Episode 64: The Kingfisher: Developing, acquiring and flying the CC-295 Kingfisher Part 2 - Luc Coates, Francois Fasquelle, Dan Faux

In this episode, we continue our conversation with:

• Lieutenant-Colonel Luc Coates, Commanding Officer of 418 Search and Rescue Operational Training Squadron
• Lieutenant-Colonel Francois Fasquelle, Commanding Officer of 442 Transport and Rescue Squadron
• Major Dan Faux, subject matter expert on the CC-295 Kingfisher

We begin with Dan’s early days as a pilot and what led him to join the fixed-wing SAR project. From there, we explore why Canada needed a new fixed-wing Search and Rescue aircraft and what that journey looked like — from concept to selection. Finally, we dive deep into the Kingfisher itself: the modifications that set it apart, how it’s performing in operations so far, and the process of training a new generation of SAR crews to fly it.

Episode Transcript

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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 Sky's
Magazine. I'm your host, BrianMorrison. And today, we are
doing a very special on locationinterview in Comox, BC with
Lieutenant Colonel FrancoisPasquel, CO of four forty two
Transport and Rescue Squadron,Lieutenant Colonel Luke Coates,
CO of four eighteen Search andRescue Operational Training

(01:20):
Squadron, and Major Dan Fox, aqualified Kingfisher pilot who
is a subject matter expert onthe c two nine five. Gentlemen,
welcome to the show, and thankyou once again for having me
here in Comox.

Dan (01:30):
Thank you.

Luc (01:31):
Thanks for having us.

Bryan (01:32):
Yeah. Listeners can tune in to part one to hear some
questions about what led Luke,Dan, and Francois to aviation
and the CAF in general, as wellas some questions for Luke and
Francois on what led them to thetwo ninety five. For today,
we're going to be talking to Danabout his path to the February
as well as all thingsKingfisher. Okay. So now we're

(01:54):
gonna talk to Dan about hiscareer.
Major Dan Fox is currentlyserving as staff officer SAR
Systems three at one CanadianAir Division headquarters. Dan
brings over two decades ofoperational, instructional, and
project management experience toCanada's search and rescue
enterprise. Dan enrolled in theCanadian Armed Forces in June
1999 and graduated from theRoyal Military College in 2004

(02:17):
with a degree in businessadministration. After completing
pilot training, his early careerincluded a pivotal instructional
role at two Canadian ForcesFlight Training School or the
big two in Moose Jaw from 2006to 02/2011, where he served as a
flight instructor and standardsofficer on the CT one fifty six
Harvard two. In 02/2011, hejoined four four two transport

(02:37):
and rescue squadron in Comox,BC, where he flew the CC one
fifteen Buffalo as an aircraftcommander, flight instructor,
and standards officer.
His time at four four twosquadron included numerous
challenging SAR missions inmountainous terrain, including a
notable rescue near Kelownainvolving the successful
location of a downed aircraftand the deployment of SAR
technicians or SAR techs to savea survivor. In 02/2015, Dan

(03:00):
moved over to the transport andrescue standards and evaluation
team or TRCET as the divisionlevel standards officer for four
forty two squadron Buffalo andfour forty squadron Arctic Twin
Otter. Dan was part of thecreation of a separate division
led standard cell for search andrescue operations, which became
known as search and rescuestandards and evaluation team or
SARCET. He was fortunate to bethe first officer commanding of

(03:22):
SARCET. His work in the Northincluded memorable missions in
extreme weather conditions andunique environments such as the
Smoking Hills.
He was also able to qualify onskis, which was again an
incredible experience. Since thelate stages of the fixed wing
search and rescue projectbidding process in 02/2016, Dan
has been deeply involved in theacquisition and
operationalization of the CC twoninety five Kingfisher. As an

(03:45):
operational subject matterexpert or SME, his contributions
spanned nonrecurrent engineeringand design changes with the
original equipment manufacturer,pilot training development, and
technical solution planning. Hehas traveled to Spain multiple
times in support of aircraftdevelopment and currently serves
as a qualified Kingfisheraircraft commander having flown
operational missions on theplatform. Dan lives in Royston

(04:07):
with his wife Sarah and theirthree children, Maria, James,
and Helen.
So Dan, your first posting wasinstructing at two CFFTS in
Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan. Wasthat what you wanted for your
first posting?

Dan (04:19):
Yes. That was definitely what I wanted. So when we
finished or I guess it's a bitof a layered story. So we're
running the course. It wentwell.
Like, phase two was great. Ienjoyed it a lot. I wasn't the
top person on course, but I didwell. And we had one of those
natural people. They're hard totake.
They just come and do everythingperfect. Yeah, shout out to that

(04:43):
guy. He probably knows who heis. But anyway, I'm the guy who
has to work hard. I wouldn't sayI'm a fast learner, but I learn
well.
And as we went through thecourse, I had a lot of friends
ahead of me who all seemed to bestaying and becoming pipes,
whether that meant they wantedto be a pipe first and foremost,
or the way it goes is at the endthey kind of select you all out

(05:04):
to something. And the way ourswent was even though the Buffalo
was definitely something I wasreally wanting, the way it
worked was our group. If I wasan instructor right away,
somebody else would get thatslot and it would all work well
for everybody. Right. My friendswere all there, we're having
tons of fun.
So instructor became the firstposting for me and it was

(05:26):
awesome, honestly.

Bryan (05:27):
Awesome. And just for the listeners, PIPE is short form
for pipeline instructor, right?

Dan (05:32):
Yeah, like as in you finish your training and right away you
stay back and become aninstructor, probably in any
trade.

Bryan (05:38):
Yep. So your big reasoning was just basically
you're having a blast there anda lot of your comrades were
staying?

Dan (05:45):
Yeah, pretty much. There's not a lot of depth behind a lot
of my decisions really. Idefinitely like to just enjoy
social situations. I'm in agreat group of people. There's
so much positivity flying aroundthere.
And I had awesome instructorsand they put a ton of influence
on you, right? They're havingfun, it's all going great, and

(06:06):
you're just like, yeah, I wantto be a part of that. First
thing I saw, like I said, I knewvery little about any systems in
the military. So point andshoot, look good, let's go there
Yeah. Type thing.
Yeah.

Bryan (06:19):
And Moose Jaw is like it's an interesting place
because the the hours are long,like it is a tough think well,
at least, I don't know if it waslike Yeah.

