The 18-year-old 2022 graduate of Brooks Secondary School is heading off to university in New Brunswick, where he will be studying physics during his first year and working to acquire his commercial pilot’s licence, with the hope of flying for the Canadian Armed Forces.
“I’m currently in the regular officer training program, which means that the military will pay for my education, and I will repay them in military service,” said Parsons. “My goal, one day, is to go to the military.”
Parsons will be attending Mount Allison University for his academic studies and the commercial aviation portion will be conducted through Moncton Flight College.
Throughout high school, Parsons was a member of 22 Red Knight Squadron Royal Canadian Air Cadets, where he has been able to establish his love of flight. This past summer, through the air cadets, he was awarded a flying scholarship, which gave him the opportunity to earn his private pilot’s licence. He started his training early in July and finished on August 19. Instruction took place in Campbell River on Vancouver Island.
“I had ground school every day for the first four weeks and had a Transport Canada written test where all of our knowledge was tested,” said Parsons. “I also flew every day.”
Prior to his flying scholarship, Parsons had flown on commercial airlines, and had the chance to fly in a couple of small airplanes. He had also gone aloft with the air cadets through familiarization flights that are offered to instil an interest in aviation. He said, however, that he did not have much time on the controls when he went into flight school, training on Cessna 172 aircraft.
“Learning about aviation, I discovered this is what I wanted to do,” said Parsons. “I’ve just loved watching planes fly overhead and I wanted to be the person at the controls. I knew, going to flight school, that this was something I was going to work extremely hard for.
“It’s just great getting up every day knowing you are going to be doing the thing that you love.”
It took him 17 flight hours before he was able to solo, flying without a flight instructor next to him. About two weeks into the program he was able to fly alone. Following his first solo flight, he had the opportunity to have quite a bit of solo time, finishing with around 17 hours of solo flight in his logbook. He is currently at 45.4 flight hours.
Parsons’ preparation for flight training began when he joined the air cadets, learning along the way as part of his training syllabus with the cadets. He has taken ground school during his time with the cadet organization, which helped him prepare for his flying scholarship.
“I had pretty good knowledge about ground school from the four years of prep,” said Parsons. “When we showed up at flight school for the first day, they expected us to know a bunch of things already. It was quite a shock being at the controls and them expecting you to know how all of the instruments work and what they operated.
“We got all of the safety stuff done and emergency procedures. From then on, we started with the basic stuff – level flight, how to turn, how to climb and how to descend. The start of the second week we got into the really fun things like spins and spiral dives, stalls and all of those cool things.”
Training continued to be intense until the final week, when the students took their flight tests.
Cross-country move
In terms of moving across the continent from the qathet region and preparing for his military career, Parsons said his first year will be academic studies, and then flight training characteristically goes from second to fourth year. He does not know, since he has his private pilot’s licence already, whether he will start in his second or third year.
He said although he will not be flight training in his first year, he will be keeping his flying hours up and current by trying to join the local flight club and maintaining his hours.
Balancing his physics studies and flight training is going to be tough when the time comes, said Parsons, adding that in his first year, it will be good in one respect to have no aviation, so he can get well ensconced in university life. He said balancing academic studies and flight school is going to be a challenge, but it is definitely something that is manageable.
Parsons said being an air cadet is probably one of the best experiences he’s had in his life, leading up to the career path he is now embarking on.
“Honestly, the first day I joined, I didn’t necessarily know what I was getting myself into, but the doors just opened up for me,” added Parsons. “I got my pilot’s licence out of it, which is something I never thought I’d get, and I didn’t have to pay a penny for it. I’ve been taught all these amazing things.
“It’s made me more interested in the military, spending time at the Cold Lake, Alberta, air force base and seeing all of the airplanes fly. It really made me think that I was planning my way in life.”
