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We're Gonna Get Skinny Episode 153 · So There I Was

• 0:00
  Quiet, numbskulls. I'm broadcasting. Hello, you're listening to the podcast. So there I was.
• 0:06
  This is episode number 153.
• 0:10
  We're going to get skinny.
• 0:13
  Yeah, we are. And short, too.
• 0:17
  I'm not talking losing weight here. No.
• 0:21
  I almost lost some weight. Oh, my gosh.
• 0:25
  Hey, before we get too far into this, This is the actual last day of the giveaway.
• 0:31
  It is. That's right. By the time the recording goes out, we should already have
• 0:35
  the giveaway. They'll be gone.
• 0:37
  Yeah, by the time this goes live on Thursday, you will have either won or not
• 0:42
  won a custom show flask, the Solaris logo and your name or call sign etched right onto that flask.
• 0:50
  Here's the bad news.
• 0:53
  They don't come with anything in them except air. So you're going to have to
• 0:57
  fill it yourself. That's okay.
• 0:59
  That's okay because they're worth it. These things are badass.
• 1:02
  They are. They're really cool. I love them. So, yeah, we're going to give five
• 1:07
  away those away. But here's the other cool thing is just because March's giveaway
• 1:11
  is gone, April's is now open.
• 1:14
  So there was.us slash giveaway.
• 1:17
  Go there and see what's next on the cool list of merch that we are going to
• 1:22
  give to you for spreading the word about the show. Go spread the word.
• 1:26
  Yeah, spread the word. It doesn't cost nothing.
• 1:28
  No. Just share the show. And now you can actually make something out of it.
• 1:33
  It doesn't cost you, and you can make some cool merch in your pocket.
• 1:39
  Hey, we also are able to bring this show to you because this guy named Robbie
• 1:43
  Walling. Might have heard of him.
• 1:46
  Yeah, Robbie Walling with HSI Wealth Strategies.
• 1:51
  And I have known Robbie for a significant number of years. I was in the same squadron with him.
• 1:58
  I'm much senior to him. I'm not going to say by how much.
• 2:03
  But it was a pleasure to serve with him and watch him grow and develop into
• 2:08
  the awesome aviator that he is now.
• 2:11
  But he also is part of HSI Wealth Strategies.
• 2:15
  And that's the real deal. So don't be a moron.
• 2:18
  Give Robbie Walling a call. Bingo, right?
• 2:23
  214JET7030. Give Robbie a call. Help him put seven figures in your pocket for retirement.
• 2:30
  Yeah, remember, it's not how much you make, it's how much you keep.
• 2:35
  And that's part of their strategies. So don't be a moron. No morons allowed.
• 2:42
  Speaking of no morons allowed, we had an engineer with us. Yeah, well, what did he say?
• 2:49
  He went to the... University of Science and Fine Arts. Take me a minute.
• 2:54
  Yes, also known as the United States Air Force Academy. Double engineering major,
• 2:59
  or double E engineering major.
• 3:01
  And, you know, that's not a small IQ.
• 3:05
  No, those guys can do math and shit. Other things.
• 3:10
  Hard math. They can do Chinese ciphering, as they call it.
• 3:14
  Well, Hutch, Hutch was our guest. And, you know, he's had a full career as a
• 3:20
  backseater, WIZO, a weapons system operator in the F-111 Aardvark.
• 3:27
  Aardvark, yeah. Actually, that's a side-seater on that one.
• 3:31
  But yeah, that's a side-by-side. Super fast, multi-role attack fighter aircraft.
• 3:39
  The altitudes that they flew at. Oh, I know. At night.
• 3:43
  Terrain following radar. Yes. I'm just now recovering. I didn't sleep well last
• 3:48
  night. I had nightmares.
• 3:49
  No, and the speeds, the speeds at which some of these stories happen at,
• 3:54
  I'm still wrapping my, I'm still conjonculating on that. Right.
• 4:00
  1.3 Mach, off target.
• 4:04
  And had to go below something so that because they couldn't go above it for
• 4:09
  reasons you're going to have to listen to the podcast to find out. Right.
• 4:15
  And then another one, almost a show title, was The French Did a Golf Clap.
• 4:21
  All right. Was that a great story? Yes.
• 4:26
  Turned all the red air white, meaning all eliminated.
• 4:31
  Done. Yeah. Yeah, that's a good. You guys are done. Well, you can't do that.
• 4:35
  Yeah. Actually, we did, and we can. And, yeah.
• 4:40
  Yeah. Beautiful stuff. Yeah. So, anyway, yeah.
• 4:44
  And then the other cool thing I found out about the aardvark that I think I
• 4:49
  knew at one point in time, but it completely forgotten, was the ejection seat
• 4:54
  in that airplane isn't really an ejection seat.
• 4:56
  Yeah. It's like an ejection room. Yeah. Yeah. Ejection lifeboat.
• 5:01
  Yeah. Holy shit. There's a whole capsule that comes out of that thing.
• 5:05
  That makes, don't sit on the ejection seat handle, a whole different thing.
• 5:09
  Absolutely. And then he did some time in the F-15, the Mud Hen.
• 5:15
  Mud Hen, yeah. As well. So not quite as much time as he did in the Aardvark.
• 5:19
  But some really cool flying stories.
• 5:21
  I could be wrong, but I think it may be time for us to listen to him, Vic.
• 5:25
  Let's get out of the way. Let's get out of the way and let our people hear.
• 5:30
  Right. don't in his case don't lean over on the ejection seat handle you couldn't
• 5:35
  don't rest your yeah well i guess what because it was on the side so what is
• 5:38
  it don't don't lean on don't lean on the ejection seat handle at night in the
• 5:46
  world's smallest cockpit on.
• 5:50
  Music.
• 6:16
  So there I was at Nellis, final phase of mission employment,
• 6:21
  as it used to be called, a weapon school in the mighty Aardvark,
• 6:24
  coming off target and asked my wingman for a posit, tells us we're out of point X.
• 6:31
  So we're looking at, wow, we're way behind.
• 6:33
  So time to step it up. We push it up.
• 6:37
  We're 100 feet hand flying at Mach 1.3, exiting on our way out and start to
• 6:43
  have some fun. There are some deaf horses and a few other things,
• 6:47
  and we'll keep going after that.
• 6:51
  Hold on a second. Did you say 100 feet at 1.3 Mach, hand flying?
• 6:58
  Yep, 1.3 Mach. That's what I thought you said! Son of a bitch!
• 7:02
  Deaf horses? Probably something got blown over.
• 7:06
  More livestock being harmed. Wow.
• 7:10
  Well, welcome to So There I Was, and that is how all, well, my palms are sweating,
• 7:16
  their hair is standing up on the back of my neck. Aviation story start.
• 7:20
  This is Fig. I'm coming to you from my home, Kearney, Missouri. Where's my cohorts?
• 7:24
  I'm at my home in New Hampshire, and we're proud today to welcome Hutch,
• 7:32
  an aardvark, f-111 and f-15 strike eagle with so glad to have you holy smokes.
• 7:43
  Man this is going to be fun uh that's all i can tell you but when is the first
• 7:47
  time you ever looked up way up in the sky at 100 feet and said oh there's an
• 7:51
  airplane i want to i want to fly one of those someday well it's funny initially
• 7:56
  i just because of my eyesight i i knew i couldn't be a pilot.
• 8:02
  And so initially coming to the Air Force, I thought I was going to be a double
• 8:05
  E, do my five years and hello IBM or some company like that.
• 8:10
  And then once I was at school, I found out, hey,
• 8:14
  There's this, you know, thing called Navigator, which then subset of that thing
• 8:17
  called WIZO and can fly fighters.
• 8:19
  And I'm like, I'm in. I want to do that.
• 8:24
  Fantastic. Yeah. So, all right.
• 8:27
  What was that process to get from I want to do that to going to it?
• 8:32
  Tell us where you went to school and see if they can figure it out.
• 8:35
  Like, it took me a second.
• 8:37
  All right. Well, yeah, I went to the University of Science and Fine Arts in
• 8:41
  Colorado Springs, Colorado. There you go.
• 8:44
  That's the USAFA.
• 8:48
  Correct. University of Service of Fine Arts. Science and Fine Arts. Yes.
• 8:54
  Most folks take a while to get that. It's a great way to be unassuming.
• 8:58
  And folks, wow, Colorado, that's pretty cool. I hadn't heard that school.
• 9:00
  You know, how do I go there?
• 9:02
  And then they find out, ah, okay, got it. Damn it.
• 9:09
  Very cool. So when did you go there? I was there 81, 85.
• 9:14
  Okay so okay a minute ago or two yeah yeah we're all geezers here so all right
• 9:25
  and what was that process like well where'd you grow up let me ask that so i
• 9:29
  grew up northwest indiana just a place called merrillville just south of gary and lake michigan,
• 9:35
  Both my parents are schoolteachers. My dad, high school, trig and calculus, and mom, third grade.
• 9:43
  And kind of started wanting to go to the academy based on a family vacation.
• 9:47
  We had gone all the way out to the West Coast.
• 9:50
  My uncle lived there. On the way back, stopped the academy.
• 9:53
  Because some guys dad had in class, one of which was out there coaching basketball,
• 9:57
  you probably heard of him a little bit, a guy named Greg Popovich.
• 10:00
  Oh, yeah. So my dad had Pop in class and coached him and Pop's that type of guy.
• 10:06
  He's never forgotten those folks that helped him through that process.
• 10:10
  So he and my dad, up until my dad passed away this last summer,
• 10:14
  maintained, you know, write letters and how folks are doing and that kind of thing.
• 10:18
  And once I saw that place, like, this is pretty cool. This is where I want to go.
• 10:23
  And so I applied to there and I also applied to West Point and then Purdue and
• 10:28
  Rose Hallman because I knew I wanted to major in electrical engineering.
• 10:31
  Once I got my appointment, I was super excited.
• 10:35
  Very cool. Oh, that's awesome.
• 10:40
  So, I'm trying to think. So, by then, there were majors at the Air Force Academy.
• 10:44
  We've had guys on that were Naval Academy that everybody got the same basic
• 10:48
  military science degree.
• 10:50
  Oh, right. No, there was lots of majors, yeah. I mean, I can't remember.
• 10:54
  Now there's even more, but, yeah, you had plenty of majors to choose from.
• 10:58
  You could go just general studies.
• 11:01
  You're still going to get a bachelor of science degree because of,
• 11:03
  you know, what that core curriculum is like.
• 11:06
  But I knew I wanted to be an electrical engineer well before I had gotten to the academy.
• 11:12
  So, Hutch, when you were at the academy during the summers, did you do a few
• 11:19
  weeks somewhere at a squadron and get some backseat flying and like kind of seal the deal for you?
