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um elevenation switches on for bm switches tvv switch is Normal, doors and hatches. Close, lay down. Strobe light on. Restart check is complete. Your left, engineers, start number two.

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pilot project podcast, clear takeoff from Wing 311.

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All right, 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 Skies Magazine. I'm your host, Brian Morrison.

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With me today is my comrade from the phase two Harvard course in Moose Jaw, Major Brian Humza-Kilroy, CF-18 Hornet pilot, as well as current senior national representative for Canada and qualified instructor on the T-346 at the International Flight Training School in Italy.

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Speaker
Brian, it's awesome to reconnect with you. Thank you for taking the time to be here today. Yeah, happy to be here. Today, we will be talking about Brian's career in the RCAF, as well as the lead in fighter training program or lift in Italy.

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Speaker
But before we jump into any of that, let's go through Brian's bio. Born in Grand Prairie, Alberta, Major Brian Kilroy spent his childhood in Stony Plain, Alberta before continuing on to post-secondary education at the Northern Alberta Institute of Technology, or NAIT, and the University of Alberta and joining the CAF in 2006.

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Speaker
The son of an RCMP officer, he had his first aviation experiences on RCMP transports and military service Air Hercules aircraft, which sparked his interest in a career in aviation. His mother also encouraged this interest as she too was a huge aviation fan, bringing him to air shows throughout his childhood where he even had the chance to see the CF-18 demo.

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Speaker
It was these early aviation experiences that inspired him to follow his dream of becoming a fighter pilot. Brian later joined the Royal Canadian Air Cadets in Stony Plain before deciding to pursue his dream of flying through the RCAF's regular officer training plan, graduating from the University of Alberta with a degree in chemical engineering.

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Brian began his flight training in 2008 at 3 Canadian Forces Flight Training School in Portage-la-Prairie, Manitoba. At the end of Phase 2 flight training at 2 Canadian Forces Flying Training School in Moosejaw, Saskatchewan, he was selected to fly jets and was given the opportunity to attend the Euro-NATO Joint Jet Pilot Training Program, or NJEP, in Wichita Falls, Texas, where he would go on to fulfill his lifelong dream of receiving his RCAF pilot's wings.

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In 2013, following his CF-18 Hornet course at 410 Tactical Fighter Operational Training Squadron in Cold Lake, Alberta, Brian was posted to 409 Tactical Fighter Squadron at Four Wing Cold Lake as an operational fighter pilot.

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In 2015, he helped reform 401 Tactical Fighter Squadron when it was reactivated as the second operational CF-18 Hornet Squadron at Four Wing. Brian was a four-ship lead and qualified electronic warfare instructor, and in 2017, he was posted to 410 Tactical Fighter Operational Training Squadron, where, using his combat and operational experience, he began training the next generation of CF-18 pilots. In 2019, Brian was selected as a CF-18 demonstration pilot.

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He conducted the CF-18 demonstration at numerous airshows across Canada and the U.S. He also flew multiple heritage flybys with the CF-18 in historical warbirds. Brian has actively trained throughout Canada and the United States with the Hornet and has served on NORAD missions across Canada.

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He has also deployed on international operations, including NATO's Op Reassurance, and has served on two separate Op Impact tours as part of the CAF's support to the global coalition to degrade and ultimately defeat Daesh in Iraq and Syria.

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In 2018, he had the honor of leading Canada's last CF-18 Hornet combat mission on Op Impact. He is currently posted to Deci Momonu Air Base in Italy at the International Flight Training School.

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Major Kilroy is the senior national representative for Canada, as well as a qualified instructor on the T-346. So let's talk about your early days. Brian, your bio mentioned you got your start in aviation through your parents. Can you tell us about that?

00:04:35.39
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Yeah, for sure. It was um just from childhood early on. There always seemed to be some interest in you know aviation in the family. There was other other members, you know, ah my grandpa had flown previously. there were um There was also just in general, anything that was loud and fast. Like I remember growing up, we'd go to ah the sprint car races just outside Edmonton.

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Those were always exciting. And, know, as you mentioned in the bio, going to the air show. So it was always something that I enjoyed seeing, you know, these displays of jets, whether it was a snowbirds or the CF-18, anything interested, anything like that interested me. So it really, really kind of just was in the back of my mind the entire time growing up, but it wasn't something I was, you know, thinking I'm going to be a fighter pilot.

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And when I grew up, it was just, it was always something that, uh, I thought about doing, but hadn't really given it as you, you know, as you do when you're just a young kid, not really thinking ahead.

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You just, that's cool. That'd be fun to do. But it wasn't until I got a little bit older that I started to seriously think about it. And, uh, even at graduating high school, I still wasn't quite sure what I was going to do. That's why I went to Nate.

00:05:52.28
Speaker
There was a, you know, some good job opportunities. But I thought, no, this is this is the time if I actually want to pursue this. I got I got to focus now, go to university, get my degree, and then I can give it a shot. And I could always go back to my degrees later on if I didn't want to do it or didn't like it.

00:06:09.57
Speaker
Yeah, that makes sense. um What was it that inspired you to pursue this interest in aviation by serving in the CAF? Like you mentioned that it was kind of like ah an idea, but eventually you got serious about it. What made you start getting serious about it?

00:06:23.03
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ah I mean, it was general aviation. I always find interesting, but it doesn't really give me the same thrill that, you know, jets do. So, yeah, I never really thought about going as like a general aviation route and just go into the airlines, even though, you know, I had flown ah ah few different small aircraft.

00:06:43.65
Speaker
ah Growing up, ah my uncle had a little ultralight I got a flight in, and I always found them fun, but it wasn't something I was, you know, desperate to go do. I wanted to go in something that, you was fast, pulled G's, and did some sort of mission.

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And even if it didn't end up being fighter jets in the military, at least the mission set for the other fleets were more something that interested me. So it wasn't... It wasn't just the aviation in general. It was also the sort of whole ah type of flying that was being done by the CAF.

00:07:14.86
Speaker
Yeah, like that mission-focused flying. Yeah. Yeah, that makes sense. Let's talk about your early flight training. Well, you mentioned you had a little bit of previous flying experience before joining the RCAFA, like just flying in your your uncle's ultralight?

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Just a few times with him. ah And through the cadets, I got a chance to go up in the gliders a few times. I was never, you know, never got my... glider license pilot license through them but I got a chance to go up in gliders and I can't even remember what it was Cessna helicopter ride a few different things along the way so I didn't have any you know base for flying experience but I had a few exposure flights.

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Speaker
Okay so you were kind of that that classic you were what the program was built for basically someone showing up with with very little to no experience and and just building a pilot from there. Yeah, exactly. I just assumed I knew it all, but going in going in cold pretty much.

00:08:11.78
Speaker
Oh, man. ah So you attended phase one flight training on the Grove during the summer of 2008. What did it feel like to arrive at your first flight training course in the RCAF? ah That seemed like a it was finally starting to happen. It was you know excitement, a little bit of hesitance, like, what have I got myself into? Because it's ah even previously in the military, going to boot camp and stuff, it didn't really seem like I was on that path yet. But this was the first time showing up.

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Speaker
There's planes on the line. People are walking around in flight suits. It's like, okay, I'm here. We're starting this journey. So it was... both exciting, but also a bit overwhelming because I'm sure as you remember, even just something to give you the checklist, sit you down like, okay, you have to memorize all these startup checks and you look at the pages and think, oh, this is going to be a daunting task.

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And that was just for something basic like the grobe that doesn't have the startup checks that the Hornet has. So it was really, you don't know what you don't know. And then you're just getting into it and realize there's a whole world out there that I've never experienced. Yeah.

