Interview- Catch Me if You Can: Flight, Adventure, Grit

Welcome aboard Air Grit. 

This is an inspiring story for Canadians & humans of *ALL AGES,* emphasizing the importance of GRIT, passion, TRUE LOVE, community, & the role of fickle luck in a successful career.

If you've seen Top Gun, this is your time to hear about the REAL PILOT "....who flew a cargo plane full of rubber dogsh*t outta Hong Kong."

Summary
In this engaging conversation, retired commercial airline pilot, Captain Colin Clark of Muskoka, Ontario, explores the multifaceted, "glamourous," &  strenuous life of a commercial airline pilot.

Come delve into the challenges, experiences, and personal stories that shape a career in aviation.

1) Colin shares his unique journey from dropping out of high school to becoming an injured factory worker to captain of international airliners, traveling the globe over 50 years.

2) We visit the significance of personal connections in the cockpit & lessons learned from flying; reflecting on the value of pursuing one's dreams & finding fulfillment in work. Colin shares his extensive experiences as a pilot, the importance of cockpit resource management, dynamics of airline crew scheduling, & challenges of flying into various international airports.

3) Passenger fears & the role of pilots in building trust. Contemplating the future of aviation in the age of artificial intelligence. Personal growth & lessons learned throughout his career, including different paths one can take to become a pilot. Colin emphasizes the value of authentic travel experiences & the importance of connecting with people during journeys.

Know a CANADIAN GRIT HERO? YOU ARE ONE? SHINE A LIGHT! REACH OUT! 

Joey @ Honey Badger Lodge, Tanzania: https://www.honeybadgerlodge.com/

Mike's Beach Cottages, Pangani: https://www.google.com/travel/hotels/s/xZbSJX94J82s6CyN7

Keywords

fun, aviation, pilot life, career journey, personal growth, fulfillment, fear of flying, communication skills, educational, youth, high school, civics, careers, postsecondary, flying, aviation industry, technology, travel, passion, personal stories, life lessons, support systems, luck in career, commercial airlines, pilot training, cockpit resource management, airline scheduling, globetrotting, exploration, Greenland, Tanzania, Hong Kong, Toronto, Antarctica, flight, future of aviation, artificial intelligenc

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:00

Are we ready?

UNKNOWN: 0:04

Let's go.

SPEAKER_00: 0:05

Hey, this is Jamie from Canadian Grit. We have Colin Clark, retired captain of a commercial airline. And tonight we're just getting together. We're old friends and I've invited Colin on who's doing a great service to me and Canadian Grit by being here to discuss the pilot's life at 35,000 feet above or below. Adventure, discipline, drama, humanity, and humor. And I chose these words because no These are the words that I would associate when I think of him and willing to be coming on here and sharing his adventures and stories with the rest of us. So thanks, Colin.

SPEAKER_01: 0:45

That's a very kind introduction, Jamie. Thanks. Well, thank you. Thanks for being here. My pleasure to be

SPEAKER_00: 0:50

here. Yeah, yeah. My pleasure. Let's start maybe by telling us what's the bird on your hat?

SPEAKER_01: 0:57

Well, that's a hat I picked up in Vancouver at the float plane base there. They were introducing an electric airplane on their airplanes. They were going to run short distances, I guess. And I thought, oh, that's kind of a neat hat to have. So I grabbed one as a souvenir.

SPEAKER_00: 1:13

Oh, that's awesome. Growing up, I was a huge fan. I had a friend whose dad was making a balsa wood de Havilland beaver. I've never been in one, but I've always wanted to go up. And I think that's just one of the most epic planes. And I wasn't sure what was on there that's what I wanted to know

SPEAKER_01: 1:28

yeah I agree I love that airplane I like the the old radial engine and the thunderous noise it makes to me that's that's classic

SPEAKER_00: 1:37

yeah absolutely So tonight we were just sitting down with one of the finest flyers in Muskoka to chew the breeze about life as a globetrotting pilot and who became a friend and mentor, you know, a friend of the family and a mentor to me. I spent a couple of years, well, many years in the office on Santa's Village Road playing flight simulator and reading from the ground up. We were just talking about a member of our community, Bob Joint, when I worked at Rogers Video, who told me about From the Ground Up and he was working on his private pilot's license at the time and I was saying to Colin that when I was a teenager, I remember meeting or finding out that local people were into flying. And to me, it was really huge. Anytime I would see them in Rogers, which was a pretty public place, people used to rent movies. But it was just a chance to connect. So for me, I think even now, most of these questions are still things that I'm really interested in. And that's why I'm doing this. And I think a commercial flight is something that more and more people are doing more regularly if they haven't. You know, it's definitely increased since I was a kid. You know, And home alone, the dad goes, you know, when I was a kid, the only flying we ever did was in the back of the family station wagon.

SPEAKER_01: 2:46

Over the hills. Yeah, exactly.

SPEAKER_00: 2:51

Yeah, yeah. And I'm pretty sure my uncle fell out of the back of the station wagon. True story. Brutal. It was the 1940s, though.

SPEAKER_01: 2:59

Yeah, you're dating yourself now talking about working at Rogers Video. Well,

SPEAKER_00: 3:03

that's it. But I love to share those stories because that's how much I learned from people's good graces. I talk a lot about Adam Schultz, who's a Canadian adventurer and author. And a lot of his books, he talks about these strangers and he gets into these tough spots in his solo adventures where he goes and there's seemingly always somebody a local who comes onto his path and he figures out a way when people who there's just always something in the universe that works out so I think that's interesting

SPEAKER_01: 3:33

Is that is he an author? Because I'd like to

SPEAKER_00: 3:35

read some of this stuff. Yeah, he's so the history of Canada in 10 maps. He talks all about the first, you know, the earliest 10 maps into the development all the way back from Turtle Island of the indigenous peoples through history. And where he really locked me was as someone who's an avid historian, I needed to learn more. Or what at least caught me was the whole presentation of Samuel de Champlain, which I talk about a lot with my history episodes, because he crossed the ocean I think 34 times in total building New France as a colony but you know three to four weeks at least each time but he was the first guy or explorer to see it as a place to stay and I think that's something like the first winter they had 70 or 80 guys in Quebec and come the spring there was only 20 of them left they had starved or died of scurvy and growing up I was I loved Canadian history and a big thing I noticed is that a lot of people would be like, oh yeah, the Canadian, even, oh, Canada's boring compared to the Star Spangled Banner or, you know, Canadian history is boring. And I was sort of in grade seven or whatever, I learned about the Cour du Bois and these, you know, the indigenous fur trade. And I said, well, man, if you showed up on a boat, and saw a wall of forest. And I don't know if you've ever watched those TV shows alone or Naked and Afraid, but it's literally like, how did anybody make a go of it here? Try... walking outside and surviving the winter you know so when you look at how it all happens and you realize like people oh Canada is so peaceful it's like no and now with what's going on it's global but specifically with tariff wars and people are thinking a lot about politics but my goal through the history part of the show is to show that when we learn history the stuff around us changes but the human reaction to things like fear and our emotions don't so when we learn history we can find comfort or knowledge. And that's why I think having you here, As opposed to having, you know, this is Jamie at Canadian Grit. Let me tell you about flying. You know, I'm the authority on flying. Let me tell you about being a commercial pilot. And so I've never thought that was a good thing. And I think people in our society, parents too, to kids will say, well, you should be an engineer or a lawyer or a pilot. But meanwhile, the kid is saying, well, I don't know if that's what I want to do. And so they, you know, somebody who's a lawyer shouldn't be consulted maybe on what's it like to fly a dreamliner. I

SPEAKER_01: 6:13

was that kid in high school.

SPEAKER_00: 6:18

What do you mean?

SPEAKER_01: 6:18

If the job, if I was going for a job or going to school, post-secondary school, I had to go for something that had a label already, a lawyer, a doctor, an architect. And as you weren't inclined that way, I became stagnated in my decision-making. I didn't want to be one of those labels. And I didn't know there were multiple paths to jobs that I'd never even heard of yet. So I think you're right that you need, exposure from people in the industry and to hear they got to where they are your brother's a classic example you're a classic example I think everybody takes a circuitous route to their to their lifestyle with a few exceptions the lawyers engineers and doctors

SPEAKER_00: 7:03

well that's it and my years of being an educator and and having the privilege of educating going around the world and being able to build the you know the points of view that I have to share and to say I was more inclined by nature to ask questions to find the pilots in Bracebridge and to network and to find out from you know the horse's mouth what is it like to fly you know I can watch Top Gun and I can play flight simulator but to see the experience in someone's eyes I think now and especially these days we need to focus on who has experience and there's something of value in every single person we've become very transactional and saying you know if I want to be an engineer I'm only going to associate maybe with engineers or whatever it may be. Whereas I say it's like people are sort of starting to become like in a video game where here's Colin, an NPC, which is a non-player computer. And so you walk up and you're like, you hit up left or right. And it's like Colin is selling books, pens or erasers. And I say, well, I don't want any of those things. So you just walk away. Whereas actually, you know, if I sat down with you for this amount of time and just, you know, if I were sitting next to you on a bus, And we happened, everyone has on their cell phones, but say the bus breaks down. The best stories come from what in the moment I think seem the hardships. And I think that's what life, we associate trauma. But again, in my own work with Gabor Mate and trauma, I'm trying to say that trauma is a loaded word and trauma is life. Trauma is growth. Without hardship, there is no growth. And that's why when we go through hardship, hopefully we learn how to deal with it better than when we did it the first time. But also as a historian, I've always sort of had this inkling to he's older than this guy and he's saying that I'm like hmm he landed on the beach he has a really compelling story so whatever you're saying is sort of secondary to him there was that authoritative and again in my theories of modern day that's been lost with online yeah but so and it's not about making it political I'm just trying to say here's value and Colin as a person but also as here's a really cool story as a pilot that you know a lot of people have encounters with pilots and there's movies all these things I think look at look at the host of movies that come out still about flight and the 20th century was we just take it so for granted that in 1904 or whatever in Kitty Hawk the Wright brothers fly and so 1969 I talked about the space race in another thing is that when we move collectively so we forget that actually for 14,000 years of human history or what we know ish people looked at the sky and said wow imagine being a bird and then in 1904 which is you know not that Not long ago, within 65 years, they're on the moon. JFK in 62 goes, we will go to the moon because we choose to. And America's like, sweet, let's do it. And they did it.