• 11:24
  Or what was your path? No, so my summer program, when we went...
• 11:31
  The three weeks, I went to Little Rock Air Force Base.
• 11:35
  And so I spent a week with the C-130 guys and we flew out, went to Cuba.
• 11:40
  So I spent a night in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
• 11:42
  That was really interesting and eye-watering.
• 11:45
  Watched one of our compasses or heading systems on the C-130 go out of whack
• 11:48
  as we went through the Bermuda Triangle. I thought that was kind of coincidental.
• 11:52
  I spent a week with the missileers and I knew that's something I didn't want to do.
• 11:56
  And then I spent a week with the combat control team guys. and that was a pretty
• 12:00
  educational thing as well.
• 12:03
  So that was my three weeks there at Little Rock and definitely enjoyed the flying start.
• 12:08
  We will probably get that the way StreamYard picks up the recording,
• 12:12
  but we missed about the last 30 seconds.
• 12:15
  Okay. Pretty much everything after the Bermuda Triangle.
• 12:19
  I heard Miss Alear, and I know you were going with it, but you froze.
• 12:24
  Right. So like I said, we actually lost the heading system, One of them in the
• 12:29
  130 going through the Bermuda Triangle.
• 12:31
  And then after that, I got back. I spent a week with the Titan missile guys.
• 12:36
  Realized I didn't want to be sitting in a missile silo. And then a week with
• 12:39
  the combat controllers. And I thought those guys had a pretty cool job. Yeah.
• 12:45
  Well, doesn't everybody lose their navigation system in the Bermuda Triangle?
• 12:51
  I mean, isn't that what it's for?
• 12:53
  Suck the navigation system right out of whatever is going through there?
• 12:56
  Yep. So, fortunately, we still had one good one, and we're able to go from Puerto
• 13:00
  Rico, I think, into Cuba.
• 13:02
  Thank goodness. That was kind
• 13:03
  of neat. The question is, do you turn or not turn when you've lost that?
• 13:09
  Do you turn so that you're going straight, or do you not turn so that you don't fall?
• 13:13
  Well, you fly around in circles until you run out of gas. that's the problem
• 13:16
  you stay in that triangle and then everybody's the trash is in the water yeah
• 13:20
  right i mean everybody knows that come on just asking for a friend so all right
• 13:26
  so you graduated and you got to what was that process like to find out you were
• 13:31
  going to get to go be a whizzo.
• 13:34
  So you had to take some if you're going to go now you know
• 13:36
  you're tracking navigator to i'm going to go maither there was some
• 13:39
  navigation courses you took as part of your curriculum at
• 13:42
  school and the t-43s from mather come in
• 13:45
  and got some some rides on that once you
• 13:47
  got to mather then obviously what you're going to fly was
• 13:50
  based on order of merit so you fill out your dream sheet
• 13:54
  i think it had like 33 things you
• 13:57
  could fill out on it of course i front loaded all mine with fighters
• 14:00
  f4 all the different versions f4g ed
• 14:04
  f111 ef111 fb111 c130
• 14:08
  all the way down and so then the drop comes
• 14:11
  and based on your order merit but it's
• 14:14
  also what is available based on the follow-on pipeline
• 14:18
  training on what drops and
• 14:22
  my my class had oh probably had 10 guys that all wanted to go fighters there
• 14:28
  was a class about a month after us that they had about 10 guys that get about
• 14:31
  want to go c-130s my class got 10 c-130s and six fighters and their class got
• 14:35
  10 fighters and six C-130s. Of course.
• 14:39
  So luck of the draw of what class you're in and what drops down and where you're at.
• 14:43
  But I was extremely happy when I found out I was getting F-111 E's to upper A for me.
• 14:49
  So, describe what that airplane is like.
• 14:55
  Yeah, they're all gone. Yeah. I mean, it's a cool airplane.
• 14:59
  Yeah. Yeah, so the VART had four before the FBs came to TAC,
• 15:05
  but it had four models, the A, the E, the D, and the F.
• 15:09
  The A and no four had the same interior instrumentation in the cockpits.
• 15:15
  Well, you know, that would be
• 15:16
  silly. had splitter plates instead of moving intakes and the most basic,
• 15:23
  you know, granted it was built in the early 60s, flew in Vietnam,
• 15:26
  analog, you know, every turn point you're grabbing these knobs on your control
• 15:30
  unit and manually dialing in your coordinates to the next point.
• 15:34
  Yeah, that, that nice digital kind of display, that was much, much later.
• 15:39
  That was after the avionics modification where we got those MFDs.
• 15:43
  Then the E-models had what they called translating cowls as did the D and the
• 15:47
  F a little bit better avionics inside the D model.
• 15:52
  It had a heads up display actually on both sides, which was kind of nice and
• 15:57
  not nearly as good as a HUD as you see in a Hornet, a Viper,
• 16:01
  Strike Eagle type of thing, but it's still pretty, pretty good.
• 16:04
  And then the F model went back to having the, just the site on the left,
• 16:09
  nothing on the right, but it was digital avionics and had the PaveTac pod for laser designation.
• 16:13
  And it had the F model had the big motors.
• 16:17
  The Gs, which were the old FBs, when they came into ACC, the G and the C model
• 16:23
  that the Aussies flew had longer wings by about three feet on each side.
• 16:27
  Oh, that's significant. So you can tell when they're parked.
• 16:31
  Yeah, we can see where those wings, that almost looks like, yeah, that's an early model.
• 16:37
  So Sticks has up on our YouTube feed pictures of the F-111 R of our swing wing.
• 16:44
  It looks very F-14-esque.
• 16:47
  If it had twin tails, you know, at first glance, you'd go, that's an F-14.
• 16:52
  So the Air Force, there's the B model. They only made a couple of these,
• 16:57
  and it was to test for the Navy to have it be, it was, you know,
• 17:01
  the initial joint strike fighter.
• 17:03
  Okay. They wanted it to be a joint type of aircraft, but after testing whatever
• 17:07
  the Navy said, a little too heavy, not what we want.
• 17:09
  But a lot of that technology then went into
• 17:12
  the tomcat okay and that
• 17:15
  you know swing wings initially helped for you know storage which fit on
• 17:18
  there the tomcat's wings would auto sweep where
• 17:21
  the 111 you had to always manually sweep your wings oh was that a grumman is
• 17:26
  that a grumman product yes sir grumman product yep okay yeah okay that's why
• 17:31
  it looks uh very familiar oh i thought i thought it was general dynamics that's
• 17:36
  the 111 yeah oh that's what i was asking I'm sorry, the 111 with General Dynamics.
• 17:41
  It obviously became Lockheed when they bought that out. And the Tomcat was a
• 17:45
  Grumman technology. Okay.
• 17:49
  So they tried. Cats are all Grummans. Right. If it's a cat, it's a Grumman. So, all right.
• 17:55
  Ow. All right. Trying to think. The one that was the bee that Styx had up there,
• 18:01
  the landing gear looked really close together. Was it that way on the...
• 18:07
  Yeah, so the landing gear...
• 18:11
  Pretty heavy-duty. If you look at that, the landing gear, our main tires,
• 18:16
  they're the same size as you see on a C-130.
• 18:19
  Wow. Okay. That's a pretty damn big tire.
• 18:22
  Right. So you did not flare a 111 when you landed it.
• 18:26
  You landed it 600 feet per minute and pretty much crashed it to the runway. Just like an EV.
• 18:31
  So that tank gear is built to sustain that for that purpose.
• 18:38
  Now, was that also because of the tail strike issue? if you try to flare it?
• 18:43
  That and with those big stabs in the back, you didn't want to get too high. You could scrape those.
• 18:48
  Oh, yeah. The rear stabilizers, those are the size of a T-38's main wing,
• 18:56
  plus or minus a few inches. That's awesome, right?
• 18:58
  Probably an A-4, too. They actually look more like an A-4 wing.
• 19:01
  Yeah, so it's pretty big.
• 19:05
  Heavy aircraft, though. I mean, it's 50,000 pounds empty, And we used to carry
• 19:09
  34,500 pounds internal.
• 19:12
  And then you had stores, everything else. So, yeah, it was definitely a heavy airplane.
• 19:16
  So were you bucking 100 grand max gross takeoff weight with ordinance and everything?
• 19:22
  Real close to that, yep. Wow.
• 19:25
  And that's a pretty big plane. I mean, you know, with the wings out and everything.
• 19:29
  I mean, that's like a tennis court. So I was looking at pictures of it yesterday,
• 19:32
  Fig. It's significantly bigger than a Phantom.
• 19:35
  Oh, yeah. Yep.
• 19:39
  I remember seeing them up close You know on cross countries We'd go to places
• 19:43
  where they were And I would think man that's a big damn airplane But I really
• 19:47
  never stood next to one So yeah,
• 19:50
  It's you know unlike the A4 It's got that really tall Main front landing gear,
• 19:57
  For as big as it is, heavy as it is, it's really not that high off the ground
• 20:01
  when you look at it on how it's designed, which is kind of surprising.
• 20:08
  I think there's strike eagles taller when you took more steps to get the cockpit
• 20:12
  of a strike eagle than you did to get up to the cockpit of a VARC. Sure.
• 20:18
  And the other thing that was unique about it, and Sticks put that up earlier,
• 20:21
  is the seating in that was more like an A6.
• 20:24
  It was side-by-side. Were you directly side-by-side, or were you a little lower
• 20:29
  and a little aft? Directly side-by-side.
• 20:33
  So my throttles were obviously to my left, right there in the center console,
• 20:38
  and there's other things in the center console.
• 20:41
  The EF-111, because of its thing that the right seater had to do, did not have a stick.
• 20:46
  But all the other F-111s had a stick on the right side.
• 20:50
  Oh, so you got some good stick time in that thing. I got a lot of good stick time.
• 20:53
  Nice. I was lucky I had guys that let me get a lot of stick time.
• 20:58
  That's fantastic. That is. So where was the swing wing control?
• 21:03
  I didn't realize that that was a manual control on the wings.
• 21:06
  Yeah, swing wing is on the right, just underneath the window rail,
• 21:10
  the canopy rail there on the pilot's left side, just below the canopy rail.
• 21:16
  And it had, you know, first detent was at the 26-degree wing,
• 21:21
  and then you'd push that detent, come back to the 54-degree wing,
• 21:25
  push that detent, and come all the way back to 72.
• 21:27
  And you could do intermediate in between them, but just those are the two auto
• 21:30
  stops that had on it when you're pulling them back. Sure.
• 21:34
  Sure. Oh, man.
• 21:37
  And what kind of power did that thing have? What kind of power plant?
• 21:43
  They were Pratt & Whitney turbo fans, and they had different suffixes at the
• 21:50
  end, depending on which engines were in which.
