In Part 1, pilot Ian Wookey walks us through the formative years that made him a Chinook aviator - from varsity life at RMC and initial flight training on the Grob, to the intensity of the Harvard II course in Moose Jaw and the humbling challenge of helicopter phase training.
Ian reflects on early on-the-job roles, an unexpected deployment to Afghanistan with a special operations aviation detachment, and how those experiences shaped his choice to fly rotary-wing aircraft. He closes by describing the nerve-wracking moment of selection for the CH-147F Chinook and what it felt like to join 450 Tactical Helicopter Squadron.
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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. With me today is
someone I've been working withfor a while to line this up,
major Ian Wookie, a tac hillpilot on the CH one forty seven
f Chinook and current executiveassistant to chief of Air and
Space Force Development inOttawa, Ontario. Ian, it's great
(01:21):
to finally get you on the show.
Thanks for being here.
Ian (01:24):
Thanks, Brian. It's an absolute pleasure to be here.
Bryan (01:26):
Today, we will be talking about Ian's career in the RCAF,
including his early days andtime in flight training up to
when he was selected to fly theCH one forty seven F Chinook.
But before we jump into any ofthat, let's go through Ian's
bio. Major Ian Wookie was bornand raised in Sarnia, Ontario.
He enrolled in the RCAF as apilot through the ROTP program
at the Royal Military Collegeand was commissioned in 02/2010.
(01:48):
Following his commission, he wasposted to four two seven special
operations aviation squadron anddeployed to Afghanistan with a
special operations aviationdetachment in support of Op
Enduring Freedom.
In 02/2013, he received hiswings and joined four fifty
tactical helicopter squadronqualifying on the CH one forty
seven f Chinook helicopter. As amember of four fifty squadron,
(02:08):
he participated in numerousoperations including Optinook in
the Canadian Arctic and multipleOplentis deployments to aid in
wildfire and flood responseacross Western Canada. In
02/2018, he was posted to FortBragg, North Carolina where he
flew the CH 47 f Chinook withthe eighty second Airborne
Division as a foreign exchangeofficer. There, he served as a
senior air mission commander,tactics adviser, unit trainer,
(02:31):
and battalion operationsofficer. He deployed with the
eighty second Combat AviationBrigade in 2021 on Operation
Freedom Sentinel, where hecoordinated the retrograde of US
and NATO forces fromAfghanistan.
During the evacuation of Kabul,he flew as a CH forty seven f
aircraft commander in support ofOP Allies Refuge. Returning to
four fifty tactical helicoptersquadron in 02/2022, major
(02:54):
Wookie held various leadershippositions and served as deputy
commanding officer. Iancurrently serves as executive
assistant to chief of air andspace force development in
Ottawa, Ontario. Ian's awardsinclude the Canadian Forces
Decoration, General CampaignStar, Southwest Asia, and The US
Presidential Unit Citation. Heis a graduate of the advanced
tactical aviation course, theCanadian Army Operations Course,
(03:17):
and the US Marine Corps Commandand Staff Program.
He has accumulated over 1,800flight hours on both RCAF CH one
forty seven f and US Army CH 47f helicopters. Additionally, he
holds a bachelor of arts inpsychology from RMC and has
represented the Canadian ArmedForces as a member of the CISM
men's volleyball team. Iancurrently resides in Renfrew,
(03:38):
Ontario with his wife, majorAndrea Wookie, and their dogs
and horses. Ian, we always liketo start with this. Where did
aviation start for you?
Ian (03:46):
I I don't wanna say I came by aviation by accident, but I I
was, I did not come up throughsay the Air Cadet stream that,
that you followed or that a lotof my peers have followed. I was
inspired to actually join theCAF through the ROTP program at
Royal Military College. As I wasfinishing high school, I was
trying to figure out what I wasgoing to do with my career. I
was always an athlete. I wasalways into sports.
(04:08):
And I found out that the RoyalMilitary College had
opportunities to play varsitysports at a high level. One of
the pillars of RMC is athleticexcellence as well as academic
excellence. So I was reallyinterested in joining the
military college. And as I wasgoing through the recruiting
process, my recruiter happenedto be a pilot. And as I was
(04:28):
trying to decide on what trade Iwanted to pursue, what career
path I wanted to go through inthe CAF, I got steered toward
piloting in aviation.
And that was kind of my, myinitial thoughts at aviation. I
was a bit of a nerd growing up.Always watched the air, watched
the airplanes flying overhead. Ido remember going to the top of
(04:49):
the parking garage at TorontoInternational for a couple hours
at a time to just watch theplanes landing. I always thought
it was really cool, but I, Inever had any sort of dreams or
aspirations for it until it, I,the opportunity presented itself
to me and I jumped at
Bryan (05:01):
it. That's pretty lucky that that recruiter kind of
pushed you in that directionbecause pilot typically is a
difficult trade to get into.It's typically like, there's
only been rare times where it'sbeen a high demand trade because
typically, it's chock full ofapplicants. So it's pretty
awesome that you got pushed inthat direction.
Ian (05:18):
Yeah. I I feel really fortunate to have been there.
Bryan (05:21):
Yeah. You attended Royal Military College or RMC under
the ROTP program. I know somepeople who loved it and some who
really didn't enjoy it. So howdid you find your time at RMC?
Ian (05:31):
I absolutely loved my time at RMC. As as I mentioned
before, I was there as kind of anot a scholarship athlete per
se, but I joined a varsity team.I played volleyball for the, for
the entire time that I wasthere. Met a lot of people that
way that the relationshipbuilding at RMC is, is
outstanding. The academicprograms at RMC are outstanding.
(05:55):
I had the opportunity to studyunder a lot of really senior
officers, especially in kind ofin the military history program,
who were a wealth of knowledgeand experience. Some of the
peers in your groups ahead ofme, they're now kind of the
senior leaders, unit leaders ofthe CAF. So being able to get to
(06:16):
know them on a personal leveland build some of those
relationships, I think wasreally beneficial to how I
advanced in my career. But aswell, moving through RMC and
understanding the importance ofteamwork in a military setting,
that's something that's followedthrough my career all the way
along As I moved into flighttraining on deployments, working
(06:40):
with foreign militaries, we hadforeign exchange students at RMC
while we were there. So we gotto learn some things about how
the US Air Force works, how theUS Army works before we were
ever exposed to that in any sortof operational sense.
Those are some of the things Ireally enjoyed about going to
Bryan (06:55):
office That's pretty cool. I didn't realize we had
international students at RMC.
Ian (07:01):
Yeah. Specifically, with The US, each of The US service
academies have exchange programsat RMC. And we send, as
Canadians, we send RMC cadetsto, to the American academies as
well.
Bryan (07:14):
Oh, that's cool. I didn't know that. What would you say
was the best and worst parts ofgoing there?
Ian (07:20):
Best parts, I think I already mentioned was the
relationships you build.
Bryan (07:23):
For sure.
Ian (07:24):
And the people you get to know. I I've still got some of
my best friends, and some of mythe peers I'm still working
with, are my classmates fromRMC, especially the ones that we
bonded with in our first yearorientation program, under the
stresses and rigors of thatprogram. I'd say the worst parts
(07:45):
was worst part was also the bestpart, feeling failure, like
being allowed to experiencelearning through failure, being
allowed to make mistakes and dothings wrong. I mean, most of
the folks at RMC, you'reprobably 18 to 22 years old,
(08:07):
you're still learning your placein the world, learning your
place in the, in the CAF, buthaving the mentorship of some,
some senior leaders, at the atthe college, squadron commanders
who are, second, third tourofficers who come back to to be
able to mentor you. You learnthrough failure, which are some
(08:27):
of the worst parts, and theybeing given the opportunity to
fail is, is a humblingexperience.
And that's, that's probably theworst feeling you can have, but
being able to build yourself upback through it, lean on the
people around you, lean on someof the mentors you got there to
be able to to pull through itand and learn what success is. I
I think that's that's thecombination of the best and
(08:49):
worst part of RMC.
Bryan (08:51):
Yeah. Yeah. And honestly, learning to fail and having that
opportunity to learn to failbefore you go through flight
training is is probably like ahuge benefit because if you
don't like I think one of theit's great to do well in flight
training, right? But it canalmost be a hindrance if you
never have a failure or asetback because you will one
(09:12):
day. And I think the sooner thebetter because it gets tougher
and tougher because you start tobelieve like, hey, I'm maybe I'm
exceptional here.
Like, I'm doing pretty well. Ihaven't had any failures or or
whatever, however you processthat. And then all of a sudden,
one day you will be faced with asetback and that can be a pretty
big, you know, wake up call.
Ian (09:33):
Well, it's not even failing per se. It's it's dealing with
pressure. Yeah. Our our RMC,there there is pressure to
pressure to succeed, pressure tobe a a team member who's
actually having effects on teamoutcomes. And the pressure that
(09:55):
you sense at RMC, when you'recombining academic, athletic,
bilingual, and military trainingall together in a very
compressed schedule, it it doestransition right into all of the
military training, whether it'spilot training, whether it's
infantry training, whether it'snaval officer training.
Having that sense of pressureand being able to cope with that
(10:18):
and manage that, it all workstogether to to really teach a
lot about yourself and and howyou react to those pressures.
Bryan (10:26):
Mhmm. So let's talk about your phase one flight training.
You completed phase one trainingon The Grove during the 2007.
How did you feel as you arrivedfor your first flight training
course in the RCAF?
Ian (10:39):
Equal parts nervous and excited. I I was I was terrified
just like everybody. Right? Youyou kind of realize showing up
to pilot training that it's it'sof make like your career is on
everything you do in pilottraining feels like your whole
career is on the line and therest of your life is on the
line. Yeah.
So you have that sense ofimpending doom, But at the same
(11:03):
time, you're excited becauseyou're going flying. Yeah.
You're going to get paid to gosit in an airplane and do some
really cool maneuvers. Getopportunities to go solo, get
opportunities to go to go alone,do some aerobatic flying. So it
was excitement and fear.
Once I got into the trainingthough, and once you actually
(11:24):
get into that routine and buildyour routine of studying in the
evenings, getting up in themorning, going for your workout,
showing up to the flight line todo whatever class instruction
you've got, followed by whateverflight you've got, and just
repeat that routine. Once you'reinto that routine, all you can
really focus on is actuallygetting the training done. And
(11:45):
it takes a lot of the anxietyaway once you actually start to
really get into the flow of thetraining system. So showing up,
yeah, really nervous. Kind of byday three, completely felt like
I'd settled in.
And with all of the peopleyou've got on your course with
you, everybody's in the sameboat, right? Right. So you've
got 12 to 15 people who are allkind of look at each other
(12:07):
aiming for the same objectives.So nobody else's success
determines your success. So it'sa it's an area where everybody
can build each other up and youcan you can have a really strong
team environment whereeverybody's learning from each
other as they go through thecourse.
Bryan (12:26):
Right. Like, if you have 10 people, it's not like you
only have seven slots for peopleto pass. Like, you know,
hopefully, 10 out of 10 aregonna pass. So, like, everyone
succeeding together is ismutually beneficial.
Ian (12:36):
Yeah. And the better everybody's doing around you,
the more you strive to be asgood as they are, right? So if
you see somebody who's got somereally good studying techniques,
or so or some really good tipsand tricks for whichever
maneuver they're flying, you canlearn from that. You can take
that on to your next flight, andbe able to it it helps build
(12:56):
your breed your own success.
Bryan (12:58):
Yeah. For sure. Once you actually got into the flight
training, what was your firstimpression of your flight
training in the RCAF?
Ian (13:06):
It was it was rapid. Like, the the learning curve was
steep. Like, there's there's nota lot of room to kinda get your
feet under you. It's either likelike, you're ready or you're
not. So it was really on you tobe prepared for every single
flight.
Because I think we're less thantwelve hours. At that time, I
(13:27):
mean, did phase one in 02/2007.So it may have changed slightly
by now. But at that time it wasless than twelve hours from
first flight in the aircraft tofirst solo. And after your first
solo, you were probably onlyabout another twelve hours from
getting ready to do your finaltest.
So it's a six, seven week coursethat's got twenty five flight
(13:49):
hours and it's a make or breakthere. So that's what really
stood out to me was how quicklyeverything came at you and the
expectations to improve on everysingle sortie.
Bryan (14:01):
Yeah. It's kinda like running on a treadmill. Like, if
you keep moving and keep going,you're gonna keep up. But if you
you'll never get a chance torest. Like, you you can't stop.
You have to keep going.
Ian (14:12):
Yeah. No. And don't look back.
Bryan (14:13):
Yeah. That's a good one for sure. You had a few OJT
opportunities, including yourfirst time in the tac hell world
working at One Wing in the 2009.Can you tell us about that?
Ian (14:27):
Yeah. 2009, I had an opportunity to do my, on the job
training at One Wingheadquarters out of Kingston. It
it was the first time I'd everbeen around tactical aviation,
but it was a good time to bearound tactical aviation. Mean,
there were units deployed toAfghanistan. We were dealing
(14:49):
with a true combat focus in thatenvironment.
