Captain Matej Ceglar is an outstanding Slovenian military pilot who has completed all five courses including instructor training on the C17 Globemaster III aircraft, something that has only been achieved by two European pilots in the entire history of the HAW- Heavy Airlift Wing program. Currently Chief of Tactics, Matej stands out as an inspiring and conscious communicator driven by integrity, deep thinking, exceptional internal discipline, and a passion for learning. With excellent leadership skills, he mentioned that “ranks don’t fly airplanes”. He loves helping others grow and is involved in working with the younger generation.
We talked about his aviation career, which started on the meadow of Šentvid pri Stični Airport, continued with a scholarship with the Slovenian Army, and culminated in flying a large C17 Globemaster III transport aircraft. He is currently living at PAPA military base in Hungary, where he is staying with his family.
He told us what training in the Slovenian Air Force looks like, how he decided to fly the C17, what the training process is like on the C17, what the hierarchy is like when flying military and civilian aircraft, what the differences between military and civilian flying are, how he acquired his leadership skills, what challenges he faces on missions, what kind of flying on the C17 is for the soul, what he thinks are the qualities of a good pilot, and lots more.
1.) How did you know you wanted to be a pilot?
It was the Tom and Jerry cartoon. One of them took a sheet between the hands and flew. As a kid, it seemed to me that maybe it could work. I was in the aero modelling club in primary school. It’s the little things that people don’t see … when you’re making a little cardboard airplane, you don’t see the value of it. I started my training on the grass airfield Šentvid pri Stični. In the beginning, I flew gliders, although I didn’t finish my license. Later on, I flew a lot with a paraglider. When I started college, I knew I wanted to become a pilot, and that’s when I started working on my PPL- Private Pilot License for motor-powered flight. While I was studying at the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering, I also got a scholarship with the Slovenian Air Force.
Looking back, I see things with different eyes now. At that time there was Adria Airways, a Slovenian national carrier, which seemed to have an exclusive class of pilots, something almost unattainable. That is how you think as a child, depending on the circle you are brought up in. And when the call for joining the army was out, I thought the same thing, that it was for the ‘Tom Cruises’, not for ordinary people like myself.
But it just so happened that we were sitting at the cafe and someone mentioned that he had applied to be a pilot. And then I said, “Oh, really, ok, then I’ll do it too.”
2. What was the selection process like for a military pilot, what was the decisive factor for you to be selected?
One week of theory and one week of flying. Now I work with 12 different nations and each country has its own system of how to select pilots. So far, this selection seems like a holy grail that nobody has figured out yet. Sometimes you wonder what the ideal pilot is, and what you are aiming for. And you realize that it depends on the situation. Sometimes you think that it’s the “golden hands” that matter most, but it’s really all about decision-making. On the other hand, in a situation where you wouldn’t have the “golden hands”, you wouldn’t be able to solve the case.
Ten percent is talent, that is to say, what kind of person you get. But the kind of person he becomes depends on the right culture, the right training, the safety of flying, that things are the way they should be – that’s how you make a true pilot.
3. How was your training in the Air Force?
First I trained on a Zlin aircraft, which is where you get your PPL and CPL- Commercial Pilot License, acrobatic, and instrument rating… In our system you get all the civilian licenses in parallel, that’s a prerequisite for military flying. Then you go on to Pilatus PC 9, where you train military specifics.
4. What kind of tasks are you trained for in the Pilatus PC 9?
There is some type of rating training at the beginning. Tactical formations, “air to air”… There is a lot of emphasis on “close air support” so that you can attack targets close to your units. For example, from the air, you can see that bullets are flying left and right, but you don’t know who is who. The JTAC (Joint Terminal Attack Controller) directs you from the ground. The Slovenian army trains people who can direct support from the air. We are their “training support” to train them. Military controllers are training to intercept aircraft GCI (ground-controlled intercept) and this is done a lot with our Pilatus PC9. For an experienced pilot, Pilatus PC9 is the simplest most joyful plane you can imagine to fly like a toy designed for adult boys.