SPEAKER_01: 10:15

Yeah. Amazing progress in a short period of time,

SPEAKER_00: 10:18

isn't it? Okay, well, you need to help me with this. Your insights are so valuable. And that's what people are missing in kids because parents say, well, you should be a dentist. And meanwhile, their parents are whatever. And it's like, well, why didn't you become a dentist? Right. Right. What did your parents want you to become? Yeah. Right. And we sort of that's the perpetuation of the cycle. Right. So I just say here's here's a cool story. And I think it's very interesting to hear about in my life. It's as a storyteller. I love I could talk to a brick wall. My brother, Jeremy, speaking of this, this is a great this is a great segue back to you because this is about you. But I was living in Germany when I was 25 for a couple of months in Bremen doing my master's and I got to work at the European Soiss Machschule. It was this really cool opportunity and Jeremy had just got a first job at a an energy firm anyways I flew in at the end of my stay in Bremen and I stayed in London where he was living with his pal Shane and then he and Karina and me flew to Ireland in Cork and it was funny because just before we're about to take off out of probably Stansted wherever Ryanair flies out of I'm sitting there talking to this elderly lady and she's sharing with me oh I'm very you know an Irish I'm very sort of nervous about flying and you know I said oh no problem and then she gets to the point she's like you know if you wouldn't mind just holding my hand during the takeoff off and landing and I'm like oh yeah very sweet like you know innocent lady and I'm talking and I look over and Jeremy and Karina were sort of like kitty cornerback and Jeremy's just shaking his head laughing right and you know Jeremy and I'm like what are you laughing about and he goes oh I told Karina here that you'd be best friends with whoever you were sitting with five minutes in

SPEAKER_01: 12:30

here you are holding her hand

SPEAKER_00: 12:32

exactly and the story remains you know and and the fact that I remember that story is just yeah you should

SPEAKER_01: 12:38

you should alter it a little bit and say it wasn't a little old lady

SPEAKER_00: 12:41

yeah yeah well no i i i i had to alter it for you know certain purposes uh so maybe it wasn't a little old lady hey what happens in cork all right buddy yeah well you kissed the blarney stone didn't you keep i'm gonna keep the cork and i'm gonna keep the cork in the bottle so let's hop into it with your career in flight maybe you just start from whatever you're willing to how did you be You spoke a little bit about, and I'm like you, I find every five years or so, I feel like I get to a point of learning. I'm like, okay, what's next? And so how did you end up, instead of being engineer or one of those other things, how did it end up at pilot?

SPEAKER_01: 13:22

It's not the typical route that others have taken to being a pilot. I wasn't particularly good in high school. I mostly lost interest when I was in my mid-teen years, distractions that come along at that age, you know, 15, 16, and I lost interest in school. And I think part of that was due to the fact that, as we talked about earlier, I didn't have a label for a job that I wanted to pursue. So that indecisiveness just led me to lose interest in school in general. And as a result, I ended up failing high school. So I moved on to the work world afterwards. And the job I got was building airplanes at a McDonald Douglas plant that no longer exists in Toronto. But it was a factory work, assembly line work. And I did that for a couple of years and realized pretty quickly I didn't want to do that for the rest of my life. So I went back to summer school and got my high school diploma. And then I was off to the races. I thought, okay, I applied to a couple of universities and so on. And then I had hurt myself at work and I got a fairly large check at the time. in a lump sum. And I was driving home from work one day by the Brampton Flying Club, the airport there. And I thought, I wonder if I could go flying one day. So I drove in and the guy said, yeah, come on back tomorrow morning. So I went back there the next morning, gave him my money, went up for a flight. And I was in love, absolutely in love with it. I thought, I

SPEAKER_00: 14:48

mean, it was a bit of a... Was that the first time you'd ever flown?

SPEAKER_01: 14:51

Yeah, I think I did some sort of introductory flight when I was in grade two or something. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 14:58

Okay. You

SPEAKER_01: 14:59

know, it wasn't really anything that lit any flame or something, something, but, uh, uh, I just kind of, I was a bit of a daredevil in those days and I thought flying would be sort of the next step. So anyway, I started flying with a guy who is a terrific instructor. I really liked the guy. He was a graduate from an aviation college in Toronto. I started by flying with him and I got to the point where I was ready to go for my private pilot license. And before I did, he said to me, because he could see my interest, we talked a lot. And he said, you know, if you really want to do this for a living, save your money and go to one of the aviation schools or join the military. But Don't waste your money here anymore because this will take you forever, cost you a fortune, and it won't ultimately lead to the job you think it will. So that was the last day I flew with him. And I didn't even know about these aviation colleges. So I threw my name in a hat, applied to, there were three at the time. I only knew about two of them. So I applied to the two I knew about. And I got accepted into both of them. And one was a three-year course. The other was a two-year course. And being a naturally lazy guy, I took the two-year course.

SPEAKER_00: 16:11

So what are we talking here? So you finished, you were like 18 or so, and this is like 2005? I was actually 21. At 21? It

SPEAKER_01: 16:21

was in 1981. So it was actually in January of 1981, if I look back at my logbook, that was when I did my first introductory flight. And then I got accepted into this college. in... August of 81. So anyway, that was, that was my path. After I got out of college, then I kind of started my flying career in earnest.

SPEAKER_00: 16:42

And so from there, and I mean, yeah, and you can talk later about like how the industry has changed, but at the time to get on with an airline, what was sort of the standard, like, I mean, you hear what you need 3000 hours or something generally, or before you can apply, I don't know. And that was something that I heard because when I was looking at all this stuff, it was 2005, 2004. And What you read in the news is there's a real shortage of pilots. But back then, did you have to work for a smaller airline and work your way up to one of the bigger commercial airlines?

SPEAKER_01: 17:14

Well, back in the early 80s, there were no jobs. There were more pilots than there were jobs. And so we graduated 15 of the guys in our course and two of us got jobs. A couple of them went into the military afterwards, but there were no jobs. So any job that you did get, it's the old supply and demand thing, right? So

SPEAKER_00: 17:33

I was lucky enough. And in the early 80s, I was just going to add that was, I think, probably a pretty good time of funding they bought all the F-18s and stuff in 82-ish so I mean things were probably that would have been well that was the reason I went RMC was because it was again you looked at the flight costs and what it took and military is still the most viable option for that

SPEAKER_01: 17:54

yeah

SPEAKER_00: 17:54

and most of the time

SPEAKER_01: 17:55

my first choice was the military and I applied to the military but I didn't make it through because of the medical aspect I had been in a bad motorcycle accident when I was 18 and that beat my leg up pretty badly and I wouldn't have got through basic training, as they said. And so that hope was dashed at that time. But the guys that did go into the military got onto the F-18s. All the guys from our course at Winnie, and I think there were three of them, they all got on F-18s, which to me was a dream come true. But you know what? Life throws forks in the road for you. And so I didn't go that route. I got out and hit the bricks, banging on doors, trying to find a job. And I got a job. It wasn't a very good job. It was an instructor job and the company wasn't particularly good, but supply and demand also dictates wages. And so I was working for next to nothing. I couldn't even pay my rent. Luckily, I was married and my wife was making more money on unemployment insurance than I was making flying by leaps and bounds. But, you know, by the same token, I wouldn't have been able to be a pilot had it not been for the government assistance that I got, because I come from a very humble background. We didn't have a lot of money growing up and my parents were in immigrants and we did a lot of moving around. But when I applied to the college, I discovered that they had, in those days, OSAP had grants as well as loans. And a grant just meant that you didn't have to give it back, pay it back. And that was my only chance to get through. So I got a grant for the entire amount of my training. And it was a lot. I mean, it was all subsidized in the first place. So it wasn't that the guys that didn't get grants were paying astronomical prices. But what it did do is it allowed me to attend college for two years without an income. So I, I think the times and I got no problems paying my taxes when required because I've seen the benefit that taxes add.

SPEAKER_00: 19:47

Well, and I, I, I'm an OSAP guy and I used to stand in the line and all those kids. And that's, uh, I recently saw a meme and, uh, it said it was a picture of somebody that's like, Oh, how How did you discover this? And the tagline says, well, it's amazing what happens when you allow everybody to have education and not just the richest people. And that's also part of my, you know, my own shtick or you want to call it my agenda of Canadian Grit is to democratize any sort of knowledge, because ultimately what you're presenting is a lifetime so far of lived knowledge and experience and the agglomeration of like the best highlights of your whole life, of all these thousands of people you've met and that's my looking at you as a historian I would even say from a future perspective if I came across a video across a video like this I'd be like oh man this is here's a here's a firsthand source of what it was like to be a commercial pilot maybe down the road somebody will talk about how commercial airlines went from airplanes to rocket ships and they'll be like here's Colin Clark who discussed how aviation changed from the 80s until the early 2000s yeah and that's Again, that's how I think, but it's fun to talk about all of this stuff because going back to the original point is that the public funding of OSAP or all of those things, that's how progress is through creation and opportunity giving to people who otherwise wouldn't have them, in my opinion. Absolutely

SPEAKER_01: 21:14

right. Absolutely right. Just because you're poor doesn't mean you don't have potential. That's right. So after I got this first job as an instructor, I didn't last at that very long. It was too abusive. They were bullying me And I don't take kindly to bullies. I think that comes from moving every few years as a young guy. You stand up to bullies because everybody wants to put you in your place when you get to a new town or a new school. So when I stood up to these guys, I just left and

SPEAKER_00: 21:41

then I got out of line. That's why I never messed with you.