Wing headquarters was busy.There were aircraft all over the
world. There were pilotstraining down in The US. We were
getting ready to push Chinookhelicopters over to Afghanistan
with the D models. And Iactually had one really cool
experience while I was there,where four thirty Squadron out
(15:14):
of Elkhart.
Were going down to Fort Sill,Oklahoma to do a door gunnery
camp in preparation for theirdeployment to Afghanistan. But
all of the weapons they neededwere in Edmonton. And four zero
eight was deployed currently. Sothere was nobody in Edmonton to
actually move these weapons downfor the Dior gun training. So
(15:34):
while four thirty was flyingtheir helicopters from Quebec to
Oklahoma, I was tasked to flyfrom Kingston to Edmonton, pick
up a bunch of these machine gunsin a van, with one of the of the
drivers from Valkarce.
And the two of us ended updriving across the continent
(15:56):
from Edmonton down to Oklahomato bring these weapons to the
door gun camp so that fourthirty was able to get their
door gunning training complete.And my task per se for the
duration of that X was to be theweapons manager, to be able to
make sure they got from thevault to the aircraft by the
time first launch occurred atsix in the morning. And then to
(16:17):
retrieve the weapons every nightat midnight, make sure they got
back to the vault and into theright storage location. And to
make sure that anytime that theaircraft were on flying, they
had the weapons mounted in theright place at the right time.
And while I was doing that too,I had a couple of opportunities
to actually get airborne withthose aircraft and see live
shooting from the back of aGriffin.
(16:38):
Wow. Doing CCA close combatattack sorties with live
fighters flying in the ranges aswell. So they were doing target
prosecution where the fighterswould come in. They would a gun
run live. And then the Griffinswould turn in and do CCA cleanup
activities.
(16:58):
So the close combat attack,crude machine gun from the side
facing door of the helicopteronto a target. And that was kind
of where I fell in love withtactical aviation, being able to
to see machine guns shootingfrom helicopters. I I still to
this day, it's still the coolestthing I think you can do in the
cast, shoot a machine gun from ahelicopter.
Bryan (17:20):
Yeah. Those door gunners have a pretty awesome job.
Ian (17:23):
Yeah. It's it's unrivaled.
Bryan (17:25):
Yeah. What an adventure to go from Edmonton to Oklahoma.
Like, were you guys this is kindof a silly question maybe, but,
like, did you guys have any formof, like, defense or anything
where you're had these weaponsbeing transported through the
country? Like, was there anysecurity concerns?
Ian (17:44):
Well, the CAF has protocols. Right? So we we have
to do, route analysis anytimewe're moving weapons across
country. We have to givenotification to local law
enforcement. When we're stoppingovernight for these tasks, we
were leveraging local lawenforcement.
So when we stopped in Casper,Wyoming for one of our night
stops, we actually drove theweapons to the vault of the
local police office and leftthem there overnight. So we were
(18:05):
taking all the all the correctsecurity protocols. But, yeah,
it's it's just not not kindayour your routine officer cadet
OJE pilot experience.
Bryan (18:16):
That's a very unique experience. So you graduated
from RMC in 2010 and as istradition, had to wait for a
moose jaw. After a few months atOne Wing HQ, you were offered
OJT at four two seven SpecialOperations Aviation Squadron.
What was it like to arrive as asecond lieutenant in Canada's
Special Operations AviationSquadron? And can you tell us
(18:38):
about your job at four twentyseven Squadron?
Ian (18:41):
Yeah. It it was interesting. In 2010, after I
graduated, I went back kind ofinto the same role I was at, at
One Wing headquarters. And latein the summer, I was offered an
opportunity to actually go to aline unit where there are
helicopters. There's nohelicopters in Kingston.
So the OJE is, it's mostly spentbehind a computer working on,
(19:05):
taskings, calling the units andasking them what they want to
do. So when I had theopportunity to actually go to a
line unit, drive a few hours upthe road to Petawawa and see
what four twenty seven wasdoing, jumped at it. I did not
hesitate. When I actually got toPetawawa and I got into four
twenty seven, job was kind ofwhat you'd expect of a typical
(19:28):
OJ at a unit. It's not muchdifferent from any of the other
OJs you'd see at other units.
So you're kind of working in theop cell, doing daily
coordination for routinesorties. So flying schedule
management, crew management,making sure the crews have the
(19:48):
right equipment to get on theright aircraft, that, doing the
coordination between maintenanceand ops to make sure that the
right aircraft are on the linefor the right mission, and kind
of just being a first point ofcontact within the op cell for
any of the current ops that aregoing on. Not necessarily a
decision maker, more of acoordinator. But it's what I
(20:12):
find about those kind of rolesin in on the job training is
it's best way to actually get toknow everybody in the unit.
Yeah.
Because if you're looking for apoint of contact, you're you're
gonna call the ops desk andsitting at the ops desk is,
well, if it's the second lefttenant OJT, well, now they're
going to be calling the nextperson you need to go to. And
it's kind of the first place youcome if you've got a question
(20:33):
about what's going on for theday. Yeah. So you get to you get
to you get to have that face toface with with everybody from
the maintenance side tologistics side to the to the
flight crews. And it's a reallygood way to to learn how the
unit functions and how the AirForce functions.
Bryan (20:49):
Yeah. Working in operations can be pretty hectic.
And sometimes it can be prettytough because when everything's
going great, everyone just goesand does their job and, you
know, takes it for granted. Andwhen things grind to a halt or
something goes wrong, people areshowing up at the desk red faced
and, you know, demandinganswers. So that can be tough.
But the upside of it is, likeyou said, you pretty much get to
(21:09):
know everybody in the unit andyou really learn a lot about the
operations, the day to day ofhow things run and and all that
stuff.
Ian (21:17):
Yeah. I I really enjoyed it there.
Bryan (21:20):
Now this is kind of crazy. When you were still an
OJT second lieutenant with fourtwo seven, you deployed to
Afghanistan with the specialoperations aviation detachment
in support of Op EnduringFreedom. This is basically
unheard of as an untrainedsecond lieutenant. So what's the
story here? How did you end upon this deployment?
Ian (21:38):
Well, I like to think that I was doing such a good job that
they had no choice but to deployme. But no, it was one of those,
there's certain things, certainthings that happen in your
career where you kind of thinkright place, right time. And,
and I don't say that as I didn'tdeserve to do it. I just mean
(21:59):
you make your own luck. But ifif opportunities present
themselves, you gotta takeadvantage of them.
And in this case, four two sevenwas, had the special ops
aviation detachment deployed atKandahar, flying the MI 17
helicopters over there. And theywere a little bit short on the
ops staff. So it was a it was asmall detachment. And they
(22:20):
basically took the OJT role Iwas doing with the current ops
coordination, and transplantedme forward to do the same thing
with special ops aviation.
Bryan (22:33):
Okay.
Ian (22:34):
So I ended up deploying with them from early twenty
eleven, kinda through summertwenty eleven, doing a very
similar OJ role, just doing aforward at Candahar Airfield. So
I was in the upsell of the SOAD,doing daily flying schedule
coordination, making sure thatwe have the right aircraft and
(22:54):
the right crews in the rightplace with the right maintenance
done, doing some missioncoordination. So if there was a
if there was a mission ongoing,I'd be taking the details of the
mission, making sure that, theright enabling agencies who
needed to know what was goingon, knew what was going on,
doing coordination with airfieldmanagement to make sure that we
(23:15):
we knew what was going on in thein the rest of the AO at
Kandahar. Because at that time,11, Kandahar was quite the
place. It was right at theheight of The US surge.
So there were probably 40,000 to50,000 people on the base.
Bryan (23:28):
Wow.
Ian (23:29):
So it was running like a true airbase. So there was a lot
of coordination of management tomake sure that we were still
operating correctly on theairfield while we were doing our
mission stuff as well.
Bryan (23:44):
Wow. What were your feelings about going to
Afghanistan? Obviously, this issomething you wanted because you
had to get a waiver from thedeputy commander of the RCAF.
Ian (23:54):
Yeah. It was the the waiver had more to do with the the
training level. So because Iwasn't trained as a pilot, I was
not at my, OFP, the operationalfunctional point. Right. So I I
was not fully qualified to, tobe in a, deployed position.
So the waiver was really wasspecifically related to that
(24:15):
training. But the waiver requeststated that the the roles I was
fulfilling did not require me tobe a pilot necessarily. They
just required me to be able toto do the ops management piece
that I had been trained to do.
Bryan (24:26):
Mhmm.
Ian (24:27):
I also had to do, like actual pre deployment training,
the theater mission specifictraining, which was its own
adventure, because I had to flyout to Edmonton for three weeks
in December, to go. I ended updoing my combat first aid, my ID
(24:47):
awareness training, all of thekind of combat, preparation
training in the middle ofEdmonton, in the training area,
in the December, when it wasabout 35 below to get ready to
go to Afghanistan, where I wasnever going to see a snowflake.
So that was, that was a littlebit unique.
Bryan (25:06):
That's pretty funny.
Ian (25:08):
But, but in terms of actually getting, getting over
to Afghanistan, it again, almosta little bit like pilot
training, like equal parts,anxious and excited. Excited
because I I mean, who's notexcited to actually go into
being able to be on a mission tobe able to to to be in the
fight, if if you wanna call itthat. Anxious because you have
(25:31):
no idea what to expect. Andthat's that's something that
that was a really good framingopportunity for me early in my
career to recognize that nomatter what deployment you're
going on, whether it's a combatdeployment, whether it's a
domestic deployment, it's nevergoing to be, you never know what
to expect and it's never goingto be anything like what you
expected. And that's the piece Igive to anybody who's going on
(25:56):
their first deployment is don'tset expectations because if you
do, they're going to be wrong.
So my feeling was just, I wantto be able to go over there and
learn. And I luckily, I had somereally good mentors over there,
people who are still stillsurround me in my career to this
day, who I was able to learn alot from, and be able just to
(26:19):
just to absorb what happens inthat kind of environment and how
operations are are supposed tolook for tactical aviation.
Bryan (26:26):
We've talked a bit about what your role was within the
SOAD or special operationsaviation detachment. What was
the role of the SOAD itself inAfghanistan?
Ian (26:37):
So the SOAD was in direct support to, the SOAD. So the
combined joint specialoperations task force that was
operating over there. So thatwas a multinational special
operations forces organizationthat had Canadians, embedded in
it. And the role of the SOAD wasdirect support to those assets.
(26:59):
So if they were going out on amission for whatever particular
task they were assigned, thosehelicopters would be in direct
support of those assets.
Bryan (27:10):
Okay. So if troops need to get somewhere, getting those
troops there and and that sortof thing?
Ian (27:16):
Yeah. True. If troops need to get there, if equipment needs
to get there, if you if yourequire any sort of, Overwatch.
Now we we did work inconjunction with some of the,
some of the other coalitionassets that were there too. We
were able to work a lot with,with the US Army aviation assets
that were there with, theirtheir Kiowa and Apache
(27:39):
helicopters, so specific firesplatforms, which also supported
the missions.
But for the, for the purpose ofthe SOAD, those MI seventeens,
they they were they were a liftplatform. Yeah. So kinda similar
what the Chinook does. They theythey move people and stuff to
get to the right place to beable to put effects downrange.
Bryan (27:55):
Right. Did you have any crazy experiences during your
tour in Afghanistan? Like anyrocket attacks or did you ever
go on any missions or anythinglike that?
Ian (28:05):
No. One one of the, one of the very specific restrictions I
was given being untrained wasthat I I I will not leave the
airfield.
Bryan (28:14):
That's fair.
Ian (28:15):
So that that was that I I kinda went in knowing that I was
I wasn't gonna get to get to doany of that that kinda cool
stuff. But in terms of, forceprotection security, I mean,
that that that was part of beingon Candahar Airfield was that
rocket attacks did occur. We didhave one occurrence where we
(28:35):
actually had a rocket land onour ramp underneath one of our
aircraft
Bryan (28:40):
Oh, wow.
Ian (28:40):
That did not explode No. Conveniently. So we were able
to, to have the EOD folks securethat and carry on carry on
within a couple hours like itnever happened. And we there
were some there were breachattempts on the airfield. There
were rocket attacks on theairfield, but nothing that was,
(29:01):
I would say, any anything crazyor unique that's, that's
different from anybody else'sGanahar experience.
Bryan (29:07):
Which is funny. Right? Like, it shows you when you're
deployed the sliding scale ofnormal because, like, most
people listening to this havenever experienced a a have never
lived somewhere where a rocketattack could be a a daily part
of your life or, you know, youtalk about a breach attempt very
casual casually, but what thatis is like the Taliban trying to
breach their way onto theairfield and, you know, kill
(29:29):
people. And that's just likeyour sliding scale of normal.
Right?
