[00:00:00] Speaker A: Foreign welcome to this edition of the Sky Careers podcast. Firstly, I'll apologize, I've got a bit of, a, bit of a sore throat, so you might find my voice a little bit gratey.
But I'm very, very excited to, to introduce today's guest in what I'm thinking could well become a two part podcast because I'm interviewing none other than my very own brother, Carl Hodgson, who as he'll come on to tell you is he's currently a captain flying with Virgin Atlantic out of, out of the uk, but before that he spent his early flying career in the military flying for the Royal Air Force. So what I wanted to do is explore both aspects of Carl's career and how he found his pathway into that and share those with you. So, first and foremost, my brother Carl. How are you?
[00:01:11] Speaker B: I'm very well, thank you. Good morning or good evening to your end.
[00:01:14] Speaker A: I guess it's evening here. Thank you. So you're in Newcastle in the north of England. I'm in Sydney in Australia, where it's uncharacteristically cold. Really appreciate you joining us on the Sky Careers podcast. So I'll start at the beginning. So, yeah, so tell us, what's your current role?
[00:01:40] Speaker B: Okay, at the moment I'm a captain on the Airbus A350 flying out of Heathrow, mainly a little bit of Manchester.
It's all long haul, east and west coast of the States, a bit of India, a bit of North Africa.
Yeah. Down into Florida, the holiday route, the Mickey Mouse and all that sort of stuff.
Yeah, that's what I do at the moment.
[00:02:05] Speaker A: Wow. So that's very much the end of a long aviation crib. So let's go right to the beginning and obviously it's interesting. I was thinking about preparing for today's conversation and I know bits of it, but I've never interviewed my brother before, so I'm sure there's lots I don't know. But so just tell us this bit I do know. Where did you go to school and what were your favorite?
Many years ago.
[00:02:28] Speaker B: Many, many years ago. So I went to school, a school called Colts in Southeast London and I was very fortunate in the fact that it was a grammar school.
It then went to become a private school.
I was still a state funded student. And then, and at school, really I was, it was, it was all about the sciences. It was all.
I definitely lent towards maths, physics, chemistry and all that sort of stuff.
Yeah, that, that's. So that was where I started.
[00:03:07] Speaker A: And during those school days, were you Always interested in aviation as you grew up or did that passion sort of develop?
[00:03:14] Speaker B: I seem to, it's interesting actually having, preparing for this little chat. I, I dug very deep into my memory and I seem to remember, you know, playing with model airplanes and building air fix kits and things like that.
My, my, my father is or was and still is fairly interested in, in airplanes and all things technical.
Yeah, exactly, yeah. And, and I think, I think that it, it all rubbed off and I remember there's a, there's a particular.
I remember. I think I still may have it somewhere. There's an observers book of aircraft which was full of airplanes from the 1950s and it's. Yeah, it just sort of grew on me, I guess.
[00:03:59] Speaker A: And how, and how did you, how did you find your pathway into that once you're actually at school?
[00:04:05] Speaker B: So I think it was about 13 or 14. We could join the, the air cadets, the air training corps and, and through that and, and a very proactive officer leading the, the squadron.
We, it was amazing.
We went to summer camps at different airfields. We went. Did our experience flying in chipmunks.
We did gliding down at Westmorling which unfortunately is now now a housing estate, but in, in Kent.
And then later on I was very, very fortunate to joined the gliding school as a staff cadet. So latterly I, I spent most weekends down there pulling the gliders around and winching them into the air and, and, and basically doing all the support stuff for the, the cadets coming through, doing their courses and then very, very.
[00:05:01] Speaker A: Go on, go on. I remember, I think dad and I, I think you had a guest day for us once and, and dad, dad and I, we, you, we went up in a glider. I don't know you were flying. I think someone else was flying. And it was, it was open canopy. And I remember January or February and we were, we did it, we did, we did it. We did a loop and I remember, you know, obviously the air, the air temperature would have been probably 4 or 5 degrees. And then when you do a dive, I remember it was absolutely freezing. Just absolutely place.
[00:05:35] Speaker B: Yeah. So that, yeah, they're all open cockpit, so they're all wooden, wooden canvas, old T21 T. T31.
And, and then I was very fortunate after that to, to be selected for a flying scholarship. So the flying scholarship was 30 hours flying down at Southampton Flying Club.