Dan (06:27):
No. You can definitely it can be a long day, but I think
it's it tended when I was there,it was a real young group. You
know, the critical mass wasyoung, so hours aren't really a
thing. Yeah. Just, like, go forit.
Also, the fact that you can takea high performance plane away on
your own with your otherinstructor mates because you

(06:49):
have to be proficient becausewhen you're flying with a
student, you're not on thestick. So Yep. Oh, man, watching
my friends say like, and we'retaking, you know, like a four
ship of Harvard somewhere awayto go for proficiency. I was
like, oh, what? Like, okay, Iget to do that later.
Yeah. Then I'll add on to that.I love the act of flying so

(07:12):
much, so that also moved thedecision. Like formation flying
was like, I can just feel itright now thinking about it.
Like, I loved it so Yeah.
And I love low level and I lovebasically, like I said,
machines. And it's like a chanceto just like go put this machine
in pain every time I could and Ijust

Bryan (07:31):
And the Harbord is an amazing machine.

Dan (07:33):
Yeah. Is. It's like I think of it like it's like a John
Deere tractor of performanceplanes, like super reliable,
pretty fast, you know,

Bryan (07:41):
pretty high performance, super reliable. What was the
most exciting or challengingthing you learned to do during
your time instructing on theHarvard two?

Dan (07:50):
I would say formation flying was my favorite. And in
addition to that, four ship, Iwas lucky enough as a pipe to be
able to be a four ship lead,which is at the time I think it
kind of ebbs and flows, but alittle unique. I had an amazing
boss who was very supportive oflike trying to push me as far as
possible, amazing person, andThey managed to get me through

(08:12):
that so I could go do like go toa stadium and do a fly past the
four ship or go out and do afour ship mutes on the weekend
and travel somewhere. Travelingwith a group of people, IFR, is
amazing. I would say probablythe most intense thing I've ever
done in a plane was learning torun IFR in a force ship.

(08:34):
It's a very strange thing,right? And you're like extremely
cautious, you're concentratingon your actual flying to be
predictive a lot. And you'reIFR. You're, like, taking
clearances and getting ontoarrivals and trying to explain
to them what's happeningbecause, you know, if you arrive
in San Francisco with a force,they'll be like, pardon? You
know, like, what's going on?

(08:54):
So it was awesome. Great thingto do. Great parflying.

Bryan (08:59):
Awesome. You flew the Buffalo with four forty two
Transport and Rescue Squadronhere in Comox. That's an iconic
aircraft. What made the Buffaloso special when it came to Saar
in the challenging terrain ofthe Rocky Mountains?

Dan (09:12):
The Buffalo, although I'd I mean, it was not designed for
that. It was designed, purposelyfor war and to be a robust
aircraft. So it was verymaneuverable. The way the
Buffalo was designed, they useda combination of spoilers and
ailerons. It was to be a STOLaircraft.
So like to make that point, itsroll rate was amazing. Very,

(09:35):
very fast.

Bryan (09:36):
Okay.

Dan (09:36):
You get in it and be like, right away you'd be demoed as a
student. Here we go. Roll likehard right, hard left, like hit
the controls on the stop andit's scary to watch a plane move
that fast. And then it has afair bit of horsepower obviously
in combination with its STOLdesign. It has very broad weight

(09:58):
and balance envelope with that Ttail.
It was designed to be a truckand it's incredible. Its landing
gear was robust. The amount oftravel in the landing gear, like
if I could explain it, when yougo do a Spro takeoff and you're
trying to get it off the groundto

Bryan (10:15):
you explain what Spro is?

Dan (10:16):
Yep. Sorry. So if you're doing takeoff on an unprepared
field, the Buffalo was made tobe very good at that. And just
to watch the machine, thecombination of its props, its
blown flaps, it actually blowsthrust over the flaps. So only a
matter of a few seconds intoyour ground run, you can see if

(10:38):
you're watching the Buffalo fromthe back, it rise up on its
oleos.
So it takes all the weight offthe airframe within a couple
seconds of its takeoff run andthen you don't have as much
issues with traction or withpounding on the plane. Just, it
was great for the way I thinksearch and rescue was done and
it was a very fun aircraft tofly. So, yeah, when it came to

(11:02):
SAR, I think the old SAR that wedid and we were out and we were
in the mountains and we weresearching visually, we had to be
low to search visually, it was agreat plane to do that task.
Hours and hours on end.

Bryan (11:15):
What was your most memorable rescue mission on the
BUF?

Dan (11:21):
I'd say the most memorable mission we did on the buff was
we were after a long trainingday. We're coming into Komats
where I think the gear was down.And like we're ready to land.
Okay. The end of a greattraining day, like smiles all
around his blue sky and we get acall on the sat phone, ring

(11:42):
ring, so we level off and wejust start orbiting over the
straits just to see what's goingon.
We have some fuel on board. Andthey tell us there's just a high
flyer report of an ELT. So inother words, airliners between
something crazy, it's often likebetween Cranbrook and Vancouver,
they figure there's an ELT goingoff.

Bryan (12:01):
Which is an emergency locator Yeah,

Dan (12:04):
transmitter. So it's going off, could you go try to find it
please? That's not an uncommontask. I'd say back then it was
quite common. Okay, quickly lookat the fuel, I was not the
aircraft commander on this, I'mthe FO, so I'm in full learning
mode, so for starters, kind oflike Lieutenant Colonel Coates,
I'm excited, I'm just like, allright, we got enough fuel to go

(12:26):
try, let's go, we're climbingup, just generally heading
towards Vancouver.
We start to get some ELT hits,we have a needle in the aircraft
that literally a needle pointsand says, I think it's this way.
Yeah. But then five minuteslater, the needle, instead of
pointing towards the Okanagan,it points now towards like
Bellingham, Washington. They'renot it's not an exact science.

(12:47):
So there's some luck and there'ssome tactics.
So we fly higher, we try to getit. It now is focusing more on
yeah, it looks like it's up inCanada. So anyway, it's still
going and we keep chasing, but Igotta say all the while in my
heart of hearts, absolutelythink that someone's about to
turn it off at an airport. Youknow, some embarrassed pilot's

(13:09):
gonna be running for it to turntheir ELT off on the ramp
because it is often false. Sowe're flying along though, we're
prosecuting, and eventually nowit's getting a little more
stable and it's pointing upsomewhere between Princeton,
British Columbia, and theOkanagan Valley.
It's pointing out, we're like,okay, it's pointing up, here we
go, let's chase it. And thenstill believing essentially that

(13:33):
we're going to eventually beturned towards Penticton. It
just flashes, turns around. Welook out, one of the Sartecs in
the back makes an amazing find,I think if I remember correctly,
from quite high to say, I thinkI did just see something. And
then we get the airplane all theway down.