Ian (29:33):
Yeah. And that's a sliding scale of normal for for anything
you're gonna be involved in, butit's it's all based on your
expectations. Right? If if youshow up knowing that you're at a
location where you have to takeforce protection seriously,
where you have to be prepared,where you have your own security
forces engaged in defendingagainst those things, then know
(29:56):
how to be able to deal with it.Yeah.
Right? So you know what toexpect. And if your expectation
is that there will be a rocketattack siren at some point while
you're there, and the siren goesoff, well then it's not a panic.
You've already discussed andrehearsed what the drills you're
going to do. Where's your safelocation to get to?
And how do you continue tosupport operations while that's
(30:16):
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Bryan (31:08):
So how did this experience influence the way you
approached your flight trainingin the coming years?
Ian (31:15):
The biggest influence that this had on my flight training
was that I was 99% sure that Iwanted to fly helicopters as a
pilot. Yeah. And greenhelicopters. It wasn't just the
aviators I was surrounded by.But working closely with, with
(31:36):
some of the folks at, CHFA, likethe the Canadian helicopter
force Afghanistan that wasthere, working with some of the
some of the special operationsmembers who were there, seeing
it from like a support to theland force perspective and
building relationships with thetroops who are on the ground and
(31:57):
the people who you're actuallysupporting and having that face
to face relationship and gettingto know them really well and
seeing the direct connectionbetween, your role as a
helicopter pilot and the effectthat has on the troops on the
ground.
That was that's really unique inTackle. And and that that
(32:18):
exposure that I got in thatexperience was what really drove
me to continue to want to dothat through my career.
Bryan (32:24):
Okay. So we'll get back into your flight training
experiences. You've safelyreturned from your tour in
Afghanistan, and you're arrivingat Moose Jaw to fly the CT one
fifty six Harvard two. How didyou feel arriving for this
course? And did it feel like nobig deal after being in
Afghanistan?
Ian (32:41):
It probably felt like a bigger deal.
Bryan (32:42):
Oh, yeah?
Ian (32:43):
Because now now I've got the operational experience or
I'll put that in air quotes,operational experience.
Bryan (32:48):
Yeah. Yeah.
Ian (32:49):
I I I've seen what it looks like. Now I'm more motivated to
succeed.
Bryan (32:53):
Right.
Ian (32:54):
Now I now I want it more.
Bryan (32:56):
So the stakes are higher.
Ian (32:57):
So now I'm putting more pressure on myself to succeed.
The stakes are higher. Yeah. SoI I don't want to say it was no
big deal, but it it definitelybrought a different perspective
of my flight training that I Iwas committed to being
successful and and gettingthrough that course.
Bryan (33:14):
Yeah. How did you find flying the Harvard two?
Ian (33:17):
Harvard was so much fun. Yeah. It was it was so much fun.
It's such a, like, again, Ididn't come up from an aviation
background. So I have no frameof reference to say I had two
hundred hours in a Cessna.
So to go from something that'sgot 12 horsepower to something
that's got 1,200 horsepower,those aren't those aren't the
(33:40):
real numbers. Don't quote me.But to be able to to get into
that aircraft, go to a fullyaerobatic aircraft, fly in
formation, go up to 24,000 feet,come back down, it was just
really cool. It was a really,really awesome exposure to to
(34:02):
what flying is. And being aneight month course instead of an
eight week course, you actuallygot to breathe a little bit
during the course.
And you actually get to enjoythe experience you were having.
And just like phase one, you'restill there with a team. You've
got more people at the school,right? Because you've got
courses ahead and behind you andeverybody again is still working
toward the same objective. So II had a lot of fun on on phase
(34:26):
two, I'll be honest.
Bryan (34:28):
Yeah. Phase two is a funny thing. Like it's a very
high pressure course still. It'svery intense and there's still
the fire hose of information andyou're learning a ton and like
every single day you're learningnew things and that can be
really challenging. But if youmanage to like take a step back,
breathe, I know for me a turningpoint was having the mindset of
(34:49):
like, okay, I'm just going do myabsolute best and if it works
out, that'll be amazing and ifit doesn't, I can walk away with
my head held high.
And then I was able to likeenjoy my time off on Friday and
Saturday, like Friday night andSaturday and, you know, hang out
with my friends and and find funthings to do. And yeah, it it it
can be very fun, but it you haveto get into the right mindset.
Ian (35:10):
Yeah, absolutely. And and once you build and establish
that routine, you're gonnayou're gonna find success in
that as well. Right? So you whenyou know that, hey, you know
what? The the weeknights are tomake sure that I'm prepared for
the weekdays And the weekendsare to make sure that I'm still
having fun and I'm relaxed andI'm ready to go for and fresh
for the next week.
(35:30):
Once you once you figure outthat routine, then then you're
going to have more success. Theother thing I had in Moose Jaw
was the benefit of having somereally good instructors really
early in the course. My two, I'dsay primary instructors for my
first phase of the course wereboth former helicopter pilots.
One of them was actually aformer C model Chinook
(35:51):
helicopter pilot, who was stillteaching at Moose Jaw. And the
other one was a former Seakingpilot.
And knowing that I wanted to flyhelicopters and being able to
kind of relate to them and havethat kind of human to human
conversation with yourinstructors instead of it being,
(36:11):
a very authoritativerelationship also benefited me
in that course. And I don't knowif that speaks to them being
helicopter pilots. I think theywere just genuinely really
awesome people. Yeah. But I gotlucky in that way too.
Bryan (36:26):
Yeah. Most of the instructors there are pretty
amazing, but it really makes adifference when you get those
instructors who take the time toinvest in you and to mentor you.
Ian (36:37):
Yeah. And and can look at you and and like be invested in
your success. Mhmm. I I feltthat.
Bryan (36:44):
Yeah. And I think most of them are. Like, most people
don't end up instructing atMoose Jaw and they're they can't
really be blase about theirstudents' success. Like, they
just won't won't be successfulas instructors. Like, all the
instructors I've spoken with arevery invested in their students'
success.
Like, they're especially whenthey're when they're early in.
(37:05):
Like, they're nervous when theirfirst students are going up for
tests because they really wantthem to succeed and yeah. They
they care.
Ian (37:11):
Yeah. Well, success on a student is a direct reflection
on the success of theinstructor. Right? So I I True.
I I never I did never I did notever have an experience with an
instructor in Moose Jaw who Idid not feel like they were
invested in my success.
I I just highlighted those twobecause I I got along really
well with them and they wereformative Yeah. In kind of like
(37:33):
the first the first clear hoodphase that I was going through.
Bryan (37:36):
Yeah. For sure. Did you have any particular challenges
while making your way throughphase two?
Ian (37:45):
Yeah. I I'd say my biggest challenge was getting the small
stuff right. I get it's it's onething to to know your numbers,
know your red pages. Be strongin the classroom, be strong
academically. But then when youget in the aircraft and you know
(38:05):
the maneuvers, you know whatyou're expected to do, you know
what an, what a before landingcheck is, you know what an after
takeoff check is.
But if, if you, if you forgetthe gear in the flaps and the
right sequence of the beforelanding check, and that's, it's
(38:26):
just one of those things.Sometimes you just get that
mental block where you just, itjust doesn't come to you right
away. That I think I had acouple of flights right in the
middle of my course, where itwas like back to back to back
flights where I just, for somereason I had a mental block
where I just could not get overthe hurdle of getting the right
checks and the right sequence atthe right time of the flight.
(38:47):
Not that I didn't know what Iwas doing, just that it just did
not come to me as I was goingthrough the sequence, no matter
how much chair flying I did, nomatter how much I practiced, no
matter how much I tried toremind myself, I just had those
one sequence. And as soon as youhave that one level that
doesn't, doesn't quite meet thestandard for that flight, then
(39:08):
you put more pressure onyourself to fight through.
Now, I was successful. I neverreally was put in a position to
do any remedial training, butit's getting over those mental
blocks of making sure thatyou're appropriately focused on
(39:28):
the right task at the righttime. That was the real struggle
I had in Moose Jaw.
Bryan (39:34):
How did you work through that?
Ian (39:39):
I actually I got some techniques from some of my
peers, some of the folks I wason course with. Then having
those relationships absolutelyessential going through pilot
training, to be able to talk tothem and bounce ideas back and
forth and let them know, letthem know what your weaknesses
are. They'll let you know whatyour weaknesses are and you can
help each other work through it.And I actually had, one of the
(40:03):
other guys on my course gave mejust like a a quick mnemonic
that kinda he, I don't rememberspecifically what it was, but it
was it was just one of thosethings that just clicked in my
brain. Yeah.
And I I never forgot it againafter that because it was I'm
sure it was something funny orcrass Yeah. He said that just
Bryan (40:23):
They usually are.
Ian (40:24):
Just got stuck in the back of my brain that I just could
not forget once, once we hadthat conversation. So it was
leaning on Pierce. Yeah. That'sthat's how I got through that
course.
Bryan (40:34):
What would you say was the biggest lesson you learned
from phase two that continues toinfluence you as a pilot today?
Ian (40:41):
Just being genuine. Being yourself. Being able to have
those, like just real lifeconversations with your peers,
with your instructors,recognizing that the people
around you are all workingtoward the same goal. They all
want to be successful. And thefact that we mentioned earlier
that the instructors are,they're invested in your
(41:01):
success.
So be honest with them, beupfront, be able to have those
conversations that to allow themto help you. Yeah. Right? It's
if if you feel like you're ifyou feel like you're struggling
or you or you just can't getthat one technique down that you
(41:23):
want to get, have thatconversation. And I think that's
something I'll always bringforward too is don't be afraid
to reach out to the peoplearound you or the people who are
built to be in a position tohelp you succeed.
Lean on them, talk to them.Don't don't try to do it all
yourself.
Bryan (41:40):
Yeah. So when you finished your course, you were
selected to go helicopters. Weknow that's what you wanted. How
did it feel to get that?
Ian (41:49):
It it felt good. It it was definitely, it was definitely
gratifying. I I don't know if, Idon't know if the commandant
felt the same way. Thecommandant was a was a jet guy
and wanted wanted everybody toto really want to be a to be a
fighter pilot.
Bryan (42:08):
Yeah.
Ian (42:08):
But I I was, I I had my my eyes set on the green
helicopters for sure.
Bryan (42:14):
Moose Jaw, I don't know about now, but certainly at that
time period was definitely,like, run as a jet school. Like,
it was a very jet pilotatmosphere.
Ian (42:23):
Yeah. It was. And I I did actually, have an interview with
one of the senior leaders inMoose Jaw at some point when
they found out halfway throughthe course that I was already
deciding that I wanted to gohelicopters. I kind of got
called in and just, just, justask just to be like, Hey, what,
why don't you want to fly jets?And, I honestly just talked
(42:44):
about my motivation for flyinghelicopters.
Didn't, I didn't mention that,you know, I don't, I don't want
to go fly circles at left handorbits at 30,000 feet and, and
watch the world through a straw.And I say that tongue in cheek
because all of the folks that Iwent through pilot training with
within a year after finishingMoose Jaw, they were dropping
bombs in Libya, right? Soeverybody has their own
(43:05):
experiences and the the thetiming works out. But, but,
yeah, I was I was always set ongoing taco.
Bryan (43:11):
Yeah. So next up is your phase three flight training on
your helicopter course. When youarrived at phase three
helicopter training in PortOrchard Prairie, did you find it
was more relaxed than phase one?I can't speak for helicopter
training, but I know that multiengine training is a much more
relaxed environment than MooseJaw.
Ian (43:28):
I think that the school is smaller. So I think it's a it's
a bit of a different atmospherebetween 3CFFTS and 2CFFTS. I
mean, in Moose Jaw, there's 15Harvards launching in three
waves a day, right? So it's justYeah. It's constantly going.
It's constantly moving. It's alittle bit slower that way, not
(43:51):
as not as many aircraft, not asmany students in house. But the
difference between thehelicopter and multi engine
training is is is notable to thethe multi engine guys always
seem to be super chilled out,getting ready for their for
their next, know, for four hourout back sortie. Whereas the
(44:14):
helicopter courses about to golearn on go learn something
completely new.
Bryan (44:20):
Yeah.
Ian (44:21):
Flying a helicopter is not flying an airplane. Yeah. Now
there are things that overlapand there are things that
relate. And having flown theHarvard before definitely helps
give you the air sense to beable to be an effective
helicopter pilot. But physicallyflying a helicopter is unlike
anything else that you canreally do.
So there's no way to get good atit without doing it. Yeah. So
(44:43):
there's a lot of pressure to, alot of self induced pressure
again to be successful doingsomething you've never done
before. And especially if you'vehad success in a place like
Moose Jaw to show up and be putright back to zero again on
phase three, because nobody canhover a helicopter on their
first try
Bryan (45:02):
Right.
Ian (45:03):
Is is very humbling and and definitely definitely induces
some stress that I don't thinkthe the multi engine side had.