00:09:15.52
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Yeah, for sure. I remember. So I skipped phase one. But I remember um somebody sent me the checklist like a month ahead of time before phase two. And I was reading through the Harvard checklist. And like, what does this stuff even mean? Like, I didn't understand any of it. And then I found out that most of it was supposed to be memorized. And I was just like, how am I ever going to do this?

00:09:34.87
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I still feel like I wasn't prepared, although I was prepared as you can be as a student going for your first flight, but I still remember feeling like I wasn't prepared at all. I wasn't going to remember the checks. But then once you start going into it, it's those hours of you know practice you did in your room beforehand.

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And it just kind of happens. ah Make mistakes, obviously, but surprising. You almost surprise yourself what you're able to start to go through because it's not a ah small trickle of information there. It's definitely ah start feeding it to you pretty quick.

00:10:04.97
Speaker
Yeah, absolutely. What was your first impression of flight training in the RCAF? it was It was definitely, i mean, I thought the Grove was basically a jet at that point, because compared to the ah the aircraft I was in before, and it was...

00:10:18.89
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it was a whole community that I'd never really seen outside of, um, like sports teams and stuff where you you'd get together and you'd work hard and then have a, you know, enjoy your Friday night together and then back at it, studying together on the weekend, prepping for missions Monday morning.

00:10:34.79
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And it was just something I hadn't seen, at any of the sort of university and civilian side jobs I'd worked. And I'd gone to a civilian university, ah so I didn't see the same thing that some of the guys would have seen at RMC, for example.

00:10:49.57
Speaker
Yeah, for sure. um I felt a bit of the same having graduated from a civil civilian university. There's a bit of a culture shock arriving at flight training and immersing yourself in that world.

00:11:00.07
Speaker
Yeah, absolutely. So once you graduated university, it was time to attend phase two flight training at 2CFFDS, affectionately known as the Big Two in Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan. Now, you already knew you wanted to be a fighter pilot by this point. Did you go into this course feeling a sense of competition for those slots?

00:11:18.14
Speaker
I wouldn't say competition because I didn't know you know how many slots there were going to be, how many people wanted jets. So I wasn't feeling like I was competing against other people, but it definitely felt like there was you know self-induced pressure to perform because there's a minimum grade that you have to get. So every time it was a check ride, I always felt like there was some pressure to get that minimum grade. Yeah.

00:11:41.81
Speaker
Otherwise, um between ah other squadron members, I wouldn't say it felt like we were competing for the same slots. I know um some people felt that way in the past, but it never seemed like that to me.

00:11:53.30
Speaker
It was just more i was trying to make it through the best I could, just because I knew that if I didn't perform, then that door would be shut right away. Yeah. Yeah, it's funny you talk about slots. I remember and and not knowing how many people wanted it. I do recall or seem to recall them asking like, who wants this? Who wants that? And everyone's putting up their hands for various things. And at first, there was like a good chunk of the course that had their hands up for jets. And as the course went on, like less and less people still had their hands up for jets. Like they were finding out what a challenge it was.

00:12:24.26
Speaker
Yeah, it's definitely a different lifestyle than some of the other flying inside and outside of the CAF. Yeah, for sure. How did you find flying the Harvard II?

00:12:35.75
Speaker
Well, then when I went from the Grove to the Harvard 2, now that felt like a jet. yeah It was a whole step up. you know You're sitting now tandem as opposed to side-side. And it seemed like just the fastest so airplane that was out there at the time. um you know you're You're just trying to get your brain to process everything at that speed. Because by the time I got to phase two,

00:12:56.92
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ah The 30 hours I did on phase one were already pushed out of my brain because I still had one more university and some OJT I had done prior to that. So I didn't remember any of the flying skills.

00:13:08.13
Speaker
um So it felt like kind of starting from fresh again, ah remembering a few things, but it definitely... felt like a big jump that we're just going from, ah you know, previously a piston in engine aircraft now up to a turboprop with all the extra intricacies and complexity involved with that.

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Speaker
And the maneuvering got a lot to more aggressive and ah interesting in my opinion compared to previously. Cause you know, after you start to learn all the basics, I remember my first, we had a bad weather day and we did an actual missed approach.

00:13:46.90
Speaker
I have diversion. And my brain was just exploding, even though the instructor was just talking me through the whole time because the, you know You don't have that many hours flying instruments at that point.

00:13:59.40
Speaker
And it just seemed like it was almost an overwhelming task. But then for sure with time, it started to get a little bit to little bit more comfortable and then add in some of the interesting flying, like formation flying, little bit more aggressive maneuvering. So yeah it felt like we're always making progress, but it's still, you know, you're chipping away at a giant iceberg. It just, it was hard to see the end at that point.

00:14:22.26
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, i totally agree. And the other thing too, talking about performance is we started flying like in the depth of winter. So with that cold air, those things that were like climbing like rocket ships, like it was crazy.

00:14:37.72
Speaker
Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, i remember some of those first takeoffs and it just, you immediately forgot everything you tried memorizing. Yeah, and all like the altitude restrictions before the end of the runway and all those various rules. and It was so much to try to remember. It was crazy.

00:14:53.55
Speaker
And for any any of the yeah listeners out there that had gone through that training as well, they'll remember having to figure out all the the visual points, old wives like, coming back to the pattern and everything like that. That data um was quite ah quite a different change compared to...

00:15:11.64
Speaker
the the little bit of flying I had done beforehand. Yeah. Now we were on the same course as we've mentioned in Moose Jaw. I think we did a really good job of balancing fun and hard work. What was your philosophy on that back then? And has it changed?

00:15:25.14
Speaker
Yeah. um Philosophy definitely changed because the fun for me now is different than back then. I've got a family. So the fun for me now is when the kids go to bed and I can just sit in some peace and quiet and watch a bit of TV.

00:15:38.13
Speaker
ah But back then, you know, it's nice just to go out to the mess with everyone, enjoy some drinks on Friday night and then decompress from the entire week, you know talk about all the new things, complain about all the things we didn't like. I think it's a,

00:15:52.77
Speaker
you know ah pretty much an international hobby for pilots. Yeah. And then just having Saturday free and then back, back to it, back in the books on Sunday.

00:16:03.81
Speaker
Yeah. And that was the same for me. Like, and that's kind of, I think the recommended pattern for most people at Moose Jaw is basically like take Friday night off, relax on Saturday, get back to it on Sunday and then go hard all week.

00:16:16.78
Speaker
Yeah. And, being with a bit of an an international community there too. I remember a few trips. We did one ski trip out to the mountains with one of the Hungarian students or a couple of Hungarian students. So a chance for them to experience some of the things that we've experienced was also a lot of fun to bring that sort of international flavor, which has been true, I guess, through all my kind of training is that international training piece.

00:16:43.06
Speaker
Yeah, and i I remember really enjoying that ah between the Hungarians and the Italians in our flight. It was really cool interacting with those people from different cultures. Yeah, yeah, it definitely was, and I'm getting to live that again here.

00:16:57.50
Speaker
Yeah. We talked a little bit about the self-induced pressure based on your desires to be a fighter pilot. How did you deal with that?

00:17:07.33
Speaker
ah I guess there wasn't probably... um The best way. I mean, sometimes you would just let the pressure kind of build up and then ah you would get frustrated frustrated and just have to ah kind of temper your your emotions sometimes.

00:17:26.64
Speaker
But a lot of times the best strategy I found was just talking to the other guys, especially on Friday night. And that's half of ah half of what it is, really, that sort of team cohesion is you can just – go to them and be like, I don't know what happened on that flight. was completely tumbleweed the entire time.

