Aces high Rock band made up of current and former air traffic controllers taking off By: Eva Wasney Posted: 5:28 PM CDT Thursday, Oct. 23, 2025 Last Modified: 6:55 AM CDT Friday, Oct. 24, 2025 Updates

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Leaving on a Jet Plane, I Believe I Can Fly, Come Fly with Me.

Aviation has served as inspiration for many hit songs, but the subject is a little too on the nose for the members of CAR287, a Winnipeg rock band founded by current and former air traffic controllers.

“It’s more personal life and those kinds of experiences that have found their way into our songs. Thus far, anyway. Maybe once I’m retired, I’ll dive into that topic,” lead vocalist Jay Yarmey says.

Still, the high-flying connections run deep for CAR287.

Yarmey and bandmates Travis Wog (guitar) and Terry Ferguson (bass) met through Winnipeg’s area control centre, where all of Manitoba’s airspace is managed. Drummer Ryan Olenick is married to a Nav Canada simulation trainer and newly recruited keyboardist Robert Holter-Ferguson (Ferguson’s son) trained in air traffic control before pursuing a different career path.

The amateur musicians started playing together in various forms more than a decade ago for the NavCan Jam, an annual industry fundraiser organized by Ferguson.

“I was in air traffic services for many years and I noticed there were an awful lot of really good musicians (on staff),” says the retired control centre manager and longtime local cover-band player, who also moonlights as an actor in local filmmaker Tyrone Deise’s Simpsons-inspired shorts.

Music is a surprisingly common niche within the global aviation community as well. CAR287 — a nod to the address of the band’s practice space and not job jargon — has twice performed at an international festival for air traffic control bands (yes, that’s a thing).

The Controllers’ Music Festival, a.k.a. ComuFest, is a multi-day event held every few years in different European locales. The 2024 edition featured 20 bands and DJs from around the world, all of which contained at least one air traffic controller.

Ferguson believes the common interest has something to do with the psychological makeup of those in the field and the decisiveness required for the job.

“When you’re onstage and you’re playing music, you can’t just stop if you mess up. You’ve got to keep going. Same thing in air traffic control. When things aren’t going right, a pilot misses some communication or something, you have to adapt and carry on,” he says.

For the members of CAR287, music is a stress reliever and a creative outlet.

“Playing music is pretty beneficial for me after a shift that was busier or a bit more challenging,” says Yarmey, who is a high-level controller and supervisor in Winnipeg’s airport tower.

“I enjoy the camaraderie of it, being collaborative with the guys,” says Wog, a recent retiree.

Over the past few years, the band has expanded beyond workplace entertainment to a fully fledged outfit performing regularly at local venues, including Dauphin’s Country Fest this summer.

In September, CAR287 released its first full-length album of original music, entitled Looking Through the Lens, recorded at Winnipeg’s Private Ear Recording studio.

Songwriting is a shared pursuit that began during the pandemic, with each band member taking a different tack.

Yarmey finds a tune first and draws lyrical inspiration from his life, relationships and hometown, penning the tracks Gateway to the West and Road Rage Leady (both of which are full of Winnipeggisms). The band’s Canadiana rock sound is also informed by Yarmey’s not-so-mild obsession with the Tragically Hip.

Ferguson, on the other hand, tried to take a poetic approach to social issues, writing songs about homelessness for the band’s self-titled EP and co-writing Passing of Day for the new album.

“I’m more of a storyteller of events,” Wog says. “I wrote a song called Muddy Water, which is the story of the 1997 flood.”

Looking Through the Lens is available on Apple Music and Spotify. CAR287 performs at a fundraiser for the Leftovers foundation on Tuesday at Trans Canada Brewing.

eva.wasney@winnipegfreepress.com