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Bryan: 00:57

Alright. We're ready for departure here

Bryan: 00:59

at the Pilot Project Podcast, the best source for stories

Bryan: 01:02

and advice from RCAF and Mission Aviation Pilots brought to you by Sky's Magazine. I'm your host, Brian Morrison, and here with me today for the first of our two part series on the legendary CH-one 24 Sea King and life at sea as a pilot is my very good friend, captain Niels Olson. Niels, it's awesome to have you here. Thanks for being on the show. Yeah.

Niels: 01:21

Thanks for having me.

Bryan: 01:22

So today, we'll be talking about his early life training and taking a high level look at life at sea with the Sea King. But before we go through that, let's go through Niels' bio. Captain Niels Olson was born and raised in British Columbia and grew up near CFB Chilliwack during its closure in the mid nineteen nineties. Despite early memories of watching soldiers train and thinking that lifestyle wasn't for him, his path eventually led to military aviation. After high school, he spent a few years working and taking postsecondary courses before enrolling in the commercial pilot program at the British Columbia Institute of Technology where he trained out of Boundary Bay and Vancouver International Airport.

Bryan: 01:59

While he found success and enjoyment in civilian flight training, the cost and career uncertainty led him to reconsider his options. A visit from Canadian Forces Recruiting Center Vancouver changed everything. After being introduced to military aviation, including videos of formation flying, low level navigation, and survival training, and learning that he could be paid to train, Niels enrolled under the continuing education officer training plan. He began basic military officer qualification in Saint Jean in January 2007 during a period of high operational demand driven by Canada's mission in Afghanistan. Niels began flight training in 2010 at Southport on The Grove and continued directly into phase two before being selected for rotary wing training.

Bryan: 02:39

He went on to earn his wings and was posted to four four three maritime helicopter squadron in Victoria, British Columbia in 2012 flying the CH-one 24 Sea King. During his time with four four three squadron, Niels deployed extensively aboard Royal Canadian Navy frigates conducting operations across the Pacific, the South China Sea, the Indian Ocean, East Africa, the Mediterranean, and beyond. He upgraded to aircraft captain and crew commander and built significant operational experience in helicopter operations. In 2018, he was posted to three Canadian Forces Flying Training School in Portage La Prairie, Manitoba. After completing the flying instructor course, he began instructing on the phase three rotary wing course and later became qualified on the jet ranger.

Bryan: 03:21

He was upgraded to an eight category instructor in 2023 and now serves in a standards role contributing to the development of training programs and instructional standards. Niels is married to the love of his life, Lindsay, and together they have three wonderful children. So you grew up near CFB Chilliwack, but initially you didn't see yourself in the military. Can you tell us a bit about that?

Niels: 03:44

Yeah. I mean, I was like 10 years old maybe when I moved to Chilliwack. And, the elementary school I went to bordered on to the CFE grounds, where the PMQs were. And I had a lot of friends who were in the military. And when the base permanently closed down, there was a year where a lot of my friends were just left over the summer and didn't come back.

Niels: 04:09

Mhmm. So I I found that pretty hard and I found that tough for, for a kid to experience, I think, even at that time. I'm like, man, I would really suck as someone who just moved to Chilliwack to have to move constantly. That's kind of how it was explained to me at the time. I there were also times where we're just walking around playing with your friends and you're up against the fence for CFP Chilliwack or up in the your Cultist Lake near the range and you just see the guys running and marching and the flag carrying and the the c sevens going on kind of near the beach, on the defense side of Cultus Lake.

Niels: 04:53

And I just remember thinking, oh my goodness. This is definitely not for me.

Bryan: 05:02

Oh, man. That's funny. Yeah. And we'll get to what changed as far as that goes. But Yeah.

Bryan: 05:08

You ended up spending a couple of years after high school kind of figuring things out. What did that period teach you?

Niels: 05:15

Mostly, I'd say what I don't wanna do. Mhmm. You know, coming out of high school, BC had a program where it's called passport to education or something, and they would give you a university, not credits, but, like, dollars to spend at a university from the from the government at the time. Okay. So depending on how well you did or what courses you took in high school, you would get x amount of dollars to go spend on university courses.

Niels: 05:45

So I did that, and I took some math and some science and some physics. And I just really didn't have any direction or I didn't really realize, like, where that could have led me to a career. All I could see was physics teacher. And I was like, I don't think I wanna do that either. So I had to I had to pull back.

Niels: 06:10

You know, I was working and going to school, and I just needed I wasn't really super happy in my job, and I wasn't super happy with where my education was going. So I had to step back and and reflect a little bit. Mhmm. So I got a job, building windows in Abbotsford for a couple years while I kinda sorted it out and I landed somehow on Pilot, which I thought was a good mix of, you know, some hands and feet, tactual kind of engagement, kinda like you know, I love sports playing basketball and whatnot. So I wanted to do something hands on, and I was working hands on making windows, and I enjoyed that portion of it.

Niels: 06:53

But also making Windows is not super intellectually thrilling. Like, there's no dynamic environment or anything like that to adjust to, and I I I wanted that challenge to be both coordinated and with my body and my mind. Mhmm. So I I think Pilot really kind of clicked all those boxes.

Bryan: 07:17

What like, what led you to even consider aviation? Like, where did the idea of, like, well, maybe I'll be a pilot, where'd that come from?

Niels: 07:24

Do you really wanna know? Yeah. So me and my older brother, we're working together in the window factory and we were just home one day and I was talking about how there's like, you know, these 45, 50 year old, 55 year old men working on the shop floor with us, also making somewhere between 14 and $16 an hour. And I remember telling him, like, that's not enough for the family and the life that I envision or the life that I want. So but I also told him I don't really wanna work that hard.

Niels: 08:02

So we we got home and we started googling what jobs pay the most for the least amount of work, and by far it was pilot. That's when I got the idea. I'm like, oh, you know what? Actually, that does kinda check all my boxes and with a bonus of a good pay. And once you kinda know it and you get into the routine, I could see how you just, you know obviously, it's showing like airline pilot.

Niels: 08:30

Yeah. And no discredit to them.

Bryan: 08:31

No.

Niels: 08:32

But, you know, it's like you just show up, you know your machine, you know your your rules and your regulations, and you just you you do your bid, and and it's that's it.

Bryan: 08:43

Yeah. I imagine, like, again, like you said, no discredit to airline pilots, but I imagine that, like, once you get in and you upgrade, that's that basically. Right? Like, whereas the military, you're always doing the next thing. You're always taking another course, changing aircraft types, like doing something.

Bryan: 08:58

You're almost always upgrading to something.

Niels: 09:00

Yeah. Yeah. And I did not envision military pilot at all when I was thinking about that. It was it was airline pilot is what I was envisioning.

Bryan: 09:11

Mhmm. So that's when you decided to apply into BCIT. Right?

Niels: 09:18

They had a new program, their flight operations commercial pilot program, and it was a business diploma with a multi engine IFR reading at the end. Mhmm.

Bryan: 09:29

So I think you said initially you applied and didn't get in. Right?

Niels: 09:34

Yeah. That's correct. I applied. It was an expensive course. I went through the interview process and, I just got a letter, you know, a couple weeks later saying, yeah, thanks for your interview.

Niels: 09:47

You're on the wait list.

Bryan: 09:49

You did not get in. You got wait listed.

Niels: 09:51

Yeah. That's right. Yeah.

Bryan: 09:52

Yeah. And then, like, how did that feel when that happened? Were you bummed out or was it just like not a not a big deal? Like, was this, like, kind of a whim that you decided to try for, or how serious was

Niels: 10:02

it for you? Well, a little bit of both, I guess. Kind of a whim. Kinda coming even coming across the the opportunity. The the effort I put in to it was real.

