Episode 53: The Jet Jockey: Tutor Tales: Flying and instructing on the CT-114 Tutor Part 1 - Dan "Alf" McWilliams

What was it like to live in Germany on a NATO base during the Cold War as a teenager? What does it feel like to follow in your dad's footsteps and achieve your dreams to become a jet pilot? What was it like to instruct at "The Big 2" Moose Jaw when there could be up to 30 CT-114 Tutors flying at once? Today we sit down with Cold War fighter pilot Dan "Alf" McWilliams. Dan has a ton of fighter and instructional experience and is a wealth of knowledge and interesting stories. Today's interview will partly focus on some stories from his book, "Tutor Tales".

You can find his books at:

Tutor Tales

Supersonic Stories

Episode Transcript

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Intro/Outro (00:30):
Fuel and ignition switches. On. RPM switches. Set.
PD switches.
Normal. Doors and hatches.Closed. Lay down. Stroblade.
On. Research check-in. Completewith your left. Engineer. Start
number two.
Starting two. Wing three onezero ten, pilot project podcast,

(00:51):
clear takeoff runway three oneleft.

Bryan (00:58):
Alright. We're ready for departure here at the pilot
project podcast, the best sourcefor stories and advice from RCAF
and mission aviation pilotsbrought to you by Skies
Magazine. I'm your host, BrianMorrison. With me today is
retired fighter pilot, Dan AlfMcWilliams. Dan, welcome to the
show, and thanks so much forbeing here.

Dan (01:15):
Thanks, Brian. I'm very happy to be here as well.

Bryan (01:18):
Yeah. I'm really glad to have you. So before we begin,
let's go over Dan's bio. Dangrew up in a military family.
His father played a huge role inhis eventual flying career.
At age 14, having been forced tojoin air cadets, Dan flew in the
backseat of a t 33 with hisfather flying in Cold War West
Germany. That 20 flight, whichincluded a touch and go in LAR
and a turning mock combat with aLuftwaffe f four, sank the hook

(01:41):
in Dan's cheek and made hiscareer path crystal clear. He
started an applied sciencedegree at the Royal Military
College in Kingston, Ontario in1976, graduating in 1980. At the
time, there were no delays inpilot training. His primary
flight training, survival, andother preparation took place
prior to RMC grad, and by summerof nineteen eighty, lieutenant
McWilliams was on his tutorwings course.

(02:03):
Upon graduating, Dan reallywanted to fly c f one o fours in
Germany like his father, butthey were being retired as were
the Vudus as the new c f 18Hornets were being phased in.
Grudgingly, Dan accepted therelegation to a first tour as a
qualified flying instructor atthe big two in Moose Jaw.
Coincidentally, his father wasalso assigned as a QFI for his
last military posting. So overthe next few years, Dan learned

(02:25):
tremendous lessons from hisfather along with the other
experience associated with beinga QFI. In hindsight, being a QFI
and arriving in Cold Lake in1985 for fighter training with
two thousand flying hoursalready in his back pocket was a
tremendous help.
During his training on the c ffive, Wings Barcracks delayed
his training and he held over onthe t 33 at base flight flying
the vintage t 33 for six monthsthen completed the c f five and

(02:48):
c f 18 courses. His firstfighter tour was reopening four
three three squadron with 12 newHornets. Many challenges ensued
as everyone adapted to the newaircraft, learned how to hold
NORAD alert, and also filled anew role as rapid reactor
reinforcements in CentralEurope. Dan ended up spending
many weeks on exchange with fourzero nine Squadron, a Canadian
Hornet unit based in Baden,Solingen, where he had attended

(03:10):
high school as a militarydependent. Four three three
deployed everywhere includingLahr, West Germany, Maple Flag
in Cold Lake, Red Flag in LasVegas, NORAD counter narcotics
alert in Greenwood, Nova Scotia,and many other tasks.
Overall, he spent ten years inBeggaville flying with both four
thirty three and four twentyfive squadrons and a stint in
wing operations as an opsofficer and simulator

(03:31):
instructor. He was sent to theGulf War in October 1990,
spending five months in thejoint HQ in Bahrain. His stint
in Bagotville was interrupted bya year long posting to the third
line maintenance facility inMirabel, Quebec, where Dan flew
test flights and ferry flightson c f eighteens coming out for
major maintenance and advised onc f 18 software upgrades for the
aircraft and simulators. He alsodealt with airframe fatigue life

(03:53):
management and was the OPI forthe c f 18 aircraft operating
instructions. At twenty years ofservice, major McWilliams
retired getting a civilian jobas a supervisor for c f eighteen
software engineers in Mirabelwith CAE Electronics.
He was soon asked to work as atest pilot at CAE's main plant
in Montreal working on projectsincluding a MiG 29 with
artificial intelligenceadversaries and the NATO flying

(04:16):
training in Canada simulators,all five simulators from design
through to installation testing.Dan then moved on to instruct
and fly on the Challenger sixzero four with Bombardier in
Montreal, then was lead subjectmatter expert on the upgraded CF
18 simulator project. He movedback to Bagotville, this time as
the civilian manager of themission training center in
Bagotville. To cap off hiscareer, he downshifted to work

(04:39):
as a classroom instructor atQuebec's Provincial Aviation
College, CQFA. There he taughtyoung pilot trainees in French.
After retirement in 2019, Danwas asked to come back part time
conducting distance learning atCQFA while living four fifty
kilometers away near Montreal,where he and his wife Francine
of thirty five years live neartheir children and first
grandchild. Today, we're goingto talk about Dan's book, Tutor

(05:01):
Tales, starting with his time asa student and then his time
instructing on the tutor. Sobefore we really get into
things, what made you wannawrite a book about your flying
experiences?

Dan (05:12):
I'd always wanted to write a book. For the longest time, I
thought maybe I'd like to writefiction, but I can't come up
with any really good plot ideas.So I've kind of shelved that
idea. I'm a bit of a nerd. Fulldisclosure, I build model
airplanes, and so I would postthem online.
And as part of the posting ofmodel aircraft, I would tell
little stories here and there onthe websites about, oh, this

(05:35):
particular aircraft and whathappened here and a little
anecdote there. Somebody said,you really should write a book.
So the pandemic hit and Ithought, why not? So I wrote a
book and it turned out huge. Itit was like way, way, way too
long to be one book.
So I chopped it in two. And sothe first one became Tutor Tales

(05:56):
and I've got a second one calledSupersonic Stories. So so that's
what the reason was. It wasmainly because people seem to
enjoy the stories and I thought,let's do it.

Bryan (06:06):
That's awesome. And I guess the other cool part of
that is it kinda leaves a legacyfor your kids and your grandkids
as well.

Dan (06:12):
Oh, that was definitely part of it. I I wanted to be
able to explain this stuff tothem. And the big thing that I
did with the books was I reallytried to make it approachable. I
tried to make it so thatenthusiasts and people who had
no clue about aviation couldread it and go, oh, that's what
it's really like because Iwanted to put the reader in the

(06:34):
cockpit.

Bryan (06:34):
Yeah. And I think you did a great job of that as well.

Dan (06:37):
Thank you.

Bryan (06:38):
What did you find was the most challenging part of writing
these books?

Dan (06:42):
Most challenging actually, was, reducing the number of,
words and chopping it down tosomething more concise. I But at
the same time, I've always, as ateacher for basically my entire
life, I've always worked attrying to make things simple,
short, concise andunderstandable. I don't like

(07:04):
long run on such as hugeparagraphs. You just lose the
reader if you do that. So I Iworked hard on making it
concise.

Bryan (07:12):
So that must have been quite an editing process.

Dan (07:14):
It was. I I did, pretty much 95% of the editing myself.
My father was extremely strictabout grammar. He would get on
my case about everything. And II really learned to write
properly.
And having grown up bilingualEnglish and French from when I
was born, I, naturally have atalent and a and a passion for

(07:36):
language. So I I did the editingmyself.

Bryan (07:39):
Something I appreciate is you're very honest in your books
about your own mistakes, whichas I know isn't easy when you're
making your story public. Didyou find it difficult to display
this vulnerability?

Dan (07:50):
I think, when somebody tries to present a facade where
they make no mistakes, wherethey are basically golden and
nothing can go wrong, they'relying because everybody's human.
And I consider myself to be arelatively competent pilot. I
know I've done well. And yet atthe same time, I've done some

(08:10):
really stupid things. Andsometimes when I talk with my
students at CQFA and otherplaces, I'll tell them, here's
what I did wrong.
Here's how it happened. Here'swhy it happened, and here's what
I should have done instead. Andit's much more interesting for
students to learn from somebodyelse's experience that maybe it
can prevent an accident one day.