Bryan (45:11):
Yeah. You know, it's funny now that you say that and
I look back, I do remember, likeI said, multi was I won't say it
was like a chill course, but itwas much more relaxed than phase
two. And I think back to mypeers on the helicopter course,
and they were definitelycarrying a little more stress
than we were, like, for sure.And I mean, around that time was
(45:31):
like some dark days in thehelicopter side of the house.
Like, there was a course while Iwas there where only one person
graduated.
So, like, it was a it was toughtimes in the helicopter school.
So, yeah, I guess I guess nowthat you mentioned it, I can
remember that.
Ian (45:45):
Yeah. And it it it's not I mean, it's completely different
kinda learning atmosphere andbut it's everything is new on
the helicopter side. Like, eventhe aerodynamics a wing is a
wing is a rotor aerodynamically,But how the aerodynamics of a
rotor actually function comparedto just air over a wing is is a
(46:08):
little bit mind bending when itcomes to, like, the academic
side too. So even even theacademics and the ground school
are just a completely new anddifferent thing that you're
going to experience that you youjust have to you just have to be
prepared to know absolutelynothing, to be humbled that you
know absolutely nothing, and beprepared to learn it. Yeah.
(46:30):
Yeah. What did you
Bryan (46:32):
find was the most challenging part of phase three?
Ian (46:36):
The most challenging part was honestly what I just
mentioned before. The humblingexperience of realizing that
you're terrible at flyinghelicopters.
Bryan (46:47):
Yeah.
Ian (46:48):
To to go sit in the cockpit of a really fascinating machine,
even if it's a two zero six,just like little little jet
ranger. The the experience ofbeing given one flight control
and barely being able to keepyourself in one position is is
wildly challenging until you getit. And there's no knowing when
(47:12):
you're going to get that momentwhere it'll just click for you.
But at some point between kindof like hour one and hour ten,
you actually figure out how tomake both hands and both feet
work in coordination. And, andyou actually have that sense of
accomplishment, which is, themost rewarding part of phase
three, I would say is havingthat sense of accomplishment
(47:32):
from going in the span of a fewmonths from, I have absolutely
no idea what I'm doing to, I amflying a multi engine glass
cockpit helicopter, across aninternational border.
And I know what I'm doing andI'm being successful. So I think
(47:53):
just helicopter training ingeneral has that challenge of
going from absolute zero tosuccess. And the the transition
and the curve you see in that isis really rewarding.
Bryan (48:11):
Right on. So you passed phase three and got your wings.
You were selected to go to fourfifty tactical helicopter
squadron to fly the CH one fortyseven f Chinook. You were only
the second person to be sentdirectly to the Chinook from
pilot training. Before that,people first flew on another
platform.
Were you intimidated by this atall?
Ian (48:30):
A little bit. But again, it's that same feeling that you
always get in your career whenyou do something new, equal
parts excited and equal partsanxious. I was really, really
excited to be given theopportunity to fly the most
modern piece of kit in the AirForce. Like the fact that it
that I was going to a placewhere the helicopters were going
to be brand new, where they werepurpose built to be the
(48:55):
workhorse of the RCAF. That wassuper, super exciting.
And honestly, that helpedovercome any of like a
nervousness or intimidation thatI would have felt. I knew I was
going in completely cold. Knewthat there were people with
combat experience on Chinooksthat I was going to learn from,
but that was exciting because Iwas going to learn from them.
(49:16):
Yeah. It wasn't it wasn't somuch intimidating.
Bryan (49:19):
Yeah. You felt confident after the training you'd
received and just excited forthe new the new job?
Ian (49:24):
A 100%.
Bryan (49:27):
So switching gears a little, you have a brother who
is also a pilot in the RCAF. Canyou tell us a little about him
and how your family ended upwith two pilots serving in the
RCAF?
Ian (49:37):
Yeah. My brother, Matt, I think he probably had a bit of a
similar introduction to themilitary as I did, where we
don't come from a militaryfamily by any means. I mean, my
uncle was an artillery officerin the CAF for about twenty
years. But outside of that,growing up in Sarnia, it's not a
(49:59):
military town by any means.We're not surrounded by it.
But I think after him seeing myfirst couple of years at RMC, he
also decided to go to RMC. Alsowas a bit of an athlete. He
played varsity basketball there.And when we were talking about
joining and he asked mequestions about what the
(50:21):
application was like and whatcareer paths were, I was pretty
quick to tell him that pilot wasthe way to go. And he had a
similarly successfulapplication.
And through that process, he wasalways kind of a couple of years
behind me in training system,But we had the opportunity to go
(50:42):
through very similar training.He went, did, did phase one
portage, phase two Harvard,phase three, portage again, and
ended up coming to four fiftySquadron as a Chinook
Bryan (50:54):
in
Ian (50:55):
2015. So we ended up flying Chinooks together for a few
years, at four fifty, which wasa really, really cool experience
to be able to share that. Andwent from, not to jump ahead too
far, but went from, me mentoringhim as an AC as he was coming up
(51:15):
as a junior first officer in theunit, to eventually when I came
back to the unit twenty twentytwo, after some time in The
States, he was a fully fullfledged instructor on the
Chinook by that point. And nowhe was teaching me on my re
qualification course when I wascoming back from The States. So
we've, we've had a a really coolopportunity to both be Chinook
(51:37):
helicopter pilots.
He's since moved up to, up toYellowknife. He's now flying
Twin Otters at at four fortySquadron, and is is loving his
RCAF career. Still again, stillbeing on a cockpit, all these
years later after he got hiswings in 2015, I think.
Bryan (51:57):
That's awesome. That's really cool. I hadn't I didn't
realize that he also flew theChinook and that you guys had
flown together. A really coolstory.
Ian (52:06):
Yeah. It's it's a really, really unique experience that
I'm I'm really happy to havehad.
Bryan (52:11):
Yeah. For sure. You're also a member of a service
couple. In other words, yourwife is also a serving member.
Andrea is an army logisticsofficer in Petawawa.
How do the two of you navigatetwo busy careers as majors in
the CAF while still maintaininga healthy relationship?
Ian (52:29):
Communication and compromise, for sure. I mean,
you we kinda went through mycareer a little bit and it's,
it's been deployment afterdeployment, after operation,
after exercise, after operation,after exchange. And hers has
been similarly chaotic withmoves, career courses,
(52:51):
deployments. She's also diddeployment to Afghanistan at one
point. So we just, we have tocommunicate a lot to be, to make
sure that we're always on thesame page with, with who's doing
what and where.
Yeah. But also being able todisconnect from work. I'm a
(53:12):
better officer because she's aphenomenally smart and
outstanding officer. But when wecome home at the end of the day,
and we can just kind of,disconnect from work and just be
in our space with the horses,with the dogs and be kind of
home, home on the farm and beable to disconnect and have the
(53:32):
ability to to be each other'sbest friend without having it be
specifically about work orspecifically about being a
military service couple. I thinkthat's that's what helps make us
better people together.
Bryan (53:45):
Yeah. To not just come home and talk shop, like have a
chance to disconnect and haveyour own space.
Ian (53:51):
Yeah. A 100%. Yeah. But at the same time, it it definitely
benefits us that we can havethose conversations about work
and bounce ideas off each other.
Bryan (53:59):
Yeah. That makes sense. It must be super busy between
careers. And then like you said,you guys have what I imagine is
a hobby farm and that must keepyou quite busy outside of
working hours.
Ian (54:10):
Yeah. It keeps us busy. And there was a there was a period
for a couple years there wherewe were both deputy commanding
officers at the same time inPetawawa. So it's it's, it's
definitely a unique situation toto be in, but we love it. Yeah.
And it's we're we're both careermilitary officers at this point.
Bryan (54:32):
Yeah. So let's close part one with a piece of advice for
our listeners. Thinking back onthe unique opportunities you've
had and knowing that new pilotsare now facing some training
delays, what advice would yougive to someone who is joining
the RCAF as a pilot or iscurrently working through those
delays?
Ian (54:50):
First things first, and I I definitely say this to the to
the folks who are waiting fortraining at 04:50 that I that I
see on a daily basis is one,like, go flying. Like, if you're
if you're at a unit, if you areif you do have the opportunity
to be at a unit that hasaircraft, get on the aircraft.
Like with at the Chinook unit,go sit in the jump seat of the
(55:10):
helicopter. Go sit in the backseat of a 146. Go ride, put a
headset on, listen to what thecrew is doing.
Get that idea for what's goingon in the airspace. What's going
on on the comms, how the crew isinteracting with each other. If
you're on a crude aircraft to beable to just get that sense of
what the expectation is going tobe, because you're always going
(55:33):
to learn something. The moreyou're around it, the more
you're going to learn. The otherthing too, is get, get down on
the floor.
Like go, go talk to people whoaren't pilots there. Yes. This
is a, this is a pilot centricpodcast, But the smartest people
that I learned from are thepeople who aren't just like me.
Bryan (55:53):
Mhmm.
Ian (55:54):
It's the logisticians. It's the maintainers. It's the it's
the area officers. It's the nit's the NCOs. Like Yep.
Go talk to them. Figure out whatthey do, how they do it. Go
spend a day with them. See whata day in the life looks like.
It's one thing to be at the opsdesk and get to know everybody
and get to know how the unitworks through absorbing the
(56:16):
people that come into yourorbit.
But it's another thing to godown and spend three days on the
floor and just follow thetechnicians around and see what
they do on a daily basis thathelps the unit function. Yeah.
The other thing I'd say is ifyou have opportunities that pop
up, I I'm I'm a victim ofopportunity in my career. Maybe
(56:38):
victims are wrong word. I'm aproduct of opportunity in my
career.
Bryan (56:42):
Yeah.
Ian (56:43):
I I've had the benefit of being, as I said, in the right
place at the right time for afew of these events, even being
able to get onto the Chinook ata flight training. It just so
happened that I was finishingflight training at a time when
they were beginning to, acceptpipeline pilots. But I also
advocated for myself. I knewthat there was going be a
(57:04):
training delay. I said, Listen,I, I am motivated to go fly this
aircraft.
And I'm okay with accepting atraining delay if you will give
me the opportunity. So you, youdo have to advocate yourself,
but take those opportunities.If, if it don't close doors to
yourself. If, if for some reasonyour OJE says, Hey, we need you
(57:27):
to fly them and tend to go graba couple of boxes and drive them
to this other place. Don'timmediately poo poo it as like,
oh, no.
Somebody else can do that.Because next thing you know,
you'll be driving machine gunsacross international border.
You'll sit in the back of ahelicopter while they're
shooting machine guns Yeah. Outthe door beside you. Right?
So don't
Bryan (57:44):
Which ended up being a formative experience for you.
Ian (57:47):
A 100%. So so make sure that if an opportunity presents
itself to take it, get get onsome of those deployments, get
on some of those exercises, gosit in the back of an aircraft,
go go sit in the field for for aweek with one of the field
exercises that the unit's doing.Just yeah, do do whatever you
can to to maximize whateveropportunities you're given and
(58:08):
whatever OJT you've got.
Bryan (58:10):
Yeah. Yeah. I I love that. That's a great piece of
advice. And I totally agree withyou also.
You mentioned this is a pilotcentric podcast, but I
completely agree with you interms of the importance of
learning the world around you,learning from various different
trades, NCMs, like good NCMswill will mentor officers. Like,
(58:30):
off officers need to belistening to their NCMs and
learning from them because everystrong military is built on a
core of of experienced NCMs.Like, know, you know, the only
reason I knew a bunch about thesensors on the Aurora was
because the Ace Ops mentored meand taught me about them and the
flight engineers taught me aboutthe systems of the Aurora. So
(58:51):
you have to listen to thosepeople. You have to learn from
them.
Plus, they're great people. It'sgreat to get to know them.
Ian (58:56):
Yeah. And you and I have the benefit of being experienced
on crewed aircraft. Yeah. Whereyou you you don't go flying
without the entire crew. Right?
Bryan (59:04):
That's right.
Ian (59:04):
It's not a it's it's it's not a single seat jet. It is it
is an aircraft that only fliesand only works because you have
three to four people in thataircraft who are all working
together to achieve an aimregardless of rank. Yep. So you
gotta be you gotta be able tobuild those relationships with
everybody around you. Yeah.
For sure. Okay.
Bryan (59:25):
Ian, that's gonna wrap up part one of our chat for today.
It was great to hear about yourtime in flight training, and it
was really, really interestingto hear about your time in
Afghanistan. I'm excited tolearn more about your time with
four fifty Tackhill Squadron. Sothanks for being here today, and
I'm looking forward to the nextone.
Ian (59:39):
Thanks, Brian. It's been great.
Bryan (59:41):
Alright. That wraps up part one of our chat with Ian.
You can tune into our nextepisode to hear all about his
experiences flying the CH oneforty seven f Chinook with four
fifty tactical helicoptersquadron. 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 thepilotprojectpodcastpodcast@Gmail.com
(01:00:02):
or on all social media at podpilot project. 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.