(13:53):
It's an old mine site, sothere's a very large dam and we
get the plane down and we see,yeah, there's a wreck here. Now
it's later in the night, still anice night, but we're running
into challenges like we needsupport. So the helicopter is
quite a ways back. It happens tobe Luke Coates again. Oh,

(14:14):
really?
Stories are connected, smallcommunity. So they are the
asset, they're on their way, butthey're a long way away. So we
get our Sartex ready andessentially we go ahead and
decide they can't go into thewoods where the wreck is, so we
put them out into anotherlocation not too far away. We do
drop the Sartex and then westart, you have to be a little

(14:34):
creative, they need to navigatetheir way to the location, so
we're using the aircraftessentially as a conning beacon.
So we're doing continuous runs,we have radio contact with now
our Sartex on the ground andwe're doing these low swoops
over top of the actual wreckageAnd in the meantime, we're
attempting to get ambulance,police, everybody into this

(14:55):
property because it's on top ofa very old mine site or a very
large, sorry.
So anyway, we're working withall those pieces and our Sartecs
do eventually get there. It's aserious accident. I believe
there were four people on boardand unfortunately, that damn
site we're sitting at, they werenot able to force land, so they
miss it. I still remember theSartecs called up and they were

(15:20):
like very worked up. Like I'malmost getting right now just
thinking about them, like veryemotional about it.
So we're chatting with them,they're going to help these
people. We get critical careeventually comes off. They're
brought in who are, I don't knowhow to explain critical care, I
believe they're, technicallythey're nurses that are trained

(15:41):
to deal with really serioustrauma and they're often on our
air ambulance. In this case,They come down, I remember the
Sartec said their support wasincredible because the scene was
so chaotic. They get there,they're fully in control, we
stay in support basically, andat this point the Cormorant does
show up, they arrive there, Ibelieve air ambulance arrives

(16:02):
there, And critical care, Ibelieve, joined both aircraft.
Yeah.

Luc (16:06):
We we took the red patient, the critical alive person, and
with the critical care nurse onboard that worked with the
Sartex to keep that person aliveuntil we got them to a hospital.

Dan (16:22):
Yep. So they grabbed them and air ambulance leaves. At
that point, we hit bingo becausewe had already been low fuel to
start.

Bryan (16:29):
Can you explain what bingo is?

Dan (16:31):
Bingo, you decide as you're working and it keeps progressing
wherever you are, you keepdeciding what's the minimum fuel
to get your aircraft safely backto an airport and if it's
instrument rules, you know, itgrows and you need alternate
airports and such, but we keepwatching that, it's time to go,
it's taken care of at thispoint, air ambulance, they're

(16:51):
there, so essentially it's aclassic version of how these
rescues happen. Helicopter isthere now doing the hands on,
and we're out of fuel, so wetake off. We go down, land the
aircraft, and it's now been likepretty long day and I believe if
I remember correctly, we allsit, we decompress, debrief, you

(17:12):
know, it's gone as well as itcan go. Like we got there, we
found them, it was kind of asgood that we found them and that
the ELT almost took us into TheStates essentially. So that
worked out.
And then we get the call, we'redown to just you guys in the
Buffalo, you know, we we needthis Buffalo. So we sat, we had
another discussion. And thenwhen we all got in the plane, we

(17:35):
departed and flew back to Comoxafter that. And I remember even
on the way back to Comox, thesort of exhaustion from all that
excitement, I remember lookingacross at my crewmates, the
sun's down now, it's like just alittle twilight. I remember the
flight engineer was like at hischin all the way back.
He's like drooling. Oh, cold.Yeah. The flight engineer had

(17:55):
been very busy through all thatbecause as the StarTex wanted
went out, they wanted much moreequipment thrown down. So it was
a nonstop evolutions to get allof our gear out and and then get
going with the rest of thesupport piece.
So, honestly, that was that wasmemorable and just the voices
and how it went with everybody.That person came back to visit

(18:20):
four four two squadron severalyears later. I remember

Luc (18:27):
yeah. She came to talk to us. It was very nice. I had to
to come full circle, and goodfor the crews to talk with her
as well.

Dan (18:33):
Yep. That was the the sole survivor, I believe.

Bryan (18:35):
Yep. You don't get that kind of closure too often in in
the star world.

Luc (18:40):
No. Often we don't, but we it's often actually healthy not
to because you have to separateyourself from it. So it's a but
sometimes it's nice to havethat. When there's a positive
outcome? Absolutely.

Bryan (18:51):
It sounds like that was a bit of an emotional mission for
you.

Dan (18:54):
Yeah. There have been a few. I'm an emotional person. I
have a feeling I'm in the roomwith three emotional people.
Like, I'll be honest, dependingon how fatigued I am, like, I'm
pretty good.
I'll say day of in the moment,I'm not an emotional person.
It's funny. It's weird how youcan compartmentalize things.
I've been in a lot of situationsnow where it would be better if

(19:16):
you're not emotional right now,and I I know myself. I won't be.
And in the aftermath, I probablywill be.

Bryan (19:25):
Yeah.

Dan (19:25):
So you just it is what it is. Fatigue is related to it.
I'm more tired. I'm moreemotional. I can watch a Disney
film and get upset if I'm tiredenough.
So

Bryan (19:37):
And you you said basically, as far as dealing
with that goes for you, you findit's talking with your comrades
and

Dan (19:44):
Yeah. I think it's a couple things for me. I think it's very
therapeutic to sound it offpeople. This type of stuff, I'll
be I'll be quite honest, I don'tbounce work stuff off people,
but I bounce a lot off my wife.I guess my habits.

(20:04):
What's cathartic for me intherapeutic is my life. Yeah. My
habits. Like building a fireevery morning and just the work
I do in the background. And Ichase every hobby I can think
of.
Like everything I can do outsideI do, and I garden all the time,
I have things that I do a lotand I sort of melt into.

Bryan (20:26):
And those are kind of your therapy? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
And I don't mean to, like I'mnot trying to pick out wounds,
but I just I really believe intrying to bring up discussions
about how do people deal withthese difficult moments.
I think it's really important.So

Francois (20:39):
Yeah. And I I think it's great that you show the
real nature of humans in in thejob of Tsar.

Luc (20:46):
Yeah. Think we're yeah. Where we've come a long way is,
I'm not sure here, but maybetwenty years ago, we wouldn't be
showing perhaps we would not beshowing these emotions. Mhmm.
And, like, the taboo or

Bryan (21:00):
Oh, yeah. I think even in the last ten years, it's changed
a

Dan (21:03):
lot. Yeah.

Luc (21:04):
I've seen it change, and, it's okay, you know, to to
express how how we really feeland Yeah. Actually that makes us
stronger.

Bryan (21:11):
I agree. I

Dan (21:12):
mean, as we just said, so many people can quietly relate
to it.

