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The Flyboy Podcast: Guest David Goldfein · The Flyboy Podcast

• 0:09
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome to the Flyboy Podcast, where we bring you just one thing: cool flying stories.
• 0:15
  SPEAKER_00: I'm your host, David Moore, and today I'll be talking with General Dave Goldfiend.
• 0:20
  SPEAKER_00: General Goldfiend was the 21st Chief of Staff of the U.S.
• 0:23
  SPEAKER_00: Air Force.
• 0:24
  SPEAKER_00: As chief, he was responsible for the organization training and equipping of 685,000 active duty guard, reserve, and civilian forces.
• 0:33
  SPEAKER_00: He's a graduate of the Air Force Academy and the Air Force Fighter Weapons School.
• 0:38
  SPEAKER_00: He has more than 4,200 flying hours in the T-37, the T-38, the F-16, the F-117, the MQ-9 Reaper, and the MC-12W Turboprop.
• 0:48
  SPEAKER_00: He's flown combat missions during Desert Storm, Allied Force, and Enduring Freedom.
• 0:53
  SPEAKER_00: He is also a guitarist.
• 0:55
  SPEAKER_00: In his book Get Back Up, which he co-wrote with former Secretary of the Air Force Heather Wilson, he describes how he took a sabbatical during his college years, bicycling across country with his guitar, trying to decide if he should become a musician or an aviator.
• 1:09
  SPEAKER_00: Now here's something that isn't in his book.
• 1:11
  SPEAKER_00: Biking across country with a guitar taught him an important lesson in aerodynamics, particularly what it meant to pedal with a giant speed brake strapped to your back.
• 1:20
  SPEAKER_00: At some point on that cross-country journey, he had to give up his guitar.
• 1:24
  SPEAKER_00: His guitar made the decision for him.
• 1:26
  SPEAKER_00: He chose aviation, and we are the better for it.
• 1:30
  SPEAKER_00: Sir, welcome to the podcast.
• 1:31
  SPEAKER_01: Thanks, Never.
• 1:32
  SPEAKER_01: Great to be with you.
• 1:33
  SPEAKER_01: And uh as you know, you know, we all get call signs that we earn, right, as fighter pilots, and I got a new one the day I retired.
• 1:41
  SPEAKER_01: And you're happy to use it?
• 1:42
  SPEAKER_01: I go by JD, which stands for just Dave.
• 1:45
  SPEAKER_00: JD.
• 1:45
  SPEAKER_00: Will do.
• 1:46
  SPEAKER_00: So, JD, what was the moment you first knew you wanted to be a pilot?
• 1:50
  SPEAKER_01: So it was when I went to the Air Force Academy, I struggled mightily my first couple years.
• 1:56
  SPEAKER_01: About a 1.9 GPA was on restriction the entire time, but at least athletically, I was slow.
• 2:02
  SPEAKER_01: And so I remember calling my dad, uh, who was a Vietnam veteran fighter pilot, and I said, Hey dad, um, you know, I'm on restriction, but there's one thing they allow you to do.
• 2:11
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, I can go to the aero club and learn how to fly.
• 2:14
  SPEAKER_01: And I just need a loan.
• 2:15
  SPEAKER_01: And so he backed me up, and I got a chance to sneak on the first E bus and uh head out while I was on restriction, believe it or not, and go fly at the aero club as a freshman at the academy uh when I got my private pilot's license, and it was that experience that told me that this was just what I wanted to do.
• 2:33
  SPEAKER_00: You've flown a number of different airplanes, probably the I believe uh the most time you have is in the uh F-16.
• 2:40
  SPEAKER_00: Can you put us in the cockpit?
• 2:42
  SPEAKER_00: What is it like to fly the F-16 for those who haven't had the chance to fly that airplane?
• 2:47
  SPEAKER_01: Well, you know, at the time, and I I had started early in the early block uh airplane and then flew pretty much every block there was, you know, all the way up to the block 52 in the different versions.