00:17:45.27
Speaker
I couldn't find, you you know, the, ah the route I was off my altitude. You can, you can go and they can sympathize with you and vice versa. So it was, It was one way of outletting it ah compared to just you know completely internalizing it. But sometimes it's hard to not let it build and get frustrated. And then you know that that leads into nerves for your next flight.

00:18:08.61
Speaker
So if you keep keep letting it stack, then it just builds and makes your performance worse. So you the the Friday night get together and just talking about your your week was a good way of doing it.

00:18:19.58
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, for sure. So you were selected to go Jets and conducted further training in Moose Jaw for the Phase 3 Harvard course. Can you tell us briefly about Phase 3 on the Harvard? Yeah, so back when I went through, it was it wasn't named Phase 3 Harvard. That's what they're calling it now.

00:18:36.91
Speaker
And they changed that not too long after I went through. So at the time, ah there was two streams that you would either go off to the Hawk or down to the T38 on NGEP. So after Phase 2, what I did was called Phase 2 Bravo, which was kind of a um the same ah you know The same aircraft, the ah Harvard, but then you would go a little bit more advanced on the maneuvering, flying, ah just to bridge that gap between phase two and what at the time was phase three on the Hawk, or as I went to phase three in NGEP. So it gave...

00:19:14.39
Speaker
It gave a little bit more of a knowledge base and a little bit more experience before we went down. And then on top of that, knowing there was a few different areas that the phase two down in the US had that we didn't have, they added in like an extra low level sortie. And I think there was an extra, you know, ah formation flight, just a few things to, again, even top off that skill base, which then morphed eventually into the phase three Harvard.

00:19:44.33
Speaker
So at the time, it wasn't a wings course for myself and the a few others that had gone down there. So we went down and did the phase three on the T38.

00:19:55.14
Speaker
And that was our wings course. Right. And as you said, we were still using the Hawk or the CT-155 Hawk for our early jet training. um You did go down to the Euro-NATO Joint Jet Pilot Training Program or NJEP in Wichita Falls.

00:20:09.92
Speaker
Why were we sending Canadians on this course at the time and why do we continue to do so today? So the NJEP program, it's actually ah a really good program to be a part of. And Canada has for a long time been a part of this. We're one of You know, it's a NATO program.

00:20:25.74
Speaker
ah So there's countries, most, maybe you don't want to say most, there's ah multiple NATO countries down there, ah quite a few from different communities that would send, or sorry, different countries that would send students, but not all st sent students at all all times.

00:20:42.61
Speaker
But we've always always had a footprint there. So we've always had at least an SNR down in Wichita Falls. And at various times before I went through, they had sent ah some students for phase two there. So they would send, you know, ah two students at a time, maybe every once in a while, just it both was a good, good to keep our foot in the, in the door there for how training is being done at other places. Cause you don't want to isolate too much.

00:21:10.86
Speaker
Then you can lose a bit of the bigger perspective and, There's usually good ideas that can be taken from how other countries operate and interoperability that you're still teaching essentially the same thing. So it's always been good from that perspective.

00:21:25.88
Speaker
And then the other thing is to it allows a bit of a you know overflow capacity. So ah if you have something as large as NGEP, which has you know multiple NATO countries, it's just a bigger footprint than ah we had in Canada. So they they could fit in a couple of Canadians here and there, which would allow overflow if we started to get backed up in Moose Jaw for any reason.

00:21:50.81
Speaker
So that was part of it. And then, so they had a few guys they were looking to take down there. ah There was a few ahead of me, few guys or girls. ah There was some on the course ahead of me, and then there was going to be a couple on the course that I was taken down with.

00:22:06.86
Speaker
And at that time, um they were also looking at some of the size restrictions of the Hawk because I'm six foot two. So the Hawk is quite a cramped cockpit. So they just said, okay, of the guys going jets on your course, ah you can go down there. Then we don't have to worry about potential height issues in the cockpit, which may or not may or may not have been a problem, but it was just the easy solution ah to send me down.

00:22:32.09
Speaker
Okay. And you mentioned their SNR, is that senior national representative? Yes. Yeah, exactly. there's ah It's my counterpart to right now down in NGEP, and there's always been ah senior national representative there.

00:22:45.63
Speaker
Whether or not we have students, we've typically filled that role. Okay. At the time I heard this course was exceptionally tough. Can you tell us a little bit about your experience completing it?

00:22:57.18
Speaker
Yeah, it was ah it was definitely walking into quite a strict ah regime, especially the phase three there. So ah they they do phase two, three, and phase four, or they call it IFF, introductory to fighter fundamentals.

00:23:15.71
Speaker
ah But for the phase three there, yeah you walk in, you're in a flight um with, there was a couple other Canadians, and And then there was a German, Spanish and Americans also in my flight down there.

00:23:28.33
Speaker
And from basically get go, you're there 12 hours a day, every day for the first part of the course, you show up at the, uh, report time. Uh, everyone stands up and the emergencies in the jet, uh,

00:23:41.97
Speaker
down there referred to as bold face. So one at a time, each morning you stand up, you recite your emergency, um, and get it right or get it wrong. If you get it wrong, there'd be a follow on questions, but they'd move down the line every morning. Everyone has to recite one of the emergencies.

00:23:56.95
Speaker
And, uh, then you can start your day. At that point, you're going on the schedule for whatever events you have, ah sims, flights, ground school, whatever it is. And then ah you have to be there for the dismissal at the end of the day. So 12-hour day every day pretty much for the first time I can't remember how long, but I think it was the first third of the course or so it was like that. And then you get a little bit more freedom to come and go later on.

00:24:22.91
Speaker
ah They didn't have the strict dismissal time, but it was still definitely long days. And then you would go back and do some studying in your room afterwards. And it always was, you know, again, that self-induced pressure, but it's a very, um you know,

00:24:39.89
Speaker
fast upgrade as well. It's a wings course on a jet, so they have some high expectations. And um coming out of there, you know it wasn't a guaranteed fighter slot either. You still had to perform and meet expectations. So it definitely was a challenge. And the ah the jet was also...

00:24:58.58
Speaker
quite a step up from the ah Harvard because, mean, T-38, it's an old aircraft. It had been upgraded. We were flying the Charlie version when I was down there. So you had some more ah avionics, but the aircraft itself, if you take a look at that or its ah counterpart, the F-5, like very small wings, ah very fast, a lot of thrust from, you know, compared to what I'd previously been flying. So,

00:25:25.23
Speaker
always felt like you're behind the jet just trying to keep up with what's going on next, what's happening because ah it was ah wasn't something that you know you can really prepare yourself for going from ah a turboprop up to a jet any more than just having to get in there and try and try and do it.

00:25:43.98
Speaker
Yeah, it sounds pretty intimidating to be and to be honest. Yeah. In a new country with the you a bunch of foreign instructors. um So it was, it was intimidating, but again, that's where, you know, getting together as a flight, um you know, the, you would every morning start the popcorn machine. That was mandatory, pretty much unofficial, unofficial mandatory.

00:26:07.44
Speaker
So you'd get together, figure out your day, help each other prepare for the flights and try and learn all the procedures. And again, it's a, you know similar procedures to Canada for just even basic aviation, but you still have to make that to the minor differences start to learn everything as well as all the extra information you're taking on board.

00:26:26.51
Speaker
And a new airbase where a lot of the ah the other squadron members that had flown on phase two there, they were already familiar with ah flying out of ah Wichita Falls.

00:26:37.11
Speaker
So it was a whole new new base, new aircraft, and new everything for us. Did you find there was like pressure to keep a good reputation for Canada while you were training?