Bryan (21:16):
Oh, yeah. You next served as a standards officer for the
CC one thirty eight Twin Otterswith four forty Squadron in
Yellowknife NorthwestTerritories. What unique
operating environments andchallenges does the Arctic have
to offer?

Dan (21:29):
Okay. Easy question to answer. The Arctic is a
forbidding environment. So rightaway, go to the Arctic, when you
layer on the temperatures andthe remoteness, so how far it is
between fuel stops, how muchservice you'll get at that fuel
stop, like is the weather goingto shut down? You need to be
aware of you really, really needto be aware of your environment.

(21:52):
Would suggest experience is soessential up there. Like
operators that know wherethey're going and they can
mentor their junior FOs andcrew. That is one thing that
makes it unique. Mean, at theend of the day, in the South, I
gotta say, it is a forgivingplace to fly in comparison to
the Arctic. Like, you just kindof can't make mistakes.

(22:13):
It's like you can head out overthe Atlantic towards the Azores,
you pretty much need to do thatcorrectly. And if something goes
wrong, it's very serious and youmust make a decision quickly

Bryan (22:22):
to deal

Dan (22:22):
with it in a small aircraft. Well, I'd say four 40
squadron that operates our TwinOtters, It's a serious
environment and they need totake it seriously. So that's
like one aspect is flightplanning and then the other one
is that it's also very hard workto operate in the Arctic. When
the twin lands, it puts blanketson the aircraft, covers it

(22:43):
almost entirely because whenyou're in a remote location,
don't have access to de icing.De icing might not work at minus
40.
So they get out and they set upladders and it can be minus 40
with a little wind, which isreally cold. And if you arrive
on scene, it's an incrediblepiece. The whole team gets
together, wakes the plane up,puts the plane to bed, and does

(23:07):
the jobs there to

Bryan (23:08):
do. So it's very involved?

Dan (23:10):
It's very involved. Very hands on. It is an amazing
location. It's a tight team, soit kind of reminds me of Moose
Jaw. It's like so many amazingpeople and they have these like,
it's a unique thing to them,then I don't know too many
squadrons well, but they had acouple of very experienced
operators embedded in thesquadron, which I love.

(23:31):
I go up, even though I was theirstandards officer from a sort of
divisional level, I think Ipictured my job as coming in as
a second set of eyes. So I'msort of sober second thought,
they had a lot of experience.The truth was I was getting
mentored a lot as I went there,learning to fly, learning from
them, just like soaking up asmuch as I can, provide what I

(23:54):
can provide, which is I haven'tsort of emotionally connected
with the people that they'reteaching, so I'm great in the
sense that I can parachute inand look at somebody somewhat
without bias, you could say?

Bryan (24:05):
You could, yeah, come in with a bit of objectivity. Yeah.

Dan (24:08):
I mean, that's I think that's an important role anyway
of that standards body as theygo and do check rides. Yeah. So
I would just say incredibleenvironment, not forgiving,
amazing to see and toexperience, but different and
hands on and tough.

Bryan (24:26):
Yeah. What's the most memorable site you encountered
while operating in the Arctic?

Dan (24:31):
Yeah, I used the Smoking Hills. So for anybody looking, I
go on, just go on Google andlook it up. It's a thing. I had
to look it up and be like, did Ijust call it that? Or is that
what it's really called?
So hills that have essentiallybeen burning for who knows how
long. I tried to findinformation and people really
don't understand them well, butthere's coal veins inside these

(24:54):
hills, they burn, we fly up andsomeone says, oh, those hills,
they've been smoking basicallyforever. I'm like, no kidding.
And then look to your left.That's a swirling dust devil
coming off that mountain overthere and say, what is that,
Chuck?
Or whoever was there and say,oh, that's a small herd of musk
ox. Getting excited and runningaround here like, you know, I I

(25:16):
blew my mind. Yeah. Almost everyday we'd be up

Luc (25:18):
there and I'd just be

Dan (25:19):
looking at these Arctic plateaus. Musk ox would be
walking downtown Yellowknife.I'd look down, there'd be like
an Arctic fox beside me one daywalking with me, like, really
close. I was like, that'sstrange, you know. It's just an
incredible spot to be and yeah.
Incredible people. Yeah. So manythings.

Bryan (25:41):
You've been pretty fortunate to be in some really
unique places that mostCanadians don't get to see.

Dan (25:49):
Absolutely. I mean, I'm not trying to specifically recruit
here, but I would say I have hada chance to see some incredible
corners of Canada. Places thatfeel like I'm in a new country
with new people and new ways ofbeing experiences and land, like
the land changes so much. Justto do a flight from Southern

(26:12):
Saskatchewan to Yellowknife, thefirst time I did that and
looking at true raw shield and Ican't tell you how many massive
beaver dams. Like, I didn'trealize there are that many
beavers in Canada.
It's new. Wow. I you know,something else.

Luc (26:28):
Yeah. It's funny. Francois, I wonder if you've had that same
thought, but I remember landingin these remote little mountains
in Yukon or way up NorthernCanada. I'm wondering I wonder
if I'm the first person who mayhave land here or, like, been
here. I can't imagine thatthere's been many few, but I've
had those those same thoughtswhere I feel so so fortunate.
I don't maybe I'm the first onehere or one of the very first

(26:51):
anyways.

Dan (26:52):
Yep. Yeah. For new people, and for everybody, I still try
to soak it up. The flight we didlast night.

Bryan (26:57):
I was just gonna say that when

Dan (26:58):
I'm I'm cliche. I still talk about it all day long,
like, oh my god. I can't believewe're looking at this this,
like, this like aggressiveterrain backed by Toba Inlet
and, you know, wow, look at thatwaterfall and the way the
glacier is calving off there andoh my god, like, it's a real
opportunity

Bryan (27:18):
to

Dan (27:18):
say the least.

Bryan (27:19):
Yeah. I was gonna say, like, just in our flight
yesterday, the amount of times Iwas thinking, like, has anyone
ever been here before? Like, onthe ground? Like and how many
people even in the air get achance to fly here and are
flying, you know, betweenmountains in in, like, this
awesome aircraft and gettingthese experiences and views,
like, it's Yeah. It's prettyamazing.

Dan (27:39):
It is pretty amazing.

Bryan (27:41):
So we've talked about your time on the BUFF as well as
the Twin Otter. How would yousay operating these two
legendary aircraft prepared youto take on work with the
Kingfisher?

