, it's only drifting a or disabled sailing vessel or fishing vessel or any of those things. It's always when it's pretty far as where's my nearest, I can see it in the back of the airplane on AIS or using our radar. And it's never been an issue. It's a call them up on the radio on the emergency frequencies, tell them what I need.

Pat: 07:15

And I've never had an issue to Mariners know what it's like. And they know that maybe sometimes it could be them. Their reaction is always, where do I need to go? What's the situation? And they ask what we need from them.

Pat: 07:31

And they're usually getting to the scene as best that they can. It's always up to the on scene commander to sort out, but I've never had an issue asking commercial vessels to come in and render assistance.

Bryan: 07:46

I feel like that's very similar to aviators in that we all know, like if there's a, let's say an ELT going off, which for the listeners is emergency locator transmitter, You know, we all we all know like, hey, that that could be us one day who needs help. And and so you'll find that aircraft are quite eager to help locate or to to contribute in any way they can when when that kind of situation arises. So I imagine it's very, very similar when it comes to mariners.

Trevor: 08:16

Yeah. You totally agree.

Pat: 08:18

Yeah. It's the exact same thing.

Bryan: 08:20

Trevor, can you share a memorable SAR mission with us?

Trevor: 08:24

Yeah, definitely. So this one this one is one that I'll remember for my lifetime. So coming back from the S S S, remember that's the Saint Martin's Seychaseva patrol to the north. That's takes us usually about two hours, two and a half hours to get to Saint Martin. We'll do a patrol up there, and then we'll come back.

Trevor: 08:49

The mission profile was that we were going to swing south of the islands for a final sweep with the radar and then come in for land. So we've got very little gas left, and, we pick up a contact behind us, probably about 15 miles or so behind us, that we had descended over top and no one had seen, but the radar saw it as it could look behind. So had a very experienced taco on board who's since retired, but he was he was mister Sar. And he, and myself agreed, let's turn around and have a look, see what that is. And so we came in on this position.

Trevor: 09:34

I had to send it down to about five hundred feet, and, we come upon a sand a fishing vessel, and there's six guys standing on top of this vessel waving their hands, waving flags. They are they are desperate, to get our attention.

Bryan: 09:51

Oh, wow.

Trevor: 09:52

So we fly by and, and then of course quickly calculate how much gas we can stay for. And we've got about fifteen, twenty minutes that we can stay there for. So came in a couple of more low passes to make sure that they saw us. We dropped smoke markers to mark their position. And then it just happened that, our navy ship, the West India guard ship was in the area.

Trevor: 10:15

So they we vectored them over, and, they towed them to the closest island, which was Bonaire. And what's funny is that by fluke, we had a deployment to Bonaire the next day, and I was going there with the taco that I was flying this mission on. So we had a chance to go down to the to the dock where they had moored this fishing boat with these six guys and meet these guys. Obviously, they all spoke, Spanish. You know, it was a Venezuelan fishing bark, and they'd been drifting for fourteen days.

Bryan: 10:48

Oh my gosh.

Trevor: 10:49

And they had they had given up. So they were they were very happy to shake our hands and the captain said, you saved their life.

Bryan: 10:58

Wow. That must have been quite a feeling.

Trevor: 11:01

Yeah. It was a great feeling. It's good. Good news story.

Bryan: 11:04

Yeah.

Trevor: 11:04

Those are the type of stories, you know, that you that stick with you. And I think everyone here, on our operation down here has a story like that or probably has more stories than they could tell. And it's it's amazing to see when you have a SAAR spin off happening, guys are guys are ready to go. It's mission first.

Bryan: 11:25

Yeah. Having just I was telling you guys this offline, but just yesterday, I got home from doing a interview in Comox with four forty two Squadron, search and rescue squadron. And the star world is amazing. Like everybody is so mission focused and ready to go all the time. And it's just like such a mission you can get behind and believe in.

Bryan: 11:50

So I imagine that's quite rewarding.

Trevor: 11:52

Yeah, totally.

Bryan: 11:56

So Pat, same question. I understand you have a story involving a sailor from Montreal.