(01:00:23):
Thanks for listening. Keep theblue side up. See you.
Ian (01:00:28):
Engineer, shut down all four. Shutting down all four
engines.
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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. With me today is
someone I've been working withfor a while to line this up,
major Ian Wookie, a tac hillpilot on the CH one forty seven
f Chinook and current executiveassistant to chief of Air and
Space Force Development inOttawa, Ontario. Ian, it's great
(01:21):
to finally get you on the show.
Thanks for being here.
Ian (01:24):
Thanks, Brian. It's an absolute pleasure to be here.
Bryan (01:26):
Today, we will be talking about Ian's career in the RCAF,
including his early days andtime in flight training up to
when he was selected to fly theCH one forty seven F Chinook.
But before we jump into any ofthat, let's go through Ian's
bio. Major Ian Wookie was bornand raised in Sarnia, Ontario.
He enrolled in the RCAF as apilot through the ROTP program
at the Royal Military Collegeand was commissioned in 02/2010.
(01:48):
Following his commission, he wasposted to four two seven special
operations aviation squadron anddeployed to Afghanistan with a
special operations aviationdetachment in support of Op
Enduring Freedom.
In 02/2013, he received hiswings and joined four fifty
tactical helicopter squadronqualifying on the CH one forty
seven f Chinook helicopter. As amember of four fifty squadron,
(02:08):
he participated in numerousoperations including Optinook in
the Canadian Arctic and multipleOplentis deployments to aid in
wildfire and flood responseacross Western Canada. In
02/2018, he was posted to FortBragg, North Carolina where he
flew the CH 47 f Chinook withthe eighty second Airborne
Division as a foreign exchangeofficer. There, he served as a
senior air mission commander,tactics adviser, unit trainer,
(02:31):
and battalion operationsofficer. He deployed with the
eighty second Combat AviationBrigade in 2021 on Operation
Freedom Sentinel, where hecoordinated the retrograde of US
and NATO forces fromAfghanistan.
During the evacuation of Kabul,he flew as a CH forty seven f
aircraft commander in support ofOP Allies Refuge. Returning to
four fifty tactical helicoptersquadron in 02/2022, major
(02:54):
Wookie held various leadershippositions and served as deputy
commanding officer. Iancurrently serves as executive
assistant to chief of air andspace force development in
Ottawa, Ontario. Ian's awardsinclude the Canadian Forces
Decoration, General CampaignStar, Southwest Asia, and The US
Presidential Unit Citation. Heis a graduate of the advanced
tactical aviation course, theCanadian Army Operations Course,
(03:17):
and the US Marine Corps Commandand Staff Program.
He has accumulated over 1,800flight hours on both RCAF CH one
forty seven f and US Army CH 47f helicopters. Additionally, he
holds a bachelor of arts inpsychology from RMC and has
represented the Canadian ArmedForces as a member of the CISM
men's volleyball team. Iancurrently resides in Renfrew,
(03:38):
Ontario with his wife, majorAndrea Wookie, and their dogs
and horses. Ian, we always liketo start with this. Where did
aviation start for you?
Ian (03:46):
I I don't wanna say I came by aviation by accident, but I I
was, I did not come up throughsay the Air Cadet stream that,
that you followed or that a lotof my peers have followed. I was
inspired to actually join theCAF through the ROTP program at
Royal Military College. As I wasfinishing high school, I was
trying to figure out what I wasgoing to do with my career. I
was always an athlete. I wasalways into sports.
(04:08):
And I found out that the RoyalMilitary College had
opportunities to play varsitysports at a high level. One of
the pillars of RMC is athleticexcellence as well as academic
excellence. So I was reallyinterested in joining the
military college. And as I wasgoing through the recruiting
process, my recruiter happenedto be a pilot. And as I was
(04:28):
trying to decide on what trade Iwanted to pursue, what career
path I wanted to go through inthe CAF, I got steered toward
piloting in aviation.
And that was kind of my, myinitial thoughts at aviation. I
was a bit of a nerd growing up.Always watched the air, watched
the airplanes flying overhead. Ido remember going to the top of
(04:49):
the parking garage at TorontoInternational for a couple hours
at a time to just watch theplanes landing. I always thought
it was really cool, but I, Inever had any sort of dreams or
aspirations for it until it, I,the opportunity presented itself
to me and I jumped at
Bryan (05:01):
it. That's pretty lucky that that recruiter kind of
pushed you in that directionbecause pilot typically is a
difficult trade to get into.It's typically like, there's
only been rare times where it'sbeen a high demand trade because
typically, it's chock full ofapplicants. So it's pretty
awesome that you got pushed inthat direction.
Ian (05:18):
Yeah. I I feel really fortunate to have been there.
Bryan (05:21):
Yeah. You attended Royal Military College or RMC under
the ROTP program. I know somepeople who loved it and some who
really didn't enjoy it. So howdid you find your time at RMC?
Ian (05:31):
I absolutely loved my time at RMC. As as I mentioned
before, I was there as kind of anot a scholarship athlete per
se, but I joined a varsity team.I played volleyball for the, for
the entire time that I wasthere. Met a lot of people that
way that the relationshipbuilding at RMC is, is
outstanding. The academicprograms at RMC are outstanding.
(05:55):
I had the opportunity to studyunder a lot of really senior
officers, especially in kind ofin the military history program,
who were a wealth of knowledgeand experience. Some of the
peers in your groups ahead ofme, they're now kind of the
senior leaders, unit leaders ofthe CAF. So being able to get to
(06:16):
know them on a personal leveland build some of those
relationships, I think wasreally beneficial to how I
advanced in my career. But aswell, moving through RMC and
understanding the importance ofteamwork in a military setting,
that's something that's followedthrough my career all the way
along As I moved into flighttraining on deployments, working
(06:40):
with foreign militaries, we hadforeign exchange students at RMC
while we were there. So we gotto learn some things about how
the US Air Force works, how theUS Army works before we were
ever exposed to that in any sortof operational sense.
Those are some of the things Ireally enjoyed about going to
Bryan (06:55):
office That's pretty cool. I didn't realize we had
international students at RMC.
Ian (07:01):
Yeah. Specifically, with The US, each of The US service
academies have exchange programsat RMC. And we send, as
Canadians, we send RMC cadetsto, to the American academies as
well.
Bryan (07:14):
Oh, that's cool. I didn't know that. What would you say
was the best and worst parts ofgoing there?
Ian (07:20):
Best parts, I think I already mentioned was the
relationships you build.
Bryan (07:23):
For sure.
Ian (07:24):
And the people you get to know. I I've still got some of
my best friends, and some of mythe peers I'm still working
with, are my classmates fromRMC, especially the ones that we
bonded with in our first yearorientation program, under the
stresses and rigors of thatprogram. I'd say the worst parts
(07:45):
was worst part was also the bestpart, feeling failure, like
being allowed to experiencelearning through failure, being
allowed to make mistakes and dothings wrong. I mean, most of
the folks at RMC, you'reprobably 18 to 22 years old,
(08:07):
you're still learning your placein the world, learning your
place in the, in the CAF, buthaving the mentorship of some,
some senior leaders, at the atthe college, squadron commanders
who are, second, third tourofficers who come back to to be
able to mentor you. You learnthrough failure, which are some
(08:27):
of the worst parts, and theybeing given the opportunity to
fail is, is a humblingexperience.
And that's, that's probably theworst feeling you can have, but
being able to build yourself upback through it, lean on the
people around you, lean on someof the mentors you got there to
be able to to pull through itand and learn what success is. I
I think that's that's thecombination of the best and
(08:49):
worst part of RMC.
Bryan (08:51):
Yeah. Yeah. And honestly, learning to fail and having that
opportunity to learn to failbefore you go through flight
training is is probably like ahuge benefit because if you
don't like I think one of theit's great to do well in flight
training, right? But it canalmost be a hindrance if you
never have a failure or asetback because you will one
(09:12):
day. And I think the sooner thebetter because it gets tougher
and tougher because you start tobelieve like, hey, I'm maybe I'm
exceptional here.
Like, I'm doing pretty well. Ihaven't had any failures or or
whatever, however you processthat. And then all of a sudden,
one day you will be faced with asetback and that can be a pretty
big, you know, wake up call.
Ian (09:33):
Well, it's not even failing per se. It's it's dealing with
pressure. Yeah. Our our RMC,there there is pressure to
pressure to succeed, pressure tobe a a team member who's
actually having effects on teamoutcomes. And the pressure that
(09:55):
you sense at RMC, when you'recombining academic, athletic,
bilingual, and military trainingall together in a very
compressed schedule, it it doestransition right into all of the
military training, whether it'spilot training, whether it's
infantry training, whether it'snaval officer training.
Having that sense of pressureand being able to cope with that
(10:18):
and manage that, it all workstogether to to really teach a
lot about yourself and and howyou react to those pressures.
Bryan (10:26):
Mhmm. So let's talk about your phase one flight training.
You completed phase one trainingon The Grove during the 2007.
How did you feel as you arrivedfor your first flight training
course in the RCAF?
Ian (10:39):
Equal parts nervous and excited. I I was I was terrified
just like everybody. Right? Youyou kind of realize showing up
to pilot training that it's it'sof make like your career is on
everything you do in pilottraining feels like your whole
career is on the line and therest of your life is on the
line. Yeah.
So you have that sense ofimpending doom, But at the same
(11:03):
time, you're excited becauseyou're going flying. Yeah.
You're going to get paid to gosit in an airplane and do some
really cool maneuvers. Getopportunities to go solo, get
opportunities to go to go alone,do some aerobatic flying. So it
was excitement and fear.
Once I got into the trainingthough, and once you actually
(11:24):
get into that routine and buildyour routine of studying in the
evenings, getting up in themorning, going for your workout,
showing up to the flight line todo whatever class instruction
you've got, followed by whateverflight you've got, and just
repeat that routine. Once you'reinto that routine, all you can
really focus on is actuallygetting the training done. And
(11:45):
it takes a lot of the anxietyaway once you actually start to
really get into the flow of thetraining system. So showing up,
yeah, really nervous. Kind of byday three, completely felt like
I'd settled in.
And with all of the peopleyou've got on your course with
you, everybody's in the sameboat, right? Right. So you've
got 12 to 15 people who are allkind of look at each other
(12:07):
aiming for the same objectives.So nobody else's success
determines your success. So it'sa it's an area where everybody
can build each other up and youcan you can have a really strong
team environment whereeverybody's learning from each
other as they go through thecourse.
Bryan (12:26):
Right. Like, if you have 10 people, it's not like you
only have seven slots for peopleto pass. Like, you know,
hopefully, 10 out of 10 aregonna pass. So, like, everyone
succeeding together is ismutually beneficial.
Ian (12:36):
Yeah. And the better everybody's doing around you,
the more you strive to be asgood as they are, right? So if
you see somebody who's got somereally good studying techniques,
or so or some really good tipsand tricks for whichever
maneuver they're flying, you canlearn from that. You can take
that on to your next flight, andbe able to it it helps build
(12:56):
your breed your own success.
Bryan (12:58):
Yeah. For sure. Once you actually got into the flight
training, what was your firstimpression of your flight
training in the RCAF?
Ian (13:06):
It was it was rapid. Like, the the learning curve was
steep. Like, there's there's nota lot of room to kinda get your
feet under you. It's either likelike, you're ready or you're
not. So it was really on you tobe prepared for every single
flight.
Because I think we're less thantwelve hours. At that time, I
(13:27):
mean, did phase one in 02/2007.So it may have changed slightly
by now. But at that time it wasless than twelve hours from
first flight in the aircraft tofirst solo. And after your first
solo, you were probably onlyabout another twelve hours from
getting ready to do your finaltest.
So it's a six, seven week coursethat's got twenty five flight
(13:49):
hours and it's a make or breakthere. So that's what really
stood out to me was how quicklyeverything came at you and the
expectations to improve on everysingle sortie.
Bryan (14:01):
Yeah. It's kinda like running on a treadmill. Like, if
you keep moving and keep going,you're gonna keep up. But if you
you'll never get a chance torest. Like, you you can't stop.
You have to keep going.
Ian (14:12):
Yeah. No. And don't look back.
Bryan (14:13):
Yeah. That's a good one for sure. You had a few OJT
opportunities, including yourfirst time in the tac hell world
working at One Wing in the 2009.Can you tell us about that?
Ian (14:27):
Yeah. 2009, I had an opportunity to do my, on the job
training at One Wingheadquarters out of Kingston. It
it was the first time I'd everbeen around tactical aviation,
but it was a good time to bearound tactical aviation. Mean,
there were units deployed toAfghanistan. We were dealing
(14:49):
with a true combat focus in thatenvironment.
Wing headquarters was busy.There were aircraft all over the
world. There were pilotstraining down in The US. We were
getting ready to push Chinookhelicopters over to Afghanistan
with the D models. And Iactually had one really cool
experience while I was there,where four thirty Squadron out
(15:14):
of Elkhart.