SPEAKER_01: 21:45

Yeah. You'd have taken me in a heartbeat. But I got out of flying again for a couple of years. And then I was working again at this same aircraft manufacturer. Again, knowing so well I couldn't possibly do this the rest of my life. And I had applied to a couple of colleges to choose another profession. And I'd been accepted. And I was starting in September. And my wife and I drove out to the Yukon. And on our way out, we had a lot of time to talk. And she said to me at that time, I think you're making a big mistake. She said, I think you'll spend the rest of your life looking up in the sky wondering, what if? So I said to her, well, what should I do? And she said, let's take the money that you save to go to school and renew your licenses and give it another shot. I did. That was in 1986. And by 1988, I was working for a major airline company. So I got really lucky with the way things turned out.

SPEAKER_00: 22:44

Well, no risk, no reward. And that's that's ultimately it, too. Right. So just that right there to share that bit of wisdom, you know, because, again, in our modern culture, we see influencers and, you know, it's not linear. Like you said, this circuitous and how much that the love that, you know, your wife, Kathy, showed in that that, again, is a whole other philosophy of people have lost the idea that love is about giving and not getting. and that there was an investment and a risk taken, but therefore, you know, synchronicity or the universe or whatever you want to call that, there was a reward. But again, you had a choice, right? And that choice, and from my point of view, hearing that story I'm like wow because again and that's what people need to hear what are you willing to do and all these people who are like oh I could have been Pele of soccer I could have been Sidney Crosby it's like easy easier said than done you know you could be your age and saying I could have been a pilot and be like okay sure Colin but that but that's reality you went to the majors of flight by... Well,

SPEAKER_01: 23:57

it's the support you get too. And sometimes you, I wouldn't say listen to everybody and what you should do, but sometimes the people closest to you have a better, by standing outside the situation, they have a better perspective on what would be best for you. What it takes is to listen rather than be bullheaded about it and say, I know best what's best for me. Sometimes it takes somebody with a sort of a, an external eye to look at you and say, you know what? I don't think you're going to be happy doing this. Yeah. They see the joy in the, in the, in the things that you do and say, this would bring you joy and encourage you to follow your path and really, In my career, I never worked a day in my life because I loved flying. When I went to work, I loved doing what I did. And so it wasn't work. So if any young person, no matter whether they want to be a pilot, a dentist, or any other unlabeled occupation, and find something that they love to do. I know it's cliche, but if you look forward to getting up to go to work every day, that's not work at all. It's the guys, and there's a lot of them in my industry, and understandably, there's guys that just don't want to quit. They don't want to retire because they love their job so much. I was one of those guys too. The argument is that in that line of work, there is a limit to your best before date. And My argument was simply, look, I'm going to love it just as much when I'm 85 as I am when I'm 55. So you have to make the transition sometime. Having said that, I loved it just as much on my last flight as I did on my first flight. And I think that's the sign of a good career for any young person starting out. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_00: 25:43

Yeah. And that's that's really the dream. And I think, too, if we go back to the roles, right, we try to say this is a successful career, but you don't become successful by the label of the career. You become successful by finding a passion. It's a Japanese concept, ikigai, that I talk about. It's getting whatever you do wherein you lose time, like gardening for me or teaching or talking or storytelling or writing or drawing. So how can you in some way combine that? And I say that because I think it's a this to students don't give up on the arts because even if you're going to be an engineer you need to know how to express yourself well the arts I say that's a minimalized it we should call it the humanities because everybody needs to know how to communicate emotional intelligence and that's exactly we don't have to go it alone and by also sharing that you know so many people are just trying to go it alone and just sharing your anecdote of that is beautiful and it shows how you know it is a journey of many people to get you where you are absolutely yeah and if you combine all of those things it is possible but it just may take a little bit longer but don't give up on that right and that's that's a lot of people say that but it's easier said

SPEAKER_01: 26:55

than done as well if it was easy to do everybody be

SPEAKER_00: 26:58

doing

SPEAKER_01: 26:58

it

SPEAKER_00: 26:59

so it's those challenges it is absolutely but that's it and that's is how badly you want it and that's pretty cool so when you first started you made that big leap and it took a huge risk and then you got in a couple years later with the big airlines what were you what were you first flying on or what was your route? What were you doing sort of generally?

SPEAKER_01: 27:18

I was on an international airplane. The job I had was called a second officer. In that day and age, there were three guys in the cockpit. I was the third guy, the junior guy. And I looked after the systems for the aircraft, heating, air conditioning, electrical, hydraulic. Those systems were all controlled by the flight engineer or the second officer. So I did that. And we used to fly... Mostly in that airplane, we do, well, we do Asia, South America, and Europe. And then I had a really... fortunate thing happened. A year after I got hired, Swiss Air came looking for some second officers. They had a need for a couple of dozen second officers. And they came to our airline and said, would anybody be interested in working for Swiss Air for a two-year contract? I mean, I was young. I had nothing to lose. So I took the job. The deal was we'd go away for 18 days and then we'd be off for 12. And I had a newborn son and my wife stayed at home. And I'd go away for 18 days and fly the Swiss Air Network and then come home for 12. And that was... That was the best job I ever had in my life. Really? Just

SPEAKER_00: 28:30

because when I... Sorry, the job you got fired from, was that the one that led to your first commercial job in 88 or whatever that you mentioned? No, I

SPEAKER_01: 28:39

didn't. No, and I didn't get fired. To be clear, I quit. And then I came back after renewing my licenses and I got a job flying a cargo plane. You know that line in Top Gun where he says you can fly rubber dog shit in a cargo plane that's what I was flying In an old beach, 18. Good times. Good times. That's amazing. Freezing my tail feathers off. That's amazing. And then I got done with one of the commuter airlines, like it would be the equivalent of jazz airlines today. And then from there, I got on with the airline, with a major airline. And then after a year there, things were slowing down. That was in the late 80s, early 90s, and things had slowed down. And so the airline could spare a few of us. And so I took a leave of absence for two years and went to Swiss Air and flew their network, which was substantially broader than what we had in Canada. Like we flew to the four corners of the earth. It was an amazing experience. And in those days, you didn't have 24-hour layovers. You had a week. So you'd have a week in Nairobi, a week in Hong Kong, a week in, you pick a spot, Rio. And so that was what I lived for.

SPEAKER_00: 29:57

Were you, so were you, did you have to fly from toronto to switzerland and then fly from there or

SPEAKER_01: 30:03

yeah yeah so we we'd start our 18 days in toronto we'd fly to zurich and then we'd do our flying so it was usually out and back so we do about two or three trips a month and then we'd go home so uh fly back to toronto and then you'd have 12 days and then you just do it again and uh they had a more social uh uh scheduling system so all the nice Yeah. Yeah. The beauty of that was that in the two years I got to experience every destination that Swiss Air flew to that I was interested in going to. And a lot of that was Africa. So Africa and India, for that matter, those are the kind of destinations, they can be life-changing when you have time there to... truly visit. Now, we'd stay in five-star hotels, but if you had a week, you'd get out of the hotel and you'd go off on some adventure somewhere where you got away from the luxury of the hotels. And then I came back from that. And when I came back from that, the two-year contract ended and I was now laid off. There was no more leave of absence. I was laid off. And I got a phone call out of the blue one day from a guy who was a headhunter and said, would you like to work in Holland for the next few years? And so I jumped on a flight two days later And I moved my family to Amsterdam and we lived there for two and a half years. And then we did the same sort of thing because they were a charter company and they did mostly ad hoc cargo. And so one day you'd be flying day old chickens. The next day you'd be flying fighter airplanes that were broken into parts. And it was beautiful. It was fantastic variety and it was exciting. And every day you went to work was different. So that leads into how fun it was to go to work. You never knew what was coming tomorrow.

SPEAKER_00: 32:07

That's right. And by that point... would you say how many airplanes would you have worked on like regularly until that point? I was

SPEAKER_01: 32:15

still on the DC-10. So I was still on the same airplane. We were now about six years into my career. And when that contract ended, the airline was calling us back from layoffs. And that's when the first time I, I got to fly an airplane. I wasn't the third guy in the cockpit. Now I was a co-pilot. So I flew the 737 in those days. Yeah, so that was the last time I was able to work overseas. Yeah, it was it was nice to see a different way of doing things. Every airline thinks they invented flying. So this gave you an idea of what other ideas there are out there, different ways of doing things. And it made you broader minded. Yes, it is very much.

SPEAKER_00: 33:00

Very much. Well, it's like probably, I don't know, a franchise player, if you're always on the same team. But, you know, how how flexible are you on different teams? Right. And. There's always those, those back benchers who will say, what would Gretzky be without Mark Messier and Yari Curry? I don't know. The reality is that it was what it was.

SPEAKER_01: 33:22

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 33:22

You know. It

SPEAKER_01: 33:24

teaches you to be open-minded, you know, when you see other ways of doing things and you don't have any control over changing it or you have to learn to accept it. As time passes, you start to think of that as being the best way. Yeah, yeah. And so those experiences start to change your mind and open you up to better ways of doing things. Not everything was better, but there were aspects of it that if you can bring it back to the airline you're working for, you can make a mix of the good of both of them. It's difficult to do, but at least you have in your own mind what would be a better option.

SPEAKER_00: 34:04

For sure. And I had a question there that was nowadays, how do you explain to people, again, the third officers, like the flight engineer on what would be a cargo plane, right? But certain planes still have a flight engineer or multiple, depending on the aircraft. But when you're looking at commercial airliners and you don't really see the third is all that. No,

SPEAKER_01: 34:25

that guy's being taken out by automation. The Russian guys probably have flight engineers still in a very old airplane. Yeah, you pay and then you pump. You pay and then you pump. Yeah, that's very true. And some of the, I mean, there are DC-10s still flying, but the automation now has eliminated that job. Are there any MIGs still flying? Tell

SPEAKER_00: 34:47

us. Yeah. I wouldn't know. Have you ever done any negative G pushovers and given anybody the finger?