00:26:50.97
Speaker
Yeah. um I don't know if it was like ever spoken, but I think that's kind of in everyone's mind. You don't want to um look like, you know, you're lazy or ah not performing because you are, you know, you're not the host nation country there, but you want to look good in front of them.

00:27:11.07
Speaker
But everyone's kind of got that mentality. But I think ah you try and want to make a good impression as ah a foreigner there. Yeah. So next was your CF-18 Hornet course at 410 Tactical Fighter Operational Training Squadron in Cold Lake, Alberta.

00:27:27.43
Speaker
How did you find this course? And did you feel that NGEP had helped prepare you well to fly fighters? So um just even jumping back, I guess, a little bit, ah I'll mention before the 410 squadron, after phase three at NGEP was IFF, which was a little bit of introduction into ACM, basic fighter maneuvers, advanced aircraft.

00:27:51.23
Speaker
combat maneuvers so like your 1v1 your 2v1 dogfighting type thing which is starting to build the basics that's what they call uh IFF and a little bit of air to ground uh weapons deliveries simulated so that was gave us you know a few months more after we got our wings okay of experience going to 410 so um ah going into 410, it definitely felt, uh, again, intimidating it each time. It's just a bigger jet, a faster jet, more to learn, uh, that, you know, more ground checks for startup, more emergencies.

00:28:23.54
Speaker
So even though we got that extra, um, sort of bridge in between the two, which is, uh, the, standard step for anyone going to the fighters, uh, it's still felt like ah massive jump because, um, the, uh,

00:28:39.19
Speaker
you know the Hornet is just so much more capable in every respect, but you know it's not just the speed now that we're talking about and an increase, it's all the other systems. so The time to start up a T38 is significantly less than a Hornet because it's more than just two engines and a few screens that need to go on.

00:28:58.73
Speaker
Now it has to turn on all the other systems that the Hornet has. start to you you know ah In the beginning, you don't have to do all the programming, you don't have to ah check this targeting paw. You don't have to set up any weapons, but they keep adding that. So it's not like your ground checks. You just learn them once.

00:29:15.38
Speaker
At each phase, you have to learn more and more as you go along. And now you're starting to add in ah the weapons of the aircraft, you have to start to learn ah the air-to-air missiles, the air-to-ground bombs, the gun, and how all that factors in. So it felt um like yourre you're on an uphill battle the entire course. It's interesting, but you know I don't remember really having a chance at any point in the training just to sit back and enjoy it.

00:29:41.01
Speaker
wasn't until probably years later that I actually had the capacity that I could start to just enjoy some of the flights for what they are. And not have to be completely focused on trying to get the next thing, ah the next step um on the mission or the overall training in general.

00:29:59.45
Speaker
Yeah, whatever the next checklist is or the next thing you need to be doing, the next task. And that's not to say I didn't enjoy it. But I mean, when you're trying to max perform, ah do your best, it's like saying, did you enjoy that hockey game? Well, you weren't out there enjoying it if you're trying to win and you're going your hardest.

00:30:19.58
Speaker
You know, yeah you enjoy the overall experience, but you're not just having a nice, gentle skate out there. Yeah, you're not out there like, yeah how i don't know how to put this. I know exactly what you're saying. like yeah Yes, you're enjoying it, but that's not the focus. The focus is the the mission.

00:30:33.54
Speaker
Exactly. Yeah, yeah you're you're too focused to enjoy it. Yeah, until and almost until it's over and you can look back. yeah Yeah, exactly. I don't remember half the things I did on 410 just went by, ah just in a bit of a haze there as you're trying to take everything on board.

00:30:48.67
Speaker
Yeah. So after 410, you arrived at 409 Tactical Fighter Squadron again in Cold Lake in 2013. What was the learning curve like there having just come off the Hornet course?

00:31:01.57
Speaker
So finishing 410 was a bit of a relief because that was the first time in the career that was like, okay, I am now actually going to a squadron where I'm going to just be a member of it. I'm not on an upgrade. Well, that's not true. You're always on an upgrade, but I'm not...

00:31:17.93
Speaker
on the student upgrade trying to become a fighter pilot, I can now consider myself a fighter pilot, not a, you know, fully qualified one at this point, but at least I can walk in here with a little bit of comfort that I've, you know, quote unquote made it.

00:31:32.70
Speaker
Yeah. So that was, that was a really good feeling just walking into ah a new squadron but also intimidating because now now you're with the grownups there's there's no one hand holding you anymore ah you are one of the grownups so it definitely was also just trying to get your feet under you figure it out and right away ah you're you're onto the ah combat ready upgrade fairly shortly thereafter, which is your upgrade as a wingman. So you're um you don't need to be a lead or ah know everything at that point, but you're really trying to focus just as the number two or number four in the yeah the formation for whatever you happen to be doing. So it that upgrade kind of mirrored what we went through at 410.

00:32:17.90
Speaker
But again, it's, you know, not trying to handhold at this point, but they're just trying to reinforce everything and get you to the point where you could deploy in an operation if needed. So ah the expectations, although not the same 4.10 where in four ten where you know It's always pass or fail flights.

00:32:38.25
Speaker
um And if you get too many fails, then ah you're immediately cut from the course. But the expectations are like you've graduated, you're on the squadron, you have to perform as a squadron member because we could find ourselves very very shortly after there in some sort of operation or combat role.

00:32:54.45
Speaker
And we expect you to be able to perform at that level. And we're just reinforcing and ensuring we've met that kind of minimum level before we go off anywhere. Yeah.

00:33:05.76
Speaker
it's It's still very... challenging on squadron, but it's not an instructor-student relationship. It's more of a ah you know ah cohesive team with the the senior members and the junior members. Your instructor students aren't separated in the building.

00:33:23.47
Speaker
You're all in the same office. You're doing everything ah together. And then you know one day you might be supporting someone else's upgrade. The next, it might be one of your upgrade missions.

00:33:35.53
Speaker
um So it was definitely a little bit ah even though it was still a stressful upgrade, it was a little bit, i don't want to say relaxing, but um that self-induced pressure was starting to slowly lower as we went through this.

00:33:51.94
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. That makes sense. I think that sounds similar to most fleets that I've heard of. Like once you finally qualify, you get through the OTU, the operational training unit, um you're actually qualified on the aircraft and like there's still so much to learn, but you are some somewhat of a peer now. And like, yes, you're still in a mentorship.

00:34:11.24
Speaker
Like you're the the, what is it? The mentee. Yeah. But you're a peer as well. Yeah, exactly. So it's that sort of, yeah, yeah mentor ah as opposed to an instructor kind of relationship ah with whoever is teaching you for that that day. It's definitely kind of the feel you get on Squadron. and KF Aerospace, Canada's largest MRO and founding partner in SkyAlign for the Future Aircrew Training Program, is proud to be the exclusive North American dealer for the Grobe 120TP.

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Speaker
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00:35:24.10
Speaker
What is the upgrade process on the F-18?

00:35:29.05
Speaker
Jeez, that took probably, um want to say almost a year, but it's not a continuous, you know, every every sortie isn't an upgrade. Okay. But it goes through most, so once I got to 410 and then same at 409 and then actually similar here,

00:35:47.08
Speaker
they all follow a similar sort of syllabus. So at 410 and here in Italy, obviously you have to convert to the aircraft, but after you get those basics out of the way, it's usually starting with ah your BFM, which is your 1v1 maneuvering. So ah your instructor in that case is in the other aircraft and, uh,

00:36:06.10
Speaker
you know, at 410, he would be, you'd have someone in your backseat, but now at 409 on your combat ready upgrade, it's just the instructor is the lead aircraft and he's in the other jet and you set up for that 1v1 fight, whether, ah you know, it's,

00:36:22.48
Speaker
It always usually goes ah offensive. So you start from a position of advantage, ah somewhat behind the other aircraft. Defensive, where they start in a position behind you. And then high aspect, where you're merging neutral. So it's usually a few of those trips each. And then you move on to ACM, which is your 2v1 maneuvering. You have ah your flight lead slash your instructor.