• 21:54
  The F model had the biggest power plant of the designs, but the sleekest airframe,
• 22:01
  because of the splitter plates versus the cowls, was actually the a model but
• 22:06
  the f model had the biggest biggest amount of power and i forget it's been too
• 22:09
  many years how many pounds of thrust that that it had enough to get 1.3 on the deck,
• 22:15
  oh yeah yep yeah yeah and there's that so can i can i make an assumption hutch
• 22:23
  that in the early in the early days you guys were training to deliver special weapons Yes, we were.
• 22:31
  Especially in Europe, that was your primary checkout.
• 22:35
  As soon as you got there, you had to certify on that, which was a lot of studying,
• 22:39
  a lot of stump the dummy questions when you had certification board.
• 22:43
  Because that was job one over there for both us and Lake and Heath back there
• 22:48
  in the 80s before the wall came down. Because you were coming back from that mission.
• 22:54
  Yeah, right. Yeah, you were.
• 22:58
  Or was it a, did you guys train for a loft type delivery or,
• 23:02
  or were you, were you sneaking in low, climbing high, you know,
• 23:08
  dropping it and beat feet now? What, what was the type of profile you guys trained for?
• 23:13
  Yes. All those based on the type of weapon and the type of effects that they wanted.
• 23:20
  Then yes, you're going to practice either like a toss or what they called a
• 23:24
  lad low altitude drug delivery.
• 23:28
  Both had different kind of maneuvers. One, you toss and peel off away and go
• 23:31
  away. One, you toss, roll inverted, pull back over and keep going straight.
• 23:36
  And then you're straight, obviously, low level delivery on that.
• 23:40
  So yeah, that was your bread and butter was practicing for that,
• 23:44
  as well as your conventional ordinance.
• 23:46
  But that was job one back then.
• 23:50
  And so were you still flying, I don't want to get too far ahead here,
• 23:54
  but I just thought of this.
• 23:56
  Were you still flying Aardvarks when WW Gulf War I kicked off?
• 24:01
  Yes. In 1990? Yes. Yep. Were you in England at the time or did you guys get deployed?
• 24:07
  I was at Upper Hayford and I didn't get to participate in. I was down there
• 24:11
  for the Desert Shield portion in Turkey.
• 24:15
  Came back to Upper Hayford, was bringing some jet bags for some maintenance.
• 24:18
  And then they set some crews down for the other squadron so that everyone had
• 24:23
  some folks down there participating in it instead of just my squadron.
• 24:27
  So I did back and I did some other testing, helping the Brits do some buddy
• 24:31
  lazing with Buckeyes and things like that.
• 24:34
  Yeah, still flying in England. I left Upper Hayford in 91, kind of right after
• 24:38
  the wall came down, back to Cannon Air Force Base to go to the weapons school.
• 24:44
  So so was that i mean f fighter but it looks like it was more of a medium attack jet than,
• 24:52
  than a fighter or could that thing turn and could could
• 24:56
  you turn on a fight or was it you could
• 24:59
  once one good
• 25:04
  turn and you had to be fast so the the corner velocity you
• 25:07
  know your quickest tightest turn for a vark was 600 knots oh
• 25:11
  my gosh that's like that takes you about two miles right right so so corner
• 25:16
  velocity in the vark was six point or 600 knots you know the max g we're supposed
• 25:21
  to pull was 7.33 i can't believe i still remember all these numbers wow but
• 25:25
  pulling those numbers out right
• 25:26
  get that file right so you know we weren't going to sit in a knife fight.
• 25:31
  You know, forever with that and the thrusties. Our thing was get the turn and
• 25:35
  then try to outrun everything. Squeeze one off and run.
• 25:38
  And designed to fly low. So find a cloud, put the TFR on, get down 200 feet in the weather and go.
• 25:46
  You eliminate quite a bit of threats on that. Okay. Because most guys aren't
• 25:50
  going to follow you down in that environment.
• 25:52
  Right. No. So you mentioned TFR.
• 25:55
  What was that thing like? I imagine you used that at night?
• 25:58
  Yes. The train-following radar, once you get comfortable with it,
• 26:03
  it was a really good system.
• 26:05
  You had two train-following radars in addition to the main radar.
• 26:09
  You would engage that fully coupled autopilot. So once you let down,
• 26:13
  you'd see the pilot sitting back there, back when you could smoke in the jet.
• 26:16
  No. You'd be smoking, running the throttles. No.
• 26:19
  Oh, yeah. The jet's running itself. Yeah.
• 26:22
  Hey, wait a minute. Are we talking like 100 feet, 200 feet?
• 26:26
  Our settings were two three four five
• 26:29
  and a thousand okay yep so
• 26:32
  a thousand i could smoke a lucky at
• 26:35
  but if i was down at 300 doing five foot what'd you guys fly your low levels
• 26:40
  at mostly for training around 480 sometimes up to 540 depend on what you're
• 26:45
  at and you know yeah faster if need be for weapons delivery so you got your
• 26:50
  tfr on you're doing 480 you're at four You're at 400 feet.
• 26:54
  Pilot's got his mask off smoking the Lucky. Yep.
• 26:59
  You know, because, and then as a Wizzow, you're always hoping that the shadows
• 27:03
  on the radar are, you know, getting smaller.
• 27:05
  That means you're climbing and climbing above the thing in front of you.
• 27:08
  So you're checking with the radar and that, and then,
• 27:12
  The first time it kind of gets you is if you happen to fly, you know,
• 27:14
  something near a canyon, you see that beacon go off of that thing.
• 27:16
  Then you're like, oh, shit, how close am I to that canyon wall, you know?
• 27:20
  But you get used to it. Again, you're telling that.
• 27:24
  But great system, pretty reliable. I mean, there have been a few accidents, especially early on.
• 27:28
  But, you know, when you do the checks and maintenance kept that system pretty
• 27:32
  well, that was a good system. What do you think, Repeat?
• 27:37
  Just terrifying. I don't know. I can't. You know? I know. I can't.
• 27:42
  Put out your coals here, Sparky, and fly the damn jet.
• 27:46
  Wow. That's impressive. So what would be a – I know it's driven by the threat.
• 27:53
  Right. You know, you wouldn't descend until you needed to to stay out of the,
• 27:58
  you know, search radars.
• 27:59
  But what kind of range would you guys plan a mission at, you know, mile-wise at low level?
• 28:06
  I mean, how long of a low level or – Yeah,
• 28:09
  like – back you know like a thousand thousand mile radius and back or whatever
• 28:13
  is that you're talking like a combat radius yeah basically yeah and part of
• 28:18
  that's also what are we carrying i mean at one picture we just threw up there
• 28:21
  that was carrying you know dirt dirt durandall i think it's called,
• 28:25
  the 29 consecutive miracles for that thing to work but
• 28:28
  you know it's pretty dirty to carry where if you're just carrying four you
• 28:32
  know 2 000 pounders which are much slicker especially once
• 28:35
  they're gone and you know so it that would affect your range based
• 28:38
  on what you're carrying we always had the alq 131
• 28:42
  pod there you go there's radar look at that so that the range kind of varied
• 28:46
  also were you carrying tankers those previous missions you're talking about
• 28:50
  we usually had a couple bags of gas on there so now you're carrying over you
• 28:56
  know 47 000 pounds of fuel with the drop tanks on there.
• 29:01
  So yeah, so the range was pretty significant on it.
• 29:07
  Assuming you didn't have to drop in, you know, too early for a low level, but, you know,
• 29:11
  just from England, most of your targets back in the former Eastern Europe,
• 29:15
  you're going to stay high for quite a while before you start to let down and
• 29:19
  go through the German countryside to get further east.
• 29:23
  But, yeah, it'd vary.
• 29:27
  So, one of the things that Fig mentioned, and I know we've talked about it before,
• 29:31
  speeds and that sort of thing on this, but it just occurred to me,
• 29:34
  we never talked about why.
• 29:37
  So, yes, do you do it, you know, 480, 540?
• 29:41
  These numbers, 420, they're all divisible by 60. 60.
• 29:46
  That makes it easier on math, math in public especially. Right. Oh, yeah. Exactly.
• 29:52
  That's easy for an E&E major for crying out. Well, yeah, it's harder for us
• 29:57
  window-looking crayon-eating Marines, but there you go.
• 30:00
  420 is 7 miles a minute. 6.8s are 48, so 480 is 8 miles a minute. Right.
• 30:07
  610 miles a minute. Yeah.
• 30:09
  Yeah. It's a beautiful thing. But I don't think we've ever talked about why that is.
• 30:14
  But, yeah, that's why we try to hit those numbers on our ground speed for our low levels.
• 30:21
  So, yeah. So that's kind of. And now, like, in Germany, I'm trying to think
• 30:26
  for training, they had a lower.
• 30:29
  I think it was supposed to be 450, except for certain times, like IP to target.
• 30:35
  Then you could go a little faster and they had the skyguard radar system i mean
• 30:40
  they would track guys and try to you know send back and violate guys for being
• 30:44
  you were doing 425 across the wow,
• 30:49
  you had to pay attention each country had some different restrictions you know
• 30:52
  how low you could fly you know the rules varied you know in the uk i think it
• 30:57
  was 250 unless you're on tfr then you
• 31:01
  fly 200 Germany I think was 500 I forget what what like the Netherlands was
• 31:07
  things like that so you had to always pay attention which countries you're flying in,
• 31:12
  Yeah, but over there, when you're doing 480, you could zip through a couple
• 31:16
  countries without even realizing it. By the time you figure it out, yeah.
• 31:20
  Oh, certainly, yeah. Between Belgium, Denmark, Germany, you can get through there pretty quick.
• 31:26
  Yeah, a few minutes and done. A little different than the western U.S.
• 31:29
  Where you're carrying the same amount of country equivalents,
• 31:33
  but you're still in the state of Nevada. Right.
• 31:37
  Exactly. So, Hutch, you went to the Weapons School in the Aardvark.
• 31:44
  Yes. Did you go to Weapons School for the F-15E as well?
• 31:49
  I instructed in the F-15E Weapons School. Okay.
• 31:54
  So I went to school in the VARC, instructed in the F-111 Division Weapons School,
• 32:00
  and that was closing down.
• 32:01
  I went over and instructed at the F-15E Weapons School in Nellis.
• 32:06
  So the the opening story was that was that was that a red flag or was that a
• 32:12
  weapon school graduation exercise that was a i believe that that one was weapon
• 32:16
  school the final phase there used to be called mission employment i forget what
• 32:20
  they call it now yeah okay i mean uh,
• 32:25
  yep so that's okay so how many hours in the f-111 a little over 1600.