• 2:57
  SPEAKER_01: And it was just an extraordinary piece of technology.
• 3:00
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, I remember being in high school at Rammstein, Germany, and looking up uh one afternoon in in the late 70s, it's like 1976, and seeing a YF-16 test airplane in red, white, and blue paint flying over Rammstein Air Force Base in Germany.
• 3:20
  SPEAKER_01: And I just remember thinking, oh my god, that is the one of the most beautiful things I've ever seen.
• 3:25
  SPEAKER_01: And then later on, as an instructor pilot at Shepherd Air Force Base, I'm flying in a T-38 doing acrobatics, and I actually had an instructor pilot student in the back seat, so I was in the front.
• 3:36
  SPEAKER_01: And I remember the air traffic controller called out traffic that was below the airspace, and I look down and I see a fighter aircraft.
• 3:44
  SPEAKER_01: So, of course, being a curious young T-38 pilot, I rejoined on this thing, unbeknownst to him, and uh it was an F-16.
• 3:52
  SPEAKER_01: And this guy turns out he was a test pilot at Lockheed Martin, which was just up the road from Shepherd, and he led me through formation on the wing in a T-38.
• 4:01
  SPEAKER_01: Of course, I never debriefed this to my you know instructors back home, uh, to include a barrel roll on the wing in a T-38.
• 4:09
  SPEAKER_01: First one I'd ever done in formation.
• 4:11
  SPEAKER_01: And we get done with this, and all of a sudden he raises his visor, and because I'm in close formation, I raised my visor.
• 4:17
  SPEAKER_01: I remember he gave me a salute and then he lit the afterburner and went vertical.
• 4:21
  SPEAKER_01: And that was the moment I decided I got to fly the F-60.
• 4:27
  SPEAKER_00: That would be convincing.
• 4:29
  SPEAKER_00: Uh JD, what's your coolest flying memory?
• 4:31
  SPEAKER_01: I think it was probably when I was I was an operations group commander at Mountain Home Air Force Base up in Idaho, and we had a big large force exercise, and I was the mission commander.
• 4:43
  SPEAKER_01: And I remember we had um uh upwards of a hundred airplanes that were there deployed for this big exercise.
• 4:48
  SPEAKER_01: We were going all the way, we were going all the way into uh to Las Vegas, we were gonna refuel on the way, we were gonna do a full uh large force employment mission to drop live ordinance on the Nellis range and then fly all the way home again.
• 5:02
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm the overall mission commander.
• 5:04
  SPEAKER_01: And I remember in the debrief, you know, with a hundred different airplanes chalking up where everybody was in the formation.
• 5:11
  SPEAKER_01: And I mean, I just it was one of those moments when you just feel like you're at the top of your game, right?
• 5:17
  SPEAKER_01: And we get into the final debrief, and now I'm just with my flight.
• 5:20
  SPEAKER_01: And they said, Well, um, can we talk about what you know what happened in your cockpit?
• 5:24
  SPEAKER_01: How did it go in terms of your attack?
• 5:25
  SPEAKER_01: And I remember just all of a sudden being sort of stopped going, wait a minute, I have no idea what I did in my cockpit.
• 5:32
  SPEAKER_01: I was focused on a hundred different other airplanes, right?
• 5:35
  SPEAKER_01: And keeping that mental God's eye image of where everybody was and making these you know real-time, immediate decisions, right, for all the different other formations that were with me to accomplish the mission.
• 5:46
  SPEAKER_01: And I had no idea what had gone into my cockpit.
• 5:49
  SPEAKER_01: And I I came back thinking that's sort of the definition of be at the very top of your game, because everything that happened inside my cockpit was just natural.
• 5:57
  SPEAKER_01: It was just absolutely natural.
• 5:59
  SPEAKER_01: I was focused on everybody else.
• 6:02
  SPEAKER_01: And I remember coming back feeling really good about that sortie because I thought that's the definition of being at the top.