Pat: 12:01

Yeah, that's a good one for a couple of reasons because one, it really highlights the fact that you plan your missions with what you know and then everything can change the moment the wheels are off the runway. At any moment, you'll be doing another mission that wasn't part of your day. And it's also happened fairly recently, so it really sticks out in my mind. So we were tasked to the S S S area for a patrol up there. So we took off, started to climb, we had decided to go high level that day.

Pat: 12:37

And at about 14,000 feet on VHF channel 16, the emergency channel, I suddenly hear Mayday, Mayday, Mayday. And then the guy says the name of his vessel and stops there. No further transmissions, no position, nothing. Just Mayday and the name of his boat. And so immediately switched to SAR mode, the patrol in the S S S is over.

Pat: 13:12

We've got a Mayday call to respond to, but I have no idea where this guy is And I'm at 14,000 feet. So my radio reception range, the area of probability is massive. And so I call on the radio, I call on the radio for this guy and no response, no response, no response. Well we got to find it. This is the search part of search and rescue.

Pat: 13:38

So we talked to the crew, we investigated a couple of possibilities that didn't turn out to be him. So what do we do? Worked it out as a crew, came up with, well let's go based on what we know and we'll go search over here and if not we'll go to over here sort of a plan with the absolute limited information that we had. So it was a standard patrol that instantly became a completely different tasking. We were lucky that some of the assumptions that we made turned out to be true and we found this catamaran that matched the name, within thirty minutes of starting.

Pat: 14:26

Found him, yep, that's the guy. Buzzed him at low altitude to get his attention and he came up on the radio and I said, hey, this is Dutch Guru and Coast Guard patrol aircraft. My name is Patrick. What's going on on your boat? And he's telling me, you know, he's taken on water.

Pat: 14:45

He doesn't have propulsion. The seas are rough. So set up. Okay, are you hurt? You know, assess the situation.

Pat: 14:55

Called a cargo ship that was the nearest one was still a few hours away. They said, okay, we'll head that way. They're on their way. I contacted the rescue coordination center to try to get a plan going, apprised them of the location, the situation and talked to the gentleman on the boat who was by himself. He was ascertained that he's a guy from Montreal, French speaker, so I started, he was excitable.

Pat: 15:26

I started talking to him French because that's my first language in French and then I coordinated a plan. We've got a cargo ship coming. I talked to the rescue coordination center. We figured out that it was in range of the helicopter. So I talked to him, said, what do you wanna do?

Pat: 15:43

We can if the helicopter comes out, you'll have to abandon your vessel. And he's like, yes. I want off of the boat. So we kept an eye on, kept an eye on him to make sure because he said he was taken on water. So we wanna be ready for anything.

Pat: 16:00

As Trevor said, you know, can drop life rafts. So if this catamaran starts really sinking, this may turn into a raft drop situation. So get the crew ready, talk about review the procedures and stand ready for that. The helicopter came out. We had good communications with the helicopter.

Pat: 16:21

They knew exactly where to go. And it's one of those textbooks. Then I called the guy on the radio again and I explained to him, this is what the helicopter is going to going to do when it arrives. Somebody's going to winch down to you. Do the following things and get ready for them and make sure that he understood what that process was going to be.

Pat: 16:45

And it went flawlessly. The helicopter showed up. They said they asked me what the situation was. I briefed them, told them that I briefed the guy on the boat about how it's gonna go. And then we made sure that we stayed ready while the winching happened and we watched this guy get winched off and then escorted the helicopter all the way back to Curacao.

Pat: 17:14

It's one of my most recent rescue events, but it really sticks out in my mind because as soon as we took off, our entire mission changed. And that's what I love about flying here, that you plan a mission,

Bryan: 17:26

you

Pat: 17:26

brief a mission, you take off and you go into something completely different.

Bryan: 17:31

Yeah. Which is very similar to the Aurora world. I'd like, you I mean, not not as much, like, because it's we weren't primary SAR as you guys are down there, But it's kind of one of those things where you just never know what you're gonna get in an eight hour patrol.

Pat: 17:45

Yeah. And it it's always like that. Every single flight will bring something will bring something new. Some days you're flying just north of the island and you get retasked and you have to go all the way by Trinidad. Some days you go north, you're working near Dominican Republic or you're a standard patrol.

Pat: 18:06

It's the standard six hours, you're completely bored out of your mind and all of a sudden a call comes and it's absolute chaos, and you have to worry about helicopters, warships, and you start making a plan because you're you're gonna be out of fuel. You need another crew to to come out. It's the the dynamic nature is is what keeps me at it.