• 32:34
  Nice what was the average sortie length if you just had to give it a number,
• 32:39
  i want to say 2.8 if i remember right
• 32:42
  and i'm bringing back my time working in scheduling days when you're always
• 32:45
  worried about you know how much you're gonna fly but 2.8 to 3.1 especially in
• 32:50
  europe maybe a little shorter back in the states just given you know europe
• 32:56
  had to fly a little bit to get to the ranges like it can in the range 20 miles
• 32:59
  just to the west of the bay so,
• 33:01
  Well, that's a lot of strapping in and unstrapping right there. Yep. Right? Yep.
• 33:07
  Did you usually operate as a sectioner, division, single ship?
• 33:12
  All of those. So section being, we call it a two ship division, we call it a four ship.
• 33:17
  And then you did a lot of single ship, especially on that initial checkout with
• 33:22
  the special weapons you're talking about, mainly single ship there.
• 33:25
  But yes, try to do two, four, you know, section division and different tactics
• 33:31
  with that, how you're employing.
• 33:33
  Some of that was driven by, are you doing an upgrade for somebody?
• 33:37
  Are you upgrading what kind of weapons you're carrying, you know,
• 33:40
  training weapons, that kind of thing.
• 33:43
  Did some require you know that like you're going to carry an agm 130 the captive
• 33:48
  trainers the data link pod there you're rarely doing that as a four ship just
• 33:53
  because of maintenance and everything involved and then being able to have jets
• 33:57
  to turn for the second go that day,
• 33:59
  so a lot of that just training drove a lot of what you're flying okay what's
• 34:04
  a what's the makeup of a typical aardvark squadron how many pilots how many
• 34:09
  wizos who gotta go back i think.
• 34:14
  See we had a 24 pa squadron and so
• 34:18
  we probably had 32 ish
• 34:22
  pilots and wizos about a 1 1.3 between
• 34:26
  a 1.2 1.4 to 1 ratio and
• 34:30
  that you know that takes coming to your overhead for guys working up at wing staff and
• 34:33
  sure really have leave and things like that so that's
• 34:37
  32 pilots and 32 wizos roughly
• 34:41
  30 so 32 crews 32 crew
• 34:44
  right yeah wow that's pretty big i didn't
• 34:47
  know i didn't realize 24 24 planes
• 34:51
  that's that's significant it's a
• 34:53
  big squad right and that used to be the standard all your
• 34:56
  fighter squadrons used to be 24 what they call primary aircraft
• 34:59
  assigned which means you actually had about 30 because you
• 35:02
  probably had two at depot you know two in
• 35:05
  the paint barn you know the extras that go along along on
• 35:08
  that but that paa number is what was driving your so an average wing with three
• 35:13
  squadrons has 72 planes okay now strike eagles are a little different when i
• 35:20
  got the mountain home we were only an 18 pa squadron and i think we only had about 22 crew,
• 35:26
  so not as robustly manned back then.
• 35:29
  Okay. Okay. And did you generally fly with the same pilot all the time,
• 35:34
  or did you mix it up all the time?
• 35:37
  Initially, when you're a young lieutenant and you crew, they try to crew you
• 35:41
  with that guy, especially...
• 35:45
  Oh, wait a minute here. You can see we lost something. There we go. You're back.
• 35:51
  Generally, like first checking out. We lost you again. Last thing we heard is
• 35:55
  especially new lieutenant, especially.
• 35:57
  Yeah, new lieutenant crews in Europe. You try to crew you with that same guy
• 36:02
  for a while to get the experience. Okay.
• 36:05
  And then as you got a little, you know, you weren't just a brand newbie and
• 36:10
  needing to fly with a more senior guy, then you start bouncing around.
• 36:13
  That actually when you become an instructor, you'll fly with,
• 36:16
  you know, whoever, whenever based on upgrades or, you know, things like that.
• 36:21
  And, you know, from the pilot side, is he a section leader? Is he a division leader?
• 36:25
  Are you guys going single ship? That also would influence some of your crewing on that.
• 36:30
  But they would try to keep us with our primary assigned pilot for a good portion of it.
• 36:35
  But, you know, between other jobs and, you know, you get a head cold or,
• 36:40
  you know, yeah. So, yeah, so that's primary stuff was, you know, doing that.
• 36:46
  They do it the other way too? When you were a senior WIZO, would they put new
• 36:50
  pilots with you to work them up, so to speak?
• 36:55
  Yes. Yeah. Once you're an instructor, then I flew a lot with the new pilots
• 36:59
  coming out of the formal training unit when they get there to,
• 37:03
  you know, do some of their checkout.
• 37:05
  Or as a young guy who's getting ready to upgrade to flight lead,
• 37:09
  be it a section or division, you know, two-ship, four-ship, your instructor
• 37:13
  wizos, they kind of put them with those guys as well.
• 37:16
  Just even though we weren't, quote, flight leads, we had enough experience to
• 37:19
  kind of help out what he needs to think about, wingman considerations,
• 37:22
  that kind of stuff, and do some of those kind of things.
• 37:26
  Okay. Yeah. Well, I want to hit some of these bullet points in here.
• 37:32
  Sure. You talked about it.
• 37:35
  First one was upgraded avionics was a dream to fly
• 37:37
  but the then the one after that was also a supersonic compressor
• 37:41
  stall uh either one or both of those supersonic compressor
• 37:45
  stalls that was interesting so when a jet goes through a major depot level maintenance
• 37:51
  when it comes out it has to go through what's called a functional check flight
• 37:53
  okay and you have a and that's probably one of the earliest things you can upgrade to as a, you know.
• 38:01
  Kind of new crew member is a functional check flight, either whizzo or pilot.
• 38:06
  And so we're, I got to go down to Bristol, which is where the depot maintenance
• 38:12
  was for the UK and flew with another functional check flight pilot, took this jet up.
• 38:18
  Cause it's coming out of depot and long checklist. You got to record,
• 38:22
  you know, a bunch of the data at the different levels and stuff.
• 38:24
  And part of that is to, you know, you start ramping it up to go,
• 38:28
  you know, how high to get to 50,000 feet and see, you know, max speed you go.
• 38:32
  So we're cruising along and we're starting to go and we're out over the North
• 38:35
  Sea doing our start in our supersonic run, you know, past 1.5.
• 38:41
  And I'm writing my notes down on, you know, the different things are asking for me there.
• 38:45
  And about Mach 1.69, you hear this big boom. I mean, it works just forward,
• 38:51
  lock the shoulder harnesses, jet yaws hard into that motor.
• 38:55
  And now you're thinking, oh, my God, you know, trying to get the yaw back so
• 38:59
  you don't cavitate the good motor and have a dual compressor stall as you're
• 39:03
  bringing the engines back at the same time.
• 39:06
  And it's like, yeah, I think the FCS over.
• 39:09
  Let's declare an emergency and start going back and, you know, back to idle.
• 39:14
  See if it can come back up to some kind of power. So you knew what you had,
• 39:17
  whether you just completely shelled it or whether it was just the,
• 39:20
  the bleeds as that schedules to the different supersonic phases is what failed
• 39:25
  on that, but you still treat it like then, like a single engine coming back, but.
• 39:29
  Never had a shoulder harness locked like that before. That's how violent it was.
• 39:32
  Almost like you hit a door and stopped, and that jet probably went 30 degrees
• 39:37
  to the right side, went 30 degrees to the right on that. Instant drag. What's that?
• 39:43
  Instant drag, too. Instant drag, instant. Man, because of that long nose,
• 39:47
  you look at that picture of that VAR, where your intakes are,
• 39:50
  you definitely don't want to capitate the other engine with airflow through there. Right.
• 39:54
  Pilot hitting the rudder and getting back and that. But, yeah,
• 39:57
  that was an eye-opening.
• 39:59
  You've had other little compressor stalls before you don't notice it
• 40:01
  but that one you definitely noticed it was
• 40:04
  impressive did it so did you end up having to shut
• 40:07
  it down or what did it recover it it recovered
• 40:10
  back there but we didn't use it so we just treat it as a single engine left
• 40:13
  it in idle knew we had some power if we needed it coming in but then just did
• 40:17
  the standard configure run the single engine checklist and land that way and
• 40:23
  then gave it back to depot for them to go figure out what what it was and it
• 40:27
  was something scheduling in the,
• 40:29
  the bleed air you know coming through the engines with the the
• 40:31
  supersonic airflow something didn't flow right but okay yeah so that was that
• 40:36
  was fun i can't imagine the aerodynamics and the shock wave all of a sudden
• 40:40
  you got a jet that's 30 degrees off of where it was going yeah and it started
• 40:47
  slowing down pretty quick that's a good thing and you know you start turning around back to.
• 40:53
  Reaching around the point your
• 40:56
  nose back at you know the island so you can go back to England and land.
• 41:01
  What uh sure i'm sure you guys were wearing poopy suits and everything out over
• 41:05
  the north sea no that's the beauty with the the 111 that that capsule ejection system we had oh.
• 41:13
  Yes let's talk about that somebody threw a picture up there so there it is the capsule,
• 41:18
  how uh and how does he do that how did he do that so let's talk about the capsule
• 41:25
  capsule so yeah this good yeah there's a good picture of it there's a good picture
• 41:29
  of it and so So on top and behind the seats,
• 41:32
  they did put your poopy suit in a bag back there.
• 41:35
  The capsule is designed to float. It also has some ox flotation if you needed it.
• 41:40
  And the pilot's stick had a button at the bottom that can convert it then into
• 41:45
  a bilge pump if you needed it.
• 41:47
  What? So with that, like we were crossing the pond or whatever,
• 41:52
  we didn't have to wear our poopy suits because of the floating capsule.
• 41:56
  Unlike in the strike you know it was always yeah he's
• 42:01
  frozen yeah i would imagine that
• 42:04
  in some weight and that's probably the way they have gotten rid
• 42:07
  of that in the strike and any others but uh
• 42:11
  wait you mean way to the capsule yeah here's
• 42:14
  another picture that the sticks has put up of the that's
• 42:17
  actually one uh oh i remember that one yeah they found it
• 42:20
  in the woods right nearer here so yep now that
• 42:23
  one landed on its side well it
• 42:26
  looks like you're in the envelope it was a fair it was
• 42:29
  a pretty reliable system you say
• 42:32
  envelope yeah a certain speed certain altitude before you could be certain altitude
• 42:35
  so unlike aces 2 being zero zero supposedly this was zero and 50 knots and then
• 42:42
  it had different modes high speed and low speed depending on how that drug shoot
• 42:46
  would come out to first slow it down so you wouldn't rip it off and then you know get to pitch over.