Bryan (08:32):
And that's something that's kind of baked into flying
culture too, hopefully. Right?In a healthy organization is
learning from each other'smistakes and telling those
stories.

Dan (08:40):
Definitely.

Bryan (08:41):
Yeah. Do you have any plans to write more in the
future?

Dan (08:46):
I do have some stories about my time flying gliders
when I was a teenager. I'mthinking of putting them
together, but, haven't reallydecided whether I want to do
that. And if somebody comes upwith a great plot for a fiction
book, I'm all ears because I canwrite. I just I just can't come
up with the plot.

Bryan (09:04):
Yeah. Okay. So let's dive into some specifics about your
book, Tudor Tales. It's anautobiographical book that
describes your early days inGermany as well as your time as
a student in the flight trainingsystem system and finishes with
your time as an instructor onthe tutor. So I've read your
books, and I think I know theanswer, but the audience
doesn't.
Where did aviation start foryou?

Dan (09:24):
It started, I've been around aircraft since I was
born. My father started as anavigator, and then he was cross
trained to pilot when he could.So he was on c f one hundreds on
Vudus and, then the one zerofour. And, when we went to
Germany, that's where it reallysank in because I was 13 years
old, stepped off the bus, and Icould hear this whine and roar

(09:48):
as four one zero fours cameoverhead and turned into the
overhead brake. And I justlooked up with my jaw dropping
and going, wow.
That is really cool. And I wouldsit by the runway and watch them
go by. So that's where it allstarted. It was never something
that was mysterious to me. Itwas something that was in my
life.
And after that t 33 ride in aircadets, it was like, no, there's

(10:10):
no other choice.

Bryan (10:11):
Yeah. And it's interesting you mentioned the
sound of a one zero four. I justhappened to see a video this
week of the last flying one zerofour in Europe, and it talked
about that distinctive whine andand roar as it goes by.

Dan (10:24):
And that Norwegian one zero four is actually a Canadian
built c f one zero four that'sbeen re reestablished in flying
condition.

Bryan (10:31):
Oh, that's really cool. For the listeners, we've hunted
down some audio so you can hearthe distinctive whine of a c f
one zero four in a high speedpass. So what was it like living
in Germany as a teenager?

Dan (10:51):
It was it really brought home the Cold War here in
Canada. We had no clue what itwas like. It was fun going there
because there was so muchhistory. Within 20 or 30
kilometers of the base in Badenwhere we lived, I could go every
weekend, my dad would bring outa one and fifty thousand scale
map, and he'd say, okay. Whichcastle we're gonna go to this

(11:12):
weekend?
And I'd find one on the map, andI'd help him. And I actually
learned a map read from thatbecause he'd get me to map read
and navigate and take us upthese winding back roads to the
top of the hill where the ruinsthat were built in November were
still there. And we'd explorethe castle, and it was a lot of
fun that way. But on the otherhand, drive down the Audubon,

(11:35):
and there were tank columns,green military vehicles. There
was barbed wire everywhere.
There were guard posts. It wasright in your face that this was
a a war potentially could startat any second.

Bryan (11:50):
Mhmm. Did you have any feelings as a kid about, like,
the possibility that your dadwould have to respond if war
broke out?

Dan (11:59):
Definitely. Yeah. We were a little bit insulated from it,
but there was when we lived onthe base the last two years we
were there, right outside mybedroom window was this siren
that would go off at, 3AM. Andthen the speaker would start
saying, this is a snowball. Allpersonnel report to the base

(12:21):
immediately.
And I would think, okay. Is thisreal? Is this an exercise? I
don't know. And unbeknownst tome, some of the, some of the
dependents, the mothers, the thechildren, were planning to drive
to Switzerland if war ever brokeout so that they would be
protected and safe during a warin in Central Europe.

Bryan (12:43):
Wow. That's crazy to think of having to have those
kinds of contingencies in place.That's wild.

Dan (12:49):
Yeah.

Bryan (12:50):
So we've touched on this a bit, but can you tell us the
story of your first flight in afighter jet?

Dan (12:55):
That was so cool. I I remember it like it was
yesterday. I'm in this oversizedflight suit. It's a hot July
day. The sun's beating down.
But of course, in Germany at thetime, a lot of pollution, so
it's really hazy. And, it'sstrapped into the aircraft, and
I'm sitting there feeling reallyclaustrophobic in the back of
this jet. Dad comes up theladder, looks at me, says, are

(13:17):
you okay? He gives me the thumbsup. I said, yep.
Fine, dad. And I realized hecan't hear me because I have
this mask on my face. And so hesays, just nod. And I nodded.
And okay.
He started up. We we taxied outthe the run down the runway. I'd
been in the seven zero seven toget to and from Germany. And so

(13:38):
I was used to acceleration, butthis was like, oh, this thing
accelerates really well. And wegot airborne and then it's just
this pure feel of power andfreedom.
All of a sudden I was justlooking around and all I can see
is beautiful German countrysideand I could spot my house in the
Rhine River, the the BlackForest next to us, and it was

(13:59):
just surreal. It was it's anexperience that I never
expected. It was way better thanI thought it would be.

Bryan (14:06):
Yeah. That sounds transformative, and it's so cool
that you got to do that withyour dad as well.

Dan (14:12):
Yeah. There was another guy that same day who flew with his
father. There were six of ustotal, two of which had, one
zero four and t 33 pilotfathers.

Bryan (14:22):
Wow. So that flight inspired you to be a fighter
pilot, but the odds were againstyou. Can you explain what the
chances were at the time ofgetting to be a fighter pilot?

Dan (14:31):
Oh, the short story the short answer is less than 1%.
And, the numbers were aboutevery year. And my dad explained
this to me because on the driveback from there, I said, I
really wanna do this. And he hegot his pipe out and, you know,
sat down and said, you'llprobably never make it. He said,

(14:51):
you'll apply.
You'll be one of 3,500 peoplewho apply every year. You'll
probably get rejected becausehalf of them get rejected for
medical reasons. And then you goto your selection and you'll
probably not be selected becauseonly 450 out of the 1,700 are
then fit pilot. Out of that fourfifty, a bunch fail out in basic

(15:12):
training on basic officertraining. And then you'll get to
the primary flying school in theMusketeer, the little propeller
airplane, and you'll probablyfail the course because fifty
percent of the people fail thatcourse.
So now you get to Moose Jaw, ifyou get to Moose Jaw. There are
a 75 students who graduate eachyear with your wings, and out of
those 75, only 25 or so gofighters each year. So I said

(15:35):
your chances are pretty muchnil, so you better go to school
and get a real job.

Bryan (15:40):
So twenty five out of three thousand five hundred each
year managed to become fighterpilots.

Dan (15:45):
That's that's the numbers at the time.

Bryan (15:47):
That's wild. So you were undaunted by this or at least
undaunted enough to press on,and you attended Royal Military
College or RMC in 1976. What wasit like back then to be a
recruit and then a first yearcadet?

Dan (16:04):
I hated it. I absolutely hated military college. I first
of all, there are no women. Sothat was terrible. And I'd I'd
skipped a couple years throughschool, so I was two years
younger than everybody else.
I was already a bit of a nerdand it was not a lot of fun. And
the other thing is having had mymind or my attitude poisoned by

(16:27):
being a military dependent on aon a frontline fighter base, I'd
seen what people were like. I'dseen what the real military was
like. And it was nothing like amilitary college. Absolutely
nothing.
And I just I've rebelled againstit a little bit, but my dad had
also told me, zip it, listen, dowhat they say and you'll get

(16:49):
through it.

Bryan (16:49):
Yeah. Play the game. Right? Exactly. Yep.
And that's honestly solid advicestill to anyone who is
interested in being an air forcepilot. You're still gonna have
to go through basic officertraining, which is essentially
run as if you're all going intothe army. They're gonna throw a
lot of artificial stress at youwith yelling and all kinds of

(17:11):
crazy demands of your of yourtime and effort. And you have to
keep that in your head the wholetime. Like, hey.
You know, the when you get outof basic training, you get to
the air force world, andespecially once you get to the
pilot world, there's gonna benothing like that.

Dan (17:24):
Oh, it was such a different thing. And even the training
world in the air force was farmore human and normal, except in
places where they were basicallytreating it like a selection
process, where you were assumedguilty. You can't make it. And,
oh, this one actually made it.Okay.