UNKNOWN: 34:55

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 34:57

Get to the answers we all want to hear, man. Yeah. Colin's been so humble. He's the first guy to ever fly inverted with 300 people on a dreamliner. Right. Only in the simulator. That's awesome. So again, so he's been replaced by a lot of like avionics or computer stuff. And so back then, though, what was sort of the transitional piece that got you from the third seat to the second seat? Is it just like time in the plane? Just

SPEAKER_01: 35:31

seniority. When your number came up, if you wanted to make a move, you could. It's the same as going from the right seat to the left seat or the co-pilot to the captain or the first officer to the captain. It's all based. There's no merit. It's not a meritocracy. It's only status. And then you're not forced to move up. If you get to a senior position and you've got the best of everything in that position, a lot of guys stay there until they're senior enough to move to the next position with the same sort of seniority, relative seniority.

SPEAKER_00: 36:02

How many hours would you say maybe just, you know, spitball, how many hours would you say you had before you felt like you were stable or secure as a pilot in the industry?

SPEAKER_01: 36:13

Honestly, you're never stable in that line of work. I would say that, I mean, even right up until Like there's bankruptcies that creates instability

SPEAKER_00: 36:24

and uncertainty.

SPEAKER_01: 36:25

If your company goes bankrupt and you're on the street and you join another airline, you're right back at the bottom of the list. So there's jeopardy. Yeah, it's like when you get into this line of work, you have to know that there's a lot of jeopardy just lurking in the background, whether it's your health or the economic welfare of an airline that you have no control over. Those sorts of things, they're very real, but you probably aren't feeling it. thinking about them when you're chasing your dream of flying an airplane.

SPEAKER_00: 36:53

Well, that's it, right? Yeah, exactly. Yeah. You just, again, you see the video of the cool landings and whatever, right? And It's true. It's idealized. It's a journey.

SPEAKER_01: 37:03

Yeah, it's a journey. I mean, it's all the fun, the group, the best part of my job was the flying. It was the stuff outside the flying that took a toll, whether it was bankruptcies, mergers, layoffs. There were so many influences, but looking back, it's easy to say it was a great career. There's lots of guys who didn't survive those things and didn't have the same career. So there's a lot of luck in life in general. I know I'm getting philosophical now, but flying airplanes is no different than anybody else.

SPEAKER_00: 37:35

Well, and the number of pilots and the number of, even like you say, going back to earlier, because my experience, you know, all the way back to grade four, I saw Apollo 13. I wanted to be an astronaut. I met Colonel Chris Hadfield at RMC and he talked to a small number of us. It was, I was just to meet, like I told you earlier, if you want to meet a mechanic, I always wanted to be an astronaut in the worst way. And for me, you know, I still have assigned pictures Does Jamie aim high? The sky is not the limit. but you know when you meet someone like that who's NASA and he's talking about all these planes I'm just like okay wow it's just another realm of but again the number of guys it's like the number of guys who make the AHL or the farm team just below the Blue Jays and they you know and they're so chock full of talent but they never get there either right and so again there is luck there is but is it our path and but again how much you wanted it and that you loved it and that it all worked out because even if it's

SPEAKER_01: 38:32

a journey to even if you If you don't make it to being an astronaut, you might get to a position, whether you're flying fighter jets or you're even flying with an airline. Like I wanted to be an astronaut too. Then I wanted, I was going to be satisfied with a fighter pilot. And I ended up being quite happy as just a boring old bus driver on an airliner. So that's, and that's, yeah. You shoot for the stars and then life kind of gets in the way, if you like, whether it's family or what it is. But the thing is, you're in a line of work that you

SPEAKER_00: 39:02

love. Yeah. you start with the passion that's what I say to kids like even if you you're not going to get a job drawing okay but look at jobs that involve drawing that takes work but how can you keep the passions and knowing that there are going to be downfalls and hardships the passion of I love flying that allowed everything else to sort of you know float and you were able to react based out of the passion but like a lot of educators say not particularly me that the best is when you get to close your door and everything else is quiet right because you're doing the real job yeah you know and that's so many jobs there's always bull but again what helps you put up with the bull that nobody talks about is it doesn't matter the paycheck because ultimately if you slogged to be and that's why I say I don't think you can just go fake your way through medical school or dentistry you know if you don't like blood you need to be honest with yourself at a young age I'm not going to be a doctor you know and

SPEAKER_01: 39:58

you know I was reading Mark Carney's book values the other day and he quoted the quote is attributed to Albert Einstein, and I'm paraphrasing, but he said something to the effect of the things in life that count often can't be counted. And the things that can be counted often don't count. And that's what I think people have to realize is when they're chasing a dream, they have to put all those things aside that don't matter. The things that are emotional, whether it's passion or a love of something, those should be the things that come to the forefront. Never mind what kind of money you're going to make

SPEAKER_00: 40:35

or not going to make. And it's like people in a relationship and this is what's not valued is we think it's always pleasure, but it's like, no, no, no. If you're in a bad relationship, it's pain to stay. It's pain to leave. If you're in a good job or say a bad job, you, Oh, great pay. But if you feel soulless or whatever, it's all very personal. Right. And hearing you is like, what got me here to the podcasting is ultimately I love teaching and I love interacting with people. Did I ever think that I would be a teacher? No, I thought it would be an astronaut. And when I didn't get there, I would, you know, because all I was focused on was RMC. And again, when you get, it's the Joker in Batman, he goes, you're like a dog chasing a car. You don't know what you do when you actually get it. Yeah, exactly. Right. And that's most people. It's like, well, when you actually get all of that, then, and I say, then what? Yeah. You know, you, you eventually have a mansion or 400 houses and you can only be in one and you're in a room by yourself alone. What do you got? And see, that's, that's what everybody's running from. But again, I say, find meaning, in what you're doing because then everything else will fall into place and that's I think more often what we can be finding in people like you where it's like oh well here's an influencer uh Jamie Jackson pilot from uh Air France here and you know I just keep putting up these really huge cool videos of me flying over the ocean and telling people they should become pilots while it's it's kind of really misleading to young people are you really influencing them I don't know and

SPEAKER_01: 42:29

you're not telling the whole story that's it it's easy to make yourself very few people are willing to make themselves look bad as an influencer. And just because he's making a video of himself flying an airplane, first of all, doesn't mean he's a good pilot. Second of all, it doesn't mean he's a nice guy to fly with. It just means he knows how to fly the airplane and what buttons to push. But there's so much more to it. That's it.

SPEAKER_00: 42:54

Yeah. D for degree and all these. And so, and as an educator in various different things, in my experience with educators, the thing that's been noted is that a lack of value... and saying, well, whatever, I'll just pass. And I say, okay, let's just pause for a second. You're going in for brain surgery. Do you know if your neurologist is the head of his class or the bottom of his class? The guy who just said D for degree, pass. And I said, wait, don't answer. I'm going to push you a little bit farther. If you knew and you had the choice, would you choose the guy who studied every night? And see, that's what we're not telling the kids. Right. Or people aren't telling kids, you know, and, and, and so everything seems so easy and it's like, no, no, no, you don't just get everything at 25 and then what you sit there and stare at the wall. And that's, you know, that's, that's not the

SPEAKER_01: 43:46

point. No matter how good you are, committed, you are passionate. You are luck plays a huge role in the outcome. You know, in my case, I can say that luck came down my way several times over the course of my career. If one of those things changed and I wasn't lucky in a certain situation, everything would have turned out differently and might have actually changed my attitude towards my career. That's it. So it's the same in anything, you know. If luck doesn't come your way and you end up... changing your mind you may feel like a failure but you're not i think when you that fork in the road comes and you don't get the break you go down the other fork

SPEAKER_00: 44:33

with all you've got that's right and that's adapting and that's that's you know finding that's i would say that's grit like you know yeah right and so when you don't necessarily get what you want you look at okay well what have i built and where can i go from here okay well and then when you look back and you say well look it's easy to say from my perspective but ultimately you built it you know that's respectable because it wasn't easy and it is easier now with the rosy shades to say oh yeah i had a career as a pilot blah blah blah but when you break it down it's i say it's easy to look at the influencer but if you want to get jacked you got to fight gravity you got to rip your muscles it's going to hurt it's unavoidable so you can sit there and dream about it or you can start lifting the weight and that's either academic mental or physical absolutely right right and that's and that's what i'm trying It doesn't matter if I talk to Tyler, the comedian, me, my friends. Again, it's just a human thing. and everything is being lost in politics. And I'm saying, no, no, no, that's the problem is we're all humans. It doesn't matter. And so here's a cool human story with some experiences, what you take out of it. There's a comedian. I can't remember. He talks about a cheeseburger and he goes, you show up and he says, what makes a comedian funny is your own life experience. You talk to any person who goes to a comedy show and they all leave with their own ideas. So he's like, I've put out the mayo, the ketchup, the mustard and the onions, and you're going to take what you like from it and make your own burger. everybody gets a burger but I've made and offered the same thing but what you've taken is based on your own reality that's a good analogy it was I know and you can't standardize living and this is why I love biopics and I love reading about people I really care about but when it comes to influencing and people who try to emulate another success it's like here's Colin's book on how to be a pilot and I'm like okay I'm Jamie and I'm going to study Colin's book and I'm going to follow that path and that's the lie because you can't be duane the rock johnson you can't be axl rose you can't because they made their path yeah and i i think people believe that they can you know do it just but it's like no no you got to make your own and that's it's hard and it's

SPEAKER_01: 46:50

it's arrogant i think on the part of the person that writes those books or paths if you like to think that it'll work for everybody that if you just follow what i did you'll be as as I am good as I am successful

SPEAKER_00: 47:04

paternalistic and that's our whole that's where we're why we are where we are and that's why we have people who aren't mechanics yelling about you know that's an alternator and as an educator the most frustrating thing is people want it until they don't and I say okay well I'm an educator with my experiences I'm sharing with you and it's like if the mechanic were to tell you you need a new alternator Colin would you stand there and scream at him and say to him it's the transmission but this is what the whole society, nobody wants to make the coffee. Nobody wants to make the hamburger, but they'll be willing to stand there and criticize the hamburger or the guy who's trying to make it.