• 42:52
  Huh yeah so that's pretty
• 42:55
  i completely forgot about that i did
• 42:58
  too i i honestly did too i was thinking you
• 43:01
  guys were sitting on two ejection seats in there no no no now we both had handled
• 43:06
  the two handles yeah mine was on my left side his was on his right side they're
• 43:10
  both on right either side of the center console for that you know obviously
• 43:16
  it's command eject no matter what You're both going in the pod.
• 43:20
  Right. You're both going, but you're going to want to get in position,
• 43:26
  so you're not snapping anybody's neck forward, things like that.
• 43:29
  I'm wondering, was there a speed limit?
• 43:32
  Yeah. Was there a speed limit?
• 43:35
  I think it was, again, been a minute, but I thought it was cleared into the supersonic realm.
• 43:43
  The modes changed around 250 knots between high speed and low speed. Okay, on that the.
• 43:53
  But it's been a fairly reliable system I mean, we had some guys eject while I was, you know,
• 43:59
  still in the jet flying both in Turkey and at cannon,
• 44:04
  You know and a couple guys at cannon one, you know one guys They determined
• 44:09
  they departed the jet 16 feet above the ground and still made it landed,
• 44:14
  you know And all good. Yep. Yeah, yeah.
• 44:19
  So, so that's, that's, that's probably feel a good feeling, you know,
• 44:24
  sitting in it, go, you know, doing the kind of crazy mission profiles you flew.
• 44:29
  It has a, you know, the, you know, if you pull an ejection seat handle and you
• 44:33
  go flying out into the air, you know, there's a lot of shit that can go wrong right there.
• 44:39
  At least this way, you're kind of in a. Still protected a little.
• 44:42
  Yeah. Right. So no flailing injuries.
• 44:45
  You're not going to dislocate your knee or your elbow. what they
• 44:48
  describe it as is though when you go to land it's like sitting in
• 44:51
  a chair and being pushed off the the second story floor and
• 44:55
  then landing sitting down so there's their rub
• 44:58
  right there it's like oh geez right no parachute
• 45:02
  landing fall for you you're you're going to ask first
• 45:04
  no matter what correct well you hope i guess you don't land on
• 45:07
  your head well yeah you're hoping that the capsule's coming down
• 45:10
  flat and not tilted or you know because then
• 45:13
  you're going to get some different you know sheer forces in there sure come
• 45:17
  down and terrain land start rolling that'd be
• 45:20
  the shits yep yeah okay well
• 45:24
  the guys at cannon there is
• 45:28
  a young wizzow and a pilot in the ftu this one at the web school there when
• 45:33
  they ejected we had a really high windy day at cannon and when their capsule
• 45:38
  landed it got pulled all the way to the east side of the airfield and And didn't
• 45:43
  stop until the chute hit the barbed wire fence and then deflated.
• 45:46
  And, yeah, so, you know, they're over there. And the EOR truck goes around to get them.
• 45:52
  And they're like, no, the one pilot's like, I want to stay here until the dock
• 45:56
  comes. And he's like, sir, you see that fire burning through the grass right there?
• 45:59
  He's not going to get here for that. So they hop in with the EOR crew chief
• 46:02
  guys, the guys who are in the runway checks.
• 46:04
  And they go buzzing out to the hospital just to get checked over.
• 46:08
  And they pass it. The flight doc gets out there, and he's like, hey, where's the crew?
• 46:13
  They're back at the hospital. You pass them on the way.
• 46:17
  Yeah, because it landed with the one engine. The one good engine was in Max Grunt.
• 46:22
  And it landed flat, so it was still running. It was kicking a 16-foot flame
• 46:26
  out the back, and that's what started some of the fire with the wind,
• 46:29
  burning across that dry grass.
• 46:31
  They were all good. They were healthy. No problems. The system worked.
• 46:36
  Right. But there was no way to separate that chute from the capsule once you were on deck? No. Nope.
• 46:44
  Well, in theory, it shouldn't be that windy when you land. But my concern there
• 46:48
  would be, how come that chute doesn't drag you under if you're in the water?
• 46:53
  Oh, that's a big answer. The flotation bags that it has, the ox flotation. Okay.
• 47:01
  Got your own life raft. Yeah. It is.
• 47:05
  You get the bilge pump. The pilot could start moving that if the water was coming in.
• 47:09
  And you had enough time to put your poopy suit on if you're going to have to,
• 47:13
  hey, capsule got damaged. Somehow you're leaking.
• 47:16
  And now, Hutch, did it have nuclear curtain?
• 47:21
  Yeah. So it had the curtains that came down from the top over both side canopies
• 47:26
  and then a shield from the dashboard that came up in the front.
• 47:31
  Okay. So you pull all that down and that's how you'd seal up.
• 47:34
  And then the pilot side had a little window he could open in his shield.
• 47:39
  You know, if he had to look out to do a visual delivery or something,
• 47:42
  but yeah, you could have all that, you know, shields up, curtains down,
• 47:47
  terrain following radar on, and you're just be bopping along,
• 47:50
  not knowing what's out there.
• 47:54
  That's terrifying. I know, right? I'm putting myself there right now and I'm
• 47:58
  just saying, no, no, no. The nice thing is, is the reliability of the system
• 48:04
  and the 111 designed for being low level was such a stable ride.
• 48:09
  I mean, it's like being in that old Cadillac Eldorado going down the interstate
• 48:13
  where you're just, you know, nice, smooth ride as opposed to your little Mazda Miata. Right.
• 48:18
  Yeah. Stealing every bump and pebble. Yep. Well, that's cool.
• 48:22
  Yeah well so you know because i'm guessing it had a fairly high wing loading
• 48:26
  which made made the ride uh fairly smooth compared to you know light wing loaded
• 48:33
  guy down low getting exactly shit up yep yeah it did it really was the cadillac down low.
• 48:43
  Fantastic all right what about you've got
• 48:47
  color all red air white ah so
• 48:50
  yeah i was kind of curious about that too this is
• 48:53
  a this is a red flag story okay so you know
• 48:56
  typically that they got the adversary air playing red
• 48:59
  air and you know the the blue guys were trying to
• 49:01
  get out to the western part of the nellis ranges hit your targets and see how
• 49:05
  you did and you know you're seeing guys come in and you know the okay valid
• 49:10
  for a kill you know color that you know color blue pod 45 white you know that
• 49:14
  means you're dead okay trying to take shots kill red and but they seem like
• 49:18
  when When the strikers got through without being touched,
• 49:21
  they never took that in account for red air.
• 49:23
  And so we're probably in the second week of red flag and it was actually a combination
• 49:28
  of red flag. The French were there.
• 49:31
  A couple other countries is, you know, well, of all our stuff.
• 49:35
  And so we're getting tired of, you know, hey, we're getting there.
• 49:38
  And we put our report that, yeah, we, you know, we dropped these LGBs on this
• 49:41
  or cut the airfield, whatever.
• 49:43
  So my pilot and I, he was another, he was a weapons school guy in my squadron though, in PJ.
• 49:50
  And we were flying the G models, the old FBs. And so he fills out his sheet
• 49:55
  and what we're carrying that day. And on the ordinance that were simulated,
• 49:58
  he put AGM-89 short-range attack missile, one of your special weapons, right?
• 50:04
  And so we're coming up and hit our time on target. All of a sudden,
• 50:07
  he stands up, stop, color all red air white.
• 50:11
  And everyone's looking at him, what do you mean? Well, we took off.
• 50:15
  We went to Flex, which is a reporting point just outside of Nellis,
• 50:18
  launched our AGM-89s, and they impacted.
• 50:21
  Now, there is nothing left there. We just nuked the entire western side,
• 50:25
  so all red air had no place to go on the wall.
• 50:28
  Oh, and the French stood up and did the little golf clap because they knew what
• 50:32
  that weapon was. No one else really did.
• 50:34
  And then they go, oh, we don't play it that way here. He goes,
• 50:37
  well, then why are we here if you're not giving us any credit for,
• 50:40
  you know, we've been hitting these things and guys have been getting through
• 50:43
  and red air hadn't been stopping us, and yet we don't get any credit for it.
• 50:46
  But, yeah, that was the golf clap moment in the briefing room when the French
• 50:49
  knew exactly what that weapon was, And they stood up and give a golf clap to
• 50:52
  him and for him standing up and saying that, that was pretty funny.
• 50:56
  Hey, would you, Hutch, would you mind just briefly for our non-tactical aviation
• 51:04
  listeners, what Red Flag is?
• 51:08
  So Red Flag is, in fact, they're celebrating the 50th anniversary of Red Flag this year.
• 51:13
  I think they just finished one. And start up as a training program to give guys
• 51:19
  the simulated experiences of being like your first two weeks in combat to help
• 51:25
  mitigate some of those early combat losses that we started seeing in Vietnam,
• 51:31
  Korea, because guys just haven't had experience.
• 51:35
  The adversary, they usually will try to have non-similar. So a lot of times
• 51:39
  if we're having a red flag, you'll see a lot of Navy assets show up as adversaries
• 51:43
  or some dissimilar type if you can.
• 51:46
  And then to work as big packages together. So you'll you'll work with it's not
• 51:51
  just your squadron flight.
• 51:52
  So you have to integrate and fly with as a package. I may have four 111s, two B1s, eight F-15Cs.
• 52:02
  Two Hornets, two Growlers to do a strike package to work your timing,
• 52:07
  your targets, your deconfliction.
• 52:08
  You learn about how the other airplanes need to employ, how to provide protection
• 52:13
  for the airplanes, things like that.
• 52:15
  There's also the ground emitter array. So you see the different indications
• 52:19
  to help you with threat reactions and things like that.
• 52:22
  And the that overall
• 52:27
  training environment then is to help simulate given
• 52:30
  the intensity and the the stuff you're going to find to
• 52:34
  help guys so when we do go to combat it's not like we're seeing this kind of
• 52:37
  thing for the very first time we've actually oh yeah i i understand when i'm
• 52:41
  hearing awax tell me a picture and a threat i understand that the b1s are going
• 52:45
  to fly this altitude and this speed the c models are going to do this kind of
• 52:49
  a push and try to clear out stuff and again Again,
• 52:52
  I'm prior to the F-22 and the F-35 and some of the newer stuff we have,
• 52:56
  but it gave a chance to employ both U.S., because sometimes we'd have Navy Marines on our side as well.
• 53:05
  Like I mentioned, foreigners flying with the French Mirages, the German Tornados.
• 53:11
  Pick the different countries that would be there as well to work with and learn from them.
• 53:16
  So that's kind of how it's designed. And it's, you know, stayed that way throughout
• 53:20
  the years. And it really is.
• 53:22
  And that airspace out there is a national treasure to be able to have that kind of room to train in.
• 53:27
  And as you know, with aviation more and more, it's getting tighter and tighter
• 53:31
  to try to preserve some of that, to have that working space,
• 53:34
  to be able to do the supersonic flights, the massive maneuvering.