(17:44):
I guess we'll grudgingly let himcarry on to the next phase.

Bryan (17:48):
Right. And so that would have been phase your your
primary flying school training?

Dan (17:52):
Yes. On the on the Beechcraft Musketeer, which was
the aircraft before the currentGrobe.

Bryan (17:58):
Okay. So speaking of that, you attended primary
flying school in July 1978.Something I think trainees can
really learn from you is youused a great deal of
visualization and what we referto as chair flying on this
course. Can you explain yourprocess and why you used it?

Dan (18:12):
I always do that. It started there, really. I would
take my checklist. I'd sit inthe cockpit. We had two of them
that had no engines orelectrical systems or anything
else.
They were we called them thestatic trainers. And every
single night, I'd be in thehangar and I'd be going through
the checks and not justpracticing checks. I'd sit there
and I'd think, where do I needto put the checklist so I won't

(18:36):
drop it and I'd have to fish forit? And when do I flip the page?
And it went to that extent whereI was thinking, I'm taxiing out.
What do I do with the checklist?So when it came to actually
flying, I thought it throughalready, and that really, really
helped.

Bryan (18:52):
Yeah. I'm a huge proponent of chair flying. I
used it extensively, especiallyat Moose Jaw. Before I left, I
had this I'm sure I've told thisstory before, but I had this,
captain who I worked with at aat four hundred tactical
helicopter squadron in Borden.And he told me, before you go
out on every flight, you need tosit down, use a kitchen chair,

(19:12):
or whatever you have, if youhave better tools like a cockpit
procedure trainer, whatever usethat, but visualize every step,
visualize strapping in,visualize the checks.
And if you make a mistake, startagain until you can do that
smoothly. And it will save youso much pain in the cockpit if
you can do that work at home.

Dan (19:29):
Oh, definitely. The one thing it did not help with was
self confidence and nervousnessbecause before every flight in
the Musketeer, I was convinced Iwas going to fail.

Bryan (19:41):
Why?

Dan (19:42):
I don't know. I just didn't have a lot of confidence in the
fact that I could do it. And yetat the end of the course, I went
back to RMC. I passed thecourse, so I was really happy
about that. And when I got backto RMC, my dad called me not too
long ago and he said, hey.
You'll never guess who my newstudent is. He was teaching on
the f five at the time. I said,no clue, dad. You'd tell me. And

(20:06):
he said, lieutenant Holman orcaptain Holman.
And I said, you mean myinstructor from the course I
just did? He goes, yep. He said,you told me he told me that you
were the best student he everhad in Portage and you'd do fine
in Moose Jaw.

Bryan (20:21):
That must have made you feel good.

Dan (20:22):
And I just, Oh, I went, Are are you serious? He goes, Yeah.
I'm not surprised either becauseyou were really good when we
flew together in the L 19 andthe T 33. You you catch on
quickly. And I said, Wish you'dtold me that before Portage
died.
I didn't want you going in withan inflated ego because then you
wouldn't have done as well.

Bryan (20:42):
Yeah. I mean, he has a point. So after having a chance
to fly in fighters with yourdad, you've mentioned that it
was on the CT one thirty fourfor primary flying school. What
was it like climbing into one ofthose after you'd been used to
flying in fighters?

Dan (20:55):
Yeah. It was a it sort of, played some tricks on me. At at
one point, we were I'd done thebasic stuff, takeoff landing,
practice force landings, thingslike that. And now we're into
aerobatics, so I'm gonna bedoing a roll. And I did the
first one.
We have to do this big, long,protracted stall spin aerobatic

(21:16):
check. So you do these clearingturns, a couple of 80 degree
turns, make sure nobody'saround. And then you with the
Musketeer, it had just aboutzero performance. So you had to
really stuff the nose down, getgoing really fast and then pull
it up high and then roll andthen hope that you didn't run
out of speed before you finishthe roll. And that was a roll in

(21:36):
a musketeer.
Well, I'd been up with my dad inthe F5. He said, do you want to
try a roll? I said, sure. So Igrabbed the stick and before I
knew it, it was like, cow, I'mI'm like 90 degrees to the
horizon. And like, he says, it'sreally, really sensitive and
it'll roll like two times persecond, seven hundred twenty
degrees per second.

Bryan (21:55):
Wow.

Dan (21:55):
So I he said, roll is easy. You pull the nose up five
degrees, you stop it, and thenyou just push the stick over a
little bit, not too much. And itrolled around. I went, holy cow,
like that was really cool. So mysecond role in the in the
musketeer, the instructor says,go straight into a roll.

(22:17):
In my little pea brain at thetime, I'm thinking, ah, I just
like click the ailerons over andjust roll. Right? From Yes. Slow
slow speed and level flight.What he really meant to say was
don't do the pre stall spinaerobatic trick Don't do the
clearing turns, but do theactual gain speed and all that

(22:37):
stuff.
He didn't make that clear to me.And and I think, unfortunately,
when you're a relatively goodstudent, the instructor gets a
little bit complacent anddoesn't make sure that you're
not gonna do something reallystupid, which I did.

Intro/Outro (22:52):
For sure.

Dan (22:52):
So I I just from 90 knots or so, I just start rolling and
it's not rolling very fast. So Igo, okay, full aileron
deflection. And it starts toroll and the nose is burying
itself. And he goes, I havecontrol. Now he didn't think it
was a high pitched voice, but itprobably was.
And he recovered. And that iswhy to this day, I remember 152

(23:16):
knots in four g because thosewere the airframe limits on the
Musketeer and I saw both of themon that recovery.

Bryan (23:23):
Oh, wow. So essentially, an unusual attitude recovery.

Dan (23:28):
That yeah. With a masterfully done by an
instructor. And I I profuselyapologized and I said, well,
I've I had a trip. I didn't tellhim I had four trips with my
father. I just said I had a tripin an f five, and this is why I
was wasn't thinking.
And he goes, okay. We'll makesure you do it right next time.

Bryan (23:48):
Yeah. That's good advice. And I guess any, listeners who
happen to come through Southporton flight training, you can see
a CT one thirty four Musketeeron a post in front of the
Southport RecPlex. So if youhaven't seen one before, that's
where you can. So at one pointduring the course, you had a
chance to see the CT onefourteen tutor up close, and you

(24:08):
mentioned feeling overwhelmed bythe complexity of the aircraft,
and you had a thought so manystudents can relate to.
How will I ever be able tomaster such a complex aircraft?
How did you get past this selfdoubt?

Dan (24:20):
Yeah. That was difficult because I was climbing up after
a touch and go, and I forgetwhat the speed was. A seventy,
eighty knots. So just reallyfast for a musketeer. But all of
a sudden, I heard this roar.
And I look over my left shoulderand I see this silver jet just
go flashing by at like fourtimes my speed. And he pulls up

(24:43):
hard into this hard turn awayfrom me. I realized later it was
a closed pattern. And I thought,wow, that's something. That
performance is incredible andI'm barely getting away from the
ground.
So that night I'm doing my usualhangar flying, I'm doing the
chair flying in the static and Ilook in the corner and I notice,
oh, there's a musket, there'sthe tutor that flew by and

(25:03):
stayed overnight. So I walkedover to it, and the first thing
I did was I I touched the skinbecause the musketeer had a skin
like a Coke bottle. It wasbasically bubble bubble. You
know, you could poke your fingerin there and it would it would
warp a little bit. But I Itouched the side of the tutor
and it was like, wow, this thingis just like solid aluminum and

(25:24):
it doesn't move.
Poke my head in the cockpit andI go, look at all those
switches. Look at all thosecircuit breakers, look at all
those instruments. I have noclue what half of them do. No
way I can do this. So in a mildpanic, I go back to the
barracks.
I grab the communal phone and Iuse the Audubon because we
didn't have cell phones oranything. And luckily, my dad

(25:46):
was at home and able to call medown. He said, Danny, eat the
elephant one bite at a time.Climb the mountain one step at a
time. He said, the way theflying system is designed, the
way the courses are designed,it's building block and stepping
stones.
They will not push you beyondwhat you can absorb. So look at

(26:08):
what's in front of you,accomplish that, build on that,
build on that. And he said,you'll be surprised. In in a few
years, you'll look back at thisand say that was a piece of
cake.