Bryan: 18:28

Awesome. Let's get into some of the counter drug operations. Pat, as the tactical coordinator and mission commander, what is PAL and the Dutch Coast Guard's overall mission during counter drug operations?

Pat: 18:41

For us, it's mostly detection and tracking and then helping to coordinate what we call the end game. So the interceptions, that's the long and short of it.

Bryan: 18:58

Okay. How does it feel to go from being a sensor operator to conducting the mission as the commander?

Pat: 19:05

For me it was sort of the next logical career progression. I had been a brand new sensor operator, sensor operator supervisor, readiness and standards evaluator and deputy flight commander. So it was sort of the next flying career leadership, career progression. If I had stayed in the Air Force, I think that would have been the next logical step. So that's essentially what I did, but as a civilian as opposed to a service member.

Bryan: 19:40

Okay. How do you feel your previous experience helps you to do this well?

Pat: 19:45

Well, everything I did in the Aurora led to to this moment because it's very much a crew effort. Here we have a crew of four. In the Aurora, had a crew of 10 or more. So I was already used to working and leveraging a fair number of crew members even when I was a lead sensor operator on the Aurora. So everything that I did and all those hours, I had four thousand five hundred hours on the Aurora before I stopped flying.

Pat: 20:18

I made it possible to do this job here and do it fairly well.

Bryan: 20:24

Yeah. That's a lot of hours, by the way. Congrats on that. Thanks. Trevor, you are the base chief pilot for Curacao.

Bryan: 20:32

How do you feel your previous RCAF experience has helped prepare you for this role?

Trevor: 20:37

Well, to be honest, when I when I left the RCAF and came down here, I felt like I'd left one military for another. And I was just on an outcan exchange. Many of our SOPs are actually based on the Aurora, including the SAR drop pattern

Bryan: 20:51

Okay.

Trevor: 20:52

Which made my transition down here pretty easy. It's funny when we when I was being demoed the the drop pattern for our survival rafts, I quickly realized I'm like, this is this is the SCAD pattern. Somebody somebody stole this from the Aurora guys, didn't they? And that, you know, it made my transition happen quite quickly. And then, of course, working with different countries, flying with NATO.

Trevor: 21:21

I mean, we lived in, Germany right on the border with The Netherlands. We were in Holland all the time. I understood the culture. I understood the the operation. And and it was, you know, coming from the Aurora, coming from the, from the AWACS operational into an operational unit, it it just seemed like the an easy transition.

Trevor: 21:41

And we are fully operational down here, which makes things exciting and interesting as Pat has mentioned.

Bryan: 21:49

So what would you say is similar and what's different from those experiences?

Trevor: 21:52

Yeah. While there's many similarities actually between the flying for this operation down here and my time in the military. Our operation ultimately here is a business, right?

Bryan: 22:02

Right.

Trevor: 22:03

So ensuring we're providing a service to the client while moving forward, you know, with an operational mindset. It reminds me of when I was flying MPATs and Comox at 407. And one of the patrols we used to do was called the inner patrol. Pat will remember these, you know, was the shipping and fishing areas in and around Vancouver Island. And when you were tasked with an inner patrol, you knew that there was literally hundreds of contacts that you're going to be tasked to identify.

Trevor: 22:34

And this was before we had the MX 20. So you had, you know, sensor operator sitting over the first officer's shoulder, taking pictures, and we take pictures of every single contact to identify them. And then Powell Aerospace, was flying their King Airs out there. They started to be tasked with the inner patrol area, and we'd be sent to the outer patrol area where the Aurora really would show off its distance. Right?

Trevor: 22:58

But I remember Powell had an AIS receiver onboard their aircraft, and they could complete this inner patrol area with a King Air in a fraction of the time it cost compared to the Aurora.

Bryan: 23:09

Yeah. I just wanna explain to the audience that an AIS is essentially like a transponder for ships.

Trevor: 23:15

So I remember thinking, even back then that this company is working smarter, you know, and not harder. Yeah. And now we are down here, flash forward now to we got these two highly modified dash eights with cutting edge ISR capability, with agility and flexibility that is not possible for the changes that we can do in the RCAF. So it's it's interesting to see the differences, but the parallels are there.