00:36:46.77
Speaker
is in the other formate, the other aircraft, but the same formation as you. And then the red aircraft, the adversary is the third aircraft ah there. And you're trying to get to sort of a two versus one scenario, which ah in theory should make it a lot easier because you're outnumbering them, but it also brings in another layer of safety. Whereas when it's a one V one, you just have to avoid the other aircraft you're fighting. Now in a two V one, you have to keep track of both aircraft and, um,

00:37:15.75
Speaker
do it safely and effectively so it can create. So the lead aircraft and the red aircraft are doing the BFM, the 1v1 maneuvering, and now you're trying to stay above or below the fight to try and shoot into their and kill the red air without affecting ah the fight by, you know, you put yourself in the way of lead that he has to maneuver away, now you've essentially disrupted how his flow is, or it could even develop into a safety issue. So it's just ah a layer of complexity that you have to add on to there.

00:37:48.67
Speaker
And then from there, it usually goes into ah some sort of ah beyond visual range type engagements. So that's It's kind of the inside-out mentality. So now you start employing previously in the 1v1, 1v2, you're employing your heat-seeking missiles now in the beyond visual range. Now you're using the airplane's radar to find aircraft ah with the help of ground-based controllers.

00:38:16.13
Speaker
And with that, then you can try and employ your radar-guided missiles to them. So it's that bigger picture, which now you're talking about maybe – ah two versus two or, you know up to a four ship versus, you know, X number of red air.

00:38:32.78
Speaker
your bigger scenarios, and then those can ultimately lead into merges where it brings back the fundamentals of BFM and ACM. And then after that, then you start bringing into into it all the air-to-ground components. So you switch phases, you go into an air-to-ground mentality, and now you think about all the weapons that you're trying to employ, whether it's the Mark 82, which are just unguided weapons,

00:38:59.65
Speaker
bombs or bring into GPS bombs, laser guided bombs, ah the 20 millimeter gun on the Hornet. And so you'll learn the basics of those at the range doing just basic patterns, dropping weapons, and then you start to build a scenario from there.

00:39:16.45
Speaker
looking at you know close air support. So troops on the ground that could potentially be in some sort of conflict, you're providing support to them you know near the front line, air to ground deliveries, but without contested air picture. So you don't have to worry about any sort of threat from the air.

00:39:33.39
Speaker
You're thinking about the guys on the ground employing weapons in support of them. And then you build out from there, sort of beyond the ah forward line of troops, now thinking about air interdiction, which is employing weapons into ah contested airspace behind enemy lines.

00:39:49.67
Speaker
So now that brings into the whole beyond visual range air air employment with now all the weapons employment air to ground, that sort of strike fighter capability that the Hornet excels at.

00:40:01.29
Speaker
So you have to kind of meld all of those together into one, um you know, final phase where you're going to see ah you have to shoot ah some red air down on the way in that are trying to,

00:40:13.39
Speaker
ah protect the hostile airspace slash ah ground forces, then you have to go in, employ your weapons, and now ah potentially there could be some sort of threat on the way out that you have to fight your way out of the contested airspace. So it really brings in ah all the pieces by the end by the end of any of those upgrades, which is really the culmination of the each of the courses slash upgrades that you're going through.

00:40:40.65
Speaker
Wow, that sounds like incredibly intense by the end. Super, super complex. Yeah, it to it leaves a lot lot of room for error. So you really have to... would get... to before any mission.

00:40:55.32
Speaker
It's quite a long process. you're gonna You're gonna mission plan for it as any fleet does, brief it, and then you're gonna just debrief ah everything that you can to pull all those lessons learned done on the mission and go through. So we would sit down, watch like the top down overview of the entire fight, ah watch all the lines, see if everyone was performing their air to air, air to ground ah correctly.

00:41:19.92
Speaker
Then you move on to the actual ah review of your your tapes. So you could see if you're from the HUD in your screens, if everything was done properly, how you're either shooting air-to-air or in the air-to-ground employment, because some of it, you know, your target, you might not even have...

00:41:39.04
Speaker
ah exact coordinates on. So you have to use the targeting pod to look around, try and find your target while operating in this contested environment. ah So how is your air to ground targeting?

00:41:51.39
Speaker
Did that match up but with what you mission planned? And then ah when there was any sort of pop up threats, how did you react? So the even just one flight was pretty much ah an entire day's effort.

00:42:03.90
Speaker
um And then it was immediately into planning for the next day. So it definitely, anytime you're on an upgrade flight or part of an upgrade flight, there was some fairly long working hours just to have have the ah whole scenario come together.

00:42:18.89
Speaker
Wow. There is a lot to these flights. Yeah. Yeah. And that's, I think why, you know, it's it's not for everyone. Yeah. I'm not sure that would be for me, to be honest. like that's it's like The flying itself sounds amazing.

00:42:32.97
Speaker
But holy cow, what a what a ton of work to put into a single flight. That's crazy. Yeah, and it was so you know I was young and I didn't have kids at the time, so I could devote a lot of time on the squadron. Definitely, as experience grows, so your capacity, your bucket is ah opening up. So um as as long as you're keeping up um with that ah sort of learning curve throughout, you're never really over-tasked. You're just always kind of on the edge until you get quite a bit more senior.

00:43:06.37
Speaker
Yeah. So this is pretty interesting. In 2015, you helped reform 401 Tactical Fighter Squadron when it was reactivated as the second operational CF-18 Hornet Squadron at Four Wing Cold Lake.

00:43:19.99
Speaker
What was the reason for this reactivation and what did the task of reforming an operational squadron consist of? So I was ah moderately junior at the time. So strategically, I'm not sure the decision, but from the sort of tactical squadron level, what I could see and felt is when I first went to 409, it was, you know, the only tactical squadron in Coal Lake and it was a big squadron and and it didn't feel like we were really want just one squadron because of the size um and being the only one. And then the,

00:43:52.89
Speaker
ah counterpart in Vagaville being the only other squadron ah you couldn't just do something as a squadron because um one of the main roles of the you know of the Hornet is QRA like the NORAD Defence of Canada So it wasn't, that was never a mission that you could just put on pods.

00:44:13.62
Speaker
That's always happening. So you'd always have people um manning the QRA with the jets ready to go if there's ever a need for them. So you always have a little chunk of the squadron doing that. And, but you know, that shift works. So ah those guys... can you just explain what QRA is? ah Quick reaction alert. So that's your jets guys ready to go. Think of, ah best example would be...

00:44:36.62
Speaker
um firefighter you see the bell goes and they all, ah we didn't have a pole, unfortunately, to slide down, but but that equivalent where you have to scramble to get your gear on.

00:44:48.66
Speaker
um You get launched in some direction, you don't know which way you're going to intercept an aircraft or respond to, you know, maybe a Russian incursion ah of a bear bomber in the north or whatever the mission may be.

00:45:03.94
Speaker
um So that was always, ah you know, you'd have crews ready to go for that. Crews always manning the QRA facility.

00:45:15.34
Speaker
And that kind of took a little chunk of the squadron away. And you wouldn't see them even on their off days because you'd either be there for a full shift or back home ah resting on call essentially to go back in.