Bryan (26:18):
Yeah. And I think that's such solid advice for any
student of any time in aviation.I think that carries right
through to now. I think if youhaven't been there at some
point, thinking like, holy cow,how am I gonna do this? You're
almost not human.
Like, in and certainly inmilitary aviation where it's so
fast paced and you know, like,wow, in a matter of months,

(26:39):
like, arrive at Moose Jaw, yousee a Harvard for the first
time, and you look at the seniorcourse and they're handling like
emergency drills and stuff anddoing all these briefings and
you're like, how am I going tolearn all this? How am I going
to master all this? You have toremember that you're going to do
it one day at a time, one flightat a time, one lesson at a time
and you will get there.

Dan (26:58):
Exactly. Yeah.

Bryan (27:01):
So after graduating from RMC, you attended pilot training
at two Canadian Forces FlyingTraining School in Moose Jaw,
also known as the Big 2.Nowadays, Moose Jaw can seem
like a busy place, but backthen, it was something else
entirely. Can you describe theoperation at the time?

Dan (27:16):
The operation was massive. In the morning, there would be
two long rows of, jet trainers,the tutor. They're all silver
shining in the sun or sittingunder the snow. Two rows of
them, about 99, not nineteen,nine zero aircraft parked on the
line. And it was like, how do Iput this?

(27:39):
It was it was like a productionline, like a sausage factory,
just the way the flyingoperation went because you'd see
some aircraft would be beingrefueled, others would be
undergoing before flight checks,others who had people doing walk
arounds and strapping in. Thensome further down the line,
they'd be starting, and thenthere were some empty spots
where people had taken off. Andthen in the back line, there

(28:01):
were other aircraft coming inand landing from after their
flight and then being refueled.At any one time, you'd between
ten and thirty aircraft airborneat the time.

Bryan (28:11):
That's crazy.

Dan (28:12):
We had yeah. We we had, when I look at the numbers for
NFTC, they're tiny compared towhat we had. We also had between
a hundred seventy five and twohundred students at any one time
on course. We had 110instructors. Wow.
Teaching them. So it was just amassive operation.

Bryan (28:33):
That's wild. That's just like a whole order of magnitude
different from how things arenow. And like I said, like
nowadays, it can feel quite busythere. So I mean, that's just
crazy. So during your time atMoose Jaw, there was a deadly
crash from a different courseserial.
Can you tell us about that?

Dan (28:50):
This happened actually, it was just before I arrived. And I
walked one day. Somebody hadtold me about it because it was
a senior from RMC who graduateda year before I did. He was
doing a navigation trip, a lowlevel navigation trip, and he
did what's called C FIT, socontrolled flight into terrain.

(29:11):
He he was distracted.
We don't know what it wasapparently, maybe a battery
overheat or something like that.And he just slowly flew into the
ground. The aircraft wasdestroyed and he died. Walking
towards the flight line from thebarracks, there was this fenced
off area and I looked throughthe fence and somebody had

(29:32):
reverently pointed out and said,that's the wreckage from the
crash. Wow.
And it was it was just twistedbits of aluminum, and I thought,
wow, that that is something.It's it was physical evidence of
how a little bit of distractioncan be quite deadly in this
business.

Bryan (29:50):
No kidding. Did you find that affected the way you
approached your own flighttraining?

Dan (29:54):
No. Because I was, invincible. That I wasn't even
25 yet. That's where yourfrontal lobe develops fully. So
I I basically, yeah.
Okay. Good. That will happen tome next.

Bryan (30:05):
Yeah. And I think that's something that a lot of pilots
can relate to as they get pastthat age and look back and think
back to some of their cavalierattitudes when they first
started out. Exactly. Yeah. Whatdid you find was the biggest
challenge as you began yourtraining on the Tudor?

Dan (30:21):
What seems so simple on the ground turned into a huge effort
in flight. For example,calculating what percentage of
power I needed to change to,change my airspeed by a certain
number of knots. And theinstructor gave me a little, a
little clue for how to do it,and I thought, oh, this is dirt

(30:42):
simple. Why is he even tellingme this simplification? So here
I am on flight number two in thetutor trying to fly straight and
level, and then, oh, yeah.
I have to change my airspeed. SoI go, okay. 30 knots. Alright.
That means I need to go to fullpower.
So I'm struggling the trim andeverything, and the airplane's
bobbling around, and I'm tryingto hold the heading. And this is
clear blue sky. I'm lookingoutside, but I'm having a heck

(31:05):
of a time keeping the thingstraight and level. So I go full
power and I'm five knots beforethe speed. So I pull the power
back and the instructor juststarts laughing.
He said, you forgot what powerto pull it back to. And I said,
you're right. He goes, he justlaughs and laughs and laughs. He
said, try 87%. So I go there.

(31:26):
Magically, it worked out. Sojust what seems so simple on the
ground when you have to controlthis aircraft in three
dimensions and think ahead, it'sa huge challenge. But eleven
months later at the end of thecourse, that stuff was old hat.
It was simple.

Bryan (31:42):
Oh yeah. Second nature by that point. And that whole
experience is like a classicexample of what pilots call a
helmet fire, right?

Dan (31:51):
Yes. We also, the the instructors would say that we
were on the the jump steep thatis being dragged 300 feet behind
the airplane.

Bryan (32:01):
Yeah. Yeah. We used to joke that we were hanging onto
the tail by our fingernails. Canyou tell us how you felt the
first time you went solo in thetutor?

Dan (32:12):
I just couldn't believe it, first of all. And it it was not
like a glider or a musketeerwhere you do a flight with
instructor called the solo checkand then the instructor would
hop out and then off you'd go.It's like you do the solo check,
you get out of the airplane, yougo and do a debrief, you might
have a coffee. And then theinstructor gives you a little

(32:32):
piece of paper and you can walkdown to ops all by yourself and
he gives you an airplane.

Bryan (32:37):
Yeah.

Dan (32:38):
And it's like, you're really trusting me with this jet
to fly by myself. And it wasjust a lot of fun. The first
thing I noticed was the pitotboom, which which is a little
red and white boom that sticksout from the right wing tip
because when the instructor issitting there with his head, you
can't see this thing thateasily.

Bryan (32:56):
Okay.

Dan (32:56):
And as as I'm taking off, I noticed something in my
peripheral vision bouncing upand down as we hit the bumps on
the tarmac and I'm going, oh,okay. Pitoboom. Oh, yeah. Oh,
yeah. Right.
Centerline got to remain on therunway and not crash. And then I
was just terrified that I wasgoing to do something stupid. So
I I just focused really hard.And unfortunately, I was so

(33:19):
focused, I I didn't really enjoythe experience. I was just
working so hard from start tofinish.

Bryan (33:26):
I think a lot of us feel that way on our first solo. And
even, you know, nowadays, youdon't get that many solos on
phase two. I think I remembertalking to my colleagues at the
time, and most of us feltstressed during those solos
because you're just you wannaget that best performance
possible out of yourself. Andyou're you're extra hard on

(33:46):
yourself almost because you'reup there. It's just you.
If anything goes wrong, you'regonna handle it. So I think a
lot of people can probablyrelate to that whole you'd think
it would be like the best flightof your life, but you're so busy
trying to make it all go wellthat you almost don't enjoy it.

Dan (34:01):
Yes and then later solos, you know that the reason they
exist is for you to practice andget better so you can't even
enjoy that.

Bryan (34:09):
No, they're work. They're there so you can go up and do
work. So as you've said, therecould be up to 30 tutors flying
and you simply use the see andavoid technique for separation.
Can you explain how that works?And were there ever any close
calls with midair collisions?

Dan (34:26):
The big sky principle.

Bryan (34:27):
That's right.

Dan (34:28):
Yeah. We we didn't have any assigned airspace or anything
else. You just fly out beyond 20miles south, and you'd be around
12,000, 15 thousand feet. Youjust do aerobatics. And before
each aerobatic sequence, do acouple 90 degree turns and have
a good look around.
And luckily, it is truly a bigsky. So even with a bunch of

(34:50):
aircraft in the area, it waspretty difficult to actually hit
something, but there there waspotential. There was always
potential.

Bryan (34:57):
Did you have any close calls with midair collisions?

Dan (35:01):
Yeah. This was actually a good example of how blindly
following the rules and theguidelines can sometimes not be
a smart or a safe thing to do.What happened was I had changed
runways. I'd done a night solo,and what these night solos we
did was just traffic patternsaround and around and around,
bunch of touch and goes. And Ilooked at my fuel quantity and I

(35:24):
had just enough to go changerunways, do one more traffic
pattern, and then land.
So cross I go, change runways,do the whole procedure, come
around, and all the sky is justfull of solo students. And we're
all on the same course becausewe're at the same stage at the
same time. So I get to initial,which is three miles from the

(35:44):
runway at about a thousand feetabove ground. And what I'm
supposed to do is do a 180degree turn, go straight for
just a little bit, a quartermile or so, and then another
descending turn and land. Well,as I got around, the tower said,
okay.
Too much traffic. You have to doa low approach. You can't land.

