Former Canadian Pilots Training PLAAF

[Humphrey Bogart]

I know of someone who recently got slapped down on a post CAF career for a conflict of interest that almost lost their second job as a result (the company accomodated them). Meanwhile much more senior officers, civil servants and politicians roll into jobs with much clearer COIs with no issue, so seems like 'who you know' also matters when moving on from DND.

One more reason not to get promoted to ranks where those rules kick in I guess.

Best thing to do is cut ties completely. I personally wanted nothing to do with the Defence Industry when I left. I would personally feel like I was just hanging around then.

 

[Fabius]

Apologies if this has already been talked about.

I found this on Reddit, and quite frankly, I'm disgusted.

Meet the pilots behind China’s growing ‘Top Gun’ program (and the Canadian team training them)

If you weren’t worried about TFASA before, here’s why you should be

medium.com

This article states that the training was conducted in the 2013-2019 timeframe. That period was right at the time the US was transitioning its understanding of China to a Strategic Competitor and talk of China as an adversary was starting to become widespread and mainstream.
That realization was not yet widespread in Canada or Europe, although the detentions of Micheal Spavor and Kovrig in Dec 2018 did start that shift truly.

The timeframe and its strategic context are also important to understand and remember.

 

[Navy_Pete]

Best thing to do is cut ties completely. I personally wanted nothing to do with the Defence Industry when I left. I would personally feel like I was just hanging around then.

I think that's my plan I think, but yet another disincentive for promotion; it's a marginal pay raise to get Cdr, with a lot of BS and very big change to the type of work you do.

Eng 5 or GT 7/8 would be another option in the PS, but would have to be the right job, and likely after hit the annuity (in another department).

Bit of a niche specialist and would be happy to keep working on the new project for the next 5-10 years until it's done and then retire, but imagine will get arbitrarily posted somewhere else in 2027, doing nothing in that niche (likely with no replacement that has any of the same SME), and just start marking time until I hit 25 years in and move on.

Imagine there are probably a number of others across the CAF in the same boat who would be happy to plug away at something like that, as well as train up their replacement, but will instead be another cog shuffled around the big machine without any real plan for knowledge transfer or succession planning on long term projects.

 

[Humphrey Bogart]

This article states that the training was conducted in the 2013-2019 timeframe. That period was right at the time the US was transitioning its understanding of China to a Strategic Competitor and talk of China as an adversary was starting to become widespread and mainstream.
That realization was not yet widespread in Canada or Europe, although the detentions of Micheal Spavor and Kovrig in Dec 2018 did start that shift truly.

The timeframe and its strategic context are also important to understand and remember.

It's as if context matters

There is a lot of hand ringing over this with big bad words like traitors/treason/adversary, etc thrown around.

Meanwhile in the real world:

We are not at war with China
We do $30 billion a year in business with China
We ship billions of barrels of war fluid to China every year, amongst other important natural resources
It isn't illegal for a Canadian to work in China

Not one shred of evidence has been presented which showed these individuals did anything illegal.

Want to make it illegal? Pass a law.


Oh, if we actually GAF about National Security, we would stop importing 100s of thousands of people fron a Country that just allegedly ran a targeted assassination campaign here

 

[Humphrey Bogart]

I think that's my plan I think, but yet another disincentive for promotion; it's a marginal pay raise to get Cdr, with a lot of BS and very big change to the type of work you do.

Eng 5 or GT 7/8 would be another option in the PS, but would have to be the right job, and likely after hit the annuity (in another department).

Bit of a niche specialist and would be happy to keep working on the new project for the next 5-10 years until it's done and then retire, but imagine will get arbitrarily posted somewhere else in 2027, doing nothing in that niche (likely with no replacement that has any of the same SME), and just start marking time until I hit 25 years in and move on.

Imagine there are probably a number of others across the CAF in the same boat who would be happy to plug away at something like that, as well as train up their replacement, but will instead be another cog shuffled around the big machine without any real plan for knowledge transfer or succession planning on long term projects.

You're an Engineer my dude.... the amount of private sector jobs at your disposal is endless.

 

[Fabius]

Another interesting consideration is that those pilots who trained the PLAAF in whatever are possibly the people with the most inside knowledge of how their pilots operate and think and what their tactics are in comparison to ours.

Ethics, morality and legality aside getting that insight for our forces would be useful perhaps.

 

[Navy_Pete]

You're an Engineer my dude.... the amount of private sector jobs at your disposal is endless.

The job market can be interesting, with some pretty specific requirements at times, but it is definitely something that generally ports very easily to non-defence industry jobs for sure, particularly on the engineering management side of things. We don't do the hardcore jr engineer design type stuff, but when you are used to dealing with matrixed teams, on complex projects, with half a dozen departments involved, some byzantine bureaucracy etc, project on the civi side with a much simpler process for approvals, budgeting and implementation seem really sweet.

But yeah, makes sense to get some ticks in the box (P.Eng, PMP, etc) on the GoC time.

For these pilots though, if they can get a job where they get to keep flying and train others I can see the appeal, but in the article they are only speculating that the Canadians involved at the school are doing. Good reporting generally, but probably something that would need actual investigation from a competent authority on if what they were teaching was a security risk and what sanctions would be appropriate.

Does seem pretty dodgy from an outsider perspective, but if the school were to have a sudden hangar fire I wouldn't be terribly surprised.

 

[Humphrey Bogart]

The job market can be interesting, with some pretty specific requirements at times, but it is definitely something that generally ports very easily to non-defence industry jobs for sure, particularly on the engineering management side of things. We don't do the hardcore jr engineer design type stuff, but when you are used to dealing with matrixed teams, on complex projects, with half a dozen departments involved, some byzantine bureaucracy etc, project on the civi side with a much simpler process for approvals, budgeting and implementation seem really sweet.

You would like what is thrown down out here. I work in Operations Management but work in step with some Engineers from other departments. They have a pretty sweet job and deal with some big $$$ projects.

But yeah, makes sense to get some ticks in the box (P.Eng, PMP, etc) on the GoC time.

For these pilots though, if they can get a job where they get to keep flying and train others I can see the appeal, but in the article they are only speculating that the Canadians involved at the school are doing. Good reporting generally, but probably something that would need actual investigation from a competent authority on if what they were teaching was a security risk and what sanctions would be appropriate.

Does seem pretty dodgy from an outsider perspective, but if the school were to have a sudden hangar fire I wouldn't be terribly surprised.

Who even knows how much they know/knew? Some pretty sophisticated coercion methods are employed by some of these entities.

Perhaps it was sold for something other than what it was?

US, allies warn China aggressively ‘headhunting’ Western fighter pilots

The intelligence partnership known as Five Eyes says Beijing is stepping up its campaign to use Western pilots to erode Western advantages in the skies

www.voanews.com

 

[Quirky]

There is also a plethora of ex-RCAF fighter pilots going to Saudi Arabia and Qatar as instructors, what makes those countries friendlier?