• 53:38
  You know, that kind of thing.
• 53:39
  Sure nice patch yeah yeah and
• 53:43
  and you know the weather is generally really great
• 53:46
  for flying out there most of the year so
• 53:49
  yeah it's it's outstanding and it's not just time there's
• 53:52
  also the you know you have the night goes as well so you practice doing
• 53:55
  this at night that where you're you know the train following radar
• 53:58
  comes in a lot of times and thank
• 54:01
  you for that yeah how about how about green flag similar thing
• 54:06
  except there they're concentrating on the emitter guys your
• 54:09
  rivet joints your growlers your ef-111s your
• 54:13
  pick something that's that's dealing with
• 54:16
  the emitters and collecting and that kind of thing in addition
• 54:19
  to what's that more
• 54:23
  of an electronic warfare exercise with primarily they
• 54:26
  still have the ability with strikers to get in there and that and then
• 54:29
  you know maple flag up in canada they used
• 54:32
  to have that and then the one not a fair child where
• 54:35
  they have the guys up north in alaska doing it as well just for
• 54:38
  the different environments and training airspace sure okay yeah
• 54:41
  yeah so awesome that was my first
• 54:44
  first major exercise i ever went on as a hawk missile officer
• 54:47
  was a green flag out there okay yep
• 54:50
  yeah the hawk guys patriot guys used to be one in new mexico around fort bliss
• 54:55
  called roving sands did you ever do that one i did not no okay they were just
• 55:00
  starting one up as i as i finished hawk school and headed back east ah okay
• 55:04
  yep so they used to have one down there i don't know if they still do or not.
• 55:08
  But we used to do that as well.
• 55:10
  That was pretty cool. And that's the first time I ever saw a B-52.
• 55:14
  I'm like, man, he should probably just put his gear down and drive across the
• 55:17
  desert because he's so damn low.
• 55:21
  Oh, yeah. Yep. And, again, when you think about, you know, we've been talking
• 55:25
  speed, but then you have your, you know, B-52 is a little bit slower.
• 55:29
  The EA-6 was a little bit slower. Your A-10s are a whole lot slower.
• 55:33
  I forget what the Harriers used to typically fly at. But so you had to integrate
• 55:37
  and how you support those guys to do their mission as well. Sure.
• 55:40
  Because they're all subsonic. Right.
• 55:43
  But the B-52, I will say this.
• 55:48
  We, in the Hawk radar environment, we never saw the B-52 coming.
• 55:55
  And, you know, those guys won't even tell you what they've got on board.
• 55:58
  But they're pretty invisible.
• 56:02
  Isn't that ironic? It's not a small footprint of an airplane.
• 56:06
  No. There's all eight engines pushing it down range.
• 56:12
  Yeah, to me, when I hear eight engines, I'm thinking, well, that's eight generators.
• 56:16
  You should be able to generate some Trons and supports and stuff. Right, right.
• 56:20
  Yeah, you think? Yeah, now all those guys have four-headed kids and shit, you know.
• 56:30
  Oh, man. All right. Hey, speaking of slow, I think you said slow.
• 56:35
  Low and slow. Low and slow.
• 56:39
  So this is, again, we're out in Nellis. This is a mission, the ME phase of Weapon School.
• 56:49
  I think we didn't have any students that day, so it was just all,
• 56:53
  you know, instructors flying, and we're doing a push, and the guy I'm flying
• 56:58
  with, WOD, he's got, he probably had 3,000 hours in the VARC.
• 57:02
  I mean, he's been around forever, and all of a sudden, you know,
• 57:06
  we come around this mountain, see this Hornet, and okay, turn fights on.
• 57:11
  Hornet didn't see us initially, so he had the initial turn on them and then
• 57:15
  the hornet sauce well the hornet can fly very slow has a high aoa and all this
• 57:21
  and we're trying to get a muscle tone next thing i know you know the wings are coming up,
• 57:26
  then i see the slats are coming down the flaps are coming down.
• 57:32
  That wad we we can't go any slower
• 57:34
  we're going to fall out of the sky but and he and the the hornet's
• 57:37
  just doing his best you know infrared missile defense
• 57:40
  and you did you know we're just not getting the tone at all you're just
• 57:43
  hearing it off and on off and on but we're just
• 57:46
  starting to flail trying to stay behind this guy now and and
• 57:49
  that's when i finally said hey we got to push
• 57:52
  it up or we're going to fall out of the sky but he
• 57:55
  was bound and determined to try to get this hornet that's you know just
• 57:58
  went the total idle his high
• 58:00
  whatever their high aoa defense is and everything and you
• 58:04
  really can't do that in the vark especially in the mountains that that
• 58:07
  gets that gets a little sporty and when you say low where
• 58:10
  like how low were you guys oh we
• 58:13
  were probably somewhere between 100 and 500 feet we saw this
• 58:16
  guy oh my god and he he had i thought
• 58:18
  we just we'd come over we'd come over a ridge
• 58:21
  we're staying low level and this guy had just popped up
• 58:24
  from something and he was obviously looking probably to.
• 58:27
  The east for some other strikers coming in didn't see us so we
• 58:30
  initially pulled our nose up and started going that's when he
• 58:33
  saw us and then that's when it was you know fights on
• 58:36
  try to do it and as he kept turning we kept trying
• 58:39
  to turn and that's why you know wings coming forward i mean we're
• 58:41
  in max grunt the wings are coming forward slats are
• 58:45
  down flaps are down and we're just doing this
• 58:48
  and finally like no we got to get out of here those guys either
• 58:51
  one of us killed each other we got out of it but didn't get
• 58:53
  the kill on that one oh if you've ever seen a blue angel show you
• 58:56
  see the hornet go by it you know 60 knots or whatever looks
• 58:59
  like he's just hanging oh yeah that high AOA that hornet that
• 59:02
  yeah impressive high AOA well you you
• 59:05
  broke my paradigm because I in my mind you were somewhere below 5,000 feet I
• 59:11
  thought we were calling that low level but holy shit no no yeah thank you yeah
• 59:16
  we we came up on the low level to get him he was probably at 2,000 feet cruising around when we Oh, boy.
• 59:24
  Lots of fun. Let's say a thank you to our sponsor, HSI Wealth Strategies.
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  All right. Thank you, Robbie, for helping us keep these shows coming to you.
• 1:03:14
  So we were laughing about low
• 1:03:16
  level and turn and fight and high alpha hornet and all that good stuff.
• 1:03:20
  But another note you sent to us was Mach 1.3 underneath an A10.
• 1:03:28
  And dear God, that had to be even lower maybe. I don't know.
• 1:03:35
  Getting under an A-10 is a work of art.
• 1:03:39
  It is. So continuing with that, you know, the intro portion.
• 1:03:44
  So we're doing that target attack. We ask our wingman where he,
• 1:03:47
  you know, pause it. And he says, you know, out of point whatever.
• 1:03:50
  Well, we're thinking, how do you get in front of us? So, okay.
• 1:03:54
  We push it up. Our wingman's left us. We're getting out of here now.
• 1:03:57
  So we're screaming and we're planning our route. So we always try to plan when
• 1:04:03
  we're out Nellis to stay as long as we can in the supersonic airspace just to give us a.
• 1:04:11
  The fighting chance. So as we're, we're heading out, we're, like I said,
• 1:04:15
  1.3, we're going over wild horses.
• 1:04:17
  We're, you know, you're focused on nothing at a hundred feet at 1.3,
• 1:04:21
  but watching what's in front of you, you know, I got the radar and air to air
• 1:04:24
  mode, just trying to look for anything, but I know nothing because of where
• 1:04:27
  we're flying is going to be coming in from a right.
• 1:04:29
  Well, as we get to the Eastern ranges, the 60 series, there's this eight 10
• 1:04:34
  showing up while he was late taking off.
• 1:04:36
  We got across this ridgeline, eight 10 is not seeing this. And all of a sudden here he is.
• 1:04:41
  And we knew that if we went right above him, we were probably going to blow
• 1:04:44
  him into the ground with our shockwave.
• 1:04:46
  So my pilot said, Hey, we're going to get skinny. And we went between him and the top of the ridge.
• 1:04:51
  So we probably cleared the ridge by about 25 feet. And we probably missed him
• 1:04:54
  by probably 75 feet and, you know, on out down, whatever.
• 1:05:00
  And it's like, we got to find this guy. So we're, we get back in the red flag
• 1:05:04
  building and, you know, you're trying to look at who's what pod number and finding.
• 1:05:07
  And so we're, you know, walking around there and finally, hey,
• 1:05:11
  you know, we're day 10 guys.
• 1:05:12
  Hey, who is, I forget the call sign now, you know, we're a little bit,
• 1:05:16
  yeah, I took off a little late getting there.
• 1:05:18
  Did you notice anything? Did you see anything as you were just coming over the ridge line?
• 1:05:22
  And he goes, no, but I felt a total bunch of turbulence right at the top of that ridge.
• 1:05:27
  Let me tell you what this is.
• 1:05:30
  What the turbulence was, was us going between you and that ridge.
• 1:05:33
  And he knew how the altitude he's at.
• 1:05:35
  His eyes got about that big around. I'm just like, said, you never saw us,
• 1:05:38
  did you? I was like, we had no choice.
• 1:05:40
  We had gone above you. You probably wouldn't be here right now because of what that thing was doing.
• 1:05:44
  But that was an eye-opening squeeze between him and the grid line.
• 1:05:51
  It might be a show title repeat. An eye-opening squeeze. Yeah.
• 1:05:55
  Or no, we're going to get skinny. Yeah, there you go. We're going to get skinny.
• 1:05:58
  We're going to get skinny.
• 1:06:00
  We knew we weren't going to hit the ridge. We knew we had enough clearance there.
• 1:06:04
  We're just making sure he wasn't coming down any lower and just,
• 1:06:07
  you know, and it that fast and you're, you know, you're going that fast. You're right past him.
• 1:06:11
  But yeah, he felt the second decision. Yep.
• 1:06:16
  Yes. That definitely gets your attention. Makes you go back and find the guy.
• 1:06:19
  Hey, did you see this? Nope. Clueless. Okay.
• 1:06:23
  Yeah. That was, that was a fun one. I just.
• 1:06:29
  The other show title I thought of was the French did a golf clap, but you know.
• 1:06:35
  But we're going to get skinny that because that describes it right there i mean holy shit,
• 1:06:41
  did you duck all right
• 1:06:44
  and you know because that the best
• 1:06:48
  defense against those guys was you know supersonic against
• 1:06:50
  that desert floor you're you know you're you got a hot desert floor down there
• 1:06:54
  with it it it does make a difference see if you want i got another one that
• 1:06:59
  is along that same time frame yes let's hear it we're egressing out same southern
• 1:07:06
  road same speed same altitude dude.