• 6:09
  SPEAKER_01: That's that's when you really when when you're focused on a hundred others and everything that you're doing is very successful but all natural.
• 6:17
  SPEAKER_01: Um I I I've always felt like in the business of flying fighters, the difference between good and great is not stick and rudder capability.
• 6:26
  SPEAKER_01: It's the mental ability to operate at the speeds and with the vast numbers of other aircraft and folks on the ground and all the other things that are going on.
• 6:36
  SPEAKER_01: And it's even more complex today with things that are going on in cyber, things that are going on in space, coordinating all of that joint activity.
• 6:44
  SPEAKER_01: You know, we talk about joint operation and they we make them look easy, but those of us who've been involved in them, like you, we know there's that that is anything but JD, you've flown in combat during three different conflicts between Desert Storm, Allied Force, and Enduring Freedom.
• 7:03
  SPEAKER_00: Could you share a little bit about what it's like to fly in combat generally and then some specific memories of those three arenas?
• 7:14
  SPEAKER_01: I think that in the history of armed conflict, you know, human on human, whether that be in the air, on the ground, at sea, most of us from every service ask the same question and say the same prayer before our first combat mission.
• 7:28
  SPEAKER_01: The question we all ask is, how am I gonna do?
• 7:31
  SPEAKER_01: When I face a real enemy for the first time, when I see bullets and missiles and how am I gonna do?
• 7:37
  SPEAKER_01: Am I trained?
• 7:38
  SPEAKER_01: Am I gonna operate?
• 7:40
  SPEAKER_01: Am I gonna be able to accomplish the mission?
• 7:42
  SPEAKER_01: And the prayer I think we all ask before the first mission is please God, don't let me let my buddies down.
• 7:48
  SPEAKER_01: Because we never go into combat alone.
• 7:51
  SPEAKER_01: We're always there as part of a team.
• 7:53
  SPEAKER_01: And I'll never forget the moment uh in my cockpit that I call confidence under fire during my first combat mission over Iraq.
• 8:02
  SPEAKER_01: And the only guy in our entire formation that had combat time was our squadron commander time, a guy named Billy Deal.
• 8:08
  SPEAKER_01: And he was a Vietnam vet mid-killer.
• 8:11
  SPEAKER_01: And we crossed the line into going into Baghdad, and this voice comes over the radio and says, uh, forces in Baghdad have been alerted on your uh on your position.
• 8:20
  SPEAKER_01: And I remember just listening to that thinking, hmm.
• 8:22
  SPEAKER_01: And then the next thing I hear on the radio is my squadron commander Billy says, uh uh AAA, right two o'clock.
• 8:29
  SPEAKER_01: And of course, the rest of us are all staring at it, like, wow, look at that.
• 8:33
  SPEAKER_01: Anti-aircraft artillery, right?
• 8:35
  SPEAKER_01: And he says, same calm voice, SA2's left 10 o'clock.
• 8:39
  SPEAKER_01: And we all look up and we see these telephone poles, you know, being shot into the formation and a couple of them exploding at 30,000 feet above us.
• 8:47
  SPEAKER_01: And then because I was the deputy mission commander, I'm Ford in the formation, and I hear splash MiG-29, and I see a Iraqi MiG-29 hit the dirt and explode.
• 8:57
  SPEAKER_01: I will forever remember that moment because the reality was I realized nothing was new.
• 9:05
  SPEAKER_01: I had seen it all at Nellis Air Force Base at Red Flag.
• 9:09
  SPEAKER_01: I'd seen AAA, I'd seen SAM simulators, I'd heard the radio calls, I'd seen the formation, I'd seen the raw gear screaming at me.
• 9:18
  SPEAKER_01: All of that was exactly the way I'd been trained.
• 9:21
  SPEAKER_01: And I remember this, my thought of my cockpit.