In the Air Force, for example, I finished my last training a week ago and I have been in the system for 15 years. You are constantly climbing a ladder and you are constantly learning.
5. Can you choose which aircraft you want to fly?
They try to accommodate people’s preferences because then there is more job satisfaction. You have to decide whether you want to fly helicopters or planes. If you decide to fly planes, you fly a Pilatus PC9, and then something else later on.
6. What are the chances for a Slovenian soldier to fly an F16?
There are none. Slovenian military pilots have the opportunity to fly airplanes and helicopters that are part of the fleet of the Slovenian military aviation, except in my case, when the Slovenian army sent me abroad to pilot the C17 Globemaster III.
7. How did you decide to fly the C17?
Slovenia joined the program in 2008 and I joined the Air Force in 2009. Slovenia is also a co-owner of the aircraft. Initially, we did not send pilots to PAPA (the military base in Hungary where the aircraft is based).
There were rumors that there was a position for two pilots on this aircraft and that this would be needed. First, a mate from 152 Squadron went there, and when he was finishing his term we were asked if anyone was interested. When I saw that my wife was supportive and was willing to come along with family, I applied. They take very good care of members of the Slovenian Armed Forces who are deployed abroad. The military takes care of my children and partner as well, and that is why we were able to stay for so long, six years. I still have another year to go.
8. The military, as a system, seems to understand very well that the family of a military pilot has to be taken care of if they want the pilot to function optimally.
It’s about where your mind is focused. Aviation is such an expensive business that your employer cannot afford to have you thinking about who is going to water the flowers or how I am going to pay the bills. Everyone has a certain mental range, and if you fill it with other concerns, that leaves only one quarter to be a pilot. These are very expensive people, very expensive operations, and a lot of things can go wrong very quickly. If you don’t sort it out in advance, it’s not OK.
9. What do you think are the biggest differences between civilian and military flying?
It is a myth that it’s much different. Each has its own mission. One thing that is different, for example, when I talked to military psychologists about this, is the stress response.
A person under stress reacts by fighting, running away, or by freezing (fight or flight). The prerequisite for a military pilot is that he reacts by fighting. Unlike in the civilian world “freeze and run” individuals are washed out by psychologists. For example, a fireman cannot go to put out a fire and freeze when he sees the fire. Such a thing is incompatible with the profession. In the civilian system, the procedures are designed to get the individual out of the ‘startle’ effect, which is why our procedures can be more direct and simpler.
Another difference is that in the Air Force, there is no difference in hierarchy in regards to the left and right seating, like in civil aviation, where the captain always sits in the left seat. I fly on the left or on the right. I can get a co-pilot with 5 hours and put him in the left seat. We only have a duty that is linked to the function of a crew member in flight.
Maybe the difference is also related to age and the fact that you get very young people in the cabin. I work a lot with groups between 20 and 30. You cannot imagine what a difference it is, like night and day, in terms of how capable they are and how they can work as a team. They eat any “old hero” for breakfast. When I get a 22-year-old co-pilot next to me, he’s young, of course, but his processor is working twice or three times as fast as mine.
It seems to me that things have changed so much that there is less hierarchy in the military than in civilian flying, at least that is how I see it. In the civilian sphere, it seems that things are still very much subordinated to the baby boomers and their style. In the young Air Force, such leadership is a matter that has been forgotten ten times over. For example, we are taught how to fly with seniors. That would mean flying with a member over 45, which is probably the average age of a civilian captain.
10. At one time, every commercial pilot was also a military pilot first. That was the starting point.
And the problem was, because they were all solo pilots, and when you put two of them together, they didn’t know how to work together. In current aviation, there is a big emphasis on just how to do MCC- Multi Crew Cooperation.
What has been taken out of the equation is that we have forgotten how to train a single pilot and how to fly like a single pilot. Working together in a multi-pilot crew is much easier than if you fly alone. A system to train people and to make the structure so that such individuals perform well is practically non-existent.
Everybody says how complicated a large aircraft is when two people are sitting in it. But with a single-pilot aircraft, we behave as if it is no big deal, you just fly and hopefully land safely.