Bryan: 23:41

Yeah. How would you say your role as a pilot on the Dash eight compares to your role as a crew commander on the Aurora?

Trevor: 23:48

It's actually very similar. I'd say it aligns more with the maritime patrol captain, and the tackle fills the role of the the MPCC, the crew commander. But our aircraft captains here are very much like, aircraft captains in the military, where they're, they're we're self dispatching. They do all their own flight planning, weather no TAMs. And then they're they're fully into the tactical picture, eating the taco, to employ the aircraft while ensuring the crew is is safe.

Trevor: 24:19

You know? We we trust the aircraft captains very much where we can deploy them pretty much anywhere in The Caribbean, North America, and know that they'll adapt to the changing conditions. And that's that's something that we trust all of our aircraft captains in the military to do, and I think it's, it's really cool that we can do that.

Bryan: 24:36

Yeah. Can you briefly describe Joint Interagency Task Force South or Jayad of South to us please?

Trevor: 24:45

Yeah, for sure. I'll keep this as unclass. Yeah. So JAVS South as we, everyone calls it a joint inter agency task force. It's located in, Key West, Florida, Naval Air Station Key West.

Trevor: 25:02

And their job is to detect and monitor D and M operations throughout the joint operating area down here. So through this joint operating area, and they facilitate interdiction of of counter drug. It's both in support of their national security as well as partner national security. And countries that are included, Argentina, Brazil, Canada, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, the DOMREC or Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, France, Guatemala, Honduras, Jamaica, Mexico, The Netherlands, Panama, Peru, Spain, Trinidad, Tobago, and United Kingdom.

Bryan: 25:48

Wow.

Trevor: 25:50

So that's a that level of, effort needs a coordination cell that is as robust and as large as the people involved.

Bryan: 26:01

Shows you the importance of the mission that that many countries are taking part and cooperating together.

Trevor: 26:06

Exactly.

Bryan: 26:07

Yeah. Pat, can you give us a brief overview of the role of PAL within JF South?

Pat: 26:14

Yeah. Sure. So for us, it's, it's about what the, the client requires. From a PAL perspective, the client sets the mission. If they say today, you're tasked to support Jide of South.

Pat: 26:31

A company and as company employees, that's what we do. Me, as a mission commander, it just changes who I talk to on the other end of the radio. Frequently we'll be previously planned tasking to Jahad of self, but sometimes they're re tasking. We just get that from the client and we respond accordingly.

Bryan: 26:58

Pat, can you tell us how a PAL Dash eight is crewed for these missions?

Pat: 27:01

Yeah. So we are operating on a crew of four. So two pilots, a sensor operator and a tactical coordinator, a mission commander. In the past we used to run crews of up to six, with visual observers, but that stopped well before I came here. So right now it's three on most flights, three of the crew are PAL employees, the pilots and the sensor operators.

Pat: 27:32

And other than myself, the tactical coordinator mission commanders are actually, from the clients, which are all, from the Royal Netherlands Navy.

Bryan: 27:43

Okay. Trevor, Giant of South manages to seize about 10% of the annual flow of cocaine through the area. Is that a target they aim to meet, and are they hoping to increase it?

Trevor: 27:55

Yeah. So that's that's a sensitive topic for sure. So while there's still various trafficking routes to Europe that still exist, transshipment through The Caribbean, including through the European territories, here down down here in this area, is a region of growing concern for sure. And as, you know, as we know, The US has been pretty much the de facto market for cocaine, originated from South America, from our southern neighbors, you know, since it became really popular in the sixties, but a decline in US cocaine consumption in the past decade, you know, as long as we bring in these synthetic drugs like fentanyl and etcetera. It's kind of left an opening in the global narcotics market, you know, with high levels of supply.

Trevor: 28:45

So Europe is one of those, more profitable new markets. It's pretty much the best I can say there, Brian.

Bryan: 28:52

Yeah. No problem. So Pat, recognized maritime picture or RMP is an essential concept to knowing what is out there on the ocean and finding vessels. Can you explain what this is and how it is used?