• 9:24
  SPEAKER_01: And when I talked to my buddies after the mission, they all felt the same way.
• 9:28
  SPEAKER_01: We all had this moment of confidence under fire that says, okay, I know now I can do this.
• 9:33
  SPEAKER_01: And then we flew into the target, we destroyed the target, we all made it home.
• 9:37
  SPEAKER_01: That moment was created for me by the Vietnam generation.
• 9:42
  SPEAKER_01: Because you might remember they built red flag after Vietnam because Bob Dixon and several others, right, came to the conclusion, like Moody Suter, right, they came to the conclusion that if you could survive your first ten combat missions and we could make that combat mission as realistic as possible, then you had a high chance of surviving the next war.
• 10:05
  SPEAKER_01: And so the Vietnam generation prepared me and my peers for that very first combat mission and produced confidence under fire.
• 10:15
  SPEAKER_01: It became my mission, and it still is my mission today, on the outside, to create that same moment for the next generation.
• 10:22
  SPEAKER_01: The answer to the question is you are well trained, you are going to do extremely well, and you are going to support your teammates.
• 10:30
  SPEAKER_00: Let's talk about your experience in Serbia.
• 10:34
  SPEAKER_00: Uh you wrote about it extensively in your book, uh, Get Back Up.
• 10:38
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, can you tell us about what happened that night?
• 10:41
  SPEAKER_00: And then let's talk about what happened next, because I think that's equally important.
• 10:46
  SPEAKER_01: So no self-respecting fighter pilot brags about getting shot down, right?
• 10:51
  SPEAKER_01: So it was not my most brilliant tactical maneuver, uh, intercepting an enemy missile with my aircraft on the night, you know, in 2nd of May in 1999.
• 11:01
  SPEAKER_01: But it taught me, you know, a great deal about especially the folks that risked everything to come get me out.
• 11:08
  SPEAKER_01: And the fact that my nation was not going to sleep that night until I came home to my wife and my daughters.
• 11:14
  SPEAKER_01: You know, the mission itself, you know, I always people when they ask me, so what does it feel like to, you know, have an aircraft come apart around you and then have to pull this pull the handle and then ride the rocket seat out of the aircraft, which is by the way, like 30 instantaneous G G's, right, when the rockets all fire.
• 11:31
  SPEAKER_01: And I I just tell them, hey, you know, before the ejection, I was six foot three.
• 11:36
  SPEAKER_01: Right?
• 11:36
  SPEAKER_01: This is all that's left, right?
• 11:38
  SPEAKER_01: But there's also that great Garth Brooks song, you know, Thank God for Unanswered Prayers.
• 11:44
  SPEAKER_01: Remember that one?
• 11:45
  SPEAKER_01: Yep.
• 11:46
  SPEAKER_01: So if you if you wanted to free fall parachute at the Air Force Academy and pull your own ripcord, you had to have a 2.6 GPA or higher.
• 11:56
  SPEAKER_01: Those of us who had less than a 2.6 got to go to Fort Benning and jump with the United States Army on a static line out of a back of a C-130 or a C-141 at the time.
• 12:07
  SPEAKER_01: But here's where unanswered prayers come through, right?
• 12:12
  SPEAKER_01: The fourth jump with the United States Army at Fort Benning is a low altitude mass exit, full combat gear in the middle of the night, and as soon as you hit the ground, you have to grab all your gear and sprint to the buses to pass the ride.
• 12:27
  SPEAKER_01: So here I am in Serbia, low altitude, night, full combat gear.
• 12:33
  SPEAKER_01: When I hit the ground, I gotta grab all my gear and sprint to the tree line to keep from getting, you know, from them finding me.
• 12:41
  SPEAKER_01: Had I had a better GPA at the Academy, I would not have been as prepared for my night combat jump.
• 12:48
  SPEAKER_01: So I was always being dead to the United States Army for preparing me for that night.