SPEAKER_01: 47:42

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 47:42

Yeah. And I find that, I find that stuff. That's the thing I'm sort of trying to at least say that's going on. It's like, no, no, no, we have people, everything's here. And then again, we get an arrogant culture who doesn't know that they're arrogant. It's a fish in water. And, you know, I talk about that in the podcast, but back to your experiences, because as you know, that's, this is where flying, I mean, I imagine you had a lot of great conversations with other people you were flying with, right?

SPEAKER_01: 48:06

Well, that's the beauty of it. I mean, you're always flying with a different guy. You never, I mean, you've once in a blue moon, you'd fly with the same guy, but the conversation, Conversations and the people you meet, because although we're doing the same job, we've all had a different journey to get there. Yeah, there's good guys and bad guys like in any job. And not that they're good or bad. It's that they're like-minded or interesting to talk to or have good stories. The funny thing is we had a saying, I'd rather be on a lousy layover with a good guy than a good layover with a lousy guy. The personalities are really what makes the job fun. The guys you're working with. And, you know, think about it. These are conversations you're having when you're almost at your lowest point on your circadian clock. It's three o'clock in the morning. You can barely keep your eyes open, but you're having this conversation. interesting conversation that kind of keeps you involved and awake. And then those are the guys that you remember. You know, if there's 5,000 pilots, you fly with them over the course of your career. You might fly with, I don't know, maybe 1,000. I don't know if that's a realistic number. And of that 1,000, if you remembered 50 from the layovers you did together, I think that speaks volumes to the kind of person that you were flying with and how well you got along.

SPEAKER_00: 49:29

Yeah, absolutely. And the circadian rhythm, especially when you're traveling. Wow. And when stresses are high, absolutely. Personalities, in my own research, personalities is a big thing in any industry. How people, yeah, are they a quote unquote company person? Are they a personable person? Yeah, it dictates so much. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 49:50

And we do training in that. They call it cockpit resource management. And you learn about your own weaknesses and strengths and you can identify those in other people. And you learn pathways to overcome them, ways to interact that you get the job done efficiently without, say, demeaning somebody because they did the wrong thing in a critical situation, that sort of thing. So we get trained in that, which is priceless.

SPEAKER_00: 50:16

Well, that is priceless. That should be in any personnel man Yeah, knowing yourself is an important part of how to deal with other people.

SPEAKER_01: 50:41

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 50:48

Yeah, especially in those scenarios, right? So when you go back to that, like some of those conversations, do you think when you're looking out the window, do you think a lot of conversations were sparked by what you were looking at out the window? Or I guess it all depends, but... You

SPEAKER_01: 51:02

know, it's funny. It's almost like you have a standard rapport when you first meet each other. So do you have kids? Where do you live? That sort of stuff. And some of those sort of standard set of questions, you either get a conversation going or you don't. And if you don't get a conversation going, you probably won't get one going for the rest of the night. But if your other, the counterpart to this conversation recognizes that you're just trying to break the ice and have a conversation and they open up and you start talking about stuff, that's when the ball gets rolling. Rarely, usually we say, if you're looking out the window, if you're staring out the window into space, you don't want to be bothered. It's like body language for the other guys saying, leave me alone. I don't like you or I'm not interested in talking to you.

SPEAKER_00: 51:52

And again, there's just a random question in my head. So you're just on a constant rotation. There's no consistency sort of in crew or anything like that?

SPEAKER_01: 52:00

No, what happens, Jamie, is because it's a seniority system, we have a bidding system every month for whatever flying is available. And the first, the most senior guy gets what he wants. And then all the way down to the bottom guy who gets nothing he wants. And I might like layovers in Santiago and somebody else likes layovers in Hawaii. I might not get all the Santiago layovers. I might just get two and then I get some in London or something. And so that mixture of destinations works in all the seats, whether you're the captain, the first officer, or the relief pilot, and all those kind of jumbles. Sometimes you'll fly. Like if I really like Santiago and I'm the number one guy and the number two, the number one captain also likes Santiago, then the two of us could fly together the whole month. I never had that. To me, that would be boring. Mm-hmm. Because if you're sitting in an airplane with a guy for 16 hours each way, there's not a lot to talk about on Tuesday when you go back to work and do the 16 hours again. So it's nice to have that variety.

SPEAKER_00: 53:08

Yeah. That's hilarious. I guess commercial airliners have different fleets, right? So whatever plane you're flying has a max distance. And so within the pool of wherever that plane can go, that's how that works?

SPEAKER_01: 53:25

So they buy airplanes for specific purposes. On the domestic stuff, they buy the smaller airplanes that do the North American flying. And that has a network of destinations that anybody on that airplane goes to one of those destinations. The international airplanes, the same thing applies. They buy a 787 to fly to Hong Kong. And those flights are like, they're so long, they can't just have one 787. They actually have to buy three. And then the third one doesn't. So the reason they have three is two of them are actually passing in the air. Another one's got to be ready to go. So it doesn't actually fly the full amount of time. in a month. So they have to juggle their schedule to utilize them. And so they'll mix long trips with short trips. So the 787, for example, would do long trips to Asia someplace, but it would also do short hops to Europe. It'd do long trips to South America and short hops to like LA because LA at that time had a lot more traffic. And so this was a way to send one airplane down with 300 people on it, as opposed to three airplanes down with a hundred people on it. So they buy airplanes with destinations in mind. And with, you know, in the current situation with the change in the status of trans-border stuff, they'd be rerouting those and trying to open up other markets that were within the range of our transcontinental and our domestic airplanes. So instead of flying to LA, they might fly to Mexico or Central America. So, and then when you're on that airplane, you don't switch airplanes. You stay on one airplane and that's your network. And then of course there's a sea So that the destinations that that airplane flies in the winter aren't normally the same destinations they fly in the summer. I see. And that's how the network works.

SPEAKER_00: 55:19

And so those are the things I think behind the scenes that most people would just never think of. And I mean, I, as a question asker and when I see pilots going by, you know, it's, it's just interesting for me to see. I love that show, how it's made growing up. And it's like, you know, just, and again, I sit there and I'm like, who are, you know, how did this all there's the world is really fascinating to me. And like going back to what I said about technology and flight and, you know, a hundred years later, the amount of people who are now flying, it's, it's pretty nuts. And you, you mentioned land at LA or whatever what is sort of the you know when you're when you're an airline pilot like that and you're flying all over the world are there some remarkable airports or places that you liked flying into regularly or hated flying into

SPEAKER_01: 56:02

well The famous one, of course, is the Hong Kong approach in the old days. And you'd fly down in it. I can't remember the altitudes anymore. It's been a long time.

SPEAKER_00: 56:14

Well, I did land it. You know, I stuck it a few times in a 747, I think, on Microsoft Flight Simulator. But this interview is not about me. It's not about me. Yeah, go ahead. That was

SPEAKER_01: 56:27

really neat because, you know, at low altitude, you'd be carving it around at 90 degrees to land on the runway. And you'd swear you were going right between the apartment buildings. And there used to be a little old lady in her apartment, and she'd take a picture of every airplane that came in. And then by the time you got down to the hotel, you could go to this little variety store and buy a picture of your landing, an 8x10 color glossy picture

SPEAKER_00: 56:53

of your airplane. No way! It's like going on the ride at Canada. of this wonderland yeah exactly

SPEAKER_01: 56:58

my goodness you would prove it was you flying that airplane i don't know and i i don't know why it would be nice to have now but i never did because i flew in there in a couple of different airlines and it would be nice to have the three

SPEAKER_00: 57:09

different and torn and it's like yeah it's definitely not me but i'm still gonna pay you for the effort yeah

SPEAKER_01: 57:15

yeah it was it was uh a neat opportunity that i should have taken up but and then bogota was always a challenge too because it's such a high altitude airport that that there were always challenges, that if you went in and had to do a missed approach, it was a challenging time. And there was always... Yeah, there was challenges. It

SPEAKER_00: 57:35

never happened. Like the air, or are you talking about the actual position of the runway?

SPEAKER_01: 57:40

No, the density altitude is what we call it. It's the temperature and the altitude all combined to create what's called density altitude, and the higher and hotter it is, the poorer the performance of the airplane. So at the point where you'd have to decide, no, we can't make this landing, we have to go around, it becomes more challenging because you have less performance out of the airplane and you're in the mountains, so you have to be... careful with your navigation it just made it challenging so those sorts of things when you're going into Hong Kong you've been in the air for 16 hours yeah you're not as enthralled with the idea of making this a challenging approach you'd rather just keep it simple in Bogota it was only a six

SPEAKER_00: 58:18

hour flight so it was kind of fun you look good for your picture too there and you know after 16 hours you get your makeup done that's what

SPEAKER_01: 58:25

hats are for you just stick that on your head and your hair looks good

SPEAKER_00: 58:29

yeah exactly right yeah that's too funny With that, like with passengers in that old airport, would you give them a heads up that, oh, this is like a, you know, I mean, was there ever an airport that you would just be like, hey, this one is, you know, I guess you don't like ever say this is a tough airport. No,

SPEAKER_01: 58:45

no, I think we just do it. Yeah. I don't remember ever saying anything about that. Yeah. We stick to the, it's bumpy or it's rainy, but telling people it's a challenging approach. Just, you gotta be, some people are uber scared. And so you really have to be careful about what you do. say you really got to be a bit of a diplomat and almost hold people's hands like you were saying earlier

SPEAKER_00: 59:09

well there I've been on a lot of flights too right where the cat and again the captain coming out and just saying hi to people and maybe speak to that just about the confidence and meeting people in the dip being the diplomat like so what you know what are some of the things that you maybe are trained or that you like to do as a pilot or you know in those scenarios when you're meeting people or do you have ever have people who wanted to meet you just to because they want to tell you their scared of flying.