Pat: 29:05

Okay. So building the RMP is, of course, job number one where when we go out in the patrol, it's all about identifying who is there, what everybody is doing and comparing if it's legitimate activity or if it's not legitimate or anything that warrants attention. So that's why we're out there patrolling and identifying everything, comparing the information that we get from various sources and comparing what we get from our onboard sensors and being able to deliver to the client, here's what's happening, during the last six hours in the patrol area that that you selected.

Bryan: 29:49

So it basically provides an overview of the vessel activity within the area you've been patrolling.

Pat: 29:54

Exactly. That's exactly what we do.

Bryan: 29:58

Trevor, what is important for you as the search area is approached? What are you doing during this time?

Trevor: 30:05

Okay. So approaching a search area for a known target of interests, and this could be, you know, this could be search and rescue. You're looking for a missing fishing boat. This could be a missing diver in the water. This could be a a target of interests that we've been relayed by some of our partners.

Trevor: 30:23

You change the way you obviously approach the search area, but if this is something that I don't know what it is, and there's times where we'll get contacts that we don't know what they are, initially. So we'll always approach with covert status with stealth, and we'll use our long distance sensors as we've spoken about how we how we use this, ISR sensor fusion, you know, when we're conducting surveillance. So we try to stay beyond the visual range until we establish what it is, and then we can close, gain more details as required.

Bryan: 30:59

One thing I remember from, the Aurora is that as we kind of approach into the search area, one of the first things you do as a pilot is evaluate the primary swell, the wind direction, that kind of stuff. Like, are you still doing those basics when you arrive in the area?

Trevor: 31:15

Yes. For sure. That's something that I still do still do to this day when we take off. Because in Curacao, the, the runway is pretty much on the North Coast. So as soon as you turn left bank, out, you're out over the water, you know, and as you remember, the higher an altitude you get, the better you can see the primary swell or the secondary swell, which is predominantly coming from east to west because our trade winds here in The Caribbean move from east to west.

Trevor: 31:43

But it does change. And for sure, we wanna know what is our best, ditch heading and where would a survivor in the water be drifting? Where would a boat without an engine be drifting? Exactly.

Bryan: 31:56

Yeah. Now on the Aurora, we were always thinking about our prudent limit of endurance or PLE, basically how long we can stick around before we go home. How important is fuel management during these missions and who's keeping track of it?

Trevor: 32:11

So fuel management is done, by the pilots, but I mean, GoodTacos, also have an idea when they make their flight plans and push them to us in the front of how long roughly that flight plan will go for. Yeah. Memory time patrol flying by its nature is is usually far away from anything. And pilots are constantly watching fuel, adjusting fuel mirror calculations, you know, determining if we can save fuel at different altitudes depending the type of mission we're doing. If we're orbiting a target, for example, then we can drop a little bit of flap.

Trevor: 32:50

We can burn bring those burn rates right back. This Dash eight one hundred is an amazing aircraft for for sipping gas when you need it to. So, yeah, it's pilots doing it majority of the time Okay. In support with the crew.

Bryan: 33:06

Yeah. And basically, like, the taco would have an awareness of how much playtime is left.

Trevor: 33:14

Exactly. And a lot of times, depending where we are in the Caribbean area of operations, maybe your refuel location is not your home base.

Bryan: 33:22

Okay.

Trevor: 33:23

Maybe, maybe it makes more sense to, to go and land somewhere else and get gas and then go back out or to return or to launch our Ready one aircraft because we've something that's really cool that I hadn't done since the military with the Aurora was, was hot handovers, you know, and, passing off, say a search and rescue contact because you're out of gas, but you've got relief from your second aircraft And he can come in, he can he can give a hot hand over to him. Yeah.

Bryan: 33:55

Yeah. Like if you're in a SARS situation and the ship that's coming to aid is gonna take a while to get there, that kind of thing.

Trevor: 34:03

Exactly.

Bryan: 34:04

Yep. What kind of special challenges do you run into with weather in The Caribbean?

Trevor: 34:11

So the majority of the time, the the weather is quite nice. You get spoiled somewhat, you know, not having to worry about icing and going to deice in the Deice Bay, things like that. But we do get, the rainy season, that comes through, and we do get thunderstorms that can develop quite quickly down here, as you can imagine, with the daytime heating and the, you know, huge amount of moisture in the area. One interesting, thing that is really handy for our location here is that we're south of the hurricane normal tracks. So when you see the hurricane start to form over the Atlantic and they start that that spin clockwise spin, they usually will swing up into, you know, the East Coast Of The US and Canada and any of those Caribbean islands, which is why our location down here is is important because we can sit here and be ready to help, in a disaster relief.