(36:05):
So I go, oh no. And I look at myfuel quantity and it's really
low now.
Well, not not super low, but ifI do another full traffic
pattern, I'm thinking I'm gonnabe too low, I'm gonna be below
minimum fuel and I'm gonna getin Yeah. I also knew that I was
not allowed to do an abbreviatedone called the closed pattern
because it was night and I was asolo student. So oh, boy. So

(36:28):
what I did was I cut thecorners. I flew the traffic
pattern but really, reallytight.
And when I came across towardsinitial, was in so tight that I
was actually cutting acrosswhere the normal pattern would
be to start the descending turn.And I'm focused on my fuel
quantity, looking around fortraffic, but I wasn't looking

(36:49):
like just to my right, veryclose by. And all of a sudden,
there's this flashing red anticollision light that goes right
over top of me. And I look upand I can see the landing gear
hanging from his aircraft as hegoes by, maybe about two meters
or 10 feet right above me. Wow.
It was really, really close.

Bryan (37:10):
How scary was that?

Dan (37:13):
Very, but no. I did not have to change my underwear.

Bryan (37:20):
So about two thirds of the way through your course, you
had to decide if you would keeptrying for jets or ask for
helicopters. You really wantedjets, but I've been told that
with the voodoo and thestarfighter standing down,
chances of getting fighters werenext to nil. What made you keep
pushing for a chance to flyfighters?

Dan (37:37):
That was a very, very difficult decision because
tactical helicopters at a 40 outof two hundred hours, that was
the point where the helicopterpeople would be split off. I
almost did it because thatlooked like a lot of fun. It was
also a single pilot operation,and that appealed to me. I
thought, I'm going to be the onecontrolling the aircraft. I'm

(37:57):
not gonna be the first officerbeing told what to do.
I'm gonna be in charge of theaircraft. However, I didn't want
to work with the ARMY. If youtalk about them that way they
don't know you're talking aboutthem. And I I didn't wanna live
in the field in an attempt, andI had no interest in what the
army did. So I said, nah.
I'm gonna stick it out. And I Ithought, I've made it this far.

(38:20):
I've beaten the odds so far.Let's go for it.

Bryan (38:23):
And it was just as simple as that. You thought I'm gonna
stick to my guns and and keeppushing for fast yet.

Dan (38:28):
Yes.

Bryan (38:30):
Many applicants and students now are facing delays
in achieving their dreams. Whatadvice would you give to them?

Dan (38:36):
That's tough. I I had a former student from CQFA who
went all the way through RMC.She graduated around 02/2022,
and, she was told it'll betwenty four to twenty eight
months. She made the personaldecision because she already had
a commercial bylaws license. Shedecided to pay tens of thousands

(38:58):
of dollars to pay her way out ofthe military, and she's flying
now as a first officer for for aNorthern Airline.
And I I've asked her, so how doyou feel about that now? She
says, I'm really happy I madethe right decision. It's a very
personal thing. I've I've talkedto people at the museum in
Bagotville, for example, and I Isee, okay. You're a second

(39:18):
lieutenant.
You don't have wings. You'reworking OJT at the the museum
greeting the public. You must bewaiting for your course in a
couple months. He said, no. It'sgonna be two years.
I said, you're kidding me. It'sreally unfortunate that it takes
that long because some really,really good and qualified people
are getting discouraged.

Bryan (39:37):
Mhmm.

Dan (39:37):
And yet this particular guy I spoke with said, no. I really
want this. I'm gonna stick itout and I'll learn whatever I
can in the meantime. And I thinkthat's the secret. You take the
situation and you say, how can Ibenefit myself?
How can I learn something fromthis? And that's what he decided
to do.

Bryan (39:56):
I think that's great advice. I think you have well,
you have three choices, I guess.One, say, no. Enough's enough.
And if that works for you, thengreat.
Two, you stick it out, butyou're miserable. And by the
time you get your pilot's wings,you're disenchanted and you
don't love it, and and youshould be at that point, you
should be totally in love withthe job. Or three, you take the

(40:19):
option that that young man didat the museum and you'd better
yourself as much as possible.And hopefully, you get through
all that and you get your wingsand you know that it's the best
job ever and you go forth likethat.

Dan (40:29):
Exactly, Brian. And there is no right answer. It's on what
you want for yourself.

Bryan (40:36):
Yeah. Yeah. That makes sense. One thing that matters as
a course wraps up is how yourank within the course.
Hopefully, the better you do,the better your chances of
getting to fly what you askedfor.
How did you rank?

Dan (40:48):
I was, top in the flying trophy, tied with another
student actually, but I came inI'm not sure where I ranked
actually. It's probably numbertwo or three overall out of 17,
graduates.

Bryan (41:02):
And so who ranked number one?

Dan (41:04):
Tom Sweeney was a he was a guy from my RMC class, and he he
came in second everywhere butnumber one overall.

Bryan (41:14):
So he just had the best average? Yes. And what did he
end up flying?

Dan (41:18):
The 104 like my dad did, like I wanted to do. So Tom,
I've never forgiven you.

Bryan (41:24):
That must have been a bit of a tough pill at the time.

Dan (41:28):
I was really disappointed.

Bryan (41:30):
But you must have been at least somewhat consoled by
earning that trophy.

Dan (41:35):
Certainly was. And the the fun part about that was, the
graduation parade. It came as atotal surprise to me and the
other guy. So the the city ofWuxia trophy was presented to
lieutenant Blay and lieutenantMcWilliams. And I went, oh,
because I I heard Pierre Blay'sname, and I thought, oh, crap.
I didn't win that either.

Bryan (41:53):
Yeah.

Dan (41:53):
But then they said, and and so the mayor presented us a
trophy. And after the parade, mydad said, here, let me show you
something. And he goes over tothe big trophy and I saw the
tape over our names on thetrophy. And I said, dad, I know
my name's gonna be on there. Hegoes, no.
No. No. Turn it around. 1970,city of Moose Jaw trophy, flight

(42:14):
lieutenant McWilliams. He said,that's me.
I said, that's really cool. Iwon the same trophy as you. He
said, yeah. Runs in the family.

Bryan (42:22):
That's awesome. So selection came and you were
selected as a tutor instructorin Moose Jaw. How did you feel
about that?

Dan (42:29):
Like I said, I was quite disappointed not to get
fighters. However, to me, thiswas the best, so to speak,
holding pattern on the waythere. It was kind of funny
because when my course directortold me what the posting was, he
said, I'm not sure if you wantit because I'm aware your father
has just been posted here. Howdo you feel about working with

(42:50):
him? I said, I think that'sfantastic.
I'm really happy to be doingthat.

Bryan (42:54):
Yeah. I think that'd be so cool. Now let's talk about
your time as an instructor,starting about your time
training to be an instructor atFlight Instruction School or
FIS. What was the biggestchallenge as a student
instructor at FIS?

Dan (43:07):
Boy, it was quite a different thing. The first thing
you had to do is become really,really proficient at flying the
aircraft from the right handseat, which was the instructor
seat. So that was fun. That wasfairly easy because I was
already relatively good atflying the aircraft. But then
the role playing and the havingto teach everything from

(43:28):
scratch.
And it was difficult because wejump around as well because
you'd be teaching one daysomething that was early in the
course, the next day you'd beteaching something right at the
end of the course. The day afterthat, you'd be teaching
something from another segment.So you'd always have to keep in
mind who is this instructor orstudent that is that I'm
teaching. And they were realwizened gray hair. Well, not

(43:52):
really gray hair because I havegray hair now at age 65.
They were probably 30. So theywere pretty old at the time. But
you have to treat them likestudents and they've given me a
progress book. Each page in thebook is a flight And I'd leaf
through this book. And I went upto Mel Warren, who's one of the
senior instructors at the time.
I said, Mel, tomorrow's flight,you're this student. Right? And

(44:15):
he looks at it and says, yep. Isaid, this can't be. This can't
be a real student.
I mean, look. There's redeverywhere. Red ticks, red
corners. This this student nevermade the course, and they'd
black they'd taken real studentprogress books and blackened out
the names. Okay.
And we used these. And I said,this can't be real, he said. He

(44:37):
chuckled and said, that's what anormal student is like. He said,
you you jerks that won theflying trophy have no clue just
what real students are like. Andthen he just smirked at me.