Niels: 10:17

Mhmm. So I went through the interview process. I remember the interview. You know, I was, what, 19, 20 maybe, and pretty nervous talking to a panel of people. There was like four people on the panel.

Niels: 10:31

And two of them got up and left, like halfway through my interview, then they came back right at the very end. They're like, okay, thanks for your time. And I was like, that's really weird. Okay. And then I got waitlisted and I was like, oh, jeez, they didn't even like me.

Niels: 10:46

They didn't like me so much that they just got up and left.

Bryan: 10:49

Oh my gosh.

Niels: 10:51

You know, I have no idea why they had left. Maybe they told me but I didn't register or something that I knew about.

Bryan: 10:57

That would be pretty unsettling.

Niels: 10:59

Yeah. It was. So I was like, well, maybe BCIT is not the way to go for me. Maybe I'll find another way to do it. Mhmm.

Bryan: 11:07

But then you ended up getting called for it. Right?

Niels: 11:09

I did. Yeah. So they I was, I think, first or second on the wait list. So I guess they liked me more than I thought. And then I went, and it was it was good, man.

Niels: 11:20

I had a great time. Met some some good friends, and, it's cool to go through that experience together. Yeah. It was pretty neat. It was very expensive, though.

Niels: 11:32

Very expensive. I I, took out a private loan for what they estimated the tuition would be, and I ran out of money. I was running desperately short when the Vancouver recruiting guys came in.

Bryan: 11:45

Yeah. Well and that sort of brings us to what happened next with your path into the RCAF. So the Vancouver recruiting guys came to the college?

Niels: 11:54

Yeah. And, you know, on reflection, if I was the, flying club or the person in charge of the, the program, I would not allow military recruiters to come in and poach my guys. But, yeah, I was the only one who who left, which they were kinda disappointed about. But I also told them, like, hey, I'm not even sure I'm gonna have enough money for this. And then, you know, you get into it and, you know, you're you're kind of your eyes are wide shut, you know, like you're you're looking for everything.

Niels: 12:27

You can see where it could end up as an airline pilot, and things can go well for you. But what you don't see is all the things in between where you are and where you're going. So even at the end of the program, yes, I'd have a multi engine IFR rating with a commercial license. But that doesn't necessarily make you employable. Right?

Niels: 12:47

You're looking at another 10 or 15,000 at the time for an instructor rating. And then you're making what $9 an hour only while you're flying. So good luck making $30 a day. You know what I mean? Yep.

Niels: 13:02

Unless you can do ground school and sims and stuff. So, you know, there was a few more years of slogging it really.

Bryan: 13:12

It's a hard road. It is. I don't know how much that's changed now because I know there's, like, way more hiring going on in the airline world. So

Niels: 13:20

Yeah. And it comes and goes. Right?

Bryan: 13:22

At that time,

Niels: 13:23

I think that that's what we were looking at.

Bryan: 13:25

And Yeah.

Niels: 13:25

You know, I was talking to my instructor about it, and he was quite honest. So I got some insight there. Mhmm. And what I didn't know actually is when I was leaving the program and I kinda had my last interview with the person in charge is they actually had an agreement with Coast Mountain Air to hire a candidate for each, and I was on the list for that. And I was like, oh, well, I didn't know that.

Niels: 13:52

Maybe if I could get some sort of guarantee or what I had to do or some some guidance to make sure I could achieve that, then I maybe not would not have left and rolled right into close mountain air and got my hour development there flying commercial as a copilot or something, and skipped the instructor phase altogether Mhmm. Which I probably would have done. Yeah.

Bryan: 14:14

Wow. So that's like a whole

Niels: 14:16

But by then, was yeah. It was too late.

Bryan: 14:17

Yeah. So these recruiters came in. They showed you a bunch of, like, presentations and stuff. What did you find that was, like, pulling you? Like, obviously, there was a financial decision component to it, but, like, what else pulled you into being interested in the military?

Niels: 14:34

Yeah. So when they came in, we were building hours, really. So it was a lot of flights from Boundary Bay to Kamloops, Kelowna, Pittmando's, like, and down the Fraser Valley over to Vancouver Island to the BC interior. And it was a lot of straight and level, you know, like, especially once you're out of the crowded Fraser Valley, you're in class g and you're just cruising Mhmm. Waiting for your next approach.

Bryan: 15:01

And for the listeners, class g airspace is just low level uncontrolled airspace.

Niels: 15:06

And, you know, that didn't really tickle my intellectual kind of keep things moving in in a changing environment sort of thing that I wanted Yeah. Other than, like, simulating emergencies with my other pilot, the other student pilot or, I guess, private pilot at the time with me. So we were chitchatting or whatever, but a lot of it was straight and level and kind of slow, which is not something that I wanted. You know, it was short periods of excitement with the takeoffs and landings Yeah. And the the planning to get in and out of a complicated area.

Niels: 15:37

I enjoyed that portion of it, but not not so much the straight and level, you know, 120 mile transit doing whatever a Cessna does. 100 knots.

Bryan: 15:47

What were you in, like, a one seventy two or

Niels: 15:49

A one fifty two. Or like a Piper

Bryan: 15:51

or Yeah.

Niels: 15:52

Was it Cherokee? Okay. Yeah.

Bryan: 15:54

Yeah. So yeah, like a 100 knots or something. Yeah. Yeah.

Niels: 15:57

Yeah. So when the guys came in, they were showing videos of, you know, some low level navigation, which I thought was a lot more interesting than, the private pilot kind of couple thousand foot navigation Mhmm. Formation flying, and all the extra training and things that they do. And I really was like, well, that is more you you have to pay attention all the time. And that's what I wanted.

Bryan: 16:27

Yeah. It's and it's like exciting too. Right? Like Yeah. When you're and it is I was gonna say from the outside looking in, but it is when you're doing it too.

Bryan: 16:34

But I don't know if you're if you were like me, it sounds a bit like you were like that desire for some variety and for something exciting and not just like, run of the mill experience.

Niels: 16:45

Yeah. Exactly. Yeah. Something exciting and constantly engaging. Yeah.

Niels: 16:51

That spoke to me more.

Bryan: 16:53

So when you joined under CEO TP, which is the continuing education officer training plan, Canada was running high tempo operations in Afghanistan. Did that weigh into your decision to join at all?

Niels: 17:06

Not really. You know, it was a big part of the interview and, recruitment process, making sure that we understood or I understood what that meant and possibly being deployed to a war zone. So, yeah, we talked about it a lot. This is mostly like, hey, I I understand what's happening and I'm not going out with a with a gun looking to hurt people or anything like that. But, you know, it's me or them or they're attacking me.

Niels: 17:41

I you know what you gotta do.

Bryan: 17:42

Yeah. So they they they were basically like making sure you understood the realities of the situation and Yeah. That, you know, they weren't gonna like train somebody and spend millions of dollars training them and then find out that, wait, what? There's a

Niels: 17:55

Yeah. He's just trigger happy

Bryan: 17:57

and Or or or that they're like the person is shocked there's a war on or something.

Niels: 18:04

I'm Yeah. Going where? Yeah. Yeah. They were very, they're very good with that.

Bryan: 18:09

So you joined. You went to basic training. You did some French language training afterwards, and then you ended up on OJT at four four three Squadron in Victoria. Did that influence you to want to fly Sea Kings?

Niels: 18:22

Yeah. It did. I did still imagine myself as a fixed wing pilot just because it's what I knew Mhmm. With my previous training. The helicopter experience like, didn't get to fly when I was on OJT as a passenger or or anything like that.

Niels: 18:39

So I didn't really know about helicopters or what was unique about them. But I did really like the unit, and it was about as close to home as I could get. So I enjoyed that aspect, and I wanted to go back there just for some stability and and to be closer or at least accessible to my family.