Trevor: 35:13

But let me tell you, it starts to get pretty hot in, Patil. Patil agreed to this, August, you know, September time frame when those hurricanes start to form, they rob the trade winds from down here. And, I know people are gonna roll their eyes when I say it gets too hot. When you're pushing into the the high thirties wearing full gear and flying, flying the aircraft, it it gets warm down here for sure.

Bryan: 35:39

Oh, yeah. I, it's no fun. It's no fun when the humidity is high and the heat's high and you're in a full on flight suit trying to do your job, especially when you're doing ground checks and stuff. It it gets hot for sure. Yeah.

Bryan: 35:54

So how much coordination is happening between the pilots in the front and the folks operating the mission in the back? Are the pilots very involved in the mission, tactically speaking?

Trevor: 36:03

Yeah, very much so actually. We have a lot of experienced, guys down here in Curacao and working in a format team to ensure mission success. It just it only makes sense that you're all working together. And because we're not all military background, the input from all the members is essential because sometimes you'll get good ideas from guys that don't have military background that other people hadn't thought about. And so, yeah, very much so, the whole crew is is working as a team to to satisfy the mission, whatever that may be.

Pat: 36:37

Yeah. We we we've got high levels of experience positions from the captains to the first, even the first officers when they come here from different backgrounds. All our sensor operators have been doing this for many years themselves, like over a decade for most of them.

Trevor: 36:55

So

Pat: 36:55

there's nobody that has a monopoly on good ideas, which is absolutely great. And that's how we get through the missions. Everybody has so much background, to to complement each other, that, these coordination amongst the crew happens almost naturally because we've all been through it in in one capacity or another.

Bryan: 37:22

That's awesome.

Trevor: 37:24

Yeah. And the kit on board, of course, makes it easier too, right? Like we we have the ability similar to the Aurora, to relay the, what the radar picture is to the cockpit, what he's seeing on the MX, what the taco wants us to see. It's the fusion of the sensors between the front and the back is excellent. So it increases your situational awareness.

Bryan: 37:51

Which is huge.

Trevor: 37:52

Yeah.

Bryan: 37:54

So Trevor, Powell has a 99.8% reliability record. What does that mean exactly? And what do you credit that record to?

Trevor: 38:03

So when I left when I left the air force, I saw those numbers and I was like, wow, that's those are those are crazy numbers. So dispatch reliability, mission reliability. So dispatch reliability means that 99.8% of the time, the the mission was it took off on time.

Bryan: 38:24

That's crazy.

Trevor: 38:26

Yeah. This is mind blowing. Right? And in 99.8% of the time, mission reliability, you satisfied your mission for the length that you're scheduled to do and you landed on time, which which is, which is impressive in itself. Yeah.

Trevor: 38:41

And I mean, I've I found that to be such a big difference coming from the military. And I spoke before about, you know, ultimately being a business company. Hal's very, very motivated to deliver a service, to the clients. And so we have set mission timings where we have set points throughout the pre brief, where we need to be here at this point. We need to be briefing at this point.

Trevor: 39:07

Our goal is to be in the aircraft, you know, checklist complete, starting engines at this point and, and doing it safely yet efficiently, which is somewhat of a I'm not saying the military is not efficient, but they're also not

Bryan: 39:22

But that's not a primary goal necessarily.

Trevor: 39:24

It's not a primary goal, exactly.

Bryan: 39:28

Safe and effective is our goal.

Trevor: 39:29

Safe and effective, exactly. But if you can be safe and effective, both at the same time, then you can move towards these numbers that Pal's been able to achieve. It's also a testament to our our mission and maintenance support, you know, like, some of these dash eight maintenance personnel down here I've met in Curacao are the best I've ever seen anywhere, like, both military and civilian. Like, they have relationships with the aircraft. Right?

Trevor: 39:56

They they know them like old friends. So they, our our chief engineer down here, he he talks to the planes. I'm sure he does. He's he's a good he's a good friend of ours, but they they're very, very good. So, I mean, that obviously helps in keeping those type of numbers when you have good support behind you.