Bryan (44:49):
Yeah. No idea what the the normal struggles are of an
average student, I guess.

Dan (44:53):
And I I learned as an instructor on the line, it's
like, oh, okay. These peoplereally do need some coaching and
some teaching.

Bryan (45:03):
During FIS, as you've said, your instructor pretends
to be your student. What is thecraziest stunt an instructor
pulled on you as a pretendstudent?

Dan (45:11):
Oh, the same guy, Mel Born, we're practicing. I'm showing
him engine failures in thetraffic pattern. So what you do,
fly downwind about three or fourmiles from the runway, 240 knots
and engine failure. You pull thenose up, zoom a little bit to
gain altitude and drop the speedback to a 30, which was the best

(45:33):
glide speed, and then gentlyturn towards the airfield and
fly a gliding pattern to touchdown the runway. So and the
pattern was actually designed sothat you could do that from
almost any point within thepattern.
So the other thing you learnfrom FIS is that when you
demonstrate something, if youmake a mistake, there's a good

(45:54):
chance the student is going tomake the same mistake. Right. So
what I did was I pulled the noseup and I realized I'd pulled it
up a little bit too high. So Isaid, I'm demonstrating and
talking and Mel's just watching.And I was like, okay, sir.
Okay, sir. And he's like playingthe nervous little student. Pull
the nose up. I said, okay, Mel,I've pulled I've gone up a
little bit too steep. So I'mjust gonna overbank slightly.

(46:18):
And I went to about 90 degreesof bank. So I said, Let the nose
fall through the horizon. Andthen, Okay, now I'm on profile
back to 30 degrees of bank anddo this. He goes, Okay, sir. I'm
not sure I can do this, sir.
So we get downwind. I've givenhim control. I pull back the
throttle to 65%, put the speedbrakes out and say, okay, Mel,
simulated engine failure. Hepulls four or five gs and we're

(46:42):
pointing almost straight up. Hegoes, Oh, sorry, sir.
I made the same mistake as you.And he looks over at me with I
may have sworn at him at thatpoint, but not at the simulated
student, but at Mel pointing outmy error. And then he rolled the

(47:03):
aircraft inverted. So we'reupside down. We're about 2,500,
three thousand feet aboveground.
Also, we're flying an aircraftthat had external tanks, which
was not normal for that type oflesson. So a little a lot more
drag than usual and a bitheavier. We're upside down and
he goes, okay. Engine failurechecklist, throttle off. So he

(47:25):
shuts the engine off for real.
So we're upside down. The stickis shaking and the whole
airframe is shuttering. We'restalled. And all I see on top of
us is ground and the engine iswinding down to nothing.

Bryan (47:40):
Oh my gosh.

Dan (47:41):
So I said, I have control. And I rolled this into a gentle
turn, got the nose, and we'redown to about 80 knots or
something like that. We'resupposed to be at one thirty for
lighting. So I put the nosedown, regain flying speed, very
light on the controls so wedon't stall anymore or do an
incipient spin and die. I mashthe top of the throttle on the

(48:04):
air start button and I starttalking to Tower and saying,
okay, instead of a touch and go,this will be it.
And then Mel sort of like grabsmy taps me on the arm and says,
no, Dan, let's do a touch andgo. Okay. So the engine slowly
winding up. By the time we gotto established on final, we'd

(48:26):
hit idle RPM and I just slowlyadvanced the throttle. Okay.
It's responding. The engines areworking. So we did a touch and
go. And afterwards he explained,I'm a maintenance test pilot. I
do this all the time.
So the engine's fine.

Bryan (48:37):
Wow.

Dan (48:38):
Okay. So and then afterwards, he said I said, Mel,
this doesn't make any sense. Astudent wouldn't do that. And he
just grins at me and says, wait.Wait for it.
And sure enough, one of my bestfriends, Lee Obst, was doing his
very first student mission. Hewas a thousand feet low, wasn't

(49:00):
able to make the runway gliding,and the student shut the engine
off for real.

Bryan (49:04):
Oh, wow. Oh, okay. So did they make it in?

Dan (49:09):
They did because what Lee did was he, relit the engine.
He's told the student, don't putthe gear down yet. And they they
just gently flew around and hehe overshot the runway because
he was being very, very gentlewanting to stretch the glide as
far as possible. They did a lowapproach and just got engine
power back before they, theymade it. Wow.

(49:29):
So we learned.

Bryan (49:30):
So that kind of stuff is really happening from students.

Dan (49:34):
It really did. And we learned at that point when when
it's time for something likethat, you take your hand and you
park it in the throttle quadrantand you prevent it from moving
physically beyond a certainpoint.

Bryan (49:46):
Yep. Aviation can be a dangerous business, and you
experienced that firsthand onFIS. Can you tell us about that?

Dan (49:54):
Yeah. That that's unfortunately very true. When I
was in Portage, I had, finishedup early on a Friday, gone into
Winnipeg with a couple friends,watched a movie, went out, had a
good time, drove back toPortage, stayed overnight. The
next morning, I walk to themess. And as I'm walking to the
mess, I noticed the flag, theCanadian flag in front of the

(50:17):
mess is flying at half staff.
Okay. That's interesting. So Iget into the mess. I sit down
for breakfast, and I ask thepeople sitting at the table. So
who died?
Some politician kicked thebucket? And they all look at me
said, you don't know? No. Oh,Claude. And they told me the
story.
One of my course mates in MooseJaw who had been assigned as an

(50:38):
instructor in Portage, he'd donehis instructor course on the
musketeer a few months before Idid, so he was already
instructing. Well, beautifulFriday afternoon, he took up two
officer cadets who were waitingfor a course, and they went
flying in a musketeer. Andsomehow, I think he was probably
showing them a spin, and theydidn't realize that the center

(51:00):
of gravity was not in a goodplace in that little musketeer
to do a spin with three peopleon board, one in the back seat.

Bryan (51:06):
Yeah.

Dan (51:06):
And they ended up smacking into the ground and all three of
them died. And that was a a realeye opener. I'd seen it before.
I'd when we got to Germany, Oneof my father's friends, died,
about a few months after we gotthere, but I it wasn't up close
and visceral. But now this was aguy that I'd played crud and

(51:27):
other games with.
We'd hung out, we joked around,his girlfriend was there, life
was good for Claude. Yeah. Andthen all of a sudden, bam, it
was over.

Bryan (51:37):
So how did that impact you?

Dan (51:39):
Once again, I was invincible. Yeah. I what we did
was we did what we always did.And unfortunately, it happened
more than once over the nextseveral years. We go to the
mess, have a bunch of shooters,walk back to the barracks and
pass out and basically toast theperson's life.

(51:59):
And the next morning, get up andget back to the job.

Bryan (52:02):
Wow. That must have been really tough.

Dan (52:04):
It was because you have to, of course, at the same time, you
talked earlier, Brian, about theway that the military works when
in the flying community, youlearn from it. What happened?
Why did it happen? How can weprevent that so that we don't
become the next statistic? Andand you mourn them in your own
way, but you just you have tomove on.

(52:26):
You have no choice.

Bryan (52:28):
Yeah. And unfortunately, we still run into that every now
and then in this business.Right? It's it's sounds hard to
say it, but it's it's the natureof the business in aviation that
accidents happen from time totime and and people people pass
away and you have to find a wayto process it and and keep doing
the job.

Dan (52:46):
Yes. And I I believe that maybe nowadays, there are more
resources available for peoplein the military.

Bryan (52:52):
Yes. Definitely.

Dan (52:53):
Back in the day, it was it was suck it up, buttercup, move
on.

Bryan (52:56):
Yeah. Yeah. Which must have been really hard.

Dan (52:58):
It was. Yeah.

Bryan (53:00):
So after you completed FIS, did you feel like you were
well prepared for hitting theflight line with real students?

Dan (53:06):
I guess I thought I was, but I probably wasn't. And I but
I what I did was I approachedthings very, very
systematically. I I did it justlike a phase two FIS mission.
Look at the Prague book, look atthe instructor's guide, do the
briefing. But I I think monthsand months later, I realized

(53:27):
that I was pretty lucky becausewhat they do is they give you
really good students at first.
They give you students in MooseJaw, it was easier because they
had a track record from Portage.

Bryan (53:38):
Yeah.

Dan (53:39):
And so you then they would the junior green instructors,
they would give ACE or verycompetent students so that even
if the instructor didn't teachthem a lot, the student would
get them through it. And I'msure that's what happened with
me in the first few studenttrips that I did.

Bryan (53:58):
Until you ramped up a little experience?