Bryan: 18:59

Yeah. And that's funny to hear you say that you, like, you thought of yourself as a fixed wing pilot because, like, now you're very much a helicopter guy. Right? Like Yeah. Like a lot of like a lot of you helicopter pilots that I've spoken with, like, the idea of being a multi pilot and just like taking off and then going straight in level sounds like for most of you, a nightmare.

Niels: 19:19

Yeah. Sounds like punishment. Yeah. Yeah.

Bryan: 19:24

So you did go on, phase one and phase two on The Grove here in Portage?

Niels: 19:30

Yeah. The Grove program had just opened up and I think I was maybe the third or fourth course on it. Yeah. And it at the time, it was maybe like eight to twelve months faster course loading Mhmm. Which has pretty big impact on your career.

Niels: 19:46

Right? So I jumped all over it.

Bryan: 19:47

Yeah. Yeah. For listeners, for context, like, basically like, what year was that for you?

Niels: 19:53

That was 2010.

Bryan: 19:55

Yeah. Which is right right when I was also waiting for training, and I ended up going to Moose Jaw. And it was, like, it was a brutal time. We've we've mentioned this a couple times on the show before, but, basically, like, there was this website where you could check your course loading for flight training and, like, you would just constantly see those courses getting zero loaded and your date pushing back, like, another six months, another six months. And so some people who are able to get on the phase two Grobe program, they would just go basically straight from phase one to phase two instead of wait.

Bryan: 20:23

Like, some people waited years between those courses.

Niels: 20:25

Yeah. I waited only a couple months.

Bryan: 20:27

Yeah. Which is pretty sweet. How did you find flying the Grove after, like, just flying Cessnas and stuff before?

Niels: 20:34

Oh, yeah. To me, it felt like a high performance aircraft. What? It is. Is.

Niels: 20:39

Yes. It does all the all the tricks, all the the loops and the inverted flight and, you know, it was way more powerful than the the Cessna, which was a a cool feeling. Mhmm. So

Bryan: 20:51

yeah. Did you find it challenging at all? Like, you had done a little bit of flight training well, a decent amount of flight training in the civilian world. So, like, how did you find that in comparison?

Niels: 21:00

I found it I was well prepared for the course and and what the aircraft could do. The hardest part or actually, suppose, what caused me the most anxiety is that even as even going through basic training in French language school, like, you talk to other pilots who maybe know people in the air force, and I didn't know anybody.

Bryan: 21:20

Mhmm.

Niels: 21:21

And you hear all these stories even at that young age about people joining the air force with a commercial license or as airline pilots and having a very hard time, and or not making it at all. Mhmm. So I was conscious of that. Even talking to those pilots who were, who came to my program to talk to us about military flying, they had warned me already that they knew people who had finished a program like the one I was in, skip phase one on a grove, go directly to Moose Jaw, and not pass. And that costs you, like, two to three years of development.

Niels: 22:00

Right? Mhmm. Progress that you could have otherwise been making. So I was very conscious of that. So I didn't get my commercial license on purpose at the BCIT program.

Niels: 22:10

And I was the biggest point of anxiety was making sure that I did things the way that the military wanted me to do them. Mhmm. Not the way that I had previously learned.

Bryan: 22:19

Which to me says a lot about, like, that you took the right thing out of those stories as, like, kind of listening to them as cautionary tales. Like, I had a lot of people say that kind of stuff to me as well having gone through a flight program. I would imagine the problem that most of those people that you hear those stories about are basically that they were set in their ways and they refused to learn it a new way. Like, I can see a certain type of airline pilot, not specifically related to them being an airline pilot, but just a experienced pilot being like, I know how to do this. I'm I know how I do this.

Bryan: 22:51

I'm gonna do it my way. And that's just not how military flight training works. Like, there's certain room for technique and, like, differences, but, like, there's certain things that are like, this is how the air force does it.

Niels: 23:01

Yes. Yeah. And I I knew that was coming. And, it could just be something simple like the way you make your OEI or complete engine failure approach or the way you navigate. You know, most of those guys would probably be mostly IFR pilots.

Niels: 23:17

So that's probably the part that they were looking forward to to to shine and show what they know. But I know there's a lot of VFR flying in the air force

Bryan: 23:26

Mhmm.

Niels: 23:26

And they are pretty strict with their techniques. Mhmm.

Bryan: 23:30

Yeah. What's OEI?

Niels: 23:31

One engine inoperative.

Bryan: 23:33

Oh, for like multi and stuff?

Niels: 23:35

Yes. Like a multi engine OEI approach or like an like a a single engine machine, like an engine failure approach.

Bryan: 23:42

Yeah.

Niels: 23:42

Yeah. Or, you know, how they how they break over the runway or

Bryan: 23:47

Okay. Gotcha.

Niels: 23:48

If you s turn or side slip or whatever to get down Mhmm. Adjust your glide path. Yeah.

Bryan: 23:53

Yeah. And there's like the military just has preferred, generally speaking, preferred techniques and and procedures and like well, it's I think it would be the same if you went to an airline. Right? Like, I hear that airlines are extremely procedure driven and that, like, you you better do it the company's way. And it's just the same thing when you go to the Air Force.

Bryan: 24:10

Yeah. You had been thinking about yourself as a fixed wing pilot and and obviously multi engines as you were going through phase two grove and that doesn't feed into the fighter stream. At what point did you start to realize you wanted to fly helicopters?

Niels: 24:26

It was during phase two and talking to, some of the other multi engine students about what what it is that they're doing, where they're going, what that flight is like, And talking to some helicopter guys, you know, I knew helicopters would pose a unique challenge, and I wanted to challenge myself. So that was, you know, part of my impetus to joining Mhmm. Is to remain challenged. And I wanted to go back to 443. I like the unit.

Niels: 25:00

I like the location. There's a lot to like about it. Mhmm. The Sea King was a really awesome machine. So I really enjoyed my time on it.

Niels: 25:11

And I thought I would. So that was great. It worked out.

Bryan: 25:15

Yeah.

Niels: 25:17

What I wasn't ready for is probably how big of a challenge it was because I I was well prepared for the the single engine fixed wing flying. I was not prepared at all for for helicopter flying.

Bryan: 25:33

I don't see how you could be, to be honest.

Niels: 25:35

No. No. It's a pretty unique skill and it's expensive to train on your own privately. Yeah. No.

Niels: 25:41

I didn't, I didn't get a flight the first time in a helicopter was on the course. Yeah. Yeah.

Bryan: 25:46

Yeah. And it's it's funny because I remember you saying that kind of sparks memories of me being because we were in the school at the same time. Yeah.

Niels: 25:53

Yeah. You were the one of the people I talked to about, multiengineering. Oh, really? Yeah. That's so

Bryan: 25:57

funny. And I

Niels: 25:59

But scared you guided me away from it. Yeah.

Bryan: 26:02

That's hilarious. I remember talking to some of my, colleagues who I had gone through Moose Jaw with who had gone Hilo. And just hearing about like like beginning phase three multi engine is really not that stressful. Like, it's just an a natural evolution to what you've already learned.

Niels: 26:21

Mhmm.

Bryan: 26:21

The guys and girls who had gone onto rotary were like, they weren't like, you know, freaking out, but they were like, holy cow, like this is a whole new world. We don't know anything.

Niels: 26:32

Yeah.

Bryan: 26:32

Like, everything is new again.

Niels: 26:34

Yeah. There was a part of me too that maybe I should include is that for me, returning to Victoria was, like, number one on my list. And I knew that if I went Aurora's or Herx or or something, that eventually I would be flying over Victoria. And I would look out the window and just think, if I had only tried, I could have done that. Mhmm.

Niels: 27:06

So at the top of my list was returning there and flying the the Sea King on the West Coast. And then, I guess, that would be my number one choice. And then below that was essentially any multi fleet. And then down below anything multi would be like search and rescue helicopter, and then at the very, very bottom would be tach

Bryan: 27:26

hell. Okay.