Trevor: 40:13

Right?

Bryan: 40:14

Yeah. For both of you, as we come to a close on this discussion, what is something that everyone should know about the work PAL is doing down in The Caribbean?

Trevor: 40:24

You wanna go first, Pat?

Pat: 40:25

Yeah. Okay. For me, it's like everyone should know is that it's incredibly dynamic, and it absolutely makes a difference. Trevor alluded to the number of rescues that we put on the board at the entrance to the station. And the success of every single mission is something that we all sort of internalise personally.

Pat: 40:50

And the dynamic nature of it and how rewarding these missions are is something that I don't think a lot of people realize that we do every day down here.

Trevor: 41:05

Yeah. And it's it's great, Brian, that you're bringing a little bit of exposure to us down here. Just like Pat said, what we're doing, and I think this is what everybody wants to do when they're when they're doing missions is to make a difference. Right?

Bryan: 41:20

Yeah.

Trevor: 41:21

And the coast guard motto down here actually that we have on the side of our aircraft is Samen Stirk, which translates to together strong. So I find it really rewarding, you know, to be working hand in hand with the Dutch Caribbean coast guard, bringing the latest tech to ensure we basically effectively employ air power where and when they need it. And then, you know, we're doing it together as a team and we're making a difference.

Bryan: 41:50

Yeah. That's great. So we're getting down to our closing questions that we always ask. Can you each share something you do that you would say is essential to be ready to do your job?

Trevor: 42:03

Go ahead, Pat.

Pat: 42:04

The answer to that is it's a mindset thing. So when I show up for work is just you can't have the blinders on. Today the mission is this. You just have to go in with the mindset that anything can and will happen during your flight and just be prepared. The the old cliche, you know, expect the unexpected.

Pat: 42:28

If you go with that mindset on every flight, you're you're prepared for what we do down here.

Bryan: 42:34

It's so interesting that you say that, Pat, because I had an almost identical answer from the SAR cruise in Comox. And you guys are primarily in SAR, so it's very, very interesting that you say that.

Pat: 42:46

I've been on missions where we've done the full gambit of everything that we do in the span of an eight hour flight. We've gone from a regular patrol to rescue, to a go fast and then back again. You just go in with the mindset that I'm flying for eight hours today, I don't know what I'll be doing. And that way you're a 100% prepared for what's coming your way.

Bryan: 43:10

Right on. How about you Trevor?

Trevor: 43:14

I'd say, one thing I do before I go flying is I kinda, I guess I'm more glass half empty. I run a mental checklist of things that can go wrong. I specifically look at what I call the centers of gravity and emission, you know, so things like an engine start, things like taxiing on a congested ramp, takeoff. Like what's the worst thing that could happen? You starting an engine, you could say engine fire, or what's the worst emergency I could have on a takeoff today based on the weather conditions.

Trevor: 43:47

So I'll run that emergency through my mind. I'll assure I'm comfortable with my initial actions. And then if anything does happen, then you kind of have a framework for how you'll handle it already.

Bryan: 43:59

Yeah. So basically just kinda covering your worst case contingencies. Yes. Exactly. Yeah.

Trevor: 44:05

And I've I've found it's served me well.

Bryan: 44:07

Yeah. That's fair. Trevor, what would you say makes a great long range patrol pilot?

Trevor: 44:14

Yeah. So long range patrol pilots and crew are definitely a little different. Right? Spending long hours over the water with little to no diverts that are at least close to you. And knowing, knowing if a serious emergency happens, then you and your crew are the ones that'll handle it alone with, with no help from outside agencies.

Trevor: 44:36

And, and it could very well mean that, you'll have to dish that aircraft in the ocean. I had a good a good friend of mine, he's retired at Comox now. He was my very first crew commander when I got to 04/2007, one of the legends of the mag world. I'm sure you know him, Brian, Joe Sussex. Joe Joe's a great guy.

Trevor: 44:55

Joe told me once, if you get an emergency, enjoy it. Enjoy your emergency. You don't get them all the time, so so take your time, think, and then act. And, I think that's advice that's great to remember for any of our long range patrol pilots out there. And really it's it's advice that any of our air crew could think of.