And then I, I paid for another. I think it was five hours that then qualified me to, to have my, my private pilot's license, which the funny thing is that I actually didn't Have a driving license. So I had to get lifts or I had to get the bus to the airfield to go flying. So that was early days.
[00:06:15] Speaker A: So hold on, so you had your private pilot's license before you had your driving license in the UK?
[00:06:22] Speaker B: Absolutely.
[00:06:23] Speaker A: So you were 16, 15, 17.
[00:06:25] Speaker B: You had to be.
[00:06:26] Speaker A: Yeah. Wow, that's pretty cool. So from there. So school air cadets or. I'm not sure, what was it? Was it.
[00:06:38] Speaker B: What's the actual Air Training Corps?
[00:06:40] Speaker A: Air training core? Yeah, yeah. I think in Australia it's called the ccf I think combined.
[00:06:46] Speaker B: Yeah, I think this one went. I think they went combined not long after I, you know, finished doing that stuff.
[00:06:52] Speaker A: But yeah. So what was the pathway from there? You got your ppl, you're kind of in the back, back end of school.
What was your pathway from there into your first aviation role with the military?
[00:07:06] Speaker B: It was interesting really because as you know, our school almost assumed that you were going to go on into university and stuff like that and academia was never really my sort of forte and although initially I looked at maybe going to a university and doing aerodynamics or aeronautical engineering or stuff like that, I guess my heart wasn't really in it and.
And so I decided to join the RAF and it took me a couple of goes of applying and being assessed at Biggin Hill in Kent and eventually they let me in. I managed to pull the wool over their eyes and, and, and the rest.
[00:07:47] Speaker A: Is history and, and Big and Hill of course for those that some of you would listening. Biggin has a very, very famous Kent. It was one of the Battle of Britain airfields.
And what was the process there, Carl? What was the selection process? Those who aren't aware of military flying selection?
[00:08:09] Speaker B: Well, there were lots of things obviously there were interviews, there were aptitude tests and whereas today you might have some clever computer aptitude tests of working out your hand eye coordination and your speed of thought and all that sort of stuff. There was some wacky stuff. So literally you had to try and keep a dot in the center of the screen by sort of pretend flight controls. But it was so, so basic. You had hangar exercises where you had to give them pine poles and ropes and 50 gallon drums.
You had to coordinate your team, a bit of leadership I guess to try and cross the shark infested custard between the two, two ropes on the hangar floor.
And then there was obviously the medical to make sure that.
[00:09:03] Speaker A: So I guess it's important to us to remember. So when you're, when you're, when you're applying to be a military pilot.
Obviously they're looking to have the basic aptitude to be able to fly, but they're also looking to see whether you've got the aptitude to become a military in most cases, officer as well. So it's multifaceted, isn't it? It's not just the flying, it's not just the other.
[00:09:27] Speaker B: Obviously I'm not sure how it is down under, but here I think unless you're in the Army Air Corps, so the army side of flying things, you will be an officer in order to become a pilot.
[00:09:43] Speaker A: Yeah. Okay. Okay. And so from there. So presumably at some point they crazily said yes to you. And what did you feel when that happened, Carl? It's a long time ago.
[00:09:53] Speaker B: Well, it was, it was a long time ago. I, I was, I was excited. I was, I was very, I mean because it had taken a while to get there, you know, I've been knocked back and, and eventually you get in. So yeah, very relieved, very excited also. A little bit, a little bit bewildered because it's a big process. You know, I've, I was, I mean at the time I would have been, you know, 18, 19 when they said come on down, something like that.
So really? Yeah, you're not much more than the school kid. And they said, yeah, come on, come, come and join the Air Force. Yeah, and learn how to fly airplanes and lead people and things like that. And I wasn't the most self confident person at the time. So it was, it's interesting.
[00:10:38] Speaker A: Yeah. So tell us, tell us about that, that process from, from, from I guess joining to, to finally getting your wings. What, what, what did that entail?
[00:10:49] Speaker B: Okay, so first of all I had to go to RAF Cranwell which is the officer training college up in Lincolnshire and I spent four months there of them trying to turn me into an officer, which I think they just about succeeded.
Well, certainly good enough to, to then go on to flying training. And that was all the.
Well, it's the same as any officer training, I guess, teaching you how to lead perhaps through a little bit of adversity as well. You know, they beast you a bit and they wear you down and they don't feed you and things like that.