11. How did it come about that there is no longer such a hierarchy in military flying?
It’s like in management. If there are no real problems, people will find problems. But when you fly real things, real things show up. In our country, the problem is often that there are no real problems. Where there are clear structures, the issue is very real. In the Air Force, the most capable people are between 25 and 35 years old. But in aviation in general, it is said that the more hours you have, the more you are worth. I see a link up to somewhere around 3,000 hours of flying time, but after that, it is all up to the person and whether they are in the right structure.
The way you lead is always linked to the generation of people you are managing. And the younger generations have a completely different management style than the older generations. When I have a 25-year-old next to me, I cannot communicate with him in the same way as with a 45-year-old. If he has his own specifics of communication, it does not mean that he is not doing his job well. Most of the time he does it three times better than a 45-year-old. Nobody appreciates young people until they have to convert a “PowerPoint” into a PDF. File.
With the young generation, the family is almost non-existent. That is why they are more connected to each other and very collegial. And that also changes the way they are led. Young people no longer accept the old forms.
My generation was brought up in such a way that you had to compete with others to get ahead. I don’t see that with the younger generation.
The crews you fly with are big, 7 to 11 people. The pilot who is next to you, you’re practically one with him. Then it’s how you work with the people who are part of your crew, e.g. the flying crew chief, the force protection staff, the loadmaster. What the job is and how I accept you as a person are two different things. Young people think that personal relationships are one thing and work is another. So everything is much more relaxed. But in the older generation, you were always valued just on the basis of how you worked and that’s how you climbed the hierarchy.
12. What is life like at PAPA (a military base in Hungary)?
One part is the missions, the second part is the training and the third part is the sense of adventure in the service. As you advance, your tasks expand.
There are five different trainings and qualifications for C17. The initial one is co-pilot training, which takes three and a half months. Pilots are divided into “air-land” and “airdrop” sections. Every trained pilot is basically an “air-land” pilot. That is to say, we fly and carry the load. “Airdrop” means that you can throw cargo out of the plane with parachutes.
After copilot, I did the captain’s training, which takes about one month. Our plane can land on a 1 km-long runway. There is a lot of training on how to fly it, how to park it on a point, etc. You also learn how to do air-to-air refueling.
The ranks are not tied to whether you are a captain. The ranks don’t fly the airplanes. Yes, I can be a captain to a colonel. They teach you how to communicate, especially in the US where you can have generals sitting next to you. There is a system to prepare you for that and you learn it. That is why I feel that CRM (cockpit resource management) in the military is among the best.
Later on, I went to do the co-pilot “airdrop” training. Airdrop is more about flying for the joy of flying because of its tactical aspect, and in the US you fly everything in a formation with two or three planes. With a co-pilot, there is a very big emphasis on the FMS computer(flight management system) and that you enter all the parameters into it. Our aircraft has a formation flight system and the co-pilot is constantly managing it. You hear all the time “Make the box smart”, “unf*** the box”, make the screens smart” This is why “airdrop” operations feel like you are almost flying alone. The Captain is flying and the copilot is constantly fighting “the box” and running checklists.
The next training is to become the “airdrop” commander and this is the holy grail of C17 flying and the most demanding course. I did it for my soul. There are several people involved in this training. I had two captains and two co-pilots. One part of it is that you run the “mission planning cell”, which means you organize the whole plan and present it to the crew, and the next day you go and fly it. When you fly you are the “formation flight lead”, which means you lead the formation, and when you fly into the “airdrop zone” you have to know how to fly it. The co-pilots you get are air-land pilots and it’s up to you to teach them everything they need to know about airdrop. It’s very three-dimensional, the best course there is.
You are the commander of the individual aircraft. Then there’s always the formation flight lead. But if you have a multi-player mission, there’s also a mission commander.
It’s a really nice, nice experience.