Dan (27:52):
I would say very well. I mean, I think that the Buffalo
gave me all of the basic SARtactics, which still mean a lot
in the Kingfisher. The basicprosecution of a SAR case in
fixed wing, I think the Buffalowas amazing. It gave me
experience in the mountains,which of course, the Kingfisher

(28:13):
has to move around themountains. And it does a great
job of it, but that experience,brilliant.
I would say that the Twin Ottertaught me a lot about the
Arctic. Honestly, this planeneeds to go up to the Arctic. So
just to have the a little I'mtalking like I got the tip of
the iceberg experience comparedto the guys that know the
Arctic, but just to see it andtouch it and understand that

(28:33):
it's challenging, it's unique,not to mention that they were in
a more of a transport role andbetter linked to, I think, how
the transport world operates,which was a little bit more
regimented in how they plan outa task and how they execute a
task. I think I just saw througha little window that, sorry, we

(28:54):
are more in the moment like

Bryan (28:55):
But you have to be.

Dan (28:56):
Yeah, we are. Well, we're doing it right. Built to react
and to go and execute. But Ialso appreciated some of the
sort of strategic and regimentednature of how the Twin Otter is
operating and I think I took alot of that with me as well. So
I think they were both great forpreparing me.

(29:18):
Awesome.

Bryan (29:20):
So let's talk about the Kingfisher itself. Why this
aircraft and why now? Dan, whendid we first start looking at a
replacement for the Buffalo

Dan (29:26):
and the Herc? So before I came on and became directly
involved with the project, Ibelieve the Buffalo has been up
for replacement since, I wannasay, into the late eighties. I
remember hearing stories. Thisis me just talking about lore a
little bit. Sure.
But I know that the people thatmentored me would often joke,

(29:46):
oh, that's funny because theywere going to replace it when I
was learning to fly. These werelike those old people we're
talking about earlier that feelfelt like they were very old,
but they were probably 47 or myage or something like that. So I
think a long time ago, it wasstarting to become an old plane
considering it was, I believe,purchased in or delivered in '67
or something. But in 2015, therewas an idea afoot that the

(30:14):
Buffalo would be improved again,maintained, engines, wiring,
etc. That seemed to be replacedlater on that year and quite
quickly, I would say, somewhatall of a sudden with no, we're
moving ahead with the fixed wingSAAR replacement later in that
year.
Now that was me receiving on thesort of almost on the public end

(30:37):
or the wider militarypopulation, me hearing it. But I
believe if we talk to DAAAR,they would say that they were
hard at work on the requirementsback in, say, 2010 probably in
earnest.

Francois (30:50):
That's about accurate, yeah. I was at DAAAR. I was in
DAR as a major Sorry.

Bryan (30:56):
What's

Francois (30:56):
DAR? The directorate of air requirements. Okay. So
it's the air staff portion. It'sthe project director staff for a
major capital acquisitionproject in the CAF.
So you have the the projectmanagement office that falls
under ADMMAT and the projectdirector office that falls under
the RCAF staff. So DAAAR is asection of the project director,

(31:19):
the director of airrequirements. So that's where we
we set all the high levelmandatory requirements and make
sure that a project isimplemented respecting the high
level requirements of a project.

Bryan (31:31):
Okay.

Dan (31:32):
That's probably the best timeline sort of in the
background, 2,010 in theforeground really starting to
come out in the end of fifteen.

Bryan (31:39):
Okay. And that sounds about right to me too because I
remember I had a guy on my whenI was doing my multi engine
course in 02/2011, There wasanother guy on the course who
was doing like a refresher, amulti engine refresher, and he
had been part of that. At thetime they were looking at the
C27 J Spartan was a big name inthe project world, I guess. But

(32:02):
so yeah, it sounds that timelinesounds about right. What was
Canada looking for in areplacement when we decided it
was time the BUF and the Herchad to retire?

Dan (32:13):
I think the best way of looking at it is that we build
requirements. So what we'relooking for is the effect in the
end. So we said, we have thisfixed wing SAR service in
Canada, which was served by twoaircraft that were adapted to
it, the Hurricane and Buffalo.And we're looking to replace
both the service that both thoseaircraft provide. So you could

(32:37):
say that it was a combination ofthe effect that both those
provide.
The Herc is sort of a longerrange asset that operates
essentially East Of BritishColumbia, Yukon and the Buffalo
because it was placed here along time ago and it's found to
work well. We serve this area ofresponsibility that goes up the

(32:58):
Western Side Of Canada. And wedo what we've been talking
about, which is we are the assetthat reaches out far and fast if
we can. And we search. And if weneed to, we rescue or we get
ready to support a helicoptercoming in.
So that was the model that wasalready sitting there. I think
that effectively was the majorbuilding block of the

(33:19):
requirements. Okay. Yep.

Bryan (33:21):
What stood out for you during your trips to Spain
during the Kingfisher'sdevelopment?

Dan (33:27):
I think the first thing that stood out for me was other
than all the excitement of beingthere and seeing this new plane,
because right away we got to seethis new aircraft on the
assembly line being built. Wegot a a course for about a week
to have a better understandingreally of some of the technical
details of the aircraft. Irealized how broad the contract

(33:50):
was because I got to learn andsee what a full in service
support contract looks like thatincludes the aircraft being
built but the aircraft beingmaintained for years to come,
the training system to be builtand supported for the aircraft
and then the logistics. And thenmaybe right after that, I start

(34:13):
to realize that it'ssignificant. This aircraft has
been provided to Canada to meetthese requirements.
It has some significant designchanges. So then for the next
several years, you know, whatstands out is wow, all the
engineering time in thebackground and all the technical
machinations that occurring. Inever had to deal with that
form, Line Pilot. I'm just like,I'm coming to work. I have my

(34:35):
snack.
I get on a plane. I do someflying. It's great. And now I
get to see behind the scenes howmany people are working to get

Luc (34:43):
this

Dan (34:43):
aircraft approved to do its job and ready to do its job. So
that stood out for me. Airbus ishuge. You go there and you're
like, wow, there's a lot of thisorganization is massive and it's
gonna essentially bring allthese aircraft to Canada and
everything else that comes tothis contract to Canada. So I

(35:05):
guess I was just in total awefor our first few trips to
Spain.

Bryan (35:10):
Just by the size and complexity of the operation.

Dan (35:13):
Yep, absolutely. And what they plan to do, how big the
operation and the contract wasto deliver to Canada. You're
like, wow, that is a lot ofmoving parts.

Bryan (35:24):
So we heavily modified the Kingfisher to suit our
purposes to the tune of over 20fairly major modifications. Can
you tell us some of the mostinteresting or important ones?