They just try and work out whether you've got the determination to get things done, I guess.
And then I went on to Church Fenton because I already had a ppl. I missed out a stage. So there was a stage if I hadn't had previous flying experience. You went to Swindebee? RAF Swinde. B again in Lincolnshire and flew chipmunks for an elementary flying stage. But because I had a ppl, I went straight to the Jet Provost which is a, a little single engine straight wing jet trainer, side by side seat.
Okay.
[00:12:11] Speaker A: In hindsight. Sorry, I'm going to jump.
This is a brother interest question. In hindsight was that a good thing or a bad thing, do you think?
Would it would have been more advantageous to have gone through the, through the elementary flying training on the Chipmunk as well, do you think?
[00:12:28] Speaker B: It may have been because what subsequently happened so, but although it's interesting, I think I was, I've been told since that my, that my aptitude, my flying aptitude scores were, were very high but I don't think I had the, the confidence nor the.
I, I don't think I was mature enough to make the most of the flying train stage which was a shame.
I mean I did okay. It was 120 hours of flying and actually at the end I was graded, I was graded as a fast jet training risk so I could have opted to go to the fast jet side of things but as it happened I decided to go to the multi engine side and that's where I ended up on Jet Streams doing the, the multi engine training.
[00:13:27] Speaker A: Right.
Just for the listeners, Colin, not quite sure. So the difference between fast jets and multi engines.
[00:13:36] Speaker B: So fast jet obviously. Well you can you see the Top Gun side of things and all that sort of stuff. You go to Valley and fly the Hawk which is the same airplane as the Red Arrows as a fast jet trainer with ejection seats and flying helmets and all that sort of stuff. So I went to Multi Engine which was a, the multi engine trainer was a jet stream.
So two turbo props, multi crew and obviously that's more involved initially in the transport side of things and then you'll hear later that I moved on to do different things in bigger aeroplanes but cool.
[00:14:17] Speaker A: Okay, so what, when did you get your wings? When did you pass out as a pilot?
[00:14:22] Speaker B: So. Oh, I got my wings at the beginning of 19 I think I passed out.
Hold on a minute.
So I passed out I think at the beginning of 84. End of 84 I think something like that.
Wow.
[00:14:47] Speaker A: Okay. And was that, that, was that. So was that before you went on to Jet Stream or was that after Jet Stream?
[00:14:52] Speaker B: No, so it was actually you, you get your, your wings after you finish your advanced flying training and for me that was the jet stream. So once I finished the jet stream I was given my wings.
[00:15:03] Speaker A: Oh brilliant. Okay okay. And then what happened?
[00:15:06] Speaker B: And then what happened? So I was sent, I was posted to RAF Northolk which was a VIP General Communications Squadron using the Hawker Siddeley 125 HS125 business jet.
And I spent three years there flying senior officers as a co pilot, flying senior officers and politicians and just moving various people, RAF personnel, officers around the UK, Europe, etc.
[00:15:42] Speaker A: Celeb question anyone famous that listeners would know?
[00:15:46] Speaker B: I don't know. I don't know whether they know them.
If you're interested in your politics.
I remember flying, I think it was Tom who was the Northern Ireland.
Tom King. That was the one.
[00:16:03] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:16:04] Speaker B: Tom King.
[00:16:06] Speaker A: No Royals.
[00:16:07] Speaker B: No Royals. No, no, no, no. Nobody that exciting. No. Tom King I think was probably the most famous person I flew.
[00:16:15] Speaker A: Okay, okay, that's good. And so, and so you, so then you.
At the end of them, where were you posted after that? Carl?
[00:16:24] Speaker B: So I was then posted to Germany to do a ground tour.
So I went to work with the 11th Armored Brigade in Minden in Germany and I became the Brigadier's advisor to everything blue about the Air Force.
So during the, during sort of peacetime if you like, we taught the Army Air Corps personnel how to direct close air support.
So I went to, did a course in Broady and was taught to become a forward air control instructor. And then we taught the army how to do it from the back of their helicopters.
So bringing in a 10s Harriers as close as support to the battlefield.
And then when we did army exercises, I sat in the back of my little control tank, armor, personnel carrier, whatever you want to call it.
And again it was a case of trying to coordinate either air cover and, or helicopter support for the brigade at war.