SPEAKER_01: 59:34

Oh, absolutely. I used to do some work in the simulator with a few people. There was a program that the airline ran for people that had a fear of flying. And so what they would do, and these would be people with high mileage people that needed to fly. There was no ifs, ands, or buts for their job. They had to fly and they were terrified. So they would take those people and run them through a simulator program. And so I would run the simulator with them and basically teach them how to fly the airplane. And then do things like kill the engines so that they know that the airplane doesn't fall out of the sky. It can glide. And then show them what we're doing up front. Because it's a very different perspective, of course, in the front of the airplane than it is in the back. And a lot of these people are executives. And I think that's part of the increase in disruptive passengers is executives are not the type of people that are used to giving authority to other people, having other people make decisions. So they're sitting in the back as captive audience. and have no power over what's happening in the front. And so when they don't like something, they speak up. And we, on the other hand, are the opposite. Well, we're the same, really. We're sitting in the front. Don't question my authority. I've got the experience to make the decision and you're along for the ride. So in those situations, we had people that wanted to see the cockpit. In the old days, it was great. You'd have people up in the In fact, I'm thinking of one woman in particular. At the end of the course, she was really happy. And what they would do is they would then send them on a flight in the jump seat. Because in those days, you could do that. And when you give people an education, you know, if you're afraid of flying, try taking a flying lesson. Because sometimes those things, you can do a familiarization flight relatively cheaply. And those situations teach you a bit about the airplane and what there is to fear and what there isn't to fear. Some people are afraid of everything, but some people are calmed by the fact that they know how an airplane works.

SPEAKER_00: 1:02:09

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Well, and it is a foreign thing. And I think a lot of people and we've become through culture, you know, when I first, the first time I ever flew, well, I went in a smaller plane, but commercially, I was 15 on an exchange to France, you know, and even in 2003, it was very different. And it was an Airbus that I was on, I remember it. a lot of the plane clapped when we landed and then I remember the attitude changing sort of like people being like oh look at all these losers clapping right and I mean if you've never flown before and if you really respect the idea of what's happening it's pretty miraculous in a lot of ways that something you know can take off and fight gravity and float through the air at such a size when you're looking at the tonnage of these planes you know and as an airplane aficionado lover like watching Boeing planes do you know when they're on and they're at air shows and seeing what they're actually capable of doing, right? Yeah. And when you talk about that, I saw another video and a pilot goes, you know, just the way, or it could have been you actually, one barbecue or something. Honestly, honestly. And you tell me if it was talking about how like people are scared of flying, but actually, you know, turbulence as a phenomenon is much just like, you know, going over bumps in your car. We don't get scared of bumps, right? Yeah, or

SPEAKER_01: 1:03:28

waves on the water. It's exactly the same. the same it's just you can't see them

SPEAKER_00: 1:03:32

yeah and so when you think about like maybe a lot of the and again we it's like Jaws right they're just a great documentary on the 50th anniversary of Jaws and again a movie based on you know this idea of a shark it literally led to people being terrified of sharks and killing sharks and we look at movies like well recently Flight with Denzel Washington you're wearing a flight hat one of my favorite movies I wanted to be a bush pilot forever and the movie The Edge Anthony Hopkins. And in a lot of ways, it's always like this crazy survival thing or the miracle on the Hudson with Sully. And it's always these remarkable stories. But when you talk about statistics, you know, everyone says, well, you're actually statistically safer flying hundreds of thousands of flights every day, thousands, hundreds of thousands of people. What do you think the biggest fear is that people have shared? You think it's turbulence or... I don't know if anybody's ever mentioned,

SPEAKER_01: 1:04:27

I don't know if anybody's ever mentioned a specific fear. I have a feeling that they're just afraid in general. Yeah. Afraid of flying. I could crash on landing, could crash and take, I could hit another airplane. There's, I think people that are afraid or find a reason to be afraid of everything, you know, they see these movies and so on and they. The huge lack of control. Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 1:04:51

And that says, yeah, it's so strictly monitored. And that's one of the things, too. I remember learning about flying when I was a teenager and learning about the Gimli glider, which was, you know, the plane when they switched from metric or imperial to metric and they didn't have enough fuel for those who don't know. And the pilot flew it into space. an old closed down air force base i think that was being used that day for a drag race like a uh you know a car race and it became this epic he got i think they got fired because they didn't do the calculations properly but they tried to rerun it in simulations and i don't know if it's like an old or a myth or whatever but nobody else could really stick it you know how far he was able to do and sort of the magic of all that and maybe this is a great question in the advent of ai when people say oh these airlines or these pilots or these planes will fly themselves you know what you think of the future of aviation? I

SPEAKER_01: 1:05:45

don't think anybody sitting in the back is ever going to be comfortable with a computer sly on the airplane. I mean, there's too many things that go wrong with airplanes or cars or boats that weren't supposed to go wrong and had it not been for somebody that can think and reason saving the day there'd have been tragedy so I don't think I could see maybe they'll go to one pilot but even then one pilot can't do long bomb flights and stay awake so

SPEAKER_00: 1:06:18

second set of ears second set of eyes second set of reason you go back and there is always human error but human error is probably that's what you always hear about unfortunately you know and you watch documentaries yeah

SPEAKER_01: 1:06:30

and in most cases they'll say human error but there's never just one cause to an accident there's that swiss cheese model and it has to be more than one thing lines up for there to be an accident human error will be a factor perhaps but it won't be the only factor and so no matter how much you rely on the technology I don't think people will ever be comfortable getting on an airplane to fly across the ocean with with a computer in charge

SPEAKER_00: 1:07:02

and isn't that so funny you go back to the CEOs and these people who are used to being in control and that's sort of our society and that's I think when it would be interesting to say what is a fear of flying I think it's probably the complete lack of control or you know whereas people perceive control that's it's just an interesting thing philosophically to think about and and as you say being in the front is different so what would you say like what changes for those people having done a similar or a flight in the jump seat? What changes their perspective about it? I

SPEAKER_01: 1:07:34

think, well, it's probably different for everybody, but I think it's just fear comes from the unknown. And I think when... Yeah. And I think everybody that has a successful flight, for example, in the simulator now thinks whether they're right or not, they think they can do it. comfortable sitting in the back knowing that the guy in the front has all these backup systems uh that the airplane won't just fall out of

SPEAKER_00: 1:08:20

the sky and all those seeing the systems of protection layers of protection that are doing we're not just turning this baby on and flying to hong kong

SPEAKER_01: 1:08:29

right

SPEAKER_00: 1:08:30

right right maybe yeah that's that's cool because again even for me to i'm just trying to think because i i mean i've always wanted to be a pilot and i always thought you know i got to go up i've most of the flying i've done commercial i've been up in a in uh the the bell uh griffin when i was in the yeah the yeah it was pretty cool and they took us just over like uh we were in val cartier and it was so cool being so low to the ground yeah and he took us on some of these corners you know it was just like what it wasn't a huey but that was you know the idea of growing up watching vietnam movies and it was just you know these guys flying in and out and just mad respect for those guys who flew in vietnam and uh i do remember you telling me actually I think it might have been our wedding shower and I asked you about if you'd ever flown or had any desire to fly a helicopter. You said they're so ugly they repelled from the earth or something. No, actually. It's like being on a beach ball in a pool.

SPEAKER_01: 1:09:26

Yeah, that's what they say. But that was what I wanted to do before I wanted to be an airline pilot.

SPEAKER_00: 1:09:32

You wanted to fly choppers.

SPEAKER_01: 1:09:34

Yeah, that was my goal. Yeah. And there was a, there was at that time, I don't know if they still are, a Canada or college in North Bay had a helicopter pilots training school and applied to get in there. And again, that was one of those forks in the road where I didn't get into that and I got into something else.

SPEAKER_00: 1:09:51

And when you were flying, what was the best time? Do you think flying at night? When you're flying around the world and all the places you've been, when you're flying over somewhere, is there a favorite place that you loved every time to look down on? Greenland. Greenland. Oh, wow.

SPEAKER_01: 1:10:09

It's just... Gorgeous. It's unspoiled. It's a beautiful snow-covered mountains, icebergs often, depending on the season, off the shore. It's just beautiful. And the mountains are so high, you feel like you can touch them. Really? So it's a spectacular, unspoiled country.

SPEAKER_00: 1:10:29

And I don't know this, but while I flew over, I believe Nunavut, when I flew to Beijing, and I remember looking just because I always ask for the window seat because I'm the guy who won't sleep because I would love to look out the windows. Yeah, yeah. And I remember thinking that too. I took pictures with my crappy old cell phone. It was 2014, but I don't know. But

SPEAKER_01: 1:10:48

they were so high up and it was so vast an area, you always felt like you could almost touch them.

SPEAKER_00: 1:10:55

Yeah, but bigger than the Rockies, right?

SPEAKER_01: 1:10:58

Yeah, well, the Rockies, you kind of pass over them fairly quickly, but Greenland seems to last longer. And if you look at any pilot's cell phone and he's flying the Atlantic, guaranteed there'll be a picture of Greenland on there somewhere. Oh, yeah? Yeah, it's spectacular.

SPEAKER_00: 1:11:15

So on your flights, is there a particular time of day you'd fly over? Is it the Well,

SPEAKER_01: 1:11:20

when you're going east to Europe, you're usually flying at night and coming west and you're flying during the day. So you would only see it during the day. And then you have to be far enough north that you would see it. So depending on the winds, so everything's planned on the least time. So that saves you the most, that's the most fuel efficient route. And if the least time track takes you over Greenland and it's sunny, because it's you never know on the Atlantic. Rolling the dice. Right. So when those things align, it's a, it's a spectacular treat to see that. That's so cool. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 1:11:54

Uh, so at nighttime too, like I, I, I love documentaries and people, people are coming out of there. They're, they're forgoing their pension here. Colin, are you going to break the, uh, are you going to say you've seen a UFO? No, no, I've got no story. Sorry. You're not going to tell us anyway. Not today. In

SPEAKER_01: 1:12:11

the old days, they'd put you in a rubber room, but, No, I never saw one. The nicest thing I ever saw was lots of shooting stars and the Northern Lights are the best thing. I mean, I've seen the Northern Lights that you just can't capture that stuff on film, what we say.