Trevor: 45:18

Enjoy your emergency, take your time, think and then act.

Bryan: 45:22

Right on.

Trevor: 45:23

The quality or what makes great long range patrol pilot, I think is someone that can think, think on their feet and solve problems in dynamic situations.

Bryan: 45:33

Yeah, I would agree with that.

Trevor: 45:35

Similar to what Pat has said is that, you know, you can, you can take off and your mission can change. Your mission can change several times. I've had, I've had flights where I've had the mission changed three times on me from, from something like an anti narcotics that switched to a search and rescue, and then switched back to a, another patrol. So it's it's thinking on your feet and then being able to think of those dynamic situations I think makes a good long range patrol pilot for sure.

Bryan: 46:05

Yeah. Pat, what makes an excellent mission commander either in your current setting or within the RCAF?

Pat: 46:12

I think it would be the same for for both the RCAF and the type of work that I do now. You know, I think back of the people that were tactical coordinators and the people that were crew commanders back in my Aurora days, and they all had the same similar traits that I see now that are needed in this job. And we've alluded to earlier, it's just that ability to think on your feet and constantly reevaluate what you're doing and war game in your own head. What if this happens and what if that happens? And also just not be afraid to not know what to do and reach out to your crew.

Pat: 47:07

Nobody gets through this alone. And the people that do well are the people that are engaged with the experienced crew members that you have and come up with a plan as a team. It doesn't happen without a team. So it's just that ability to admit to yourself that you need other people and think on your feet is absolutely the number one skill somebody in this job needs to have.

Bryan: 47:35

Yeah. I totally agree that the team relying on your team and using that as a resource is is massive. Like I always used to say that my job when I was a I I didn't get a ton of experience as a crew commander, but I did upgrade to crew commander. And I always used to my philosophy was that my job was not to know everything. My job was to get all the information I needed from all my experts and then make a decision.

Pat: 47:59

Yeah, exactly. You don't have to know everything, you got to know the people that know the stuff you don't.

Bryan: 48:04

That's right, yeah. Yeah. If each of you could give a newbie in your trade a piece of advice, what would it be?

Trevor: 48:13

Yeah. I would say I would say study study hard. Learn your aircraft. Understand how she works and why she won't sometimes. Because when things go wrong, which they will, take a breath, think and act.

Trevor: 48:33

Enjoy your emergency.

Bryan: 48:37

How about you, Pat?

Pat: 48:38

Well, what I would say to a new guy coming the trade is treat every opportunity that comes your way as something that will benefit you in your career later on, whether you know it or not. So don't be in a rush to say, no, I don't want to do that. Just somebody says you're going go on this course or you're going to go on this deployment or this exercise. Just start at yes. And because you never know how that will benefit you five years down the road, ten years down the road or twenty years down the road when you find yourself in a different role or in a different job somewhere else, is treat everything as an opportunity and just do it.

Pat: 49:24

That's how you're gonna be better at your job and open up even more doors for you down the road.

Bryan: 49:32

Yeah, that's a great piece of advice for sure. Okay, guys, that is going to wrap up our chat on your work with PAL and the Dutch Coast Guard doing SAR and counter drug work in The Caribbean. I wanna thank you for the important work you guys are doing and thank you so much for taking the time to make this show happen. Thank you guys.

Pat: 49:51

Thanks for having me, Brian. This has been a lot of fun.

Trevor: 49:55

And thanks Brian. Very much appreciate the exposure you're getting to the aviation community and industry. This is a great podcast. I'll keep listening.

Bryan: 50:04

Thanks. Oh, and fly safe, guys.

Pat: 50:06

Always. Always.

Bryan: 50:08

Alright. That wraps up our chat with Trevor and Pat about search and rescue and counter drug operations in The Caribbean with the Dutch Caribbean Coast Guard and PAL Aerospace. For our next episode, we'll be sitting down with a Sartech and an aircraft commander from a Tsar Hercules who took part in a dramatic rescue of an Air Tindi flight in the Northwest Territories. You don't wanna miss this one. Do you have any questions or comments about anything you've heard in this show?

Bryan: 50:33

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 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.

Bryan: 51:00

That's all for now. Thanks for listening. Keep the blue side up. See you. Engineer, shut down all four.

Bryan: 51:09

Shutting down all four engines.