I Learned About Flying From That General Manager's Article
VFC Manager BGen (Ret’d) Gregory C.P. Matte, CD, PhD
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General Manager's Article
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These were the watch words of wisdom that guided my training from my initial military flight training in Portage la Prairie, MB, through my “wings” training in Moosejaw, SK, and onwards through my extensive fighter pilot training in Cold Lake, AB. Admittedly, there were times whilst I was a student that these same watch words seemed to be a rhetorical diversion from the rational and detailed explanation I commonly sought from my post-flight debriefs as a means to inadequately sidestep my obvious shortcomings, or to detract from the central points raised by my instructor. Hubris and arrogance are coping mechanisms, but I’m certain that most if not all of my flight instructors saw through my tactics. It would be fair to imagine that once I had completed the nearly two and a half years of unrelenting training and the associated pressures that culminated with my graduation from the basic CF-18 course in December of 1987, that I should have been justified in my accomplishments and confidence in flying the CF-18 Hornet as a newly minted, limited combat ready fighter pilot assigned to the newly re-activated 433 Escadron Tactique a Chasse (ETAC), the same squadron my father had been part of while I was still a boy. What I failed to realize at
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that moment of exhalation, was how little I knew about flying such a formidable aircraft replete with 4th generation fly-by-wire controls, glass-cockpit avionics and a highly advanced weapons control system.
West Germany, we were required to successfully pass a tactical evaluation (TACEVAL) of our combat readiness at the level of qualification we held in Canada (wingman, 2-plane lead, 4-plane lead or mass attack lead). When I first arrived During the ensuing, early months in the former West Germany on a front-line fighter squadron, during an intensive month-long I grew increasingly comfortable deployment with 433 ETAC, in the recurring low-level (100’ I found myself overwhelmed AGL) training environment that by the magnitude of the task, we conducted in the remote given the comprehensiveness and largely unpopulated training of the Standard Operating areas in and around our main Procedures (SOPs) as well as operating base at 3 Wing the incredible complexity and Bagotville, QC. However, I was density of activity within their yet to fully appreciate the basics European airspace. Having of airmanship, namely the simple conducted my wingman training priorities of “aviate, navigate, in the relative wilderness, where communicate”. As a “rapid reactor a bridge, cabin or dam were squadron”, 433 ETAC was one of seen as high-value navigation two Canadian fighter squadrons features in a land dominated that was charged with the by lakes, streams and a boreal unique, dual roles of supporting forest, West Germany’s highly the domestic NORAD continental populated and industrialized defence mission, as well as landscape could not have been a being adequately prepared greater antithesis to the natural to join and support our sister landscape that I was accustomed squadrons based in the former to in Canada. West Germany in their extremely important mission of ensuring My first training mission in West a credible “fist” within the Germany was that of a bright“velvet glove” of deterrence that eyed but highly inexperienced successfully prevented a nuclear wingman. The mission was meant holocaust in the challenging to provide familiarization through decades following WWII. a multi-disciplined “exposure” flight that included low-level In order to fulfill the demanding navigation, high-level airrequirements of being intercept and air combat training, recognized as “combat ready” as well as IFR approaches into for our NATO rapid reactor CFB Baden-Baden and CFB responsibilities in the former Lahr.As one might expect, the
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