Dan (35:34):
Yeah, I think the first one I can talk about is the cockpit
in the offer from Airbus. Wehave brand new avionics. So we
have truly state of the artavionics in the cockpit, that's
the Collins Fusion system and itincludes features like four
large touch screens whichinclude all of your FMS maps and

(35:56):
the moving map functionality isincredible. The amount of layers
and symbols you can add intothose maps. We run the heads up
display.
It's all prepared for nightvision operations. We have
enhanced vision system camerasbuilt into the nose of the
aircraft. So they look out inIR, in infrared, they see all

(36:18):
the environment in front of youand then they project it into
your heads up display inthree-dimensional monochromatic
displays. So if you couldimagine, I look through the HUD
and I see the mountain where themountain is despite the fact
that it's dark out.

Bryan (36:34):
Mhmm.

Dan (36:34):
The mountain has been displayed in infrared. I see it
where it is. I have thatsituational awareness, which is
incredible. And then we have asecond layer called synthetic
vision system that came with it,which is the same monochromatic
environment in my heads updisplay, but this time it's
driven by a database. So if thecameras tonight aren't working

(36:54):
well because there's moisture,say, in the way, I can now
switch to a database driven, soan electronic version of the
environment inside of my HUD.
So there's just a couple ideasof how modern the cockpit is. So
we had that. That was onemodification, and that includes

(37:14):
all the warnings and cautionsthat are fed from the aircraft,
all the different pages thatexplain how every system in the
plane is doing, all built in.That's why it's called Fusion.
And then we had our landing gearassembly.
So where the old plane had smallsponsons where the gear tucked
up but not quite into theaircraft, for the Canadian

(37:35):
contract they redesigned fullenclosures into the aircraft to
improve its efficiency range.Those are important ones. We had
a hatch built into the top ofour aircraft. So we had a
requirement that if thisaircraft dishes into the ocean
that we would have a top hatchto escape out of and that our

(37:56):
airframe would be strengthenedin certain ways to demonstrate
that it was more likely tosurvive, ditching into the
ocean. So couple examples ofvery significant, design changes
wound in the aircraft.

Bryan (38:10):
Yeah. And just for the listeners, I had the opportunity
to have a look at that syntheticvision yesterday when we went
for a flight and it absolutelyblew my mind. It was amazing.
There was some haze andespecially if we were looking
into the sun, into the haze,like you couldn't see the
mountains in the distance. Justfor fun, I clicked it on and it
was like, there's the mountains.

(38:30):
Like, they're right there. It'samazing. It's it's gonna I think
at some point, it'll probablysave lives. And certainly, it
will reduce the amount ofattention that a crew has to put
into are we safe right now andhave more of an ability to focus
on the search or the job athand. Absolutely.

Dan (38:47):
Anecdotally, I tell crews because I'm still marveling at
it, we'll land and I'll say, youjust can't imagine the front end
how much more situationalawareness we have in this
aircraft than the Herc and theBuff. I mean, it was a it's a
bit of a dark art how you makesure that you are absolutely
certain you're safe. This one isjust it's literally on the TV

(39:08):
and it's in your heads updisplay. It's right there. It's
incredible.

Bryan (39:14):
Luke, one of the reasons the Kingfisher stands out is its
sensor suite. Can you tell usabout how the Kingfisher
performed with four eighteenSquadron in the National Search
and Rescue Exercise or SAR Xtwenty twenty four?

Luc (39:25):
Absolutely. We had a newly qualified search and rescue crew
during that exercise, And thenwe had multiple SAR fixed wing
assets from across Canadainvolving the h model Herc Jace,
and we also had fixed wingaircraft from the US Coast

(39:46):
Guard. And we ran two separatescenarios where there were lost
hikers or hunters in thewilderness. And we're all a bit
nervous to see how how theKingfisher would perform because
it was very it's still at theinitial stages. Not super well
trained crew, like, just minimaltraining.
Yep. It was on both scenarios.It on each of them, it took the

(40:07):
Kingfisher crew ten minutes onthe first one, eleven minutes on
the second scenario. The secondquickest aircraft, it took them
thirty minutes. Another one,perhaps around forty five, and
all of the other aircraft, likeeight of them, they never found
the both targets.
Wow. Which is super impressive.It wasn't a fluke. It was done
back to back. And that reallythat was kinda like a a TSN

(40:31):
turning point where all of asudden the narrative started to
improve, where we saw thecapabilities of this aircraft,
that it was just so much betterand superior than traditional
SAR aircraft to to find Mhmm.
A missing person or vessel oraircraft.

Bryan (40:50):
Yeah. It kinda showed how the game is is changing with the
evolution of these sensors.

Luc (40:54):
Absolutely. Yeah.

Bryan (40:57):
Francois, operationally, how have those sensors performed
so far in the early missionsthat Kingfisher has flown?

Francois (41:03):
Yeah. We've done a handful of missions already, a
few post, 05/01/2025 and twobefore the May 1. And all of
those missions used sensors oneway or the other in some sort of
capacity. The the most recentones that unfortunately had no

(41:24):
positive outcome because the twobodies had been had drowned.
We're talking about a person inthe water who had gone overboard
from a vessel.
Their heat signature wasn't ableto be detected, but the the
kingfisher was there. They hadall the sensors out there, and
and they they did lines. And ifa body with even minimal heat

(41:45):
signature had been at thesurface or on the shoreline or
just subsurface, they would havefound it. Mhmm. Another positive
example of a unfortunately, abody recovery was a tasking back
in March where the cormorant andthe kingfisher collaborated.
The the cormorant hoisted aperson out of the water that

(42:06):
that person had unfortunatelybeen deceased. The the cameras
and the detectors of theKingfisher easily detected that
person in the water even thoughthat person had been in the
water for a few hours.

Luc (42:17):
Mhmm.

Francois (42:18):
And and very recently, the and we can talk about it a
bit later on if you wantspecifically for that mission,
but the the plane crash up inNorthern BC where we had one
survivor, the the pilot, the theKingfisher was instrumental to
the rescue operation of that.

Bryan (42:35):
Okay. Yeah. And I'd love to get into that in a bit. Dan,
what sensors did past platformshave compared to the Kingfisher?
And what about its competitorswhen we were still choosing an
aircraft?