00:45:29.68
Speaker
ah So there'd be a chunk taken away from that. And then, you know, we're still doing those upgrades on squadron. The first one being the combat ready upgrade. ah So there'd be guys at the squadron doing that. And then you'd have someone say on a, you know, an exercise schedule,

00:45:45.61
Speaker
ah down in the States or you know off somewhere else that you're now just pulling chunks of the squadron away. So it never felt like we were all there at the same time usually.

00:45:57.66
Speaker
So one thing, one big note thing I noticed is once we actually split into two squadrons, it made a big difference in sort of keeping the whole squadron together. Because now one squadron would be in charge of, you know, the QRA for a period of time.

00:46:13.20
Speaker
And the other squadron would have a little bit more flexibility. If there was an exercise coming up, you could go as a squadron. Or when you're at home in the QRA, that's when you um just be at your home base ah doing upgrades, everything like that. And it seemed a lot more of you deploy as a squadron, and as opposed to, um you know, just grabbing a handful from the ah squadron and taking them different places, taking jets different places. So it definitely ah was good from me ah just a cohesiveness perspective that we had that smaller, more tight, tight knit group that we always went and did everything as, as a squadron.

00:46:56.04
Speaker
Right on. It sounds like it kind of ah allowed for like a greater level of cohesiveness as a unit. Yeah. Yeah. it And it was also ah really fun experience, um, reforming a squadron moving over there.

00:47:09.57
Speaker
I mean, a lot of the, uh, the admin work was, uh, outside of my purview, but, uh, it was definitely interesting seeing, you know, the planes getting painted up with the new squadron colors, um, setting up in one of the other hangars, trying to make the hangar our own, one of the other squadron members spent a bunch of time painting,

00:47:28.62
Speaker
a depiction on the squadron lounge with uh all the world war ii jets uh from different points in time you know making making that to our new home and just seemed like a sort of a really exciting time to be a part of the squadron something i don't think a lot of people get to really see in their career is you know reforming a squadron yeah can you tell us about some of the favorite exercises you attended with the hornet Yeah. Uh, I mean, we got to do a bunch of different ones. There was always, um, there was something unique about each one. One, i forget to actually the location, but early on, uh, as a wingman, we were on an exercise and it was the first time i ever got to go and do dissimilar BFM.

00:48:12.00
Speaker
Uh, so fighting against something that was, wasn't a Hornet. And in this case it was F-15. So, uh, you know, got airborne, split up our formation. They split up their formation.

00:48:22.53
Speaker
ah And then we would go to a fight zone and do 1v1 maneuvering. And that first time, i mean, I was just barely, you know, ah combat ready, but still trying to learn a lot about the aircraft. And now of a sudden there's a giant F-15 in my face that I'm trying to fight.

00:48:37.89
Speaker
And he's a super experienced guy that's, ah you know, not holding back. i I remember just getting absolutely clobbered under ah by him and just thinking, what happened? And it goes so fast. Yeah.

00:48:50.62
Speaker
Um, but I mean, it's great cause an F-15 is a huge aircraft even compared to the Hornet. So just seeing the size of it, uh, the different maneuverability cause the Hornet handles completely different. So, um, it has, you know, an F-15 has a ton of thrust, uh, whereas the Hornet has more alpha, more angles that can pull.

00:49:10.98
Speaker
So just seeing how the two aircraft fight each other uh, that's you know a big learning uh point in your career when you start to see something else do you meet up with the other pilot after the dog fight like yeah chance to to be like wow that was crazy you brief it together because it's all scripted uh how how the split up and our return to base is going to be and what kind of fights you're going to do and uh i mean the the the fighter language about, you know, maneuvering. Like if someone says we're going to do some high aspect BFM, that's fairly universal, but you know, you, you have to set some just base level safety things that may not be universal. Like what's the starting altitude going to be for this fight?

00:49:56.17
Speaker
How are we going to de-conflict? Cause you don't want to just point at each other and hope for the best. So, you know, is there going to be altitude separation or are we going to separate laterally at merges? um You know, do we have the exact same rules? Is it, to you know,

00:50:09.92
Speaker
no closer than a thousand feet, 500 feet. What's the, uh, uh, the limits for today. um things like that. So there is a whole, you know, it's a more extensive brief than you would even just for two Hornets going up, doing a ah BFM type fight.

00:50:24.18
Speaker
So it, there's a lot, uh, and you're working with these guys when you're on an exercise, um here and there because as different formations, but within, you know, the bigger, ah bigger aspect of the whole exercise.

00:50:38.56
Speaker
But now it's, it's nice to actually get one-on-one with some of them talk about the mission. And then of course, after you can ah debrief everything together, just so that's where the learning points come from. You get a senior F-15 guy telling a junior F-18 guy,

00:50:53.89
Speaker
you know what he did wrong, how a Hornet should fight in F-15 where he has the advantage, ah what ah what opportunities I could have taken to maybe gain the advantage on on him.

00:51:05.88
Speaker
So it you definitely go through the whole brief and debrief process on anything like that. And then other exercises like ah maple flag, and that was exciting ah being part of that, being a large force exercise, which that's where have you have multiple countries bringing different assets,

00:51:28.10
Speaker
and not just fighters, because you try and now integrate like a war wartime type scenario, um and you're having ah large large amounts of adversaries on the red side, and you go up.

00:51:39.86
Speaker
And now it's not just about the 1v1 maneuvering. It's the whole planning of how we're going to get, you know, um call it 20, 30 jets airborne, who's going to be where, how long, because you know you don't have a ton of time um stay airborne with a jet, but do you have air-to-air refueling assets? do you ah Who's going to replace who at each point along this fight? Because you don't want to just everyone turn around to go get gas or leave mid-fight and just leave it wide open. So you have to have you know a staggered ah replacement strategy, thinking about, hey, going to have some guys you know protecting air-to-air, only protecting the strike force. The strike force is going to go in, ah try and get air-to-ground weapons away.

00:52:22.61
Speaker
But what are all the contingencies if you know if the air-to-air offensive counter air is what they call it, if that becomes tied up in an engagement situation,

00:52:33.65
Speaker
Are the strike force, are they going to turn around and try and gain some ground back? Or are they going to become part of the air-to-air fight after they release their weapons? Are they ah now air-to-air players?

00:52:44.83
Speaker
Or are they just going fly out, clear the airspace for the next in the chain and then... ah is there a high value asset you need to protect like AWACS? Or do we have ah you know a C-130 doing a troop insertion or um like ah a medevac that has to have ah you know overwatch type protection throughout this entire engagement? So it's that you're starting to look more.

00:53:09.32
Speaker
Previously, I was talking about the combat ready upgrade for the wingman. you know Then you have your lead upgrades. Now these type of exercises, you have your mission commander type upgrades trying to look at the big picture.

00:53:20.31
Speaker
So that that was really interesting to be a part of that ah early on in my career. And then ah later on, I got to participate in something similar in, I'm sure a lot of people are familiar with ah Red Flag. This one, this takes place, Red Flag Alaska. It's the Alaskan version of the ah ah red flag that takes place down in Nellis. But that was also interesting because they have different facilities. You're now integrating with a whole bunch of other American assets, ah other interacts international assets.

00:53:51.74
Speaker
you know It was the first time i i saw F-22s, part of our you know ah package. We were strikers. They were air-to-air. And you see F-15s, F-16s.

00:54:03.64
Speaker
ah There was Mirage 2000s, a bit of everything taking place there. So it was, it's definitely, you know, you're seeing the bigger picture that, you know, of that iceberg that you initially were just, just at the base of, that mountain you were just at the base of.

00:54:20.48
Speaker
Now you're starting to see the, how everything plays together and how all the roles kind of work together. Wow.

00:54:29.58
Speaker
You took part in NATO's Op Reassurance. Can you tell us what your mission there was and what the tour was like for you? That was so was a very interesting one. um So we were in Romania with the Romanian Air Force, ah who at the time just had MiG-21s. So...