SPEAKER_00: 1:12:29

And favorite place that you've been in all of your travels? I know you mentioned Bogota. I think you said Nairobi earlier and I don't know if that was because they were a favorite place or...

SPEAKER_01: 1:12:40

No, no. I think Cape Town is probably the best place I've ever been I love Cape Town and that's in private travels as well yeah just yeah I like that part of the world and sometimes layovers are dependent on who you're with too so as I said before a good layover with a lousy guy or a lousy layover with a good guy affects your impression of the place and a good layover with a good guy is the pinnacle and yeah well it's it's Cape Town is one of those places.

SPEAKER_00: 1:13:11

What about just words of wisdom if there were people or anybody who wanted to go pursue flight maybe I don't know I know it's not just a hobby most people can go pick up these days but maybe people who are in a position to do that or young people especially if they're thinking you'd like to be a pilot what would you say to a young person maybe approaching the end of high school or what would you tell them? Well I'd tell them the different

SPEAKER_01: 1:13:38

avenues I'd tell them about the military if that's their cup of tea because that takes a special person to be able to do that because it's a long commitment that's the problem with the military is you don't get in in two years out you're you've got a pilot's license you're in there

SPEAKER_00: 1:13:51

for 25 years

SPEAKER_01: 1:13:53

yeah it's a long commitment and then the college avenue is certainly a good route And then you can do it privately. And the options now are different than when I went through. You can go to university and get a degree. When you get on with one of the major airlines in Canada, you either need a university degree or an aviation degree from one of the flying colleges. So if, for example, you didn't get into a flying college, then you can go and get a university degree in a subject you like, which has an advantage of having a fallback plan if things don't work out. Yep. It's always good. Plan B. And then it's an expensive route, but then you can fly anywhere. if you're flying privately after that. So you'd probably have a job after a university degree. Perhaps it would allow you to pursue flying. But again, that's going to be a long trek. I mean, if you've got big pockets, you could go to university and fly on the side. But that's a personal means question.

SPEAKER_00: 1:14:58

Yeah, that's right. Yeah, that's right.

SPEAKER_01: 1:15:01

So those are the, I mean, I've been out of this kind of thing for a long time. You know that my daughter flies now. So she went to university. She wanted to be a pilot out of college or out of high school. And we discouraged her thinking she wanted to do it for the wrong reasons. And she went and got a university degree and then traveled and then decided she still wanted to be a pilot. And so she'd already checked the box of having the degree. So she spent the money and got her license privately and then started flying in the bush and that sort of stuff and eventually got on with an airline. So that's just one way there's so many different ways of doing it that it's hard to create a cookie cutter

SPEAKER_00: 1:15:42

method of doing it. When I was living in Germany doing my master's I literally went to a career convention because just north of Bremen there's a name of Bremerhaven is what I'm thinking is where they build the air buses and so we went there and I went to a career expo for Lufthansa and they had a program so at 25 I looked at because because I'd left the military college, but I still wanted to be a pilot. But again, financially, it wasn't reasonable. So Lufthansa has a program all the way. They'll send you, obviously you apply and there's a selection process, but then they have a flight school, I believe in Utah or Arizona, one of the two. And they'll, they do your whole flight training. They start you and you work all the way up. But again, it's more like the military where you have a commitment, you know. And they

SPEAKER_01: 1:16:31

trained that school and the Lufthansa school is famous because they trained all the, Swiss Air pilots and a lot of the Dutch pilots as well and they basically take you out of high school after the screening process and they put you through and the guys that I flew with had Hardly any experience at all, but they had a guaranteed job when they got out and a long career ahead of them. And so they're a bit of a liability in the beginning because they have so little experience, whereas in North America, you don't get those jobs without having a few miles under your belt. But great opportunity because flyings, they don't have the general aviation industry over there that we have here. And so it's harder to get your license.

SPEAKER_00: 1:17:18

If you don't know you're in danger Colin are you in danger right yeah danger is my middle name so I feel pretty confident you know as we head towards the end of our interview that I probably could fly the same planes as you

SPEAKER_01: 1:17:35

you probably could they're all push button now

SPEAKER_00: 1:17:38

the

SPEAKER_01: 1:17:41

systems on airplanes now have changed so much that you're now more of a manager a systems manager than you are a pilot there's a lot less emphasis put on good hands and feet for the flying ability and a lot more put on systems management and using the systems that are automated on the airplane to get you out of or into situations whereas in the old days it was like fly the airplane get it all under control and then engage the automatic systems so it's just been an evolution over the years but that's I mean that's 50 years ago

SPEAKER_00: 1:18:17

well and that's like even now with cars and vehicles with these you know they're not self-driving but like lane guidance and adaptive cruise control right those you know and people resist those things and ultimately there are things that come and go and take time and that's that's but that's the way of all of our history right if we didn't nobody would be flying if nobody took risks or you know did any of these things or develop these systems right but do you ever fly do you do you ever do any private piloting or no I got out at the top of my game Jamie Some

SPEAKER_01: 1:18:50

guys stay in the game too long.

SPEAKER_00: 1:18:52

It's like Kenny Powers, right? He just goes back to his town. He was a major league baseball. It's a ridiculous TV show. He turns around and tells his small, a very small American town, FU, and he throws 90 mile an hour fastballs and he gets all the way to the majors, but he parties his way out and he goes back home and he still thinks he's in the majors, but everyone's like, okay, Kenny Powers. And he ends up becoming the phys ed teacher at the local high school. Oh, yeah, yeah. You would love it. I haven't seen it. Oh, eastbound and down. It's, it's, it's pretty vulgar, but I'm telling you it's, it's so ridiculous. So you're, you're basically, I'm saying is your Kenny powers. You're going out on the top of your game.

SPEAKER_01: 1:19:30

Yeah. Well, you know, it's an expensive hobby and I've, I don't like to just, first of all, I'm not big on aerobatics. It's not my thing. And, and those little airplanes don't go very far. So I'm more interested in if I've got a hundred bucks to spend, I'd rather spend it buying a ticket to go to across the world. It's not a hundred bucks, obviously, but then I would to fly a little airplane. So you choose where you spend your money and mine is in traveling as opposed to fly an airplane, little airplanes.

SPEAKER_00: 1:20:01

No, that makes sense. And to do it that way, that's why it's so tough these days, right? So, hey, I had a question too. Because I drive past Buttonville enough, and when I went up in a couple flights at Gravenhurst, who, without Buttonville, who's now running, oh, I guess, who runs their traffic control for Gravenhurst? Would it be the island? Does the island have its own thing? Timmins,

SPEAKER_01: 1:20:23

I think. Timmins? Timmins has a flight service station that I, the last time I flew into Muskoka, it was the Timmins flight service that you talked to. I believe it's the same. Again, I don't keep up on that sort of stuff.

SPEAKER_00: 1:20:35

Yeah, yeah, yeah. But I was just curious. Yeah. That was just something I knew. Yeah. And so any upcoming trips that you're planning? Is there anywhere that you've never been? Oh, I was going to say like Antarctica again. There's no reason to ever fly near there, right? Are there any flight paths?

SPEAKER_01: 1:20:50

No, not in this part of the world. Maybe there's some other airlines, but no, that would definitely be at the top of my list. The problem is it's becoming more and more touristy. And as you know, because you've traveled as much as I have, that as soon as a place is touristy, it's being spoiled. I like a place that isn't on the tour. radar yet. And so it's, you go to a country and you try and find something that nobody else has discovered. And for me, I'm a firm believer that I would rather see a few things well than a lot of things not so well. So when I get to a, we're going to, I'm going to India with my daughter for a month in the new year and it's a huge country and we're trying to decide where we're going to go. And we've sort of said, okay, let's pick two places and we'll spend those two, we'll spend our time in those two places so that we get a chance to get out and talk to people and see what it's really like rather than just do the touristy things.

SPEAKER_00: 1:21:47

So that's a bit more authentic, right? Like that's it is like, I mean, I do enjoy going to Cuba, but I like to get to know the people. But again, it feels like more censored in the idea of getting off the resort or off the beaten path is always something special for me, too, because you're, you know, you're like me. I think you want to meet the people and actually, you know, I'm not here to watch a movie. I'm here to, you know, try the food or to learn something and to bring something back that has changed me. Right. And that's also what a privilege that in my, I mean, I haven't probably been to as many places, but what I say is for my age, traveling has been, I was inspired by a high school teacher, Mr. Stratton in grade 11. He had been to over 130 countries, I want to say. And I've been to, I think 32 or 33 when I last counted. That's impressive still. Well, it is very impressive, you know, and then you start getting to the point where you're like, what a privilege to even be counting countries you visited. And

SPEAKER_01: 1:22:45

I think, I think you get caught up when you first start traveling in counting the stamps in your passport. And as you mature, and I know you're, you've done this kind of traveling as you mature. I'm very

SPEAKER_00: 1:22:56

mature, Colin. Thank you. Thank you, Colin. I'm very, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 1:23:00

But the more you travel, the more you want to just see a country, you don't care about the number of them anymore. You just want to see a country and travel around it, spend a month in a country and get to know the people and so on. And then you get, you get to see the country when they let their hair down. In other words, You see the, you're not looking at the Taj Mahal in India where everybody there is a tourist and everybody there is trying to get your money. And you're seeing the backwoods of Bangalore and you're, and a family comes up to you and says, you must come back to my house and stay with me tonight. And those are the experiences that I crave when I go away is the people and the generosity of the country and saying, they just want to talk to me and they want to get to know me. And that's when we have the interaction that makes

SPEAKER_00: 1:23:45

the trip special. And see that as generosity too and just as an aside here is Colin's the kind of guy who pulls up next to a camper after seeing Dutch license plates on it and invites them back to his house to camp that's a true story so he that's the karma he gets out what he gives he invites people over to Bracebridge to hang out at a stop sign

SPEAKER_01: 1:24:07

you have to look for opportunities to pay back what people have done for you because that's what makes your trip special you know you hope that after you've done something like that the people's impression of both Canada and their experience in Muskoka is one that they won't forget and because that's what so many people in my life have done when we travel that we remember those people they may not remember us but we sure remember them