Dan (42:46):
So in the past, our fixed wing aircraft had the ability to
search for radio frequency or tosearch for an emergency locator
transmitter. So anythingemitting frequency, we had a
needle essentially in theaircraft. We kind of term it now
as an electronic search And thenwe searched visually. So that

(43:06):
was it. Those were our twoabilities to search in the old
aircraft.
And this one adds in more thanone thing actually. So our
sensors are a combination ofthis one adds in electro optical
infrared camera which of courseeverybody knows is a very fancy
and capable camera to look inboth the day in low light
conditions and then at night. Itcan use different cameras. And

(43:29):
then we have the ability withthe same tool to laser
illuminate. So if people are onnight vision, we can point
things out on the ground, whichis a tool that we add.
We also have a dedicated searchradar, which is like adapting, I
guess, maritime patrol aircraftradar capability into our
aircraft to find and interrogatetargets faster, particularly in

(43:54):
the water, but we're learning touse it on land too. So we have
that very fancy search radar andwe have AIS, which is
essentially for the aviatorslike Mode C or your What do we
call that? Transponder? Yourtransponder. Well, commercial
traffic also has to havetransponder.
So we have the ability tocommunicate through those

(44:15):
transponders. So we can pick theship out immediately, its
information, title, and thentext back and forth. So we've
added those sensors into themix. As far as the idea of what
do people have around us, Iwould say we're a front runner
as far as I can tell, you know,from my experience. And we've
had a fair number of chances tointeract with other militaries.

(44:38):
We're out in the front. I mean,we're taking it as far as can go
adapting these tools andfocusing them primarily on SAR.
I think, there are only a coupleother organizations like, the
Spanish Coast GuardOrganization, I believe, SASMR,
something similar, but theydon't carry SAR techs and get
ready to actually jump anddeploy. They just use those

(44:58):
sensors. Yeah.
So we're in the front.

Bryan (45:01):
That's awesome. Yeah. Luke, another great feature of
the Kingfisher is the ability totrain wholly in the sim, which
you yourself did to getqualified on the aircraft. I had
a chance yesterday to try thenon motion sim, and I was super
impressed. What does the fullmotion sim fidelity like?

Luc (45:18):
Perfect example I can give you is, well, as you know, I
flew helicopters my wholecareer. The last time I flew a
plane was in 02/2008. I did allof my training for the
Kingfisher in the simulator. Andthen a few months ago, on my
first flight, I was flying and Iasked my AC, I'm like, hey. Are

(45:39):
you nervous?
I haven't flown

Dan (45:40):
I haven't landed an aircraft since 02/2008, which is
a long time ago.

Luc (45:45):
And they're like, nope. I'm like, okay. Well, I was a bit
nervous. But anyways, you go andI landed and it was honestly 98%
accurate just like the sim.Like, even the little bumps and
the way that the the yoke feelsand the and it was identical.
I it blew me away, and it's veryrealistic. Yeah. It's a great,

(46:07):
great tool to have the train.You know, another example is I
flew an approach. A while ago,kinda messed it up.
I got behind the aircraft, and Iwas a bit mad at myself. I'm not
used to having to lose all thataltitude, you know, being
helicopter always low, and thenwe're coming in at 20,000 feet.
Anyways, I got to go in the simthe following day. I programmed
myself at the exact same spot,same altitude, and then flew the

(46:30):
approach and went way better. Soit's a great learning tool to
have in your back pocket in yourbackyard where we can utilize
when we when we need to.

Bryan (46:37):
For sure. And, I mean, there's just some stuff that you
can't train in the airplane thatyou can do in the sim, like,
especially emergencies andthings like that that especially
with a high fidelity sim, it'slike an amazing training tool.

Luc (46:50):
Yeah. Absolutely. Our crews will be much safer for that
reason that we get to tosimulate actual, life
threatening emergencies, whichyou can't you can't do in the
real aircraft. It'd be too toodangerous. So it's

Bryan (47:02):
Not with any fidelity. Exactly. Yeah. And we've kind of
strayed into this, but what isthe good for and what needs to
be seen in the aircraft?

Luc (47:11):
For a pilot's perspective, I believe the sim is good for
every transport and SARmaneuver. Where you need the
real aircraft experience is someof the some glitches or comms
with ATC aren't the samesometimes or some of the
vibrations are a little offComms, sometimes we don't always

(47:35):
have Sartix on board, so havingall the cons with every crew
member, dealing with othertraffic for real.

Bryan (47:43):
Yeah. So, like, sort of some of the stuff that forces
you into, like, airmanshipdecisions.

Luc (47:47):
Exactly. Yeah. Those are some differences.

Bryan (47:49):
Okay. Yeah. Because, like yeah. I guess, like, a sim is
gonna be you can make it prettyrealistic, but ultimately, real
life is what really throws youthose curveballs.

Luc (47:59):
Yeah. We still need both, but the majority is all done in
the in the sim, which saves timeon the aircraft.

Bryan (48:06):
Yeah. And and for listeners, this is standard
practice within, like, airlines,for example. Right? Like, people
literally get completelyqualified on the sim, and their
first flight is their first timeon the line. Like, they don't go
and WestJet doesn't have atraining fleet of aircraft that
they burn a bunch of gas andmaintenance and all that stuff
training pilots.

Luc (48:24):
Yeah. We're we're just catching up to the the private
industry, I would say.

Bryan (48:27):
Yeah. For standard practices.

Dan (48:29):
Maybe I could add a teeny bit to that. Just for the
someone out there who might bethinking critically of the idea
that, yeah, but they're justtaking off and, you know, their
mission is take off, fly to, youknow, a to b and land, you know
For

Bryan (48:43):
the airlines.

Dan (48:43):
And that's what gives them the ability to go sim to plane.
I'll say that our training,almost half of it is mission
simulation. So the back endersare actually linked in from
their own simulator and we beatthem up in the sim with full
mission scenarios and like runall the way through their
tactics and in theirinteractions with the other crew

(49:05):
members. So kind of a neat wayto say we can take a sim to the
next level and get thembasically mission ready.

Luc (49:11):
It's getting there. You don't need very much real
flying.

Bryan (49:14):
Yeah. And that's huge because, like, in the Aurora
world, we had a missionsimulator, which was pretty
good. And they had sort ofmocked up a flight deck, but it
wasn't actually like, it wasn'ta simulator. Like, it had some
visuals and stuff, but it wasalmost like a flight sim, like a
game. And the there wasn't asuper high fidelity in the

(49:34):
cockpit.
Like, we had a really great fullmotion flight sim, but that was
not connected to our missionsimulator. I think this is like
that next big step of having,everybody in the crew being able
to be in a high fidelitysimulator. Like, that's huge.
Absolutely. Francois, we've beentalking about why we picked the
Kingfisher.
How has the transition to theKingfisher impacted four four
two squadron on the ground?

Francois (49:57):
Well, operationally, this aircraft is a game changer.
We we've stepped into the twentyfirst century. We've modernized
what SAR is all about. The thelegacy platforms, both the
Hercules and the Buffalo, madesense back in the the last
twenty, thirty, forty years. Butnow we've stepped in to
modernizing how the search ofthe acronym SAR is implemented.