Niels: 27:28

So it was it was quite the gamble.

Bryan: 27:29

Yeah. That was that was a risk. So basically because most people would be going tach hell, and then probably I don't know. Were more people going SAR or Sea Kings?

Niels: 27:43

It was probably like twenty five percent twenty five percent and fifty tach hell.

Bryan: 27:48

Yeah. So that was a that was a gamble for sure. Yeah. And at the time in the Hilo School, there was like a ton of failures happening.

Niels: 27:56

Yes. There was. And I wasn't super aware of that when I was on the phase two course because you're kind of somewhat isolated. And I was posted there too, so I didn't I wasn't ever in the shacks with other students, like with you. Mhmm.

Niels: 28:11

I didn't eat at the mess. I I had my own meals at home and I went home every day. So there was a lot of integration that I didn't experience as well. So I missed out on a bunch of that stuff and that's a pretty big point to kind of miss out on. The fact that there the majority of students were failing the helicopter course at the time.

Bryan: 28:36

Yeah. Yeah.

Niels: 28:37

And it was, it was quite stressful. Especially, like, I topped my phase two course, so I I got to pick and I chose helicopter. And then getting in the machine, like, after ground school, like, super complicated, then in the machine and picking it up and having some pretty significant difficulty on reflection, I was full of regrets. Yeah? Oh, yeah.

Niels: 29:05

Big time. Well, because it was like five years, six years in at that point. Yeah. So the the delay was even longer than I anticipated when I got when I went through the recruiting process. And I did well throughout my training.

Niels: 29:18

And if you fail the helicopter course, that's it. You don't get to go multi after. Jets was out of the question. But if you failed jets, could off you go. Go jetting.

Bryan: 29:28

Sometimes you get a second chance if they basically decide like, well, you're a good pilot but jets aren't for you.

Niels: 29:34

Yeah. Exactly. So you could go to to multi or or to helicopter, but that doesn't that doesn't reverse. Mhmm. Yeah.

Bryan: 29:42

So you did end up though getting through phase three.

Niels: 29:46

I did.

Bryan: 29:47

Yeah. And you were selected to go on the Sea King. So how did that feel to have kind of all your plans come to fruition and and post it of course to April?

Niels: 29:56

Oh, like monumental relief. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Like you're just you're I was so stressed, having a hard time. Like once we got to the IFR portion on the four twelve, I felt pretty at home.

Niels: 30:12

Mhmm. It's a very transferable skill across across aircraft. So I knew I would do well, and my night portion on NVGs went went pretty smooth. I felt like I'd I got it by that point. Right?

Niels: 30:29

And then going to four forty three and getting posted and and just being done and getting the wings and the the security because it was five or six years of training. So I joined in 2007, got wings in mid twenty twelve. So you have five and a half years effort. It was just such a release of stress.

Bryan: 30:49

Yeah.

Niels: 30:49

Yeah. My body just shut down after I got so sick. And I was just kinda hanging on, I guess, the level of stress and the run up through the last bit of phase three was so stressful that I was just holding on to everything. And then as soon as it was over and just, you know, a big release and my body relaxed and then just everything kinda came up and I was I was quite ill for a bit.

Bryan: 31:17

Actually, the exact same thing happened to me.

Niels: 31:20

Yeah.

Bryan: 31:23

So you ended up back at four four three squadron. What was it like to get back there as a as a winged pilot after being there on OJT?

Niels: 31:31

Again, it's like after being on OJT, like the OJT there was I wasn't involved in the flight operations. So I still a little bit of some unknowns there about what the deployments look like, what was required of air crew, you know, how you operate the the machine and all that stuff. So Mhmm. All that was was new again. And, there were some challenges, of course.

Niels: 32:06

I still had a little bit I think I had six months wait for the OTU. So I was able to do, some OPME courses, residential, and get some some professional development stuff done Mhmm. Before going into, onto the OTU.

Bryan: 32:23

Yeah. And OPMEs were, six courses that officers used to have to take. Two of them were just like small courses and four of them were university credits. Now they've been replaced by, I think they're called CAF Johns. Is that right?

Niels: 32:38

Yes.

Bryan: 32:39

And, they're not university credits anymore, I don't believe. But anyway, that's that's what OPMUs are. Before we kind of dive, like in part two, we're gonna dive in deeper into your actual sales with the Canadian Navy. Let's talk kind of like high level about life on Sea Kings, life on ships. What was the training like getting qualified on the Sea King?

Niels: 32:59

Like at the OTU? Yeah. It was long. Yeah. The serviceability at twelve wing was was not so great.

Bryan: 33:08

Yeah. Well, mean, the fleet was so old by then.

Niels: 33:11

The fleet was old. They had a lot of commitments for the aircraft that they did have. And then the OTU training slots were fewer than I anticipated. And there were four of us on a course. So, yeah, we were kind of given the scraps.

Niels: 33:28

So it took a lot longer than than I imagined it would.

Bryan: 33:32

How how long was the course?

Niels: 33:34

Let's see. I got there in January. I think I left in July. So Okay. So seven months.

Niels: 33:40

Seven months. Yeah.

Bryan: 33:41

Yeah. That's a while.

Niels: 33:42

Yeah. For not a whole lot of hours.

Bryan: 33:44

How was the the actual flying?

Niels: 33:47

Oh, it was a great machine. The instructors, like, they would change every day. It's not like the like how we had it in Portage where you would get assigned an instructor. It was just whoever was available. So there's a lot of trying to figure out this new guy or girl teaching you how to fly and what their personal expectations were.

Niels: 34:14

The flying portion was like the the VFR stuff was pretty cut and paste, like very similar techniques and procedures as to what Southport did Mhmm. Or three CFFDS. And the IFR very transferable as well. But then the tactical low level over the water stuff was all brand new.

Bryan: 34:34

Yeah. Was that intimidating at first?

Niels: 34:38

It was a little eerie being, you know, twenty, thirty miles off the coast of Nova Scotia. I'd never seen the Atlantic Ocean before. I just knew it was windy and cold and, you know, big waves and you're right there. Like, you're you can't see the shoreline anymore at 40 feet hovering and you're you just look down, like, that's a lot of water. And if you know it's super cold out there and you're putting a lot of trust in the in the Sea King to to take you there, do your job, and take you back.

Bryan: 35:12

Yeah. It's kind of funny because, you know, we'd go like a thousand miles out over the ocean in the aurora and I would get a little bit of that feeling sometimes, like, especially when we're down low and just think like, man, we're we're a long way from anything if anything went wrong. But, like, I think that a thousand miles out in an Aurora is is almost like probably less freaky than 40 miles out in a Sea King.

Niels: 35:37

Well, I mean, they're both either way, you're in the middle of nowhere. I guess But I had so much more altitude than The helicopter, like, you're right in it. Like, you got sea spray coming up on your windscreen. Yeah. You're you can look down and see individual pieces of seaweed.

Bryan: 35:54

Yeah. That's crazy.

Niels: 35:55

Yeah. You're right there. It's it can be a little intimidating at the start.

Bryan: 35:59

Do you learn to land on ships as part of the course?

Niels: 36:03

No. That is only done, after when you're on your deployments.

Bryan: 36:08

When you're, like, actually qualified on the aircraft?

Niels: 36:11

Yeah. Okay. Which I thought was a pretty big gap in the training, but it's just the way just the way it was.

Bryan: 36:16

Yeah. And I guess, like, ship availability and all kinds of things would play roles in that. Right?

Niels: 36:20

Oh, yeah. Big time.

Bryan: 36:21

Like, it's not like there's always a ship out in out in the ocean, like, they're in harbor a

Niels: 36:24

lot of the time and Yeah. And when they're out, they're out working.

Bryan: 36:28

Yeah. With a qualified crew.