• 12:53
  SPEAKER_01: You know, once I got on the ground uh and got into uh, you know, I ran to the tree line with my raft and parachuting all my gear.
• 13:03
  SPEAKER_01: And again, Garth Brooks song comes through again, many times that night, because I thought it was just going to be a nice slow decline uh run that I could run to the bottom of the ravine and you know get my act together and start evading.
• 13:18
  SPEAKER_01: Um, it turned out to be a cliff, and I fell forward onto my raft and rode like Indiana Jones to the bottom of this you know cliff and then head planted with my helmet still on, luckily.
• 13:31
  SPEAKER_01: And as I you know started moving around to get myself together, all of a sudden I hear footsteps, and right right by the place that I was before I fell, three Serbian soldiers walked by with weapons out looking for me.
• 13:48
  SPEAKER_01: And couldn't find me because I was in the bottom of that ravine.
• 13:51
  SPEAKER_01: And then spent the next about two, two and a half hours uh working myself towards high terrain.
• 13:59
  SPEAKER_01: And it's sort of interesting how you, you know, you remember we all tell stories in the bar, you know, uh and even during combat, right?
• 14:07
  SPEAKER_01: So during Desert Storm, a buddy of mine, Spike Thomas, had jumped out of an F-16 and spent six hours on the ground.
• 14:13
  SPEAKER_01: And I asked him uh before his rescue, I said, Man, what'd you do to keep your sanity?
• 14:18
  SPEAKER_01: And he said, Well, I'd reach out from the raft and I'd I would scoop up rocks and I'd bring them in and I'd use my little infrared red-colored flashlight, and I was picking out the good rocks because I wanted my kids to have souvenirs from Iraq.
• 14:30
  SPEAKER_01: And I remember thinking, now that's like father of the year, right?
• 14:34
  SPEAKER_01: Well, now it's 10 years later, and I'm on the ground in Serbia, so I'm collecting rocks for my daughters, and all of a sudden I hear footsteps in the ravine behind me.
• 14:42
  SPEAKER_01: It's two in the morning, and I thought, damn, you know, I can't believe these guys found me.
• 14:47
  SPEAKER_01: And so it got to, you know, I determined it was like an animal or, you know, something, and it got close enough that it was in my space, and I grabbed some of these rocks and threw it, and this thing reared up and growled at me.
• 15:01
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm convinced it was a Serbian mountain lion or grizzly bear, but my fellow fighter pilots are convinced it was a Serbian field mouse.
• 15:10
  SPEAKER_01: And uh and Jesse Owens couldn't have kept up with me as I left that spot and found a better spot for the rescue.
• 15:17
  SPEAKER_01: And then you know, once the hilo you know touched down, we only couldn't could put one wheel down because of the slope that was in front of me.
• 15:25
  SPEAKER_01: And of course, once the hilo is there, then uh the gig is up, right?
• 15:29
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, no enemy knows where you are, so they're racing to try to get to us before we take off.
• 15:35
  SPEAKER_01: And they always teach us, remember when we went through you know sear survival evasion, right?
• 15:40
  SPEAKER_01: They always teach us, right, be passive, be submissive, don't hold up a weapon.
• 15:44
  SPEAKER_01: They gotta verify that it's you, they gotta authenticate you.
• 15:48
  SPEAKER_01: So the enemy starts shooting through the tree line trying to get at us.
• 15:52
  SPEAKER_01: And uh our total authentication was let's go.
• 15:56
  SPEAKER_01: And uh and I try climbing up on this uh into the 860, and I'm having a hard time getting in because I have these damn rocks in my pocket that I've been collecting.
• 16:07
  SPEAKER_01: And uh I finally get me up, you know, into the Hilo, and these guys all pile on top of me because they're wearing body armor and we're taking rounds.
• 16:15
  SPEAKER_01: We took five rounds in the Hilo that night.
• 16:18
  SPEAKER_01: And I remember just thinking how incredibly heroic these young men were, the PJs who you know were there to pick me up.