00:54:46.77
Speaker
big twenty ones so but there was an air policing role to it, uh, which, you know, is the NATO component. Uh, at the time we were based at Campia, Jersey, and there wasn't a lot of actual air policing sorties, uh, going on, but the, um, for us at that moment, but, uh, um, it was super interesting because MiG-21 being uh,

00:55:12.13
Speaker
ah Soviet made aircraft. It's one of the ones we often brief to and train to in these scenarios. So it's like, you know, if you're doing a BFM mission or defensive counter or whatever your mission set, you might be like, okay, we have, uh, flankers and, uh, MiG-21s or whatever other aircraft.

00:55:33.62
Speaker
And so for the first time seeing one of those and now get to actually do, ah some of this, um, exercises with the, uh, Romanian air force was very interesting for me. We did, uh, you know, one V one type maneuvering, which that's exactly the kind of training you want to have as, uh, uh,

00:55:52.61
Speaker
you know junior fighter pilot pilot where you get to actually see what an actual Russian aircraft is going to maneuver like and not just have it all you know played by another Hornet or an Alpha Jet saying it's, we'll pretend it's this today.

00:56:07.31
Speaker
It actually gets to see how it flies. so So we did um kind of the same sort of mission sets training wise on Op Reassurance. that we would do back home. But now it's with the, uh, the Romanian air force, which just brought a whole nother dynamic to it. And being in Romania, I'd never been there before. So was super interesting. Uh, just some of the extracurricular stuff we got to do, like, uh, one weekend randomly Billy Idol was, uh, at the city nearby to feel like, hey want to go to a Billy Idol? And, you know,

00:56:38.25
Speaker
Coming from a smaller town, in Alberta, and now I'm in Romania, go and see a Billy Idol concert. You know, it's that whole kind of ah new experiences thing that people talk about when joining the Air Force and getting to fly air-to-air sorties with the MiG-21s. And then ultimately we did get a flight in a MiG-21, which amazing.

00:56:59.04
Speaker
Oh, cool. Fairly, fairly cool to see that, you know, some of the stuff you talk about when you do your intel briefs about these aircraft, like their visibility looking rearward is almost nil. They won't see you behind, behind them, but they have incredible acceleration.

00:57:14.24
Speaker
But when they go to turn, they can't turn, nearly as well compared to, and you know, fourth gen CF-18 can. So just to actually get hands-on with those guys, ah see what their aircraft are like, doing exercises. And then we did a NATO TACOVAL for the base there, which is um kind of an evaluation of their readiness by you know a NATO ah community. So we took part in that doing an exercise ah with them.

00:57:43.89
Speaker
So it it was it was something I hadn't you know expected was even an option to see when I was joining the Air Force. ah And now, you know, here I am flying jets in Romania at night, you know trying to work with the Romanian JTACs, like the ground controllers that would be embedded with an army unit.

00:58:03.07
Speaker
ah You know, they're on ah night vision goggles using... ah their laser to try and direct in my simulated weapons impacts um over some Romanian village ah in the middle of the night ah with some MiG-21s operating over similar areas.

00:58:21.65
Speaker
It was a very cool experience. Yeah, that sounds awesome. So next, let's talk about Op Impact. You did two separate tours on Op Impact flying against ISIS in Iraq and Syria.

00:58:32.47
Speaker
Can you tell us what the Canadian fighters mission was at that time? Yeah. Uh, at the time there we were doing, uh, CAS, uh, close air support, uh, and just air to ground support of, uh, the different, uh, coalition, uh, forces that were on the ground.

00:58:49.88
Speaker
So a lot of it, was JTACs. They would be operating out of a, uh, I want to say a chaos, but I'm not exactly sure the facility, but you'd have a a variety of different countries with your, um, joint tactical air controllers, uh,

00:59:06.92
Speaker
Controlling the air to ground picture there. And that would be, they would have eyes on the ground through, you know, different drones, Reapers, Predators, whatever it is, Global Hawks, whatever happens to be flying over the area or um other aircraft, ISR aircraft that had eyes on the ground.

00:59:24.24
Speaker
And occasionally embedded ah JTAX, but that was less so the case. And what you'd be doing is it would be you know friendly forces taking fire ah from ah locations. And for the most part, you'd be tasked to go...

00:59:40.25
Speaker
ah through a process called a nine line where they would give you all the information, nine lines of information, you know, including what, when, where, ah plus, you know, the coordinates, um everything you need to be able to employ the weapon. And so a lot of missions were just very boring, which is, you know, not a bad thing, um but a lot of times it would just be, because you would always have aircraft over the area of operation. So you'd just go out, you'd be assigned this region and,

01:00:11.92
Speaker
So you'd use your targeting pod, which is, ah if those aren aren't for those unfamiliar, it's the you know basically either infrared or just a basic TV-type camera that you can zoom in and out with um and see everything pretty much going on the ground with ah quite high fidelity. So you you would you know just be tasked to search.

01:00:36.23
Speaker
They give you different locations, you know, suspected something here. We have some activity here. And you would just be looking, ah seeing what's going on, reporting back. And that was a lot of the missions.

01:00:47.46
Speaker
um There wasn't anything, you know, maybe there's some, ah some fire ah being taken, but you know, it's off in the distance. They don't have a precise coordinate. So you just go and investigate. ah But yeah,

01:01:00.27
Speaker
When it did start to ramp up, ah then you would kind of go on high alert and you start to, you get the the tingly that something's actually happening because they start talking about, look here, look here, you know, what do you see? We've got fire coming from this, you know, ah indirect fire or small arms fire towards friendly locations.

01:01:21.11
Speaker
So you would start to follow through and then pretty quick that would develop into, okay, we're going to need weapons on target here. ah So then you would start to ah coordinate between you and your wingman or you and your lead, depending on which role you're taking.

01:01:33.43
Speaker
Okay, how are we going to employ these weapons? What do we have? Because each aircraft, you know, in the coalition has different capabilities, what they're looking for, trying to get weapons on target. And then it would be ah dependent, you know, um can you see them?

01:01:47.53
Speaker
So that, you know, might be able to use a laser guided weapon. if they're If you don't have good eyes on, maybe a drone can... You can drop a laser-guided weapon that a drone could do the lasing in ah for the final impact. Or maybe they have really good coordinates. They were able to get ah precisely where where this is coming from.

01:02:07.41
Speaker
In that case, you don't need eyes on. You could drop a GPS-guided weapon. ah So... The scenarios would kind of build quickly. And you're also having to, you're over the middle of Iraq. There's tankers at various points. So you'd also have to try and manage this with fuel because you don't want to have to um have an emergency fuel situation over the desert there.

01:02:29.31
Speaker
You're always trying to think, okay, how long do I have? Can we... um you Are we going to split up now and maybe one aircraft is going to get fuel while the other one's ah trying to employ weapons? ah Or are we both, is there kind of a ah break now that we're both going to go back, get some fuel? Because it hasn't really turned into a hot situation.

01:02:48.14
Speaker
So we can just get fuel, go back. And it ended up being quite... quite long missions because um we were based out of Kuwait and we'd have to fly to the north end of Iraq.

01:03:01.02
Speaker
So just transit time. And then you're on station with air to air refueling and then the transit back. So they were quite long missions. so And in the midst of that, you know, as things started to get a little bit more, um more kinetic on the ground, you would, you would also feel the, uh, the extra, um, pressure in the air. Cause you know, now there's real things coming off the jets that could have an impact on friendlies if, if you do this wrong. So, um, it was, but it it was, uh, definitely sort of, ah you felt all that training that you'd previously done.