• 1:07:08
  There's one lone red air Viper up at about 30,000 feet.
• 1:07:12
  And he sees us, you know, I can hear him on, you know, his radar,
• 1:07:15
  you know, painting us, but he's out of radar missiles.
• 1:07:18
  So we get back to debrief and, you know, he says, stop, pair our,
• 1:07:24
  you know, data link pod to the, and his data link pods they put on the big screen.
• 1:07:29
  And he said, I did the textbook 3-1 conversion and watch this and you see him
• 1:07:36
  in you see him roll you see him pull he catches everything in squares a corner
• 1:07:40
  at the bottom and you see his hud go you know minus 50 minus 100 minus 200 break x,
• 1:07:46
  and oh because he cashed all his speed coming downhill all he had was a heater
• 1:07:50
  to turn the corner and we just walked away from him so that's where speed is life right.
• 1:07:59
  He couldn't get he wasn't getting the lock on us but he couldn't get a tone
• 1:08:03
  with the with the aim nine and yeah so everyone looked at it because then he
• 1:08:07
  even said he goes okay here's his real time then he had him go his cockpit view
• 1:08:10
  so you could actually see what it is similar to cockpit view and just you know
• 1:08:14
  extended from him that everyone's like yep speed's nice,
• 1:08:20
  yeah fantastic speed is life and that is that is it.
• 1:08:27
  Oh, man.
• 1:08:31
  That is fascinating. All right. So let's see. There are a couple other notes
• 1:08:36
  here I know I wanted to hit.
• 1:08:37
  Kind of almost shaking it, cutting under that 810. That is amazing. I know, right?
• 1:08:42
  Two, you clear the runway. Clear the runway.
• 1:08:45
  Yeah, so this is, you know, you're in Saudi Arabia doing Southern Watch.
• 1:08:51
  Okay. And we're in the, this is Strike Eagle.
• 1:08:55
  And we're doing our run up. we're coming home and you can kind of see the this
• 1:08:58
  giant sandstorm starting to come in i mean,
• 1:09:03
  like mission impossible ghost protocol yeah you
• 1:09:06
  know you see that he's in that building and the sandstorms coming in i
• 1:09:09
  mean no kidding 200 foot wall of dirt mud and water you could just see it coming
• 1:09:13
  across the desert and we're trying to get it get back as fast as we can and
• 1:09:18
  we get there you know talking to control and then you know tell our wingman
• 1:09:22
  i think yeah we were just as a the section that day to ship, get him landed first.
• 1:09:29
  So he gets down and you're rolling run away. We come in and about the time our
• 1:09:32
  wheels hit the runway, you can't see anything but mud in front of you.
• 1:09:37
  And so we know we're staying straight. Nose goes down, but now I have no idea where two's at.
• 1:09:44
  So two, are you clear of the runway? Well, I think so. We turned off.
• 1:09:48
  I haven't, you know, so we're trying to come on the break, slow down.
• 1:09:51
  Yeah. So what are we trying to do here? And you're trying to call a tower and
• 1:09:56
  I was like, well, no one else is behind you. Recommend you to stay in place.
• 1:10:00
  We can't see you right now. And we're like, that's a flare of the obvious.
• 1:10:03
  You think can't see anything right now. This 200 foot wall of mud,
• 1:10:07
  sand, and water is coming across everything.
• 1:10:11
  There you go. That's kind of what it looked like. And right.
• 1:10:16
  Like I said, right. As we landed, I was inside that cloud. No idea where two
• 1:10:20
  was no idea. Hopefully we're staying on the runway.
• 1:10:23
  Then you start thinking man how much is this going to trash the jet that
• 1:10:26
  you know it's kind of like being sandblasted you know right paint is
• 1:10:29
  it going to pit the canopy i mean we had no way to get under shelter we're
• 1:10:32
  just sucking all that stuff through the motor too oh
• 1:10:35
  yeah what do you estimate your visibility was i mean you could the lines on
• 1:10:39
  the runway could you see you know 25 50 feet anything like that i can see the
• 1:10:44
  nose of my aircraft and maybe about two feet in front of it yeah because we
• 1:10:49
  stopped i mean we ended up stopping we just stopped and remained in place because,
• 1:10:52
  literally, you couldn't see to taxi.
• 1:10:55
  And Tower didn't want us to, you know, he just said, stay in place.
• 1:10:58
  It's fairly fast moving. It's
• 1:11:00
  not like anyone else is going to come in and find that runway and land.
• 1:11:02
  No, no, they'd set everyone else around. We were the last guys in.
• 1:11:07
  Yeah. What kind of landing system did you have on there? Did you have ILS?
• 1:11:11
  Oh, yeah. You had ILS. You know, you could get a PAR, TACAN,
• 1:11:16
  you know, all the standard, you know. we did not have a GPS coupled approach
• 1:11:20
  like you see in some of the, you know, the airliners like you guys have today, but.
• 1:11:27
  So, yeah, I mean, I think the PAR was 200 and a half. I remember the Harrier
• 1:11:31
  all-weather landing system was certified to 1,003.
• 1:11:36
  So, yeah, I mean, we laughed about that. That was fantastic,
• 1:11:39
  right? All-weather, as long as it was VMC.
• 1:11:42
  You know, then you finally get back, and what happened was you get back to the
• 1:11:46
  tent city you're staying in there in Saudi, and there are several tents that
• 1:11:51
  don't have tents anymore. Right.
• 1:11:53
  Yeah, it was impressive. And I never had thought I'd see flooding in the desert,
• 1:11:58
  but there was like a drainage as you're walking back from Oppstown to where
• 1:12:02
  the tent city was that you couldn't get it,
• 1:12:06
  but got about three and a half feet deep and it was probably about 10 feet wide and it was moving.
• 1:12:09
  I mean, just like, wow, I'll take you away. I'll take you away. Yeah.
• 1:12:15
  And so, yeah, it was quite the sandstorm. And so every time I watch mission
• 1:12:19
  impossible, it's like, yep, I know what that's like.
• 1:12:22
  And he's trying to run through the streets and, you know, with his goggles on
• 1:12:24
  and not seeing, and then that car hits him. Well, yeah, because you couldn't see it come.
• 1:12:29
  Right. Oh, man.
• 1:12:33
  All right. Well. Oh, darn it.
• 1:12:37
  So that was during the recce. Southern watch? Southern watch?
• 1:12:42
  Southern watch? Southern watch. Southern watch.
• 1:12:45
  I think 97, somewhere in that time frame, late 90s.
• 1:12:50
  All right. So when did you wind up transitioning over to the F-15?
• 1:12:58
  In 95. 111s were starting to close out,
• 1:13:02
  and we put our last 111 weapon school class through, and then I headed out to
• 1:13:08
  start teaching, teach academic stuff out at Nellis while I was waiting to get to – oh, we lost it.
• 1:13:17
  It's frozen. Yeah. He's got a clock ticking in the background because every
• 1:13:23
  time he freezes, the clock ticking. Yeah, sorry.
• 1:13:25
  The thing is, the street nerd's picking it up. It's putting it on his home. There we go. I'm back.
• 1:13:31
  We're back. All right. Hey, welcome back. All right. So I'm going to mark that
• 1:13:34
  for. I haven't seen you guys yet, but.
• 1:13:37
  Yeah. Okay. We can hear you. That's the most important part. We got you.
• 1:13:42
  95, when the 111 school shut down, then I went out to Nellis teaching there
• 1:13:46
  and then went to FTU in 96. Okay.
• 1:13:51
  And then I was out there doing that, and then from there up to Mountain Home, which is where I was.
• 1:13:58
  Which part did you enjoy flying more? And did you get about equal time in the
• 1:14:01
  15, or was it more in the 111?
• 1:14:04
  I had more in the 111 of the 15. 15 I think it was just short of 1,000 hours-ish, plus or minus.
• 1:14:11
  That's a hard question, and you're not the first that's asked me that.
• 1:14:15
  Yeah. Which kid is your favorite? I get it.
• 1:14:19
  That depends on what i was wanting to do to fly low level i'll take a vark any
• 1:14:23
  day okay to be able today's environment go out and do things having that big
• 1:14:28
  radar being able to defend myself the new technology and you know i left before
• 1:14:33
  you had the data link the the,
• 1:14:39
  what do you call it the the new helmet with the oh yeah nvgs and all that kind
• 1:14:43
  of stuff they have You know, so the technology is just so much different in
• 1:14:48
  the strike and, and, and having that, but, you know, that low level.
• 1:14:55
  Speed, yeah, definitely the VARC. So that's why it's a hard question.
• 1:15:00
  Depending on what I have to do and what I'm doing, there are different things I like about both.
• 1:15:06
  And now with the new, I wish I could be around to fly that new 15 that they're
• 1:15:13
  coming out to replace some of the Cs with.
• 1:15:17
  That thing's going to be something special. Bigger motors, more capability.
• 1:15:22
  That that's really going to be a dream machine to fly.
• 1:15:27
  Yeah. The magic they're coming up with is these later generation fighters are
• 1:15:31
  just shit. We never even thought about.
• 1:15:34
  And these kids are coming out of college designing that. Oh,
• 1:15:37
  what if we do this? Right. What if we did? Yeah. Oh my God.
• 1:15:41
  It's kind of cool. Yeah. It was all science fiction 30 years ago.
• 1:15:45
  And now it's just is. Oh, right. Absolutely.
• 1:15:49
  Yeah. So, you know, it, it, it's, it's kind of neat.
• 1:15:53
  I mean, uh, I'm glad I got to be, you know, one of the old guys and, you know,
• 1:15:58
  had my time in a F one 11 or guys that had the F four or, you know,
• 1:16:02
  the a four, a six, you know, the steam gauges and that to then transition to
• 1:16:07
  the digital world of GPS multifunction displays.
• 1:16:11
  And now with the integrated, those high speed helmets that the F 35 guys have
• 1:16:17
  and that kind of stuff, I can only imagine what that that's got to be like to
• 1:16:20
  have some of that stuff. Right.
• 1:16:23
  Yeah. That's, and what he's talking about, it's amazing to, you know,
• 1:16:28
  you look, you want to see what's beneath you.
• 1:16:30
  You look down and look, look through the floor of the jet, through your legs and all the cameras.
• 1:16:36
  There's your size comparison picture. Yeah. And I'm at the bottom and the,
• 1:16:40
  the aardvark's longer. Yep.
• 1:16:44
  It's even longer than the Eagle. I mean, that just. Yeah.
• 1:16:49
  Is that a Mirage that's sitting to the right of the Eagle? I think that's a
• 1:16:54
  Mirage. That's what it looks like.