My last training was as a C17 instructor and I have just completed it. It lasts a month and a half and there is a lot of simulator training. You get an instructor in the chair next to you, and they are constantly being difficult while you have to correct them and teach them to survive. They’ll give you a rookie mentality at the beginning, then a captain mentality, and then a senior officer mentality to teach you individual specifics. Everyone makes roughly similar mistakes in their progress (common errors). If you were a “king of flying” fifteen years ago and then haven’t touched an aircraft for a few years, you will know some things, and some you will forget.
13. You seem to have learned above-average leadership skills. Has anyone guided you? You are chief of tactics.
I think it has to do with self-interest. I was lucky because before I went to PAPA, I attended the Squadron Officer School for Leaders. When you put things in military terms and you think how rigorous it is, you get there and you see that it’s like night and day from what you expected. They gave me a starting point there, and I have an interest in it myself. The measure of a good leader is that you don’t have to do anything. To be able to run your team so well that they are able to dodge any bullet that comes across without your intervention. In planning, this is always emphasized. That if you work well, you have nothing to do. But if you can’t manage people, then you have to look under everyone’s fingers. If you know how to manage people, it’s much easier, and the result is better. That is why I invest in it it pays huge dividends in the end.
14. Could you stay on the C17 if you wanted to?
No, my career on this aircraft is coming to an end. It is a bittersweet taste. All the best to my successor.
15. Is the Kabul mission the most memorable for you?
It was certainly one of the most chaotic events for me. It’s called the “fog of war”. But in the military, you are taught how to act when nothing is clear. It’s very easy to talk in retrospect and to judge when you have all the cards on the table. When there is a war, you play with two cards and you don’t know what the other cards are. That is why you follow the structure. You do the right things at the right time. The hardest thing is when you have in the same place a huge range between the most beautiful and the ugliest thing that humanity has to offer. It is really the case that one does not know what to say. You do what is right.
When someone is enjoying the view having a coffee and you are driving by in your car going to work knowing you are flying into areas of war, you say to yourself, “If only people understood what it is worth to be able to just drink coffee, look ahead and do nothing.”
16. Where have you flown the most missions?
We fly practically all over the world. The thing about missions is that there are 12 nations involved in the system and depending on what they ask for and the categorization of priorities, there is a system of how it is divided among the countries. A schedule is drawn up and then it is flown out. I flew a mission at the beginning of this year, but everything else is more special because of my qualifications. You become a sort of Swiss Army knife, but then they have you on reserve all the time, just in case, and I get a lot less to fly compared to others.
We have three commanders for the airdrop. Everything is on the three of us in the whole squadron. That’s a bit of the bad part of it.
17. Is there a different atmosphere in the aircraft when you fly a mission in a war zone?
I can’t say. There is always stress before or after. Never in the moment. That’s when you do what you have to do.
18. What do you think are the most important qualities of a pilot?
That’s the million-dollar question, I have a different theory every two weeks. One thing I notice is the knowledge base. In Slovenia, we don’t know how to value ourselves. For example, what kind of good knowledge our Faculty of Mechanical Engineering with its Aeronautical program gives. When you fly in Slovenia, you fly with Slovenian pilots, and that knowledge base is the basis. Whatever I explain, we are immediately on the same frequency. Now when I look at it, it was one of the best things I have done in my life and I was not an exemplary student, but just the minimum knowledge is five times more than the average.
Abroad I often appear weird because the other person doesn’t understand what I am saying. Abroad, pilots do not necessarily have to have a technical degree. It is also very difficult to guide such people. That is where the knowledge base comes in. Whatever you say, you can add to the knowledge base. But if you don’t have it, you can lecture the same thing ten times, and if you don’t have anything to latch it on to …
There is a big focus on being detail-oriented. But I think it’s also important to have a broader, macro view. A lot of times someone has all the details under the hood, they know all the numbers by heart, there’s not one thing you can say to them, but they can’t see that the plane is flying into a mountain. The ability to be able to shift focus from small to big picture and vice versa is where I see the difference.
For example, “hand flying” has a lot to do with how much you understand the physics of flight. When you are air refueling, that’s where it shows up. In the end, it’s all about energy management. To fly a two hundred tonne aircraft in the right way. If you understand that, it is not that complicated.