SPEAKER_00: 1:24:31

and that's it like Shreve when I was in Morocco you know and his name isn't even Shreve and that's what our you know our guide was telling me he's like oh I said I was trying to know the name the driver's name and he goes oh his name's Shreve and Shreve means boss or something and you know to this day I still remember Shreve with the big mustache and those are the things like I was lost in a Paris train station and I'm like I don't know where to go and there's a guy with a briefcase who just takes a moment to walk me all the way to my gate I was there 17 by myself you know and I look back I'm like man what was I doing at 17 by myself in Paris I saved up and I knew I was going to the military so I worked at Rogers and I saved my pennies I paid$739.05 to get on an air transit flight and I talked to my teachers I did my work in advance and I took the month of May of grade 12. And I went to Paris and went on a motor home trip. That reminds me of my wife and

SPEAKER_01: 1:25:25

I, when we were dating, she was going on a trip to England and leaving me alone. And I had 2,500 bucks burning a hole in my pocket. And I said, fine, you go to England, but I'm going to Europe. I'm taking a backpack. And if you want to come with me, you can. And she said, okay, I will. So we went to Europe in 1983, the fall of 1983. And we We were just going to stay until we ran out of money. And we ran out of money in February, but we travel all over Europe and I didn't know anything. I got over there with my backpack. I think it lasted a week and then it collapsed. And then, you know, you're walking around with a garbage bag over your shoulder with your clothes in it until you're going to find a cheap backpack to replace it. But that set

SPEAKER_00: 1:26:10

the scene for us. Yeah, that's what I'm saying is like the vagabonding is like, and again, on those hot days when you're going back to even like even as a pilot and all of your seasoned, you know, the testing of that, you still have on those hard, tired days, you still have those tests. But again, in all of the travels, it's usually the hardships or those moments where you're like you overcome and you look back and you're like, wow, that's and that is the what people you could call it trauma, but it's hardship. I almost missed a flight from Barcelona to Marrakesh. And in the moment, I wanted to just murder my buddy because he misread the ticket. And we're out in Barcelona. And I look at the email again and he had said the flight was at four or something whatever it was a one it was off by a couple hours neither of us spoke Spanish and it was like 400 degrees and got the backpacks had to go back from what way but and we're the last two on the plane and we just made it you know and then we landed and then it was just like ha ha ha and an hour later from Barcelona or whatever you're in Marrakesh on this bus and this was after 9-11 too and you know the music's different there's people outside and And going through the culture shock and just sitting there with the music and the people. And it's like, I came here. You know, I'm here now. And the captain's like, it's and it was like eight or eight o'clock at night. It was 47 degrees Celsius. I remember it. He goes, it's 47. And I went outside and like these guys start coming up. And I mean, like everything on the news from grade nine to university and going to the military. And then all of a sudden I'm in an Arabic country. And then just realizing all of those experiences that just, you know, when you're honest about it and you own your own biases, too, and you allow that, like what a privilege. And then again, that's like what you say I try to come back and pay it forward and that's the privilege of that and that's also with Canadian Grit not everybody's had those chances but we also have an opportunity today more than ever to access information and to go places virtually and to learn and that's where I say is like man what a missed opportunity to not use the resources we have efficiently to improve our lives like even if it's flight if it's whatever because you know in two minutes here one of my last questions I had for you is like if the world stopped and listened to you You know, as a retired pilot, as a human being, what are, you know, what are the transferable skills after a life in the aviation industry that you think that could be transferable to anybody? What have you learned about a life in that industry? I mean, you've basically said that it's been tough and you got to be adaptable.

SPEAKER_01: 1:28:41

I think those are the negative things, like being tough and adaptable. I think the things I've learned in my time is compassion and forgiveness. You know, you work with people that they don't agree with you or messengers that have had, you know, they'll be going through challenges and you don't know what they're going through, but you understand that they're going through something and you have to just be a human being instead of always uh wearing your official hat and saying no this is not allowed or just being reasonable yeah just just being putting yourself in other people's shoes

SPEAKER_00: 1:29:15

and treating them the way you'd like to be treated that's it i wish more people would do that that's i love that i love that i mean it's noble

SPEAKER_01: 1:29:22

to say it it's one thing to do it though it's another thing to do it though and i think that's looking back at it philosophically i can say yeah i think i i tried to do that as much as i could but there's certainly times when perhaps i could have done it and i didn't and I think if we just are aware I think we get yeah exactly well that's at least you'll probably try to do it more often than not

SPEAKER_00: 1:29:44

well that's the work right and that's part of our personality and again knowing yourself as it goes back to yourself and that's what I say to kids and today it's like sitting and watching Netflix just as a last philosophical thing we're inundated right there's sometimes 30 minutes to pick a show you know if I found even if you ask people these days what's your favorite color and they go well what do you want it to be because they're so worried about you know and they don't know and it's like well if you don't know your own favorite color if you don't stand for something you'll fall for anything and I think that's also where we're at these days too yeah again where I come to is some people are say so misdirected arrogant or misinformed that they're willing to say I'm not going to follow science on this say I don't know just say a mask or vaccine but then they will go get on an airplane or they'll drive their car and I say well well explained to me, the mechanics or physics of flight. Right. And you can't tell me about the Rolls-Royce engine and how a jet engine was, you know, and if you don't like those group of people, well, actually rocket scientists were people who were persecuted and actually went from Germany and established the NASA rocket program. And a lot of those people actually came from the Avro program that was canceled, you know, and they went to NASA because Canadians wouldn't pay for them. So, you know, it's easy to say, but life isn't just cut and dried and I think that's the problem with the internet and influencers like you say they just show you oh you're going to be jacked and it's like no you got to lift the weights you got to rip the muscles to do the work right show up if it was easy everybody would do it

SPEAKER_01: 1:31:18

right

SPEAKER_00: 1:31:19

right and finding the grit and again I think the passion that you've shown that too and as a human and I think the title of the episode was was apt because in all of that again you know you just say I fly planes but it's like no no no if that were the case computers could do it like you said right there's just so many there's so many factors there right that's it's interesting so yeah well hey I I really appreciate you taking time to share some of your experiences because it's just nice that you take the time and even would want to sit down, excuse me, and share that. It's really nice on Labor Day weekend.

SPEAKER_01: 1:31:54

Well, thanks, Jamie. You made it a pleasure. It's like a walk down memory lane sometimes and it's certainly my pleasure if there's anybody interested in this sort of thing that I can provide any guidance or help.

SPEAKER_00: 1:32:06

Well, that's a big thing that I'm trying to do is just this networking and it's like you never know because even as a teacher or an educator I'd have kids who say I want to be an architect and I'm like oh I have a friend who and then I think people think I'm full of maybe full of it and I'm like no no no in my travels and see being like this and being open to other people they do become friends I have a friend named Joey who owns a resort in Tanzania you know I do have friends who own a resort on a tell me about Joey I want to go Yeah, oh, Joey owns Honey Badger Lodge just outside of Arusha in Tanzania. Okay, I'm going to call you about that. It's right at the foothills of Mount Kilimanjaro. Perfect. And again, he owns his own whole safari company. We went out to Tarangire and to the Serengeti and then also to the Ngorongoro Crater. And it was like a six-day thing. But he's also very LinkedIn. So his wife is from England. She's a white lady. from England and they run that together but she also does a ton of work through England to support locally Tanzanians and the youth and we also stayed with a guy named I have a shirt Tom who's out in Pangani on the Indian Ocean and we stayed at his resort and so he comes from Switzerland and he flies back and forth all the time but he grew up in Switzerland and one of his parents was from Tanzania and here's just a quick anecdote about being nice to people our our school program went there year, year, year after year. And, you know, I, I just went there and he was, he gave me a free t-shirt and there was a big Marlin on the back. I said, man, he goes, yeah, we do deep sea fishing. And I said, oh man, what, that would be a dream. And I was there teaching. I was there for professional reasons. He had no reason. And then the one day I had free time and he saw me sitting there and he goes, what are you doing? And I go, nothing. And he goes, let's go out in the boat. And he takes us out of this great big boat. It had like two or three motors on it, deep sea fishing. we went by all these like all these grouper and anyways I went fishing deep sea fishing on the Indian Ocean because this guy Tom I sat there at the bar and asked him about his life you know and then I get out there we get one fish and the guy Pat who I was teaching with he's a duster I'm going to call him out on it he lives in Kingston Ontario he sat down in the chair and he stole my barracuda fish he had nothing to do with organizing the trip and it was like as soon as the rod hit Pat sits down and you know just like in the movies the big seat on the back he sits in the chair takes the rod and I'm just staring at him like you just stole my fish and he goes what are you going to do about it

SPEAKER_01: 1:34:42

that's good well we hosted a kid for three months from Tanzania stayed with us and I've

SPEAKER_00: 1:34:48

always wondered if you go back and I'm available I would go with you in a heartbeat well we're thinking November it changed my life well let's go let's go okay okay I got a new I got an infant he's in yeah right you just get him started

SPEAKER_01: 1:35:01

with the needles now right yeah exactly yeah well it's actually on my short list to go in November for some time. I loved the country when I laid over there. We used to lay over at Dar es Salaam. Is that right? I loved Dar es Salaam. I want

SPEAKER_00: 1:35:20

my wife to see it. The people, the food, everything about it, like fresh, the coffee, the people. It was just something really miraculous. You have to get yourself some instant coffee. The Afrikafe is what got me through. We were in this little village in the mountains. I can't think of the name of it. It'll come back to me. And drinking this Afrikafe, and it was just like this boiling hot water with, you know, it's like Folgers instant coffee, but AfriCafe. Perfect.

SPEAKER_01: 1:35:48

I'll be picking your brain about that for sure.

SPEAKER_00: 1:35:50

Yeah, yeah. Well, let's talk again. And again, I really appreciate it. Oh, it's my pleasure, Jamie. Thanks for being here.