• 16:26
  SPEAKER_01: Sun was about to come up, there was no way they would leave me behind.
• 16:30
  SPEAKER_01: And uh and as they piled on top of me because they had to bother body armor, you know, I realized, well, wait a minute, we're getting shot at from below.
• 16:40
  SPEAKER_01: Maybe I'm body armor for them, right?
• 16:42
  SPEAKER_01: These guys and the the squadrons that were involved get a bottle of scotch from me.
• 16:46
  SPEAKER_01: Single malt, good quality every year.
• 16:47
  SPEAKER_01: It's about coming up on the hard to believe, like 27th anniversary, I think, coming up.
• 16:52
  SPEAKER_01: And uh they'll get a bottle of single malt from me, and they are praying I live a long and healthy life.
• 17:00
  SPEAKER_00: That's an amazing story, but I'm also intrigued by what happened next.
• 17:06
  SPEAKER_00: And you you write about this a little bit uh in your book, Get Back Up, but I'd like you to just share a little bit more with us if you would.
• 17:14
  SPEAKER_00: Tell me about your decision and what happened right af the next day.
• 17:19
  SPEAKER_01: Well, because I was a squadron commander, right?
• 17:21
  SPEAKER_01: And when I got off the C-130 uh and had a chance to and you know, we were fighting from home.
• 17:27
  SPEAKER_01: It was a little bit odd, right?
• 17:29
  SPEAKER_01: Because every every war I'd been in before that, we deployed forward.
• 17:34
  SPEAKER_00: And you were flying out of which base?
• 17:36
  SPEAKER_00: Aviano.
• 17:37
  SPEAKER_01: We're flying out of Aviano, Italy.
• 17:39
  SPEAKER_01: So in northern Italy.
• 17:41
  SPEAKER_01: So you're going, you know, you're going out, get shot at, come home, mow the grass, go out, get shot at, come home, do the dishes, take care of the kids, right?
• 17:48
  SPEAKER_01: So it was not in the br that was not in the brochure.
• 17:50
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 17:51
  SPEAKER_01: And I knew I need to get my squadron back on the step, because I was not, you know, your young captain, I was a squadron commander.
• 17:57
  SPEAKER_01: And the way to get him back on the step is to get back on the horse, right?
• 18:01
  SPEAKER_01: And so I'd looked at my wing commander, General Fig Leaf, and I just said, Hey boss, I'm not sure I don't know if you've had a chance to think about it, but you know, I'm not your young captain.
• 18:09
  SPEAKER_01: I gotta get this behind us, so I need to get back in the air.
• 18:13
  SPEAKER_01: And if it's okay with you, I'm gonna go home and get some crew rest, I'm gonna fly tonight.
• 18:16
  SPEAKER_01: He looked at me, he looked at my wife, Don, and he said, Well, if it's okay with her, it's okay with me.
• 18:21
  SPEAKER_01: And uh on the way home, uh, I realized that you know Don was doing fine with it.
• 18:26
  SPEAKER_01: She's a tough, tough lady.
• 18:28
  SPEAKER_01: But my oldest daughter, Danny, was struggling a bit with this whole dad just got shot down, you know, deal.
• 18:35
  SPEAKER_01: So then I had this you know bit of a dilemma, right?
• 18:38
  SPEAKER_01: I got a responsibility to my squadron to get back up in the air quickly, and I got a responsibility as a dad to take care of my daughter.
• 18:44
  SPEAKER_01: And so I decided to take one night and uh make sure she was okay, and then I flew the next night, every night after that.
• 18:51
  SPEAKER_01: But what was amazing about the next flight was when I taxied out of the the Haz, the hangar, totally unbeknownst to me.
• 19:01
  SPEAKER_01: The word had gotten out that I was going back in the air, and every taxiway was lined with with people, right?