The problem is when people force the plane into positions instead of setting the parameters and knowing where the speed will stop. The best energy management is seen in the acro group. A tight formation is the starting point for understanding how the plane flies.
19. Have you ever had a bad situation?
No. Otherwise, a million annoying things, but nothing catastrophic that could not be solved. Our plane is very complex in comparison to others because it has so many systems. I say “aviate, navigate, communicate” before every departure. If you focus on the right things, most of the time it’s fine. The C17 is a fantastic airplane as far as flying goes.
What I would say to pilots is that they should invest in systems knowledge and how the systems are interconnected. “A ‘checklist’ will, of course, solve 99% of situations, but this document is a glimpse into the past. When you are faced with new, previously unknown problems, the only real solution will be to know the systems.
20. Given the bubble of knowledge you have built up, it seems that you are overqualified and that such experience is difficult to translate, even for Slovenian needs. How does it feel to go from such a position to less demanding positions in the future? What might be waiting for you now in the Slovenian military when you return? Abroad, such individuals are snapped up by companies…
Yes, that’s the problem. I will have a midlife crisis. I’ll start running marathons, I’ll be making coffee (I already do that), I’ll buy a convertible car… The funny thing is, when you fly big planes, you want to fly small ones and vice versa. When I go to renew my license to fly multi-engine and single-engine aircraft, it’s like giving a five-year-old a kilo of ice cream.
The plan is to fly the C27 Spartan. Now I am more interested in bringing others up to the level of knowledge than myself. But it’s always mutual. If someone wants knowledge I can offer that, I’m happy to do it, but I don’t have to. In aviation, at some point, it always comes down to giving back in the end.
You always have to look at people who are happy for you and your successes. In management, it is always your resources that are emphasized. You are constantly being told, ‘What are resources, what are your resources’, so much so that you can’t even listen to them anymore. Everybody is put in a situation where they cannot do anything. Few see the resources that are available to them. Each one looks only at the end picture but does not see what he has around him. I am certainly a worthy asset. I believe someone will recognize that.
Young people are not being given the opportunity to develop their leadership skills. Just as you don’t learn to ride a bicycle through a PowerPoint, you don’t learn to lead by staring at slides. For some, it comes more naturally, for others less so. If you put people in it, it comes naturally to people.
I also work a lot with the Special Forces, and they really show what a team is. If there was anywhere worth putting your money, just to watch them get organized, it would be with them. You quickly realize that the individual is irrelevant. In a special unit, everyone understands their duties. Nobody is throwing themselves on the ground and flexing their muscles. Everybody does what they are supposed to do and things run perfectly. Everyone is very collegial. It’s like a brotherhood. It is a dream to work in such teams. And in Special Forces, it’s a prerequisite that you care more about the person standing next to you than you care about yourself. As a result, the whole unit works like that. That’s why you can send them anywhere, anytime.
There is a lot of populist leadership at the moment, and that bothers me. A lot of things sound good in theory, but in practice, it is not so easy. Discomfort is a condition of comfort. You cannot appreciate a good day today if you have not experienced a bad day before.
I might be interested in working with military specialists in this field. They always employ veterans abroad. Here in the army, they always ask what will you do in civilian life. Abroad companies are waiting to grab these people. It does not matter what the companies do, as long as you have leadership skills.
21. What gets you through life?
I work by principles. I’m very flexible about a lot of things, but then there are certain cardinal things that I don’t deviate from. In aviation, I have always had my own vision, I have always been my own person. If you are a conformist, the result is that you are only as good as the person next to you. If you have your own vision you can succeed, even if you weren’t a pearl in school.
It is natural for bigger nationalities to get such opportunities, but I had to work extremely hard for every single thing, which makes me even more proud as a member of the Slovenian Army.
The first day I came to PAPA, I had a vision that I wanted to do all the C17 courses. How I was going to get there I had no idea. But then, when you do the right things, the picture comes together. Stone on stone becomes a palace.
Godspeed.
photo: personal archive
Written by: Eva Kraš