(50:22):
The Kingfisher can nowessentially detect, interrogate,
investigate victims withinminutes to hours. They can
pinpoint a location, bring thehelicopter, the rescue
helicopter into location withinminutes and within square
meters. So it's a game changer.Air crew who have been reluctant

(50:44):
and even ground crew have beenreluctant to work on the
Kingfisher, the moment that theystepped onto that aircraft and
stepped back off of it after acouple of hours, were instantly
convinced. This was highlyneeded for Canada, for the
variety of topography, thelarge, land mass and ocean mass
that we have.

(51:04):
So definitely very beneficialfor the SAR enterprise in
Canada.

Bryan (51:08):
Yeah. And that's kind of going to be a theme today is
basically like, like you said,there's there was hesitancy.
There has been rumors. We'regoing to discuss a lot of kind
of some of the things that needto be overcome and some of the
rumors that did or didn't haveany substance to them. But
that's going to be the big themeis kind of like, you know, why
are obviously something's goingon here that or not something's

(51:29):
going on, but there's a reasonthat everybody who interacts
with this thing is like, oh, I'mI'm a believer now.
Like, like I said, I wasabsolutely floored by my
experience on the aircraftyesterday. Like, it's a very,
very impressive platform.

Francois (51:41):
Yeah. I think just humans are resistant to change.
Mhmm. So that that was probablyone of the factors.

Bryan (51:48):
For sure.

Francois (51:48):
But as soon as we tried this aircraft and
operationalized it andimplemented it, everyone is
convinced that this is the wayto go for SAR.

Bryan (51:59):
Perhaps you can all address this. In early April, a
CTV news article was widelycirculated that criticized the
removal of legacy h modelHercules from the West Coast,
claiming that the militaryquietly pulled the aircraft. In
fact, an Ottawa based defenseanalyst claimed that Canadians
were now at increased risk. Canyou tell us if this was true?

Francois (52:18):
I can take this one. Sure. Yeah. Yeah. Definitely
fake news, honestly.
When I saw the article, it wasalmost laughable because there
was there was no there was nomeat to that article. They were
they excluded many facts. It wasa false narrative. They said
that we quietly pulled out,which it was anything but that.
If anything, public affairsofficers and leaders at all

(52:42):
levels were super transparentabout this change.
We sent letters. We communicatedto all the relevant SAR
stakeholders, whether they werepartners, provincial agencies,
fisheries entities. Anyone thatwould be impacted by the
potential change of SAR coveragehad been communicated to. So we
stayed very transparent aboutcommunicating the situation. And

(53:05):
what was the situation?
It was in January, the C-130Hwas removed from Comox due to
several reasons, but that camewith some some strategies to
make sure that that coverage wasmaintained just alternatively.
So, a, we were able to respondfrom Winnipeg with the CC one

(53:26):
thirty h. They still fell underthe SR commander of Victoria. B,
we had the ability to return toComox with the h model if needed
because we still had technicianshere. We still had tools and and
all the support platforms.
Serviceability in Winnipeg wasactually better because now they
had a pool of more depth ofaircraft. So their their

(53:47):
availability for SAR coveragefrom a total aspect was was
heightened. The CH one fortynine, the Kormorant, had a an
elevated SAR posture during thattime frame just to make sure
that the coverage was taken careof, and unofficially, we
consistently had backup crews aswell on the Kormont to make sure
that if a second aircraft neededto be launched, a second Kormont

(54:09):
aircraft had to be launched, wehad the capability to do so. And
the Kingfisher was actually ableto be launched. So officially,
of May was the operational date,but actually two SAR launches
were prosecuted before the May1.
So so, yeah, that that that wasessentially fake news. The SAR

(54:29):
coverage was modified, but therewas no gap to it.

Bryan (54:33):
Right. So basically a nothing burger. Like, somebody
made a big deal out of somethingthat maybe they didn't fully
understand or I won't I won'tspeculate as to motivations and
and all that kind of thing, butit sounds like, what was
presented was not really whatwas going on.

Francois (54:48):
Yeah. They just didn't have they didn't include all the
facts.

Luc (54:51):
They didn't paint paint the full picture.

Bryan (54:53):
Yeah.

Dan (54:53):
And some points were just wrong, which

Francois (54:55):
was Yeah.

Dan (54:56):
Exactly. Trust Like, I read the news and I love the news.
But in this case, someone was,had their facts wrong.

Bryan (55:02):
Yeah. Yeah. And the reason that I bring this up is
just because I think thatarticle, from what I saw anyways
received a fair amount of like Isaw a lot of people sharing it.
I saw it on on Reddit andvarious, platforms. And I just
thought it would be important tokind of bring up and give you
guys a chance to address that.

Luc (55:19):
Thank you.

Bryan (55:20):
Yeah. So let's talk about training and building up a force
that can operate the Kingfisher.Luke, what is four eighteen
Squadron's role in preparingaircrew to operate the
Kingfisher?

Luc (55:31):
So we are currently able to take new ingrads and new
aircraft technicians and bringthem up to the level where they
can perform operations or getaircraft serviceable so that
they can go and conduct theseoperations, as well as taking
folks who are trained on otherairframes and convert them over

(55:54):
to the Kingfisher where they canalso be called to via JRCC and
and Canucks' rescue operationsand missions.

Bryan (56:03):
So, basically, your role is taking aircrew, whether they
are straight out of their wingstrain air aircrew and ground
crew, whether they're straightout of their trades training, or
whether they're on a anotherfleet and converting them and
making them, operationally readyto to, use the kingfisher use
and maintain the kingfisher.

Luc (56:20):
Exactly. You said it, better than myself.

Bryan (56:25):
Okay, guys. Just for time, that's where we're going
to take our episode break. Wewill pick up in the next one,
picking Luke's brain about howthe crews have been trained.
Again, guys, just thank you somuch for having me here on
location in Colmox. It has beensuch a blast.
Alright. That wraps up part twoof our chat with Luc, Francois,
and Dan. Tune in next week as wefinish up our chat going through

(56:46):
all the considerations of howthe aircrew are trained as well
as going through and addressingevery rumor I could find about
Kingfisher and the problems ithas had. Do you have any
questions or comments aboutanything you've heard in this
show? Would you or someone youknow make a great guest, or do
you have a great idea for ashow?
You can reach out to us at [e-mail] or

(57:07):
on all social media at at podpilotproject. And be sure to
check out that social media forlots of great videos of our RCAF
and mission aviation aircraft.As always, we'd like to thank
you for tuning in and ask foryour help with the big three.
That's like and follow us onsocial media, share with your
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podcasts. That's all for now.

(57:28):
Thanks for listening. Keep theblue side up. See you. Engineer,
shut down all four. Shuttingdown all four engines.