Niels: 36:29

Yeah. Yeah. They're not they're not there for for your training.

Bryan: 36:32

Yep. So sometimes on the Sea King, you are at squadron and sometimes you're assigned to a ship. Right? Yep. How is life different between those two things?

Niels: 36:42

Well, so life at the unit is pretty good. It's a regular kind of workday shift, you know, there's night flying and whatnot and tasks seems to do and those sorts of things. But generally pretty predictable. The serviceability on the West Coast was awesome. Mhmm.

Niels: 37:03

We always had aircraft available. Almost always had aircraft available, sometimes more than we could fly, which was a great problem to

Bryan: 37:10

have. So

Niels: 37:14

life at the unit was pretty good. The it changed when you were deployed because now you're you're detached from the unit and you are a standalone seeking with crew and maintainers and you got what you got. So the seeking was great. Like, it loved to fly. If you flew it every day, it would maintain a serviceability with a lot of work from from the maintainer Mhmm.

Niels: 37:41

Crew. The but when it went down and you needed a part, like, you're just you're in the middle of the ocean waiting for that part.

Bryan: 37:51

How do you get the parts?

Niels: 37:53

They're usually mailed to the next, port of call.

Bryan: 37:56

Okay. So like if you broke and you still had a week or two to transit, like there's no flying for the next two weeks?

Niels: 38:01

Yeah. Correct. Sometimes, you know, sometimes you could get a deviation approved or whatever depending on the nature of the unserviceability Yeah. Yeah. Or the the defect.

Niels: 38:10

But, yeah, there were quite a few times where you're just stuck and you're just waiting for a new rotor blade or, you know, a bearing or whatever it happens to be.

Bryan: 38:20

And what are you guys doing then? Like, if there's no flying to be done, what are you doing on a ship? Like, are they do they have you doing professional development or studying systems or like

Niels: 38:28

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, the Sikin guys, like the someone explained to me one time that the flying is pretty straightforward, especially when you're deployed. Like, you're either doing surface surveillance or you're doing ASW.

Bryan: 38:40

And for the listeners, ASW is anti submarine warfare.

Niels: 38:44

So you get pretty good

Bryan: 38:45

at both of those

Niels: 38:46

and neither one is super engaging as a pilot, unless you're night dipping or something, which can get pretty spicy.

Bryan: 38:53

When Sea Kings or other anti submarine warfare helicopters are in the dip, it means that they have a large ball that they dip down into the ocean, which works like a large sonoboy that pings with sonar to try to locate submarines.

Niels: 39:08

In general, they're all pretty good pilots. So what differentiated pilots was their knowledge of the orders and the systems and and all that kind of stuff. So there was a lot of emphasis on that. Yeah. So as soon as we went down, we would develop a training plan for each individual air crew member because I was just on the air crew side.

Niels: 39:33

So we'd be briefing aircraft systems, orders, things like that, explaining things, aerodynamics, all that kind of stuff. So we had to kinda do that stuff, just to maintain some level of employment while on the ship. And it would typically be like, you know, a half day of that kind of stuff. And the rest of the day would be, you know, working out, getting some physical activity in, and then helping out the ship wherever we can, which mostly ended up working with the stewards who we were pretty close with. They're the ones who would bring the meals out in the officers' Mess, make breakfast, that kind of stuff.

Niels: 40:15

So we would volunteer to make breakfast

Bryan: 40:17

Okay. For the for the

Niels: 40:20

the ship's crew. The the junior ranks would go down to the junior ranks, the chief and the sergeant would go down to the chief petty officer's Mess, and then we would serve the officers. Yeah. Okay. Cool.

Niels: 40:31

Stuff like that just to integrate into the ship a bit more.

Bryan: 40:33

Be part of the crew a

Niels: 40:34

little bit. Yeah. Because we're we're kinda guests there. Like, at that time, they having a an air asset or a helicopter on board was a unique situation for the for the Navy at the time. So they were not we were not there for every one of their sails.

Niels: 40:49

We were only there for the big ones.

Bryan: 40:50

Okay.

Niels: 40:51

Yeah. So integrating into the ship was a big part of what we tried to do.

Bryan: 40:57

How does the process of getting assigned to a ship actually work? Like, how does that happen?

Niels: 41:01

Being assigned to a ship? Yeah. You're told.

Bryan: 41:04

They just one day one day they walk in and they're like, you're you're on the HMCS Ottawa or

Niels: 41:09

No. There there's definitely some long term planning Mhmm. Going ahead, you know, because you can't just take anyone and and drop them in. They have to be ready. There's a whole bunch of currencies.

Niels: 41:18

There's sims, there's workups, there's all sorts of preparation that goes into the deployment. So like, typically,

Bryan: 41:25

how far before a sale would you know that you're going on one? Six months

Niels: 41:29

Yeah. Usually. Yeah. They'd like to have the crew assigned about six months ahead of time.

Bryan: 41:33

Yeah. And then you can do all your workup training and all that kind of stuff?

Niels: 41:36

Yeah. All your your, if you do there's probably like a presale you could do with the the ship for whatever reason. Just going out while they're doing their exercises, you can join the ship to reintroduce the helicopter aspect to the to the ship's company. And then, as the air crew, we would fly out to Halifax, get our sims in, then we come back, join the ship again, do their workup training, or sometimes that would be en route to the deployment. Yeah.

Niels: 42:05

There's there's a lot to do for sure.

Bryan: 42:07

Okay. And when the ship leaves, is the Sea King on board, like, out of the harbor or do you fly out and join them out at sea or, like, how does that work? We would join

Niels: 42:17

them, in the street. Yeah. Yeah. In the Juan De Fuca.

Bryan: 42:20

Okay. So you guys wouldn't be, like, standing on the side of the ship as it pulls out a harbor or whatever?

Niels: 42:25

Half the crew is. Yeah. Oh, okay. Yeah. So all the all the ground well, not all the ground crew.

Niels: 42:30

Most of the most of the maintainers and half the air crew would be on the ship for slipping. Okay. And they would sail out into the Juan De Fuca Strait and then we would land on. And that would be that.

Bryan: 42:44

Okay. Cool. So you've told me this before, but can you explain how everything gets on the ship before a long sail?

Niels: 42:52

Oh, like you just carry it.

Bryan: 42:54

Yeah. Like Yeah. Like everything. Right? Everything.

Bryan: 42:56

Didn't you say you basically just form a big line?

Niels: 42:59

So the initial departure, we're not really there for it

Bryan: 43:05

Okay.

Niels: 43:05

For that the storing of the ship. It's usually like while we're while we're at port visiting somewhere, we're we're we're there. We're part of the ship's company, so we're we're more involved in that. Mhmm. For pre departure stuff, like all the we had paper maps.

Niels: 43:22

So, you know, I would go down to the ship and I would pull out this cabinet that was on the ground and it was probably like seven feet long and it was just full of paper maps. Then I have to catalog them all, make sure we have everything, and then everything is carried over. It was a long walk from the parking lot to the ship. So there was quite a few, like, you know, three kilometer walks to from your car carrying a box of maps over to the boat and then making sure they're all kinda set up. But while we're while we're at sea and, like, you know, we'll pull into wherever, like Manila or something.

Niels: 44:02

And then we have a couple weeks of garbage to get rid of. So the whole ship's company would get in a line from where the the garbage is stored all the way to the dumpsters, and then we would just, like, daisy chain it. It's just handing bags of garbage over, getting rid of that stuff, and then the food would come. And sometimes, they would crane it onto the flight deck, other times it would be down on the jetty and we would have to do the same thing. But we're moving like, you know, 500 watermelons and, you know, gallons and gallons of milk and eggs and all their fruit and veggies and all that kind of stuff just piece by piece.