• 1:16:56
  I'll tell you what, that is a big airplane. It is. Even with the camouflage
• 1:17:00
  paint job, if it was gray like the other ones, I think it would even look bigger.
• 1:17:05
  Yeah, it was neat.
• 1:17:07
  A lot of technology from that initially they tried to put into the B-1.
• 1:17:11
  The initial B-1 was going to have a capsule ejection system,
• 1:17:14
  and then they scrapped that and went to ejection seats.
• 1:17:17
  And the initial b1 cockpit layout
• 1:17:20
  was almost the same as 111 in terms
• 1:17:23
  of we had vertical tapes that went for
• 1:17:26
  altimeter instead of a spinning round dial yeah and a big adi they since changed
• 1:17:32
  b1 and modified it quite a bit but very similar in terms of believe it or not
• 1:17:37
  with that plane i got a couple b1 sorties the takeoff and landing speeds are
• 1:17:42
  almost the exact same as Flanavark.
• 1:17:45
  Wow. Pretty impressive. Yeah. For something that big. That's a big airplane.
• 1:17:51
  Yeah. Big airplane. Yep.
• 1:17:53
  Yeah. So those are kind of cool things. And you see that technology develop. Yeah.
• 1:18:01
  There's a note. I see you took a note off. Are you saving that one for the extra repeat?
• 1:18:06
  No, I did it by accident. So it was about going to Basra and back, right, record time?
• 1:18:12
  Yeah, so you start getting bored in Southern Watch. And so we,
• 1:18:15
  you know, getting towards the end there.
• 1:18:17
  And so we started figuring who can get the shortest ASD to take off from,
• 1:18:21
  you know, PSAB, hit your simulated target in Basra and come back.
• 1:18:25
  So then we started looking at this going, how it's liminous.
• 1:18:28
  And so a couple of weapon guys get together and, hey, instead of carrying this
• 1:18:33
  load every day, what can we carry to go faster?
• 1:18:35
  So we start getting the boss, hey, can we carry some GBU-10s instead of GBU-12s?
• 1:18:41
  Because now we can carry them, you know, I think it was like up to 1.4.
• 1:18:46
  So then we start, okay, who can get up there and get the fastest,
• 1:18:49
  you know, and so we're trying to, you know, you see, okay, well, I made it 1.5.
• 1:18:52
  The next day I made it 1.4. We did it in 1.3, you know, 1.3 hours.
• 1:18:56
  And finally the boss kind of getting hey guys we need at least this asd to fly sortie duration,
• 1:19:02
  and so he kind of got wise to it but so we started having who could who's going
• 1:19:05
  to be the record guy to get up there and back based on what you're carrying
• 1:19:09
  and we'd even do things like coming in approach to get faster approach you try
• 1:19:13
  to ask for we'd like to do tactical initial so that's where the four ship you
• 1:19:18
  get down and you know the last 10-15 miles you're coming in at 500 feet.
• 1:19:24
  500 plus ish knots basically just
• 1:19:28
  trying to stay subsonic and hopefully don't make
• 1:19:31
  any turns it pops a little sound wave although that happened once
• 1:19:34
  and then pop up and do your initial pitch out
• 1:19:37
  and land i think somebody got a 0.9 one
• 1:19:40
  day and they just impressive burned about every bit of fuel they had but things
• 1:19:46
  you're doing when you're bored doing southern watch and nothing's happening
• 1:19:48
  it's like what can we do here okay how fast can we go change the weapons load
• 1:19:52
  out make it happen we have some deaf camels out there too i'm guessing but you
• 1:19:57
  know there yeah flew a couple.
• 1:20:01
  Those are neat. There may have been a few livestock harmed in the making of this podcast.
• 1:20:07
  Yeah, it's what we do.
• 1:20:09
  We don't have confirmation on that, so we can only assume that they were fine.
• 1:20:14
  Right, yeah. Same with the horses. Yeah, I assume they're fine. Same with the horses.
• 1:20:18
  Do a 1.5 mock over at 100 feet over wild horses. I'm sure they were fine.
• 1:20:23
  Right. I like that, though. The gun with the cow. That's awesome.
• 1:20:26
  Yeah. The gun with the cow. Yeah, then there was that. Then there's that.
• 1:20:31
  Oh, boy. All right. We've been going at this hour 25. What do you think, boys?
• 1:20:37
  I think we'll probably need to land this airplane and work our way over to our extra for our Patreon.
• 1:20:43
  Well, for my thing, it's been a pleasure.
• 1:20:45
  I'm glad that Wally, you know, Robbie, Robbie, Wally introduced me to you guys.
• 1:20:52
  This has been a lot of fun for me and rehashing a lot of old memories.
• 1:20:54
  Well, thank you. It's always good hearing stories. Absolutely. Oh, yeah.
• 1:20:59
  Thank you for your service. We can't thank you enough for stepping up and doing
• 1:21:03
  it. So love getting these stories out. Fantastic.
• 1:21:06
  And what a neat airplane. I don't think we've had an aardvark.
• 1:21:10
  That's a first. Yeah. Yeah, that's a first. Yeah. Thank you for that.
• 1:21:17
  Fascinating airplane to learn about. So, yeah, thank you for your service.
• 1:21:20
  And thank you to all the families who sacrificed so that you could do your service.
• 1:21:26
  And all the veterans and active duty out there, They're missing anniversaries
• 1:21:30
  and birthdays and funerals and weddings.
• 1:21:32
  And it's hard to be a family member. So thank you to them as well.
• 1:21:38
  Definitely. Got a couple other thank yous we need to get out there,
• 1:21:41
  Fig. Do you remember any of them? I do.
• 1:21:46
  Well, it's right in my face. So how could I not? We need to thank Badass at
• 1:21:51
  BDS Aviation for sharing his wonderful pictures that are up right now on our
• 1:21:57
  website or on our YouTube right now.
• 1:22:00
  Awesome pictures of F-15E from Seymour Johnson. I don't know where he was when
• 1:22:05
  he got this picture. It looks like he was airborne.
• 1:22:07
  It does. It looks like he was in trails. Look at you getting ready to gun the bastard. Yeah, I know.
• 1:22:13
  Fantastic. So thank you to Brad for sharing and being a big supporter of it. So there I was.
• 1:22:19
  Thank you to BackBeatMedia, backbeatmedia.com online for handling our advertising.
• 1:22:26
  We're grateful to them. And of course, Sadie and Dave Hamilton over there who
• 1:22:30
  helped us get this show up and running and keep us going, both on social media
• 1:22:34
  and advertising, all that good stuff.
• 1:22:36
  So thank you to Backbeat Media, Dave Hamilton and Sadie. Appreciate that.
• 1:22:43
  Got a couple other thank yous you need to get out of the way.
• 1:22:45
  Look at the meat fig. What am I wearing? Get yourself one of these.
• 1:22:50
  Is that a hoodie? It is. You wearing a hoodie? Yeah, man. That's nice.
• 1:22:54
  Yeah, we got merch. So there I was, .us slash merch.
• 1:22:59
  And, hey, it's springtime's coming up.
• 1:23:02
  It's going to be real nice here real quick. So we have an awesome,
• 1:23:06
  so there I was, bikini that would look good on your significant other.
• 1:23:10
  Or maybe you. I don't know.
• 1:23:13
  Absolutely. With a little QR code right on the bikini bottom so people can come
• 1:23:17
  point their cameras right at you.
• 1:23:20
  Find out where to get it. You know, steins, beer glasses, shot glasses,
• 1:23:27
  hoodies, polo shirts, you know, blankets. Clots, blankets, beach towels, koozies.
• 1:23:33
  If we don't have it, it's probably not made. I'm trying to figure out how to
• 1:23:37
  integrate it because we've got some, right now we've gotten out,
• 1:23:40
  we've given away keychains and we're giving away, the Flask giveaway is over
• 1:23:44
  in about another day and a half.
• 1:23:46
  So there I was at US slash giveaway.
• 1:23:49
  Go there, follow some of the links to give us ratings, share the show on social
• 1:23:53
  media, get a couple points and see if you can't earn yourself your own customized Flask.
• 1:23:59
  And I'm going to try and get it so you can actually buy that stuff as well.
• 1:24:03
  But for right now, the only way to get a show flask is to go online.
• 1:24:08
  SarahWolf.us slash giveaway and enter to win. We're going to give away five of those tomorrow.
• 1:24:14
  And I don't know what the next giveaway is going to be, but we're going to keep
• 1:24:17
  doing this giveaway to help spread the word on the show.
• 1:24:20
  We could give away a picture of me in the bikini. We could do that,
• 1:24:24
  but we want our show numbers to go up, Fig. Up, not down.
• 1:24:30
  Hey, real quick.
• 1:24:33
  Sticks, in the background, he just put up a reminder. Mark your calendars for April 13th.
• 1:24:39
  Yeah. We are going to have our first rescue swimmer hunt. Yeah.
• 1:24:45
  That's going to be crazy. Showtime, 1,900 hours, Eastern Daylight Time.
• 1:24:49
  Yeah. There you go. Thank you for that, Sticks.
• 1:24:53
  Yeah. Let's see. One or two more others. We've got to thank Sticks and Bago.
• 1:25:00
  They're the ones helping make all this continue to work. while we're doing the
• 1:25:04
  show. They do the stuff in the background. We're grateful to them for that.
• 1:25:08
  Making the magic happen back there. Right. And then there's a couple others.
• 1:25:17
  That is the two F-16 pilots that make the Air Force sound good.
• 1:25:23
  That's the Dos Gringos.
• 1:25:26
  Dos Gringos. Yeah.
• 1:25:29
  They've got four albums, and there's not one bad song. Not a one.
• 1:25:33
  And if you're having a bad day or just want to laugh, put their music on because
• 1:25:38
  it's amazing. It's a hell. It's good stuff.
• 1:25:41
  So I think that's it for our thank yous. Go give us a five-star rating.
• 1:25:45
  Share the show. Go to the SarahWales.us slash giveaway.
• 1:25:48
  Get yourself a show flask.
• 1:25:52
  And I guess until next week, do you have any advice for folks? Fig.
• 1:26:01
  No. No.
• 1:26:05
  Stay safe and check six there
• 1:26:09
  i was crossing the pond and you could see that i wasn't exactly fun of all the.
• 1:26:14
  Music.
• 1:26:24
  Shit i was wearing on that day,
• 1:26:28
  Now an F-16 is cramped enough But it's even worse With all that stuff supposed
• 1:26:34
  to save your life But we knew there was no way Cause when you're going down
• 1:26:41
  the North Atlantic, man, it's over,
• 1:26:45
  Hold on, what'd he say? He said it was over Okay Picked the wrong way to quit
• 1:26:52
  sniffing glue Fucking out and going home And we're out.