• 19:09
  SPEAKER_01: Active guard, reserve, all the squadrons, um, battalions, right, and they were all just lined up to give me a wave and a thumbs up, you know, as I taxed by.
• 19:20
  SPEAKER_01: That's a moment that I'll never forget, right?
• 19:22
  SPEAKER_01: It's about it's about our Air Force family.
• 19:25
  SPEAKER_01: And it was also a very quiet way of honoring the Vietnam generation, my dad's generation.
• 19:32
  SPEAKER_01: Because I remember meeting folks who had gotten shot down two and three times.
• 19:38
  SPEAKER_01: Wow.
• 19:38
  SPEAKER_01: Rescued, and then got right back up in the air.
• 19:42
  SPEAKER_01: And you know, no fanfare, no book tour, right?
• 19:45
  SPEAKER_01: Just back getting the job done.
• 19:48
  SPEAKER_01: We had a war to win.
• 19:49
  SPEAKER_01: And so, in many ways, uh it was my way of quietly honoring that generation.
• 19:56
  SPEAKER_00: Among your many claims to fame, you are a bandit.
• 20:00
  SPEAKER_00: And in fact, you are the last operational bandit, bandit 708.
• 20:06
  SPEAKER_00: They started the numbering at 150, not including the the test guys that Lockheed who flew it beforehand.
• 20:13
  SPEAKER_00: That ran over about uh twenty five years.
• 20:16
  SPEAKER_00: And you were the very last bandit.
• 20:19
  SPEAKER_00: So can you tell us about one, the F-117, your experience flying it, and then two, uh what you want people to know about that aircraft and its legacy.
• 20:33
  SPEAKER_01: So you were bandit number what?
• 20:35
  SPEAKER_00: 534.
• 20:37
  SPEAKER_01: 534, okay.
• 20:39
  SPEAKER_01: So you and I first met when I showed up at Holliman Air Force Base as the wing commander, and you were the vice wing commander.
• 20:47
  SPEAKER_01: We got a chance to work together there.
• 20:49
  SPEAKER_01: And I don't know if you remember this, but I'll I'll never forget.
• 20:52
  SPEAKER_01: I was just out at Holliman a couple weeks ago, and I was telling them the story of when you showed me around the base for the first time.
• 21:01
  SPEAKER_01: And normally the first tour is okay, hey, here's where the dorms are, here's where the hangers are, here's where maintenance is, here's security forces, here's you know, water treatment.
• 21:09
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, that kind of thing.
• 21:11
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know if you remember, but the tour was okay, we just had transformers here, and here's where they blew up this vehicle, you know, and this hangar over here.
• 21:20
  SPEAKER_01: This was it was basically a transformers tour of the base.
• 21:23
  SPEAKER_01: And I just remember sitting there thinking, this guy's gonna be great to work with.
• 21:28
  SPEAKER_00: We had fun, that's for sure.
• 21:31
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 21:31
  SPEAKER_00: Michael Michael Bay had just left town.
• 21:33
  SPEAKER_01: That's right.
• 21:34
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, Michael Bay.
• 21:36
  SPEAKER_01: So flying the F-117 for me was more about meeting the community of absolute heroes that flew that airplane for 25 years, nine of which, if I've got my timing right, was was unacknowledged.
• 21:54
  SPEAKER_01: And when I say unacknowledged, it had the it had the level of classification of.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_01: The Manhattan Project, and maybe the only top secret program that had a top secret program as its cover, if it was ever discovered, if you remember that.
• 22:12
  SPEAKER_01: And what and and when I met the community, I met these incredible individuals who flew it.
• 22:20
  SPEAKER_01: Now, did you fly it when it was unacknowledged?
• 22:22
  SPEAKER_00: No, I came after.
• 22:23
  SPEAKER_00: I started in 1997.
• 22:26
  SPEAKER_01: So you know, you uh we we we met these folks who would get up in the you know in the morning on a Sunday, go fly in an unmarked airplane out of North Las Vegas to Tonopah, go to bed or you know, in the middle of the day, wake up at night and fly that airplane every night for a week, and then fly home on Friday evening, and never once could tell their families what they were doing.