Niels: 44:43

You gotta you gotta look at everything that we have on the ship, and then when you don't see it later in the officer's mess, you gotta shake your fist a little bit. Like, I I moved so many avocados. Where are they?

Bryan: 44:57

How long does that process take?

Niels: 45:00

Oh, it could be a couple hours and it's it's hot,

Bryan: 45:02

you know. Just like a couple hours straight of just moving food on garbage

Niels: 45:06

and all the recycling was we would melt it down into these pucks. Yeah. So, know, you got, like I don't know how many milk jugs would be in a puck, but it was, like, maybe 12 inch puck. It's like maybe, you know, maybe an inch thick. So how many milk jugs would melt into that?

Niels: 45:26

I have no idea, but it was a stinky process.

Bryan: 45:29

That's crazy that you guys spend that long. Like, I can't imagine hours in Manila in the heat and humidity. Yeah. Just unloading garbage and then loading up food. Like, that's gotta be quite a process.

Niels: 45:41

Yeah. Every port stop are doing it. Mhmm. Really.

Bryan: 45:44

Yeah. What surprised you most about life onboard a ship early on?

Niels: 45:50

Jeez. It was full of surprises.

Bryan: 45:52

Tell me a few of them.

Niels: 45:54

The complexity of the operations, the the naval chain of command, and how how it operated. Because we're, as the air force, like, pretty decentralized. Like, we'll get our mission authority and then as the individual AC, like, you're you're off you go. Go complete your mission. But on the ship, it's like, you know, every step of the way is kind of approved by the captain.

Niels: 46:20

It's his ship just like if we were the aircraft captain of our vessel or the Aurora, the painter for you, like and you have 200 people back there, each all of them working, and they each wanna turn or they wanna do whatever. Like, it's gotta go through you. Right? So at the time, it being introduced to that is kind of frustrating because you're like, well, why don't you just let me do my job? But in hindsight, you kind of realize that, you know, there's a a chain of responsibility.

Niels: 46:51

Mhmm. You can't just keep turning the ship to do whatever you want.

Bryan: 46:55

Yeah. It's, I think it's easy to draw initial parallels between, like, controlling a ship and controlling an aircraft, but they're like very different scales of operation.

Niels: 47:05

Yeah. One of the biggest hurdles, I guess, that we had to we had to overcome was ensuring the Navy knew that we were professional in what we did. Throughout their training, like their ORO or the ops room, officer training, and the MARS training that they do was obviously very navy focused, but they did have air assets in their in their training. I think one of the big problems was that the air asset was always like the pilot in charge kind of almost like top gun ish. I know how to do it better.

Niels: 47:44

I'm doing it my way, I'm not listening to you. So they were always, like, almost detrimental to the the progress of the ship, and you had to be very firm with them, throughout their training, and and you don't trust what they what they're doing. You're you're always double checking everything that that the air asset is doing, whether it's fixed wing or or rotary dipping. And that they brought that into their operational mindset. So, they were very, very tight control.

Niels: 48:10

They wanted very, very tight control of the of the helicopter. And they would do they would have very tight control over their their rib and their zodiac, like the smaller vessels that would leave the ship. But, you know, we spend years and years training.

Bryan: 48:24

Mhmm.

Niels: 48:25

And we practice this stuff all the time. And it was kind of challenging sometimes to impart that get that trust between the ship's company and the air crew.

Bryan: 48:36

Yeah. We got even a taste of that sometimes as the Aurora when we'd work with a ship, just like finding that it took a little bit of practice to sort of work out a relationship of trust and, like, understanding each other's capabilities. Yeah. Because, like, I'm not an expert on ships and what they can do, and they're not an expert on what the Aurora can do. Like, they get a Yeah.

Bryan: 48:58

They get a splash of training on it, but, like Yeah. Unless they've done a ton of work with air assets in the real real world, they don't necessarily know what to expect.

Niels: 49:06

Yeah. Exactly. We do it so infrequently that and every time that they do it is with a new crew Mhmm. As well. Right?

Niels: 49:14

So we're not we're trained the same, but we're not interchangeable. Mhmm.

Bryan: 49:19

What's the weirdest part of living on a ship?

Niels: 49:22

The weirdest part?

Bryan: 49:23

Yeah.

Niels: 49:25

Groundhog Day, I guess, if you know the movie. Mhmm. It's pretty rigid once you get into your your flow and every day is is the same. Yeah. Yeah.

Niels: 49:34

You you wake up, eat breakfast, fly, hot fuel, crew change, get down, late lunch, and then it's workout, study, dinner, hang out, play games, whatever, just some relax time. And then you go to bed and it's the same thing the next day. So the days of the week don't matter. Mhmm. The weekend doesn't matter.

Niels: 50:00

Do you get days off? No. No? No. Your days off are alongside.

Niels: 50:05

Okay. So your your your work week could be like, you know, twenty, thirty, forty, fifty days long.

Bryan: 50:13

Wow. Yeah. Does that get tiring or do you just fall into a rhythm?

Niels: 50:18

Both, really. There are moments where you're like, man, again, like, when is this gonna when is this gonna end? I just wanna see a tree. Yeah. Something green.

Niels: 50:31

But then the the repeatability and continuity of it all, it really kind of blends all together. So like in the moment, you're kind of a little bit like, this is this is so repetitive and feels like it's taking forever, but then you reflect on like the last week and it all kind of blends together. So your memory is kind of like, what day was that that we And did then the the days just kind of tick by pretty quick.

Bryan: 50:58

Yeah. It kind of sounds a lot, very similar to the experience of deploying in a in a base in The Middle East. Like, where Yeah. At the time, we weren't leaving the base at all. So, like, same thing you do the same thing every day and, you know, all of a sudden you're like, holy cow, it's been a month.

Bryan: 51:14

Like

Niels: 51:15

Yeah. You know, there are times where, like, you just really wanna stretch your legs and go for a good walk. You know, this ship is, like, 200 feet long.

Bryan: 51:23

That must be really hard. Like, to be able to only go a couple 100 feet in any Yeah. In like one direction and that's it. That must, like, get a little sturdy.

Niels: 51:32

Yeah. It's not like an unimpeded area either. Like, there's doorways and and breezeways and

Bryan: 51:39

things walking track.

Niels: 51:40

Yeah. The walking track is a flight deck and it's like, you know, if you're if you're long paced jogger, it's like eight steps maybe before you're turning 90 degrees.

Bryan: 51:51

And do people go jogging around it?

Niels: 51:53

Oh, yeah. And you get dizzy. Yeah.

Bryan: 51:56

You're like on a hamster wheel almost. That's crazy.

Niels: 51:58

Yeah. It really is. You really have to want to do it. Yeah.

Bryan: 52:04

How does food and quality of life change over a long sale?

Niels: 52:08

Alright. Yeah. Good question. So we talked a little bit about bringing the food on board and I mentioned the avocados, you know, watermelon, potatoes, carrots, all the regular type foods that are fresh, you know, boxes and boxes of lettuce. That food is usually eaten, like, right away.

Niels: 52:31

Mhmm. We'll just have we'll eat well, you know, fresh food for however long however much food we stored is like what we're using. And then we get into like a medium kind of I don't know how many days it would be. Depends on how much food we brought on. Right?

Niels: 52:47

Kind of like a medium pace where we're starting to bring out the frozen goods. Sometimes it would be steak.

Bryan: 52:52

Mhmm.

Niels: 52:52

Like, oh, you got frozen steaks? We'll bring them out. We'll serve them up. Lots of frozen dairy, that kind of stuff. And then even that stuff starts to run a little bit low.

Niels: 53:04

And then you get into, like, the preserves. There was a time between I think we had forty seven days at sea, And that forty seventh day was just like an afternoon stop in Djibouti. And then it was, like, five or six more days before we got alongside in in Greece. And so that afternoon stop, like, we didn't get a lot of food. It was just a, like, a couple days worth, and not everybody was allowed off the boat.

