Fighters: The Boss Part 1: Becoming a Hornet Pilot - Maciej "Match" Hatta

So when you were growing up in Milton, where did aviation first enter your life?

So at first, I always wanted to be either a firefighter or police officer, um, early in elementary school, and then my dad actually worked for McDonnell Douglas Canada in Malton, which is-- was at the north end of, uh, Pearson Airport, uh, in the old Avro Arrow plant, actually, the iconic hangars there.

And, uh, he worked on a-- He was a riveter, a machinist, and worked on MD-11 wings, and I think they made F-18 pylons for external fuel tanks and weapons.

And, uh, so that kind of opened the door a bit.

And then, uh, literally one day he brought home basically like a corporate, very corporate-esque VHS tape of, uh, Q4 earnings or something like that, or company status at McDonnell Douglas.

And at the very end of all the other stuff was a, a quick video of the Blue Angels since McDonnell Douglas was the manufacturer of their platform at the, at the time, the, uh, the Legacy Hornet.

And, uh, I watched that, and I remember fast-forwarding to the end all the time and watching that over and over and rewinding it and watching it again.

And it was like, it's so cheesy now.

I found it on YouTube, actually, the original VHS tape.

And so I actually showed the, the Snowbirds team a, a few weeks back, and it's very propaganda-esque and cheesy, and the audio track is funny now that I listen to it, but that is actually what got me into flying.

So it's a fun little throwback, and I smile every time I hear it and then sing the song in my head, even though it's American, not Canadian.

But, uh, yeah, that's, that's literally the video that got me into flying.

Oh, that's so cool.

We'll have to get you to send us that link, and we'll put it in the show notes in case listeners wanna check it out.

But, uh, that's so awesome.

It's neat that your dad was working on parts of the aircraft that you would eventually-- Well, the Legacy aircraft that you would eventually fly.

Like, that is-- that's really neat.

Yeah.

The more I spend time in aviation, I find how small and intricate and interwoven all the facets are and, like, how people are connected.

And I'll have some more kinda connections back later as we talk.

But, uh, yeah, even in the broader North American sense, aviation is still a fairly tight, close-knit community.

We see that in the airshow industry for sure, amongst, uh, other places.

So yeah, having been able to tell my dad that I probably flew something that he worked on or a portion of what he worked on, uh, is a pretty cool story.

Yeah.

That's amazing.