01:03:36.56
Speaker
um you're well prepared for the situation. So it wasn't like you were anxious or fearful of anything going wrong. You just, you had the typical nerves that you would have felt in any training scenario because you've done it so many times before. It's now, you know, it feels like all those previous ah times you've done a simulated drop of a weapon or you've dropped that you know,

01:04:01.48
Speaker
ah high explosive, you know, GPS guided weapon at a range. So it wasn't, you know, there shouldn't be anything really new when you go to an operation. It was all ah very well practiced and you've as well briefed each mission thoroughly in a, you know, you have to be dynamic in a scenario, but everyone knows their their kind of roles.

01:04:22.80
Speaker
in there so it it was definitely exciting in the terms of like a lot of adrenaline going on but um it didn't feel at any point uh like we were overwhelmed or um you know behind on any of the points just because of all that background uh training we had yeah that speaks um speaks a lot about the training you guys receive some of the other part is uh since you're on an actual operation, ah you're in a camp, you know, Marines behind, uh, you know, machine guns guarding the whole, uh, the base there. And you're pretty much staying on the base 24 seven and you're, you know, wake up, uh, and you have, you know, either you're either day or nights. So you have, you know, half a day to kill. And then you're in a serious, you know, uh, mission where it may or may not be anything may just be,

01:05:15.92
Speaker
um looking through the targeting pod, seeing nothing for ah six hours, or it may be something a little bit more ah exciting, slash not exciting, but a little bit more, you know, heart thumping when you're actually releasing the weapons, but then you'd come back and you'd have time to kill. And I found it, it was ah interesting the way people found their off time,

01:05:40.62
Speaker
what they could do with it. Cause, um, you, you didn't really have anywhere to go. They would have, they had good facilities there, but you know, they had the standard games room, TV, lots of exercise facilities, but, uh, with, with everyone kind of mission focused, your downtime, people just found interesting ways to occupy their time.

01:06:01.20
Speaker
One of the, uh, The amusing things we did, so we were all in ah sort of the big tents, mission planning tents that, you know, not your typical camping tent, but, you know, got 20 people in there with computers.

01:06:14.98
Speaker
Well, one night we we were bored and we thought the place needed sprucing up a bit. So there was a whole bunch of extra wood line around and we got a hold of some tools and we decided we were going to build a deck for our big tent.

01:06:28.81
Speaker
Nice. About 10 of us got together and over and over the span. you know This is probably 2 a.m. m after a night sortie. ah We put together out the front of this ah mission planning tent.

01:06:40.99
Speaker
We built a whole patio railing, found a someone had scrapped somewhere a yeah like a rocking chair a wooden rocking chair, got a hold of some cam netting to put up ah a bit of a roof cam netting.

01:06:54.26
Speaker
and then bridged the two tents we had there at the end of the row of these all these ah tents we had for mission planning. That's awesome. And the next morning, you know the the rest of the camp wakes up, and there was some confused faces where there just appeared a ah ah whole patio with a cabinet roof, rocking chair, overnight.

01:07:16.69
Speaker
And for the first little bit, they couldn't figure out until we woke up and came and like, did you guys... did you guys build a deck last night? Yeah, we we might have built a deck.

01:07:27.58
Speaker
That's great. So part of the nature of this mission is that you fighters are operating over hostile territory. How does that feel? For us, it wasn't something you really think about too much. um I mean, it's, again, goes back to the training often simulated. But ah for this for this operation, we didn't have a lot of high-threat surface-to-air missiles that we had to be... We weren't constantly in danger. We would...

01:07:56.66
Speaker
do all Most of our mission tactics at medium level, that would keep us out of, you know, if someone decided they wanted to take a shot with, ah you know, AAA or something, you could see um tracer fire down below you.

01:08:09.69
Speaker
And generally, you know, for me, I never had anything that I could tell was directed in my ah general vicinity. But even then, with the altitude, ah and then unless it's some sort of guided, radar guided ah type ah machine gun or yeah you have sort of a lower probability of having any effect ah from the ground at that.

01:08:31.19
Speaker
So we weren't in a ah real like hotly contested airspace. And that was, you know, just the way we operated that we weren't going to go down low where, where we are more exposed because for that mission, you know, it's only going to make, it's only going make this scenario worse if we now have a downed pilot in the midst of all this.

01:08:52.14
Speaker
Right.

01:08:54.52
Speaker
Yeah, that makes sense. There's no sense taking unnecessary risk, right? Yeah, exactly. And with the with the weapons we have on board, um with the exception being the gun, which you have to point at the ground and get closer to it.

01:09:07.46
Speaker
But to for you know all our laser guide, GPS-guided bombs, ah you don't need to be down low because that's what those weapons give you, is that accuracy from higher up. right you know Traditionally, you have to dive bomb to be able to get closer, steeper,

01:09:23.50
Speaker
to reduce that probability that the the weapon's going to miss. But now with the, the technology in those, ah it kind of negates that and allows for you to just stay above the threat zone.

01:09:34.39
Speaker
Right on.

01:09:36.98
Speaker
You led the last Canadian CF-18 mission in Iraq. Did you know it was the last one before launch? Yeah, we did. We knew it was wrapping up. So it was a bit bittersweet. um I mean, it's, it's always nice to go home, bring everyone back. Cause it is, ah you know,

01:09:53.73
Speaker
time away from the family and everything, but bittersweet in the sense that, um, you're wrapping up the operation and you know, you're, you're kind of, uh, done with that, that portion, uh, cause it's what you train for.

01:10:05.50
Speaker
So being operationally focused does have, uh, you know, Something that you now know you're going to go back just to a training environment and don't have the same sort of impact on what's going on. Because yeah the conflict was starting to wind down a bit, but it wasn't completely over.

01:10:21.53
Speaker
ah So people are still operating there. But it was also interesting just having that experience. We're like, okay, well, we're wrapping this up today. We've got the same mission to do we've done previously.

01:10:32.72
Speaker
And let's not focus on it being the last one. Let's ah mission prep for everything we've we've been doing the entire time. So just try to keep it standard as possible and kind of, I've always heard that one of the most dangerous parts of a patrol is like the last half hour when the troops are getting back close to the base and kind of the same idea. Like you don't want to just relax because this is your last mission. Like keep it as professional as you've been throughout the entire tour.

01:10:59.19
Speaker
Yeah, exactly. You don't want to, you don't want to ah let it flip your attention span, you know, on that last little home stretch. Um, because we were still we were still actively engaging threats even on that last mission.

01:11:12.94
Speaker
So it's it wasn't a time to let your guard down at that point. You just had to keep ah keep doing what you doing. Awesome. Okay, Brian, that's going to do it for part one of our chat today. It was super interesting learning about your training and some of your exercises and operational experiences.

01:11:30.04
Speaker
And I'm really looking forward to hearing about your time as an instructor and the lift program in Italy. So thank you for your time today. And I'm looking forward to the next one. Thanks for having me All right, that's going to wrap up our chat with Brian about his flight training in the RCAF, as well as his operational career so far as a fighter pilot.

01:11:49.98
Speaker
Tune in to the next episode to hear about his time instructing on the Hornet, as well as a deep dive into the lift or lead in fighter training program in Italy. Do you have any questions or comments about anything you've heard in this show? Would you or someone you know make a great guest or do you have a great idea for a show? You can reach out to us at thepilotprojectpodcast at gmail.com or on all social media at podpilotproject. And be sure to check out that social media for lots of great videos of our RCAF and mission aviation aircraft.

01:12:18.58
Speaker
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. Thanks for listening.

01:12:31.45
Speaker
Keep the blue side up. See you.