By Natasha McKenty | December 8, 2020 Estimated reading time 7 minutes, 10 seconds.
Seventeen-year-old Aleck Covaci remembers the exact date he realized aviation was his calling: Aug. 18, 2013 — his 10th birthday.
His family remembers him identifying airliners as they flew overhead when he was just a preschooler, but it was his flight on “Charlie Foxtrot Zulu Alpha Juliet” (CF-ZAJ) that sealed his fate. The aircraft, Canada’s oldest actively flying glider, belonged to Herrie ten Cate, a retired documentary producer who started flying gliders with the Royal Canadian Air Cadets in 1979.
“That was the day when I was like, this is what I want to do for the rest of my life,” said Covaci. “There can’t be anything that replaces the feeling . . . especially being able to fly an open aircraft like that — there’s something surreal about it.”
During the walkaround, ten Cate allowed a Q&A about both the plane and its pilot. The aircraft was equipped with cameras, and without the recording, Covaci admitted he would have forgotten the moment his mentor turned to him and said, “You’re a lucky man.”
“The canopy was open, and you don’t expect that,” Covaci said. He remembers thinking he could have reached out and touched a cloud.
“I was too young to comprehend what that meant at that time, but now that I look back, I do realize how fortunate I was to have that opportunity,” he told Skies.
“My mother’s friends thought that I was geeky with planes,” he added. The birthday flight was the result of his “geekiness,” Covaci laughed. “The idea of having no thrust and being thrown around by the law of physics was a cool experience.”
He reflected: “Ultimately, it would be nice for [ten Cate] to know that he’s had a positive impact on someone else’s life. I’m sure I’m not the only person, but [it] definitely impacted me strongly.”
That day in the clouds influenced Covaci’s enrolment in the Royal Canadian Air Cadets 540 Golden Hawks in Oakville, Ont., where today he is a cadet instructor. “Realistically speaking, [Cadets] prepares you in so many ways. I’ve received coaching for [job] interviews, for public speaking, and my disciplinary skills.”
He credits the program for also building “character, leadership and citizenship.”
In spring 2020, he was selected as a speaker at a TEDx Talk. “There were 40 applicants; only eight were chosen,” he said. The speech he wrote debated the future of autonomous airlines.
As a new virus (COVID-19) approached, Covaci and the rest of his squadron saw the loss of their anticipated flight training. “We are doing ground school again, hoping that this summer, maybe we’ll be able to fly again,” he said.
Referring to the bond he’s formed with his ground school instructors, he added: “They have done a lot for us the past few years, and they treat us like their own.”
Pre-pandemic, his ambition was to attend Seneca’s Royal Canadian Air Force (RCAF) pilot training program.
“It takes seven years of knowledge, condensing it into four. You get an aviation bachelor at the end with no tuition,” he explained. In return for the paid tuition, the graduate commits to a service term as an RCAF pilot.
“Which is great because I’m trilingual,” he added. “I can speak [English], French and Romanian, and I would love to help other people around the country, and around the world, while doing something I enjoy.
“I received word that the CEOTP [Continuing Education Officer Training Plan] has unfortunately been cancelled for the time being, but honours bachelor of aviation technology is still running, so I’ve revised to start with that,” he said, “and convert back to CEOTP when they open it up again.”
The setbacks will not defeat Covaci. “It’s scary,” he admitted, “but eventually, I think it’s just really part of the story. I believe that it will filter out who really wants to do this.”
He’s managed to keep a sense of humour, comparing training during a pandemic to “flying through IFR [instrument flight rules] conditions when you’re only rated to fly VFR [visual flight rules].
“I’m going to find some way to be able to work for the Forces before I jump into civilians,” he added, “because it’s good to have that military training. It’s a bit more disciplined.”
Initially, he wanted to be a fighter pilot. He realized he’d rather pilot “heavy transport aircraft, like the CC-17 [Globemaster], CC-130 Hercules, or the CC-150 Polaris.”
The unexpected detours have forced him to reconsider his “entry point.” He added: “I think it’s more or less given me time to reflect on how I can keep pushing through other options to get to the same angle,” he said.
“I have a picture in my head that I’d like to recreate in real life. It’s a picture I once saw of a military figure passing a water bottle to a younger child in a war zone. You could see the house behind him was destroyed.”
Covaci envisions himself as that military figure — flying in supplies, doing his part to “make people’s lives better.”
After reading a story on skiesmag.com — “Canada’s oldest actively flying glider is steeped in history” — he was reminded how impactful that day back in 2013 was for him. “I can’t stop here,” he said. “I’ve come too far — or not far enough, depending on how you look at it.”