Were going down to Fort Sill,Oklahoma to do a door gunnery
camp in preparation for theirdeployment to Afghanistan. But
all of the weapons they neededwere in Edmonton. And four zero
eight was deployed currently. Sothere was nobody in Edmonton to
actually move these weapons downfor the Dior gun training. So
(15:34):
while four thirty was flyingtheir helicopters from Quebec to
Oklahoma, I was tasked to flyfrom Kingston to Edmonton, pick
up a bunch of these machine gunsin a van, with one of the of the
drivers from Valkarce.
And the two of us ended updriving across the continent
(15:56):
from Edmonton down to Oklahomato bring these weapons to the
door gun camp so that fourthirty was able to get their
door gunning training complete.And my task per se for the
duration of that X was to be theweapons manager, to be able to
make sure they got from thevault to the aircraft by the
time first launch occurred atsix in the morning. And then to
(16:17):
retrieve the weapons every nightat midnight, make sure they got
back to the vault and into theright storage location. And to
make sure that anytime that theaircraft were on flying, they
had the weapons mounted in theright place at the right time.
And while I was doing that too,I had a couple of opportunities
to actually get airborne withthose aircraft and see live
shooting from the back of aGriffin.
(16:38):
Wow. Doing CCA close combatattack sorties with live
fighters flying in the ranges aswell. So they were doing target
prosecution where the fighterswould come in. They would a gun
run live. And then the Griffinswould turn in and do CCA cleanup
activities.
(16:58):
So the close combat attack,crude machine gun from the side
facing door of the helicopteronto a target. And that was kind
of where I fell in love withtactical aviation, being able to
to see machine guns shootingfrom helicopters. I I still to
this day, it's still the coolestthing I think you can do in the
cast, shoot a machine gun from ahelicopter.
Bryan (17:20):
Yeah. Those door gunners have a pretty awesome job.
Ian (17:23):
Yeah. It's it's unrivaled.
Bryan (17:25):
Yeah. What an adventure to go from Edmonton to Oklahoma.
Like, were you guys this is kindof a silly question maybe, but,
like, did you guys have any formof, like, defense or anything
where you're had these weaponsbeing transported through the
country? Like, was there anysecurity concerns?
Ian (17:44):
Well, the CAF has protocols. Right? So we we have
to do, route analysis anytimewe're moving weapons across
country. We have to givenotification to local law
enforcement. When we're stoppingovernight for these tasks, we
were leveraging local lawenforcement.
So when we stopped in Casper,Wyoming for one of our night
stops, we actually drove theweapons to the vault of the
local police office and leftthem there overnight. So we were
(18:05):
taking all the all the correctsecurity protocols. But, yeah,
it's it's just not not kindayour your routine officer cadet
OJE pilot experience.
Bryan (18:16):
That's a very unique experience. So you graduated
from RMC in 2010 and as istradition, had to wait for a
moose jaw. After a few months atOne Wing HQ, you were offered
OJT at four two seven SpecialOperations Aviation Squadron.
What was it like to arrive as asecond lieutenant in Canada's
Special Operations AviationSquadron? And can you tell us
(18:38):
about your job at four twentyseven Squadron?
Ian (18:41):
Yeah. It it was interesting. In 2010, after I
graduated, I went back kind ofinto the same role I was at, at
One Wing headquarters. And latein the summer, I was offered an
opportunity to actually go to aline unit where there are
helicopters. There's nohelicopters in Kingston.
So the OJE is, it's mostly spentbehind a computer working on,
(19:05):
taskings, calling the units andasking them what they want to
do. So when I had theopportunity to actually go to a
line unit, drive a few hours upthe road to Petawawa and see
what four twenty seven wasdoing, jumped at it. I did not
hesitate. When I actually got toPetawawa and I got into four
twenty seven, job was kind ofwhat you'd expect of a typical
(19:28):
OJ at a unit. It's not muchdifferent from any of the other
OJs you'd see at other units.
So you're kind of working in theop cell, doing daily
coordination for routinesorties. So flying schedule
management, crew management,making sure the crews have the
(19:48):
right equipment to get on theright aircraft, that, doing the
coordination between maintenanceand ops to make sure that the
right aircraft are on the linefor the right mission, and kind
of just being a first point ofcontact within the op cell for
any of the current ops that aregoing on. Not necessarily a
decision maker, more of acoordinator. But it's what I
(20:12):
find about those kind of rolesin in on the job training is
it's best way to actually get toknow everybody in the unit.
Yeah.
Because if you're looking for apoint of contact, you're you're
gonna call the ops desk andsitting at the ops desk is,
well, if it's the second lefttenant OJT, well, now they're
going to be calling the nextperson you need to go to. And
it's kind of the first place youcome if you've got a question
(20:33):
about what's going on for theday. Yeah. So you get to you get
to you get to have that face toface with with everybody from
the maintenance side tologistics side to the to the
flight crews. And it's a reallygood way to to learn how the
unit functions and how the AirForce functions.
Bryan (20:49):
Yeah. Working in operations can be pretty hectic.
And sometimes it can be prettytough because when everything's
going great, everyone just goesand does their job and, you
know, takes it for granted. Andwhen things grind to a halt or
something goes wrong, people areshowing up at the desk red faced
and, you know, demandinganswers. So that can be tough.
But the upside of it is, likeyou said, you pretty much get to
(21:09):
know everybody in the unit andyou really learn a lot about the
operations, the day to day ofhow things run and and all that
stuff.
Ian (21:17):
Yeah. I I really enjoyed it there.
Bryan (21:20):
Now this is kind of crazy. When you were still an
OJT second lieutenant with fourtwo seven, you deployed to
Afghanistan with the specialoperations aviation detachment
in support of Op EnduringFreedom. This is basically
unheard of as an untrainedsecond lieutenant. So what's the
story here? How did you end upon this deployment?
Ian (21:38):
Well, I like to think that I was doing such a good job that
they had no choice but to deployme. But no, it was one of those,
there's certain things, certainthings that happen in your
career where you kind of thinkright place, right time. And,
and I don't say that as I didn'tdeserve to do it. I just mean
(21:59):
you make your own luck. But ifif opportunities present
themselves, you gotta takeadvantage of them.
And in this case, four two sevenwas, had the special ops
aviation detachment deployed atKandahar, flying the MI 17
helicopters over there. And theywere a little bit short on the
ops staff. So it was a it was asmall detachment. And they
(22:20):
basically took the OJT role Iwas doing with the current ops
coordination, and transplantedme forward to do the same thing
with special ops aviation.
Bryan (22:33):
Okay.
Ian (22:34):
So I ended up deploying with them from early twenty
eleven, kinda through summertwenty eleven, doing a very
similar OJ role, just doing aforward at Candahar Airfield. So
I was in the upsell of the SOAD,doing daily flying schedule
coordination, making sure thatwe have the right aircraft and
(22:54):
the right crews in the rightplace with the right maintenance
done, doing some missioncoordination. So if there was a
if there was a mission ongoing,I'd be taking the details of the
mission, making sure that, theright enabling agencies who
needed to know what was goingon, knew what was going on,
doing coordination with airfieldmanagement to make sure that we
(23:15):
we knew what was going on in thein the rest of the AO at
Kandahar. Because at that time,11, Kandahar was quite the
place. It was right at theheight of The US surge.
So there were probably 40,000 to50,000 people on the base.
Bryan (23:28):
Wow.
Ian (23:29):
So it was running like a true airbase. So there was a lot
of coordination of management tomake sure that we were still
operating correctly on theairfield while we were doing our
mission stuff as well.
Bryan (23:44):
Wow. What were your feelings about going to
Afghanistan? Obviously, this issomething you wanted because you
had to get a waiver from thedeputy commander of the RCAF.
Ian (23:54):
Yeah. It was the the waiver had more to do with the the
training level. So because Iwasn't trained as a pilot, I was
not at my, OFP, the operationalfunctional point. Right. So I I
was not fully qualified to, tobe in a, deployed position.
So the waiver was really wasspecifically related to that
(24:15):
training. But the waiver requeststated that the the roles I was
fulfilling did not require me tobe a pilot necessarily. They
just required me to be able toto do the ops management piece
that I had been trained to do.
Bryan (24:26):
Mhmm.
Ian (24:27):
I also had to do, like actual pre deployment training,
the theater mission specifictraining, which was its own
adventure, because I had to flyout to Edmonton for three weeks
in December, to go. I ended updoing my combat first aid, my ID
(24:47):
awareness training, all of thekind of combat, preparation
training in the middle ofEdmonton, in the training area,
in the December, when it wasabout 35 below to get ready to
go to Afghanistan, where I wasnever going to see a snowflake.
So that was, that was a littlebit unique.
Bryan (25:06):
That's pretty funny.
Ian (25:08):
But, but in terms of actually getting, getting over
to Afghanistan, it again, almosta little bit like pilot
training, like equal parts,anxious and excited. Excited
because I I mean, who's notexcited to actually go into
being able to be on a mission tobe able to to to be in the
fight, if if you wanna call itthat. Anxious because you have
(25:31):
no idea what to expect. Andthat's that's something that
that was a really good framingopportunity for me early in my
career to recognize that nomatter what deployment you're
going on, whether it's a combatdeployment, whether it's a
domestic deployment, it's nevergoing to be, you never know what
to expect and it's never goingto be anything like what you
expected. And that's the piece Igive to anybody who's going on
(25:56):
their first deployment is don'tset expectations because if you
do, they're going to be wrong.
So my feeling was just, I wantto be able to go over there and
learn. And I luckily, I had somereally good mentors over there,
people who are still stillsurround me in my career to this
day, who I was able to learn alot from, and be able just to
(26:19):
just to absorb what happens inthat kind of environment and how
operations are are supposed tolook for tactical aviation.
Bryan (26:26):
We've talked a bit about what your role was within the
SOAD or special operationsaviation detachment. What was
the role of the SOAD itself inAfghanistan?
Ian (26:37):
So the SOAD was in direct support to, the SOAD. So the
combined joint specialoperations task force that was
operating over there. So thatwas a multinational special
operations forces organizationthat had Canadians, embedded in
it. And the role of the SOAD wasdirect support to those assets.
(26:59):
So if they were going out on amission for whatever particular
task they were assigned, thosehelicopters would be in direct
support of those assets.
Bryan (27:10):
Okay. So if troops need to get somewhere, getting those
troops there and and that sortof thing?
Ian (27:16):
Yeah. True. If troops need to get there, if equipment needs
to get there, if you if yourequire any sort of, Overwatch.
Now we we did work inconjunction with some of the,
some of the other coalitionassets that were there too. We
were able to work a lot with,with the US Army aviation assets
that were there with, theirtheir Kiowa and Apache
(27:39):
helicopters, so specific firesplatforms, which also supported
the missions.
But for the, for the purpose ofthe SOAD, those MI seventeens,
they they were they were a liftplatform. Yeah. So kinda similar
what the Chinook does. They theythey move people and stuff to
get to the right place to beable to put effects downrange.
Bryan (27:55):
Right. Did you have any crazy experiences during your
tour in Afghanistan? Like anyrocket attacks or did you ever
go on any missions or anythinglike that?
Ian (28:05):
No. One one of the, one of the very specific restrictions I
was given being untrained wasthat I I I will not leave the
airfield.
Bryan (28:14):
That's fair.
Ian (28:15):
So that that was that I I kinda went in knowing that I was
I wasn't gonna get to get to doany of that that kinda cool
stuff. But in terms of, forceprotection security, I mean,
that that that was part of beingon Candahar Airfield was that
rocket attacks did occur. We didhave one occurrence where we
(28:35):
actually had a rocket land onour ramp underneath one of our
aircraft
Bryan (28:40):
Oh, wow.
Ian (28:40):
That did not explode No. Conveniently. So we were able
to, to have the EOD folks securethat and carry on carry on
within a couple hours like itnever happened. And we there
were some there were breachattempts on the airfield. There
were rocket attacks on theairfield, but nothing that was,
(29:01):
I would say, any anything crazyor unique that's, that's
different from anybody else'sGanahar experience.
Bryan (29:07):
Which is funny. Right? Like, it shows you when you're
deployed the sliding scale ofnormal because, like, most
people listening to this havenever experienced a a have never
lived somewhere where a rocketattack could be a a daily part
of your life or, you know, youtalk about a breach attempt very
casual casually, but what thatis is like the Taliban trying to
breach their way onto theairfield and, you know, kill
(29:29):
people. And that's just likeyour sliding scale of normal.
Right?
Ian (29:33):
Yeah. And that's a sliding scale of normal for for anything
you're gonna be involved in, butit's it's all based on your
expectations. Right? If if youshow up knowing that you're at a
location where you have to takeforce protection seriously,
where you have to be prepared,where you have your own security
forces engaged in defendingagainst those things, then know
(29:56):
how to be able to deal with it.Yeah.