Niels: 53:33

So I don't even know what day it was because it's Groundhog Day. I will say, like, day 30 or something, and we were forty seven days at sea. They started bringing in, like, the the canned beans, the like, the wax beans, things I have never even had in my life that are, like, you know, 30¢ a can. Yeah. And, you know, there is a breakfast, they would pull out we were out of eggs, I think, and they'd pull out hot dogs, like, cut up hot dog chunks and serve it in a salad bowl with mayonnaise.

Niels: 54:13

It just looked and smelled so gross. And then, obviously, like, no one would touch it at breakfast, and then it would go away. And then at lunch, it's there. And then it goes away and it it that same untouched bowl of hot dogs is there at dinner again. You're like, what is with this hot dog salad?

Niels: 54:31

Why do they keep trying to make us eat it? And then the next day, like, the navy does soup at 10:00 in the morning, it would just be, like, hot dog soup the next

Bryan: 54:41

day. Oh, my gosh.

Niels: 54:42

I know this is the hot dog salad Yeah. With the mayonnaise, like, rinsed off or something. Put back into a soup.

Bryan: 54:50

Oh, my gosh. That's real.

Niels: 54:52

So it got it got long and, you know, you develop a taste for canned beans. Yeah.

Bryan: 54:57

I I imagine that your first good meal after that is pretty nice.

Niels: 55:01

Oh, yeah. Like, you go out, you go alongside somewhere and if you're not on duty, then you're you're out at a restaurant with your buddies and you're a nice meal for sure.

Bryan: 55:11

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That must be awesome.

Niels: 55:13

Yeah. There was a lot of, you know, big thanks to Lindsay for sending me boxes and boxes of food, granola bars and trail mix, protein bars, that kind of stuff.

Bryan: 55:25

Yeah. Yeah. You did your training on the Sea King and it was like a pretty crazy time of life. Like just before you went to the OTU, you met your now wife, Lindsey

Niels: 55:38

Yep.

Bryan: 55:38

A couple months before. Yeah. And then you go to the OTU for seven months. Yep. You come back and immediately find out that you're posted to HMCS Ottawa and that you're going to deploy.

Bryan: 55:53

So how did that all go?

Niels: 55:55

Well, you know, she had some challenges with that accepting that that's what it was gonna be like. Mhmm. You know, Lindsay and I met and I was head over heels for her. So she had let slip that she doesn't really she wants to, like, always be together, like, daily. That's really important to her.

Niels: 56:20

And I was like, oh, boy, this might not work. So I started hey, you know what? You know, it's a couple weeks into our relationship and I was like, you know, I I gotta go away in January for a little bit. And she just like, well, how long? I don't know if I could do this, if it's worth it.

Niels: 56:36

And I was like, oh, no. I was like, it's not long. Don't worry. It's like a couple weeks. And she's like, couple weeks?

Niels: 56:45

Oh. I was like, oh, no. So I every time every time, you know, every couple days, I'd bring it up and the time would just get longer and longer until I was like, yeah, it's gonna be like six months. But, I brought her out for a visit when I was on the OTU and we we drove around Yeah. Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island.

Niels: 57:04

We had a great time. That's awesome. We were definitely looking forward to, being back together because Mhmm. You know, there's a four hour time difference. So there were a lot of late night, what was it, Skype calls back

Bryan: 57:17

then.

Niels: 57:19

Where I was up till like one or two in the morning. Yeah. And then getting up to fly the next day, which was not good. But also serviceability was bad. So fifty fifty shot.

Niels: 57:29

Yeah. Had to keep my relationship alive. Right? Yeah. For sure.

Niels: 57:33

And when the course was over, I was looking forward to just flying back commercial and getting getting back as quick as I can. And then they told me I was flying a sea king across the country and it would take a week. I was like, oh, man. Again, like, I just wanna stop. Like, can I just fly home, please?

Niels: 57:52

They weren't interested in that. I I took I took the sea king, which on reflection is a is a great opportunity.

Bryan: 57:58

Oh, for sure.

Niels: 57:59

I was just not look I didn't want it at the time.

Bryan: 58:02

Yeah. You just felt done.

Niels: 58:03

Yeah. Yep. And then I I got back, I took some leave, and then I got called off leave. Phone rang while I was napping and told to pack my bags. I had, like, three days notice, I think, to, like, get a list of things I needed from someone, pick up some some aircraft parts, and bring them down for and I think it was a three or four month deployment.

Niels: 58:27

And that was a hard pill to swallow Yeah. After getting just getting back and getting delayed coming back and then leaving again right away.

Bryan: 58:34

Like how long were you home for?

Niels: 58:36

I don't even know. Ten days maybe.

Bryan: 58:38

Oh my gosh. Yeah. So how did you break that news to Lindsay?

Niels: 58:42

I just by that point, I was like, it's just the truth. Yeah. There's nothing I can do. It's happening. Yeah.

Niels: 58:47

She was, supportive. It's the way that things were gonna be. So the follow on deployments, she had just moved into my condo because I I owned a condo and she was renting. I was like, why don't you just stay here? Like, I'm paying for it.

Niels: 59:02

I'm never there. Mhmm. Why would you waste all your money on rent? Just go live there. Yeah.

Niels: 59:07

That was tough. That that first appointment was, was pretty rough.

Bryan: 59:12

Yeah. You said that after the first sale, you didn't wanna be a maritime helicopter pilot anymore. Yeah. Why was that?

Niels: 59:20

So even though, like, I went through, naval environmental training, did the Sea King OTU, it just you're not really prepared for life at sea. Mhmm. And the pace of operations and the the crew you have really does make a big difference. And, in general, we had a we had a good crew. The the challenge was kind of at the at the leadership level where it was like, no mercy.

Niels: 59:56

Might as well been on, you know, basic training, full metal jacket style. Mhmm. It was it was tough.

Bryan: 01:00:04

Pretty strict strict style of leadership discipline. And a lot of a lot of

Niels: 01:00:08

your training is like, hey, man, like, you're you're gonna be out there. You need to be able to make these decisions and you're you're kind of you have, you know, years and years of this kind of mindset. And then you get to the spot where you're like, okay, I can finally start employing these things, and taking responsibility for it. And it's just like right back to basic training.

Bryan: 01:00:28

Yeah. Like, you're you've been told for years, like, you're an adult now. Yeah. You need to learn to make decisions and operate and

Niels: 01:00:35

Yeah. And it is just completely gone.

Bryan: 01:00:37

Yeah.

Niels: 01:00:37

And, our our deck commander was stressed. Mhmm. We had a couple junior guys, myself, being so new. I didn't even know where the bathroom was. Yeah.

Niels: 01:00:48

And another junior copilot, also kind of only had a few months on the unit. And it was tough. And it wasn't probably wasn't handled the best. And there there were quite a few people who who left the Air Force after that sale. Oh, wow.

Niels: 01:01:06

And I was, I was ready. Was like, if this is what it's like, like, this is not for me. Yeah. This is not how it was sold to me.

Bryan: 01:01:13

Yeah. So it was a big shock.

Niels: 01:01:15

It it was huge. Yeah. So I had a meeting with the CEO about maybe switching or finding something else to do. He encouraged me to be patient and that there were plans for me and whatever and we got out. I switched debts almost immediately as I came out of that, and I what I really wanted was just some time with Lindsay.

Niels: 01:01:37

Mhmm. It must have been, like, three months because I got back from that sale, switched debts, went straight out again, back to Halifax, back for Sims, another quick sale, back to Halifax again, Christmas leave, and then sailed for then that one I left in January and came back in September.

Bryan: 01:01:59

That's crazy.

Niels: 01:02:00

Yeah. I don't know why she stuck around. But that that second sale, that that second debt, that long one, it was it was great and it I needed that.