[00:17:41] Speaker A: Yeah, sorry. Sorry to interrupt. It's an important consideration that it's easy to say the Royal Air Force as the Australian. You know, it's, it's a fighting force.
It's. This is the military. And that's, that's the difference. An aircraft is a, is a, is a, is a web, is a platform for.
Yeah, it's not just something you fly around. So that's an interesting thing to, to actually know when you do it. And then so Cole, take us through the rest of your career. And I think I'm prejudging on it, obviously. I know a bit, bit, bit of this story. But moving on to other aircraft and, and then so two questions. What, what were, what were the other parts of your military career? And then what were your favorite parts?
[00:18:26] Speaker B: Right. So from Germany, I Came back to the UK and I moved to, onto the Dominy. Dominy is, is basically the first version of the HS125.
So it's a business jet again with Vipers which are basically the same engines as the, as a jet provost.
And then that was for navigator training and air and air AEO air electronics operator training and air engineer training.
But it was, that was quite fun because basically we're flying a business jet. Quite a lot of it involved flying, flying around at low level for the navigator training and their radar.
And then after that I ended up on the Hercules, the C130 and I was very, very fortunate to basically at RAF Lynham, which was the home of the Hercules, there were five squadrons, there were two tactical, two non tactical and one training squadron. I was very fortunate to end up on 70 Squadron. The training, the tactical squadron.
So with that I learned initially as a co pilot to do airdrop formation, low level and then go on to night vision goggle stuff.
And then I moved to the left hand seat as a captain, did it all again and then was very fortunate to end up as an instructor to teach all that stuff.
And the best bit of it, it was no doubt the night vision goggle work was fantastic.
Flying around at 250ft at night and landing on runways with no lights on and stuff.
And actually funny enough, probably the highlight of that was being co pilot because as a night vision goggle copilot you had to map read at night.
And with the MVGs and certainly when I started, we didn't have any GPS or you know, any of the modern stuff.
So it was literally up to me to map read my way or map read your way at night through the valleys, using corners of woods and pylons and all sorts to update the nav kit which the navigator was operating in the back. So that was the most challenging bit. I think the flying was fun.
And then it all culminated really, it was. Ironic's not the right word because it's not. But basically I spent 20 years in the Air Force and only in the last two years did I do anything operationally. So I ended up in flying in Afghanistan for the last.
Yeah, best part of two years.
That's fantastic. I mean you had a.
You flew with the same crew members all the time.
We initially worked out a thumb rate flying into Afghanistan in the middle of the winter and then I did further stints of flying out of Karachi and I also spent a month actually living in Afghanistan in the back of the airplane at Bagram. And operating there.
[00:21:50] Speaker A: Wow, fascinating.
What was the, what was the, you know, any scary moments in that?
[00:22:01] Speaker B: I suppose you look back, I mean, we were, we were, we, we did get shot at, you know, because you can see with the night vision goggles, you can see tracer and stuff, but there wasn't too much of that. But no, that, that was, it was all right. There was no, no major dramas, really.
[00:22:18] Speaker A: Fantastic. What, what, what a, what a thrill. And so that's taking you then towards the end of your military career. What, what, what, what, what, what happened? What, what, what made you decide to pull to, to pull up stumps?
[00:22:34] Speaker B: Well, here, here basically the, the, the Afghanistan bit really and my, and my experience with the night vision goggles and the whole tactical side of things made me want to do more of that stuff.
Yet back at home I had two going on three young children and they didn't really, what I really would have loved to have done didn't really mix with family life.
So over the period I've been doing, preparing for, to move on into civilian life anyway with qualifications.
But yeah, so basically I made the decision that I was going to leave and try and follow a career in civil aviation.
[00:23:32] Speaker A: Fantastic. Well, that is a perfect time, brother, to finish part one of this podcast.
Thank you, thank you for regaining us with the, the sort of A to Z of your military career. And.
That's right. And, and in part two, we'll pick up on how you transitioned from that military, that military life. And how old were you then when you.
[00:23:57] Speaker B: 40.
[00:23:58] Speaker A: 40.
And how you then, then spent the next 20 plus years. Yeah, 22 years in civil aviation. So we'll come on to that. So thanks, brother. We'll see you in part two minute.
[00:24:12] Speaker B: See you soon.
[00:24:20] Speaker C: Thanks for listening to the Sky Careers podcast. If today's conversation has sparked your interest in aviation, then head over to our
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