Right? So you know what toexpect. And if your expectation
is that there will be a rocketattack siren at some point while
you're there, and the siren goesoff, well then it's not a panic.
You've already discussed andrehearsed what the drills you're
going to do. Where's your safelocation to get to?
And how do you continue tosupport operations while that's
(30:16):
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Bryan (31:08):
So how did this experience influence the way you
approached your flight trainingin the coming years?
Ian (31:15):
The biggest influence that this had on my flight training
was that I was 99% sure that Iwanted to fly helicopters as a
pilot. Yeah. And greenhelicopters. It wasn't just the
aviators I was surrounded by.But working closely with, with
(31:36):
some of the folks at, CHFA, likethe the Canadian helicopter
force Afghanistan that wasthere, working with some of the
some of the special operationsmembers who were there, seeing
it from like a support to theland force perspective and
building relationships with thetroops who are on the ground and
(31:57):
the people who you're actuallysupporting and having that face
to face relationship and gettingto know them really well and
seeing the direct connectionbetween, your role as a
helicopter pilot and the effectthat has on the troops on the
ground.
That was that's really unique inTackle. And and that that
(32:18):
exposure that I got in thatexperience was what really drove
me to continue to want to dothat through my career.
Bryan (32:24):
Okay. So we'll get back into your flight training
experiences. You've safelyreturned from your tour in
Afghanistan, and you're arrivingat Moose Jaw to fly the CT one
fifty six Harvard two. How didyou feel arriving for this
course? And did it feel like nobig deal after being in
Afghanistan?
Ian (32:41):
It probably felt like a bigger deal.
Bryan (32:42):
Oh, yeah?
Ian (32:43):
Because now now I've got the operational experience or
I'll put that in air quotes,operational experience.
Bryan (32:48):
Yeah. Yeah.
Ian (32:49):
I I I've seen what it looks like. Now I'm more motivated to
succeed.
Bryan (32:53):
Right.
Ian (32:54):
Now I now I want it more.
Bryan (32:56):
So the stakes are higher.
Ian (32:57):
So now I'm putting more pressure on myself to succeed.
The stakes are higher. Yeah. SoI I don't want to say it was no
big deal, but it it definitelybrought a different perspective
of my flight training that I Iwas committed to being
successful and and gettingthrough that course.
Bryan (33:14):
Yeah. How did you find flying the Harvard two?
Ian (33:17):
Harvard was so much fun. Yeah. It was it was so much fun.
It's such a, like, again, Ididn't come up from an aviation
background. So I have no frameof reference to say I had two
hundred hours in a Cessna.
So to go from something that'sgot 12 horsepower to something
that's got 1,200 horsepower,those aren't those aren't the
(33:40):
real numbers. Don't quote me.But to be able to to get into
that aircraft, go to a fullyaerobatic aircraft, fly in
formation, go up to 24,000 feet,come back down, it was just
really cool. It was a really,really awesome exposure to to
(34:02):
what flying is. And being aneight month course instead of an
eight week course, you actuallygot to breathe a little bit
during the course.
And you actually get to enjoythe experience you were having.
And just like phase one, you'restill there with a team. You've
got more people at the school,right? Because you've got
courses ahead and behind you andeverybody again is still working
toward the same objective. So II had a lot of fun on on phase
(34:26):
two, I'll be honest.
Bryan (34:28):
Yeah. Phase two is a funny thing. Like it's a very
high pressure course still. It'svery intense and there's still
the fire hose of information andyou're learning a ton and like
every single day you're learningnew things and that can be
really challenging. But if youmanage to like take a step back,
breathe, I know for me a turningpoint was having the mindset of
(34:49):
like, okay, I'm just going do myabsolute best and if it works
out, that'll be amazing and ifit doesn't, I can walk away with
my head held high.
And then I was able to likeenjoy my time off on Friday and
Saturday, like Friday night andSaturday and, you know, hang out
with my friends and and find funthings to do. And yeah, it it it
can be very fun, but it you haveto get into the right mindset.
Ian (35:10):
Yeah, absolutely. And and once you build and establish
that routine, you're gonnayou're gonna find success in
that as well. Right? So you whenyou know that, hey, you know
what? The the weeknights are tomake sure that I'm prepared for
the weekdays And the weekendsare to make sure that I'm still
having fun and I'm relaxed andI'm ready to go for and fresh
for the next week.
(35:30):
Once you once you figure outthat routine, then then you're
going to have more success. Theother thing I had in Moose Jaw
was the benefit of having somereally good instructors really
early in the course. My two, I'dsay primary instructors for my
first phase of the course wereboth former helicopter pilots.
One of them was actually aformer C model Chinook
(35:51):
helicopter pilot, who was stillteaching at Moose Jaw. And the
other one was a former Seakingpilot.
And knowing that I wanted to flyhelicopters and being able to
kind of relate to them and havethat kind of human to human
conversation with yourinstructors instead of it being,
(36:11):
a very authoritativerelationship also benefited me
in that course. And I don't knowif that speaks to them being
helicopter pilots. I think theywere just genuinely really
awesome people. Yeah. But I gotlucky in that way too.
Bryan (36:26):
Yeah. Most of the instructors there are pretty
amazing, but it really makes adifference when you get those
instructors who take the time toinvest in you and to mentor you.
Ian (36:37):
Yeah. And and can look at you and and like be invested in
your success. Mhmm. I I feltthat.
Bryan (36:44):
Yeah. And I think most of them are. Like, most people
don't end up instructing atMoose Jaw and they're they can't
really be blase about theirstudents' success. Like, they
just won't won't be successfulas instructors. Like, all the
instructors I've spoken with arevery invested in their students'
success.
Like, they're especially whenthey're when they're early in.
(37:05):
Like, they're nervous when theirfirst students are going up for
tests because they really wantthem to succeed and yeah. They
they care.
Ian (37:11):
Yeah. Well, success on a student is a direct reflection
on the success of theinstructor. Right? So I I True.
I I never I did never I did notever have an experience with an
instructor in Moose Jaw who Idid not feel like they were
invested in my success.
I I just highlighted those twobecause I I got along really
well with them and they wereformative Yeah. In kind of like
(37:33):
the first the first clear hoodphase that I was going through.
Bryan (37:36):
Yeah. For sure. Did you have any particular challenges
while making your way throughphase two?
Ian (37:45):
Yeah. I I'd say my biggest challenge was getting the small
stuff right. I get it's it's onething to to know your numbers,
know your red pages. Be strongin the classroom, be strong
academically. But then when youget in the aircraft and you know
(38:05):
the maneuvers, you know whatyou're expected to do, you know
what an, what a before landingcheck is, you know what an after
takeoff check is.
But if, if you, if you forgetthe gear in the flaps and the
right sequence of the beforelanding check, and that's, it's
(38:26):
just one of those things.Sometimes you just get that
mental block where you just, itjust doesn't come to you right
away. That I think I had acouple of flights right in the
middle of my course, where itwas like back to back to back
flights where I just, for somereason I had a mental block
where I just could not get overthe hurdle of getting the right
checks and the right sequence atthe right time of the flight.
(38:47):
Not that I didn't know what Iwas doing, just that it just did
not come to me as I was goingthrough the sequence, no matter
how much chair flying I did, nomatter how much I practiced, no
matter how much I tried toremind myself, I just had those
one sequence. And as soon as youhave that one level that
doesn't, doesn't quite meet thestandard for that flight, then
(39:08):
you put more pressure onyourself to fight through.
Now, I was successful. I neverreally was put in a position to
do any remedial training, butit's getting over those mental
blocks of making sure thatyou're appropriately focused on
(39:28):
the right task at the righttime. That was the real struggle
I had in Moose Jaw.
Bryan (39:34):
How did you work through that?
Ian (39:39):
I actually I got some techniques from some of my
peers, some of the folks I wason course with. Then having
those relationships absolutelyessential going through pilot
training, to be able to talk tothem and bounce ideas back and
forth and let them know, letthem know what your weaknesses
are. They'll let you know whatyour weaknesses are and you can
help each other work through it.And I actually had, one of the
(40:03):
other guys on my course gave mejust like a a quick mnemonic
that kinda he, I don't rememberspecifically what it was, but it
was it was just one of thosethings that just clicked in my
brain. Yeah.
And I I never forgot it againafter that because it was I'm
sure it was something funny orcrass Yeah. He said that just
Bryan (40:23):
They usually are.
Ian (40:24):
Just got stuck in the back of my brain that I just could
not forget once, once we hadthat conversation. So it was
leaning on Pierce. Yeah. That'sthat's how I got through that
course.
Bryan (40:34):
What would you say was the biggest lesson you learned
from phase two that continues toinfluence you as a pilot today?
Ian (40:41):
Just being genuine. Being yourself. Being able to have
those, like just real lifeconversations with your peers,
with your instructors,recognizing that the people
around you are all workingtoward the same goal. They all
want to be successful. And thefact that we mentioned earlier
that the instructors are,they're invested in your
(41:01):
success.
So be honest with them, beupfront, be able to have those
conversations that to allow themto help you. Yeah. Right? It's
if if you feel like you're ifyou feel like you're struggling
or you or you just can't getthat one technique down that you
(41:23):
want to get, have thatconversation. And I think that's
something I'll always bringforward too is don't be afraid
to reach out to the peoplearound you or the people who are
built to be in a position tohelp you succeed.
Lean on them, talk to them.Don't don't try to do it all
yourself.
Bryan (41:40):
Yeah. So when you finished your course, you were
selected to go helicopters. Weknow that's what you wanted. How
did it feel to get that?
Ian (41:49):
It it felt good. It it was definitely, it was definitely
gratifying. I I don't know if, Idon't know if the commandant
felt the same way. Thecommandant was a was a jet guy
and wanted wanted everybody toto really want to be a to be a
fighter pilot.
Bryan (42:08):
Yeah.
Ian (42:08):
But I I was, I I had my my eyes set on the green
helicopters for sure.
Bryan (42:14):
Moose Jaw, I don't know about now, but certainly at that
time period was definitely,like, run as a jet school. Like,
it was a very jet pilotatmosphere.
Ian (42:23):
Yeah. It was. And I I did actually, have an interview with
one of the senior leaders inMoose Jaw at some point when
they found out halfway throughthe course that I was already
deciding that I wanted to gohelicopters. I kind of got
called in and just, just, justask just to be like, Hey, what,
why don't you want to fly jets?And, I honestly just talked
(42:44):
about my motivation for flyinghelicopters.
Didn't, I didn't mention that,you know, I don't, I don't want
to go fly circles at left handorbits at 30,000 feet and, and
watch the world through a straw.And I say that tongue in cheek
because all of the folks that Iwent through pilot training with
within a year after finishingMoose Jaw, they were dropping
bombs in Libya, right? Soeverybody has their own
(43:05):
experiences and the the thetiming works out. But, but,
yeah, I was I was always set ongoing taco.
Bryan (43:11):
Yeah. So next up is your phase three flight training on
your helicopter course. When youarrived at phase three
helicopter training in PortOrchard Prairie, did you find it
was more relaxed than phase one?I can't speak for helicopter
training, but I know that multiengine training is a much more
relaxed environment than MooseJaw.
Ian (43:28):
I think that the school is smaller. So I think it's a it's
a bit of a different atmospherebetween 3CFFTS and 2CFFTS. I
mean, in Moose Jaw, there's 15Harvards launching in three
waves a day, right? So it's justYeah. It's constantly going.
It's constantly moving. It's alittle bit slower that way, not
(43:51):
as not as many aircraft, not asmany students in house. But the
difference between thehelicopter and multi engine
training is is is notable to thethe multi engine guys always
seem to be super chilled out,getting ready for their for
their next, know, for four hourout back sortie. Whereas the
(44:14):
helicopter courses about to golearn on go learn something
completely new.
Bryan (44:20):
Yeah.
Ian (44:21):
Flying a helicopter is not flying an airplane. Yeah. Now
there are things that overlapand there are things that
relate. And having flown theHarvard before definitely helps
give you the air sense to beable to be an effective
helicopter pilot. But physicallyflying a helicopter is unlike
anything else that you canreally do.
So there's no way to get good atit without doing it. Yeah. So
(44:43):
there's a lot of pressure to, alot of self induced pressure
again to be successful doingsomething you've never done
before. And especially if you'vehad success in a place like
Moose Jaw to show up and be putright back to zero again on
phase three, because nobody canhover a helicopter on their
first try
Bryan (45:02):
Right.
Ian (45:03):
Is is very humbling and and definitely definitely induces
some stress that I don't thinkthe the multi engine side had.
Bryan (45:11):
Yeah. You know, it's funny now that you say that and
I look back, I do remember, likeI said, multi was I won't say it
was like a chill course, but itwas much more relaxed than phase
two. And I think back to mypeers on the helicopter course,
and they were definitelycarrying a little more stress
than we were, like, for sure.And I mean, around that time was
(45:31):
like some dark days in thehelicopter side of the house.