Dan (54:00):
Yes.

Bryan (54:02):
You've mentioned you were fortunate enough to work for
your dad at Moose Jaw and heplayed an important role as a
mentor to you. How did he helpto shape you as an instructor?

Dan (54:11):
The beautiful thing about that is no matter what happened,
first of all, often he'd hearabout it secondhand or even see
it himself, something thathappened. I would I'd have no
qualms about being very, veryopen and honest with him and
say, hey, dad, this happenedwith this student. This is what

(54:32):
I did. What do you think? Andhe'd tell me without being
judgmental or anything.
He said, no. You really screwedup. You really should have done
this. And I said, think you'reright. Or he'd say, no, I think
I think you handled that prettywell, but you could have done it
this way as well.
And he gave me all kinds oftools and and approaches and
things like that. And he had alot of experience and he was the

(54:55):
kind of instructor that when itwas a snowy afternoon and flying
was shut down or slowing down,you'd look in the instructor's
room and he would be in themiddle. I'd come over to to say
hi in the afternoon. I was in adifferent flight. And I'd see
this gathering of like 10 or 15instructors and they're all
listening to his stories.

(55:17):
So I was lucky where I got thestories firsthand and I could
also be very, very upfront withhim. And so I learned a
tremendous amount from him.

Bryan (55:25):
Yeah. That sounds like such a cool opportunity to work
with your dad, to have thatcamaraderie, and just to be able
to to learn from him in aprofessional capacity. I think
that's a pretty uniqueexperience.

Dan (55:36):
Yes.

Bryan (55:37):
How did you guys deal with the difference in rank
between the two of you?

Dan (55:40):
It was never an issue. Dad was dead. He wasn't major. It
was funny though becausesometimes I'd kind of forget
that he was an officer oranything like that and that
there was career progression andall that stuff. When I was at
RMC, at one point, he called meout of the blue.
He never called me. And I waslike, oh, everything okay? Mom's

(56:02):
okay? And oh, yeah. Yeah.
He said, what would you say if Itold you you weren't a captain's
son anymore? I said, you'regetting out? You're leaving the
military? He goes, no. I gotpromoted.
I said, you got promoted? And hedidn't find that very funny. But
the thing is he'd been anavigator and then he cross

(56:23):
trained a pilot. And so careerprogression was just not
happening for him. And so he'dbeen a captain forever, like
ever since I was born basically.
And I never envisioned himgetting promoted. And dad was
never the kind of person whowanted to be a colonel or a
general. I had an uncle who wasa colonel, a little more
ambitious, also a super nice guythat I learned a lot from. But,

(56:47):
dad was not your typical careerofficer. He was a very human
parent.

Bryan (56:52):
Okay. So just not an issue? Zero. So your dad was
called back from Moose Jaw toinvestigate a deadly crash in
Cold Lake. What were some of thelessons he learned?

Dan (57:03):
Yeah. He came back quite affected from that. I remember
the student clearly. My dad knewthe instructor. It was a two
seat f five.
They're doing a flaplessapproach, and the student had
forgotten something to open upthe doors that give extra air to
the intakes of the engines. Whathappened was one of the engines

(57:24):
was starved for air. There was atiny bit of side slip. They were
flapless, meaning that theaircraft was basically on the
edge of the stall on theapproach anyway. And as the
student advanced the throttles,one of the engines died.
The compressor stalled and died.So the aircraft rolled over onto
its back and went, bam, downinto the infield in between the
two runways and both peopledied. Dad told me a lot about

(57:47):
what happened there. He saidthat one of the cause factors
that he identified was the lackof adequate training for
instructors on operationalaircraft. He said that when he
did his flying instructorscourse on the f five just a few
years prior, it was basically,okay, you can fly the jet.

(58:07):
Remember when you fly with astudent, just be careful and I'm
kind of glossing over it, but itwas basically very, very
superficial, the kind oftraining they got. And he said
when he went to the training onthe tutor, at first he was a
little bit insulted because hesaid, come on, you know, I'm an
experienced pilot here. Why arethey going right back to basics?

(58:28):
And then afterwards, when hestarted flying with students and
seeing what was happening, hewent, you know what? Way better
training as a QFI in Portage andMoose Jaw than an operational
instructor on an operationalaircraft.
And that was one of the bigreasons because people did not
treat things seriously. And hetold me a couple stories from

(58:48):
his own experience on the f fivewhere he took control. Didn't
think he had to. He just wantedto be dramatic. And if he
hadn't, they would have died.

Bryan (58:58):
Oh, wow. So just a a way higher quality of flight
instructor training at Moose Jawand at Portage.

Dan (59:06):
Exactly. The the legacy of the British Commonwealth Air
Training Plan has lived on andthe way people are taught to be
instructors is second to none.I've I've seen people teach in
the civilian world, and it'snowhere near as as good as the
military system with QFIs.

Bryan (59:24):
Oh, it's totally totally different worlds. Can you tell
us a favorite story or two fromyour early days on the flight
line as an instructor?

Dan (59:32):
Yeah. Early on, I I learned a little bit from FIS how to be
careful with students, so I wasnot that surprised. There's a
student who I would call Beta, abig farm boy from Southern
Alberta, strong as an ox. So I'mteaching him recoveries from

(59:53):
nose high or nose low attitudes.A civilian would call this upset
recovery.
We called it unusual attitudesor we would joke about unfair
attitudes. So I gave him onenose high and what you're
supposed to do is go full power,put in the speed brakes and then
gently roll to the horizon, letnose fall till you regain speed

(01:00:14):
and then recover. Right. Whatdoes he do? He does the
opposite.
He does the nose low recovery.He goes throttle idle speed
breaks out and he basically juststalls and and incipient spin, I
took control and recovered theaircraft and said I did the
instructor thing. What were youthinking? Why did you do this?

(01:00:35):
And okay.
Good. You're you're clear nowhow to do this? Okay. Good.
Close your eyes again.
I'm gonna give you another one.Well, of course, the student
thought I was gonna give himanother nose high, but I gave
him a nose low this time. Sonose low. I said, open your
eyes, Beta. He opens his eyesand he goes, we're looking at

(01:00:56):
brownish green prairie below us.
Like the windscreen is full ofit and we're starting to
accelerate. He just goes fullpower, speed breaks in.

Bryan (01:01:04):
Oh my.

Dan (01:01:05):
And then starts to roll so that we're basically upside down
with the nose about 30 degreesbelow the horizon. And instead
of pulling up towards thenearest horizon, he's pulling
all the way through straightdown towards the far horizon.

Bryan (01:01:18):
Oh my gosh.

Dan (01:01:19):
And the speed's increasing and increasing. And I'm looking
at 410 knots, 415. We'reexceeding the limit of the
aircraft. So I say, pull a bitharder and I pull the throttle
back and I put the speed brakesout. I say, harder.
Of course, I know what was gonnahappen. I put my hand behind the
stick. Sure enough, he tries tosnap on about 10 gs by just

(01:01:42):
snapping the stick way back asfar as it would go. I stopped
it, stopped it about five gs. SoI'm doing the maneuver to keep
the blood out of my legs andinto my head so I don't pass
out.
There's no G suits or anythingat the time. So I'm I'm
struggling to stay focused. I'mgetting a bit of tunnel vision
and I'm holding it so it's fiveor six g. I say, okay. Beta, I

(01:02:06):
have control.
So I grab the stick and I starttrying to pull and nothing's
happening because it's justblocked. It's like a like a
brick is holding it in place. SoI say, I have control. Hey. He's
not saying anything.
And all of a sudden, all thedirt and the bugs and everything
on the floor are flying up andplastered against the canopy.
And instead of pulling back uptowards the horizon, we're now

(01:02:29):
going straight down again andheaded for the dirt. And now
we've started at 15,000 feet. Weare now at about 6,000 feet and
going almost straight down. Wow.
So I say, I have control and Istart pulling on the stick and I
look over and he's got both armsstraight out in front of him and

(01:02:50):
he's holding the stick with twohands as far forward as he can
get it. And we're like at minusone g. So the only time I ever
did this, I reach over and I hithim. I just smacked him across
the chest with the back of myhand. And he goes, oh.
And he lets go with a stick. AndI pull out with seven g and we

(01:03:10):
avoid the ground by a couplethousand feet and almost over
speed the aircraft. And it'slike, what were you thinking?
What I did was I said, okay,just sit there, enjoy the flight
back. I'm just gonna take youback to base and we're gonna
land.
The flight is

Bryan (01:03:25):
Yeah. No kidding.