Bryan: 01:02:11

Yeah. I was gonna say, like, the nice thing is your first sale, you felt done, but by the end of your second sale, you were actually enjoying life as a maritime helicopter pilot.

Niels: 01:02:20

Yeah. Yeah. We got, we had a tight crew. We were, we're all close. We had a great deck commander, and we had some purpose.

Niels: 01:02:33

I felt involved, and we were we switched from Op Artemis to, I guess, Task Force Neo in the Mediterranean. And, it was just nice to be involved, and really feel like you're contributing.

Bryan: 01:02:51

So I just have a couple more, general questions about kinda life at sea. You've already mentioned that the longest you went without seeing land was forty seven days. Like Yeah. You were out in the ocean forty seven days, you never saw land. What is that like mentally?

Niels: 01:03:08

Yeah. I mean, it's tough. Like, you gotta stick with your rhythm. You gotta keep a positive attitude and and talk to the talk to the guys. There's always gonna be quiet times where you're kind of on the flight deck in the evening, the sun's going down.

Niels: 01:03:26

It's it's beautiful out. It's like 30 something degrees. It's warm. The water is warm, the air is warm, everything is nice, the sky is blue, but you're just hoping to see an island or something around. But just taking it one day at a time and keeping it all kind of in perspective, like, is this is work Mhmm.

Niels: 01:03:49

Is what it is. And your weekends will come and the weekend when it does come, is usually pretty good. Yeah. If you're in a new place, lots to explore, new tastes, you really get some time to explore the areas that you're you're coming alongside in. Mhmm.

Bryan: 01:04:06

So you just kind of remind yourself like this is gonna be worth it and this will end?

Niels: 01:04:10

Yes. Now it's different when you're grounded because if you run out of things to do, like run out of training and Yeah. Run out of breakfast to make and and things like that, then it can start to feel like a like a bit of a floating prison. Yeah. I believe that.

Niels: 01:04:23

Yeah.

Bryan: 01:04:23

Do you see other ships at all when you're doing that?

Niels: 01:04:25

Occasionally. Yeah.

Bryan: 01:04:26

Yeah. So at least you can remember the world is still out there.

Niels: 01:04:29

Yeah. Oh, yeah. Yeah. We'll see cargo ships all the time on our on our surface surveillance trips and whatnot. Like, we're lucky being in the helicopter crew.

Bryan: 01:04:38

You kinda get to escape a

Niels: 01:04:39

little bit. You do. Yeah. It's a couple hours out, breathing some fresh air. Mhmm.

Niels: 01:04:45

Most fresh air as the Sea King can produce.

Bryan: 01:04:47

Yeah.

Niels: 01:04:49

And seeing other ships and other life.

Bryan: 01:04:50

Yeah. The last thing I wanted to ask you about is some of the crazy landings you guys do, like at night rough seas. What is that like?

Niels: 01:04:59

Oh, yeah. So in general, Sea King flying was pretty predictable.

Bryan: 01:05:04

Mhmm.

Niels: 01:05:05

Especially when you're doing like the counter narcotic stuff, like it's all above surface stuff. So you're flying along and you're just getting a good picture of of the the area around the ship. Right? The night flying and teaching someone who's never done it before is where, you know, you still get a bit of a pucker factor.

Bryan: 01:05:25

Mhmm.

Niels: 01:05:26

So you do, like, autopilot off, hydraulic off, landings at night. You're connected to the haul down system for that Mhmm. Which is which is nice. But you do, like, night cross cockpit on NVG, stoke guideline transfers with someone who's never done it before and you're trying to look over their shoulder and you just get the odd glimpse of the boat. There's no horizon.

Niels: 01:05:54

Yeah. It's kinda like docking the spacecraft, like the into the ISS or something. Like, you just don't know which way is up. You If you're moving or if the boat is moving or what's going on. It takes a yeah.

Niels: 01:06:08

It it can be stressful.

Bryan: 01:06:09

That's gotta be seriously frightening at times.

Niels: 01:06:14

Yeah. Yeah. And we don't we did it, like, intermittently too. Right? So it's not like you're practicing it every day, but, you know, you fly a week of nights or something and you you get you get into the groove.

Bryan: 01:06:24

Mhmm.

Niels: 01:06:25

You know, we're we're all pretty short on hours compared to the fleet when it was kind of, born.

Bryan: 01:06:34

Yeah. I guess, you know, it was like at its

Niels: 01:06:36

At its peak. Like, you know, there's 12 helicopters on, you know, six ships and they're always going and you're you're flying two or three times a day, building thousands of hours, that you essentially live in the thing. Mhmm. And then we go like, okay. Your YFR is down, serviceability is down, and you have to attain these skills with limited time and availability.

Niels: 01:07:03

But once you get it, you know, it's a real real hands on kind of it's all control linkages and hydraulic pistons. And you gotta you get get a lot of feedback Mhmm. From the machine. And it is it really speaks to you once you learn its language, you know?

Bryan: 01:07:20

It sounds like a real Pilot's machine.

Niels: 01:07:22

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And I really enjoyed that part of it. Yeah.

Niels: 01:07:24

Yeah. Even coming back to something like the four twelve, which does give you quite a bit of feedback, it there was nothing like the the Sea King. You could really become one with it. Yeah. Yeah.

Bryan: 01:07:35

And Niels mentioned the YFR there. That's yearly flying rate. Right?

Niels: 01:07:39

Yeah.

Bryan: 01:07:39

Yeah. So it's basically the year's budget for hours.

Niels: 01:07:41

That's right. I

Bryan: 01:07:42

know that I said that was the last question. I actually have one more small question. What kind of person do you think is well suited to fly in the maritime helicopter world?

Niels: 01:07:51

I kinda mentioned earlier that the the time at sea is work time. Mhmm. You know? And I there are there are nights on the boat where you're like, god, this couldn't be any worse. And then I kinda lay my head on my pillow, in my bed, in my own little private area knowing that there's a warm breakfast for me waiting in the morning.

Niels: 01:08:10

And I think, well, at least I'm not sleeping in a ditch. Could be worse. I could be tach hell. And even then it's like you're in the field and you're eating IMPs or or and you're bugging out and doing whatever. And even in your SAR and you're on a six day search and rescue mission going through moderate ice and hurricane force winds and all.

Niels: 01:08:35

Like, no matter what you do, the work is gonna be hard work. Mhmm. It takes different forms. So, you know, integrate with the crew, with your air crew and with the ship's company, make friends, work hard when it's time to work. And then your time off, especially when you're you're deployed on a ship, it's like enjoy your time off in Manila.

Niels: 01:08:58

Enjoy your time off in Greece or Spain or wherever it is you're going. There's lots to see and do and your weekends are not like weekends at home, you know? Like, you got a real opportunity to to see and experience new things. Awesome.

Bryan: 01:09:15

Alright, man. That is gonna wrap up part one. It was really cool to you know, Niels and I have been friends for years, really close friends for years, and I learned a lot today about your your life and kind of what got you to where you are today. So that was really fun, and I am really, really looking forward to diving in deep to some of the sales you did with the Royal Canadian Navy in the next episode. So thanks again for being here today.

Niels: 01:09:39

Yeah. No problem. Thanks, Brian.

Bryan: 01:09:41

Alright. That wraps up part one of our two part series on a classic iconic aircraft, the CH one twenty four Sea King. Tune in next week as we sit back down with my good buddy, captain Niels Olson, to talk all about his adventures around the world sailing and flying with the Royal Canadian Navy. Do you have any questions or comments about anything you've heard in this show? Would you or someone you know make a great guest, or do you have a great idea for a show?

Bryan: 01:10:05

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. That's all for now.

Bryan: 01:10:30

Thanks for listening. Keep the blue side up. See you.

Niels: 01:10:35

Engineer, shut down all four. Shutting down all four engines.