Like, there was a course while Iwas there where only one person
graduated.
So, like, it was a it was toughtimes in the helicopter school.
So, yeah, I guess I guess nowthat you mentioned it, I can
remember that.
Ian (45:45):
Yeah. And it it it's not I mean, it's completely different
kinda learning atmosphere andbut it's everything is new on
the helicopter side. Like, eventhe aerodynamics a wing is a
wing is a rotor aerodynamically,But how the aerodynamics of a
rotor actually function comparedto just air over a wing is is a
(46:08):
little bit mind bending when itcomes to, like, the academic
side too. So even even theacademics and the ground school
are just a completely new anddifferent thing that you're
going to experience that you youjust have to you just have to be
prepared to know absolutelynothing, to be humbled that you
know absolutely nothing, and beprepared to learn it. Yeah.
(46:30):
Yeah. What did you
Bryan (46:32):
find was the most challenging part of phase three?
Ian (46:36):
The most challenging part was honestly what I just
mentioned before. The humblingexperience of realizing that
you're terrible at flyinghelicopters.
Bryan (46:47):
Yeah.
Ian (46:48):
To to go sit in the cockpit of a really fascinating machine,
even if it's a two zero six,just like little little jet
ranger. The the experience ofbeing given one flight control
and barely being able to keepyourself in one position is is
wildly challenging until you getit. And there's no knowing when
(47:12):
you're going to get that momentwhere it'll just click for you.
But at some point between kindof like hour one and hour ten,
you actually figure out how tomake both hands and both feet
work in coordination. And, andyou actually have that sense of
accomplishment, which is, themost rewarding part of phase
three, I would say is havingthat sense of accomplishment
(47:32):
from going in the span of a fewmonths from, I have absolutely
no idea what I'm doing to, I amflying a multi engine glass
cockpit helicopter, across aninternational border.
And I know what I'm doing andI'm being successful. So I think
(47:53):
just helicopter training ingeneral has that challenge of
going from absolute zero tosuccess. And the the transition
and the curve you see in that isis really rewarding.
Bryan (48:11):
Right on. So you passed phase three and got your wings.
You were selected to go to fourfifty tactical helicopter
squadron to fly the CH one fortyseven f Chinook. You were only
the second person to be sentdirectly to the Chinook from
pilot training. Before that,people first flew on another
platform.
Were you intimidated by this atall?
Ian (48:30):
A little bit. But again, it's that same feeling that you
always get in your career whenyou do something new, equal
parts excited and equal partsanxious. I was really, really
excited to be given theopportunity to fly the most
modern piece of kit in the AirForce. Like the fact that it
that I was going to a placewhere the helicopters were going
to be brand new, where they werepurpose built to be the
(48:55):
workhorse of the RCAF. That wassuper, super exciting.
And honestly, that helpedovercome any of like a
nervousness or intimidation thatI would have felt. I knew I was
going in completely cold. Knewthat there were people with
combat experience on Chinooksthat I was going to learn from,
but that was exciting because Iwas going to learn from them.
(49:16):
Yeah. It wasn't it wasn't somuch intimidating.
Bryan (49:19):
Yeah. You felt confident after the training you'd
received and just excited forthe new the new job?
Ian (49:24):
A 100%.
Bryan (49:27):
So switching gears a little, you have a brother who
is also a pilot in the RCAF. Canyou tell us a little about him
and how your family ended upwith two pilots serving in the
RCAF?
Ian (49:37):
Yeah. My brother, Matt, I think he probably had a bit of a
similar introduction to themilitary as I did, where we
don't come from a militaryfamily by any means. I mean, my
uncle was an artillery officerin the CAF for about twenty
years. But outside of that,growing up in Sarnia, it's not a
(49:59):
military town by any means.We're not surrounded by it.
But I think after him seeing myfirst couple of years at RMC, he
also decided to go to RMC. Alsowas a bit of an athlete. He
played varsity basketball there.And when we were talking about
joining and he asked mequestions about what the
(50:21):
application was like and whatcareer paths were, I was pretty
quick to tell him that pilot wasthe way to go. And he had a
similarly successfulapplication.
And through that process, he wasalways kind of a couple of years
behind me in training system,But we had the opportunity to go
(50:42):
through very similar training.He went, did, did phase one
portage, phase two Harvard,phase three, portage again, and
ended up coming to four fiftySquadron as a Chinook
Bryan (50:54):
in
Ian (50:55):
2015. So we ended up flying Chinooks together for a few
years, at four fifty, which wasa really, really cool experience
to be able to share that. Andwent from, not to jump ahead too
far, but went from, me mentoringhim as an AC as he was coming up
(51:15):
as a junior first officer in theunit, to eventually when I came
back to the unit twenty twentytwo, after some time in The
States, he was a fully fullfledged instructor on the
Chinook by that point. And nowhe was teaching me on my re
qualification course when I wascoming back from The States. So
we've, we've had a a really coolopportunity to both be Chinook
(51:37):
helicopter pilots.
He's since moved up to, up toYellowknife. He's now flying
Twin Otters at at four fortySquadron, and is is loving his
RCAF career. Still again, stillbeing on a cockpit, all these
years later after he got hiswings in 2015, I think.
Bryan (51:57):
That's awesome. That's really cool. I hadn't I didn't
realize that he also flew theChinook and that you guys had
flown together. A really coolstory.
Ian (52:06):
Yeah. It's it's a really, really unique experience that
I'm I'm really happy to havehad.
Bryan (52:11):
Yeah. For sure. You're also a member of a service
couple. In other words, yourwife is also a serving member.
Andrea is an army logisticsofficer in Petawawa.
How do the two of you navigatetwo busy careers as majors in
the CAF while still maintaininga healthy relationship?
Ian (52:29):
Communication and compromise, for sure. I mean,
you we kinda went through mycareer a little bit and it's,
it's been deployment afterdeployment, after operation,
after exercise, after operation,after exchange. And hers has
been similarly chaotic withmoves, career courses,
(52:51):
deployments. She's also diddeployment to Afghanistan at one
point. So we just, we have tocommunicate a lot to be, to make
sure that we're always on thesame page with, with who's doing
what and where.
Yeah. But also being able todisconnect from work. I'm a
(53:12):
better officer because she's aphenomenally smart and
outstanding officer. But when wecome home at the end of the day,
and we can just kind of,disconnect from work and just be
in our space with the horses,with the dogs and be kind of
home, home on the farm and beable to disconnect and have the
(53:32):
ability to to be each other'sbest friend without having it be
specifically about work orspecifically about being a
military service couple. I thinkthat's that's what helps make us
better people together.
Bryan (53:45):
Yeah. To not just come home and talk shop, like have a
chance to disconnect and haveyour own space.
Ian (53:51):
Yeah. A 100%. Yeah. But at the same time, it it definitely
benefits us that we can havethose conversations about work
and bounce ideas off each other.
Bryan (53:59):
Yeah. That makes sense. It must be super busy between
careers. And then like you said,you guys have what I imagine is
a hobby farm and that must keepyou quite busy outside of
working hours.
Ian (54:10):
Yeah. It keeps us busy. And there was a there was a period
for a couple years there wherewe were both deputy commanding
officers at the same time inPetawawa. So it's it's, it's
definitely a unique situation toto be in, but we love it. Yeah.
And it's we're we're both careermilitary officers at this point.
Bryan (54:32):
Yeah. So let's close part one with a piece of advice for
our listeners. Thinking back onthe unique opportunities you've
had and knowing that new pilotsare now facing some training
delays, what advice would yougive to someone who is joining
the RCAF as a pilot or iscurrently working through those
delays?
Ian (54:50):
First things first, and I I definitely say this to the to
the folks who are waiting fortraining at 04:50 that I that I
see on a daily basis is one,like, go flying. Like, if you're
if you're at a unit, if you areif you do have the opportunity
to be at a unit that hasaircraft, get on the aircraft.
Like with at the Chinook unit,go sit in the jump seat of the
(55:10):
helicopter. Go sit in the backseat of a 146. Go ride, put a
headset on, listen to what thecrew is doing.
Get that idea for what's goingon in the airspace. What's going
on on the comms, how the crew isinteracting with each other. If
you're on a crude aircraft to beable to just get that sense of
what the expectation is going tobe, because you're always going
(55:33):
to learn something. The moreyou're around it, the more
you're going to learn. The otherthing too, is get, get down on
the floor.
Like go, go talk to people whoaren't pilots there. Yes. This
is a, this is a pilot centricpodcast, But the smartest people
that I learned from are thepeople who aren't just like me.
Bryan (55:53):
Mhmm.
Ian (55:54):
It's the logisticians. It's the maintainers. It's the it's
the area officers. It's the nit's the NCOs. Like Yep.
Go talk to them. Figure out whatthey do, how they do it. Go
spend a day with them. See whata day in the life looks like.
It's one thing to be at the opsdesk and get to know everybody
and get to know how the unitworks through absorbing the
(56:16):
people that come into yourorbit.
But it's another thing to godown and spend three days on the
floor and just follow thetechnicians around and see what
they do on a daily basis thathelps the unit function. Yeah.
The other thing I'd say is ifyou have opportunities that pop
up, I I'm I'm a victim ofopportunity in my career. Maybe
(56:38):
victims are wrong word. I'm aproduct of opportunity in my
career.
Bryan (56:42):
Yeah.
Ian (56:43):
I I've had the benefit of being, as I said, in the right
place at the right time for afew of these events, even being
able to get onto the Chinook ata flight training. It just so
happened that I was finishingflight training at a time when
they were beginning to, acceptpipeline pilots. But I also
advocated for myself. I knewthat there was going be a
(57:04):
training delay. I said, Listen,I, I am motivated to go fly this
aircraft.
And I'm okay with accepting atraining delay if you will give
me the opportunity. So you, youdo have to advocate yourself,
but take those opportunities.If, if it don't close doors to
yourself. If, if for some reasonyour OJE says, Hey, we need you
(57:27):
to fly them and tend to go graba couple of boxes and drive them
to this other place. Don'timmediately poo poo it as like,
oh, no.
Somebody else can do that.Because next thing you know,
you'll be driving machine gunsacross international border.
You'll sit in the back of ahelicopter while they're
shooting machine guns Yeah. Outthe door beside you. Right?
So don't
Bryan (57:44):
Which ended up being a formative experience for you.
Ian (57:47):
A 100%. So so make sure that if an opportunity presents
itself to take it, get get onsome of those deployments, get
on some of those exercises, gosit in the back of an aircraft,
go go sit in the field for for aweek with one of the field
exercises that the unit's doing.Just yeah, do do whatever you
can to to maximize whateveropportunities you're given and
(58:08):
whatever OJT you've got.
Bryan (58:10):
Yeah. Yeah. I I love that. That's a great piece of
advice. And I totally agree withyou also.
You mentioned this is a pilotcentric podcast, but I
completely agree with you interms of the importance of
learning the world around you,learning from various different
trades, NCMs, like good NCMswill will mentor officers. Like,
(58:30):
off officers need to belistening to their NCMs and
learning from them because everystrong military is built on a
core of of experienced NCMs.Like, know, you know, the only
reason I knew a bunch about thesensors on the Aurora was
because the Ace Ops mentored meand taught me about them and the
flight engineers taught me aboutthe systems of the Aurora. So
(58:51):
you have to listen to thosepeople. You have to learn from
them.
Plus, they're great people. It'sgreat to get to know them.
Ian (58:56):
Yeah. And you and I have the benefit of being experienced
on crewed aircraft. Yeah. Whereyou you you don't go flying
without the entire crew. Right?
Bryan (59:04):
That's right.
Ian (59:04):
It's not a it's it's it's not a single seat jet. It is it
is an aircraft that only fliesand only works because you have
three to four people in thataircraft who are all working
together to achieve an aimregardless of rank. Yep. So you
gotta be you gotta be able tobuild those relationships with
everybody around you. Yeah.
For sure. Okay.
Bryan (59:25):
Ian, that's gonna wrap up part one of our chat for today.
It was great to hear about yourtime in flight training, and it
was really, really interestingto hear about your time in
Afghanistan. I'm excited tolearn more about your time with
four fifty Tackhill Squadron. Sothanks for being here today, and
I'm looking forward to the nextone.
Ian (59:39):
Thanks, Brian. It's been great.
Bryan (59:41):
Alright. That wraps up part one of our chat with Ian.
You can tune into our nextepisode to hear all about his
experiences flying the CH oneforty seven f Chinook with four
fifty tactical helicoptersquadron. 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 thepilotprojectpodcastpodcast@Gmail.com
(01:00:02):
or on all social media at podpilot project. 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
friends, and follow and rate usfive stars wherever you get your
podcasts. That's all for now.
(01:00:23):
Thanks for listening. Keep theblue side up. See you.
Ian (01:00:28):
Engineer, shut down all four. Shutting down all four
engines.
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