Dan (01:03:26):
And he he lasted probably another two weeks and then he
was gone. But just I didn't knowwhat was going on in his head.
It was very, very scary and thatwas within the first six months
of me starting to teach.

Bryan (01:03:40):
So was he trying to pile you guys in or like what was he
trying to do?

Dan (01:03:44):
He told me he was trying to stop me from overstressing the
aircraft because he was afraid Iwould overstress it.

Bryan (01:03:49):
Oh, that's a very interesting response.

Dan (01:03:54):
Yeah. Yeah. And I kind of thought, well, judgment, not
present.

Bryan (01:03:59):
Yeah. No kidding.

Dan (01:04:00):
The Tutor was an excellent aircraft to teach in. When you
talk about the Harvard or theHawk, they are tandem seats. So
you have the instructor sittingin the back and the student in
the front, which is great forthe student when it comes to
doing turns because the sightpicture is pretty much the same
left and right. Whereas in theTutor with an aircraft that's
side by side, the horizon cutseverything at a different angle.

(01:04:22):
So it's a little more difficultfor the student pilot and even
for the instructor because youhave to to adapt a little bit.
Steep turns, 60 degrees of bank,that was our regular turn in the
traffic pattern. So it wasbasically our bread and butter.
So I I have this young woman I'mteaching. Her her name is
Bernie. She's she's really,really good in the first ten

(01:04:47):
seconds of the turn, roughly.
But then she goes up and downlike a yo yo, like gaining and
losing five or 600 feet and thestandard is around a hundred
feet Yeah. Plus or minus. Shedoes one and I go, boy, this is
weird. Why is she doing that? Sothis we roll out and I say,

(01:05:08):
Bernie, put your visors up.
So she puts up her dark visor. Isay, let's do another turn. And
I watch her eyes. And that's onething I could do because we were
side by side. Watch her eyes.
Okay. Now I know what she'sdoing. So as she's in the turn
and we're starting to do the yoyo thing, I take my hand and I

(01:05:31):
cover up one of her instruments.And she goes, oh, sir, I need
that. I need that.
And I said, no, you don't. Isaid, that's the last one you
want to look at. So I explainedto her that this was the
vertical speed indicator andthat it has a lag of seven
seconds. Right. So if you're ifyou're going down and then you
turn it around to go back up,it'll take seven seconds before

(01:05:52):
it registers.
She said, but I need to beprecise. I'm using that to be
precise. I said, nuh-uh. That'sexactly the wrong thing to do.
But then after that, her steepturns were just really, really
good.
So without that kind of a andthat's one thing that I'd
learned from just listening toother instructors talk, look to
see where's where the studentslooking, what they're doing, try

(01:06:13):
and figure out what they'rethinking, and then maybe you can
help them.

Bryan (01:06:17):
Yeah. That's the advantage of any of these multi
career aircraft or the tutor,any of these aircraft where you
sit side by side. Right? Like,know what the other person's
doing.

Dan (01:06:25):
Yes.

Bryan (01:06:26):
And, yeah, you mentioned the VSI. It's it's basically
only useful in a steady climb ora steady descent for seeing your
rate. Right?

Dan (01:06:32):
It's the main thing is you want to use it for doing an
instrument approach or somethinglike that where you need to set
a certain descent rate to makesure that you have so many miles
per thousand feet to on theproper glide path.

Bryan (01:06:45):
Yeah. Exactly. So what is the wildest incident you saw
happen in Moose Jaw during yourtime as an instructor?

Dan (01:06:53):
So one fine afternoon, very, very busy, both traffic
patterns. And the, there's astudent taking off, a Dutch
student. So already he has alittle bit of an accent when
he's talking on the radio. He's,waiting and waiting. It's a hot
day, so his canopy is sort ofopen, close, open, close.
And then, okay. Now he getscleared to take off. So off he

(01:07:16):
goes down the runway. His canopywas not closed when he took off.
So as soon as he gained someflying speed, the canopy rips
off and departs the aircraft.
So now he's flying aconvertible.

Bryan (01:07:29):
Wow.

Dan (01:07:30):
And he's accelerating because he's a young student. He
doesn't know that maybe youshouldn't fly so fast when this
happens because he's beingbuffeted around, but he's
accelerated up to 240 knots innormal approach or traffic
pattern speed. And he's tryingto tell the tower that he's lost
his canopy. He's lost my canopy.And, of course, a little bit of

(01:07:53):
an accent and a lot of windnoise in the background.
The tower controllers arelooking at each other trying to
figure out why is this guyconcerned about having lost his
keys. He's lost his keys. Hiskeys. And then one of them gets
out the binoculars and goes, oh,look. He doesn't have a canopy.
Okay. That's what so the studentflies around and he's

(01:08:14):
everybody's focused on him.They've deployed the fire trucks
to the inner runway waiting forhim to come around. And the
student, at least he's smartenough to decide maybe he should
land. And so he does an overheadbrake instead of a straight in,
which would have been smarter.
So everybody's focused on thisguy. Spoiler alert, he survives.
He lands and he's okay. And thefire trucks follow him down the

(01:08:37):
runway. However, meanwhile, onthe other runway, a solo student
does a touch and go and his birdcomes in the intake and destroys
his engine just after he getsairborne.
So he's full power gear. Thegear is cycled up. The flaps are
coming up. He hits the bird andthen poof, no more engine. So he

(01:09:00):
loses speed.
Nowhere else to go but straightahead. So he gently did a
masterful job of it, puts it onthe belly and skids to a stop,
sparks flying everywhere on theouter runway and comes to a stop
sort of three quarters of theway down the runway. But
everybody's focused on the innerrunway. And in the base

(01:09:21):
newspaper, there was a there wasa cartoon that showed a student
who had done this pancake job onthe outer runway, and he's
standing next to the runway at aphone booth. He's saying, hello,
Tower.
I need help. But but nobodynoticed him. And an American t
33 was coming to visit, and hecomes in on the inner runway to

(01:09:44):
to initial. He says, hey, Tower,you know you have an aircraft
down? And Tower says, yeah,yeah, we know.
But the fire trucks are there.It's taken care of. We'll have
them cleared off before youland. He goes, no, the other
runway. Then everybody looksover and goes, oh, and they hit
the crash bell again for thesecond time.
And then they send more firetrucks over to the other

(01:10:06):
aircraft, but everybody wasfine. But it was just so busy
and the coincidence of two majorincidents happening
simultaneously was just funny.

Bryan (01:10:15):
That's crazy. I mean, it just you know, we've talked
about how busy the operation wasat Moose Jaw, so it's bound to
happen at some point to getsimultaneous emergencies. Right?

Dan (01:10:24):
Yes.

Bryan (01:10:25):
Yeah. The odds just finally came together. So, Dan,
I've got one last questionbefore we wrap up today's
episode. Where can listenersfind your books?

Dan (01:10:35):
My books are available on Amazon. If you search for my
name, Dan McWilliams, you canfind both books. Tutor Tales
unfortunately is difficult tofind because Amazon auto
corrects Tutor, T U T O R to T UD O R, The royal family. So but

(01:10:56):
it it is tutor tales. If youjust search for supersonic
stories, you'll see the seriesof two books and they're easy to
find.

Bryan (01:11:02):
Okay. Great. Well, Dan, that wraps up our talk today on
your book, tutor tales. I wannathank you so much for sharing
your story and for your timetoday. I'm really looking
forward to chatting with you onour next episode about your
other book, Supersonic Stories.

Dan (01:11:16):
Thanks, Brian. We'll talk to you then.

Bryan (01:11:17):
For sure. Okay. That wraps up our chat with Dan
McWilliams, former RoyalCanadian Air Force fighter
pilot, and his experiences inthe training world and his book,
Tutor Tales. Tune in next weekas we talk about his experiences
in the operational flying worldand his book, Supersonic
Stories. Do you have anyquestions or comments about

(01:11:38):
anything you've heard in thisshow?
Would you or someone you knowmake a great guest, or do you
have a great idea for a show?You can reach out to us at the
pilot project podcast at Gmaildot com or on all social media
at at pod pilot project. And besure to check out that social
media for lots of great videosof our RCAF aircraft. As always,
we'd like to thank you fortuning in and ask for your help
with the big three. That's likeand follow us on social media,

(01:12:01):
share with your friends, andfollow and rate us five stars
wherever you get your podcasts.
That's all for now. Thanks forlistening. Keep the blue side
up.

Intro/Outro (01:12:09):
See you. Engineer, shut down all four. Shutting
down all four engines.