• 22:56
  SPEAKER_01: And some of them did this for nine years.
• 22:59
  SPEAKER_01: Some of them did it for even longer when the airplane was half blue and was in test.
• 23:04
  SPEAKER_01: There were folks that had distinguished flying crosses on their wall that had no uh connection to what it was really all about, which was flying the F-117.
• 23:18
  SPEAKER_01: The selection process that I'm sure you cover uh you know in the book on how people were you know were selected, but upwards of you know months uh before they were told what they were really selected for.
• 23:32
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 23:32
  SPEAKER_01: Because the less level of classification was just so intense.
• 23:37
  SPEAKER_01: And there are some that that claim, and I think there's some truth to this, that the Soviet Union spent themselves into oblivion trying to counter this airplane that they knew existed but didn't know anything about it.
• 23:51
  SPEAKER_01: And so for me, it was you know, just to be able to strap on that amount of history, that amount of courage, that amount of of special courage of the families who probably knew mom or dad was out there doing something pretty special, but couldn't know the details.
• 24:14
  SPEAKER_01: Getting into that community for me was the highlight of my entire time in the F-117.
• 24:21
  SPEAKER_01: And I still believe to this day it's the greatest secret our nation has ever kept.
• 24:25
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm really excited that you've had a chance now to put that uh on paper and tell that story.
• 24:32
  SPEAKER_00: I have to say it was so much fun to write uh because there were so many incredible stories associated with the airplane uh that I got to tell.
• 24:41
  SPEAKER_00: And so I'm looking forward to uh sharing that with everyone uh this fall when the book is published on Veterans Day.
• 24:50
  SPEAKER_00: Uh JD, just a couple more questions I I'd like to ask.
• 24:53
  SPEAKER_00: One is what advice do you give people who tell you they they'd like to grow up and become a pilot?
• 25:00
  SPEAKER_00: What what do you suggest?
• 25:02
  SPEAKER_00: How do you how do you coach them?
• 25:05
  SPEAKER_01: You know, it's a uh it's a feeling that you have on that, I think on that first solo, right?
• 25:13
  SPEAKER_01: When you're you know you look around and there's nobody around you, and you're you pull back on the yoke or the stick or whatever it is that you're flying, and those wheels leave the ground and you're in complete control.
• 25:30
  SPEAKER_01: And the beauty of flight, the beauty of just being up there and maneuvering this airplane through and around the clouds and doing all those things, it's just an absolutely magical experience.
• 25:45
  SPEAKER_01: And so when I'm talking to a young person, you know, I I always you know to encourage them to go, you know, go out to an airport and get a flight.
• 25:53
  SPEAKER_01: Just go fly.
• 25:55
  SPEAKER_01: Right?
• 25:56
  SPEAKER_01: Just go get get an airplane and get a get an orientation flight, right?
• 26:00
  SPEAKER_01: I can't tell you the number of you know times I I was a part owner of a little Cirrus for a while.
• 26:07
  SPEAKER_01: Many years ago in my first tour of Mountain Home, I was a part owner of a Mooney.
• 26:12
  SPEAKER_01: My the highlight for me was taking a young person up for their first flight and having them experience the beauty of flight.
• 26:19
  SPEAKER_01: And and I I'm proud to say that in all the incentive flights I ever gave in the F-16, I never had a one person get sick.
• 26:27
  SPEAKER_01: And I always told my you know pilots, I said, look, it doesn't take a lot of flying skill to get somebody sick.
• 26:32
  SPEAKER_01: It actually takes a little very little skill.
• 26:34
  SPEAKER_01: It takes a lot of skill to be able to show them what this airplane can do and have them enjoy every single minute of it.
• 26:40
  SPEAKER_01: And what I found was if I could, you know, if I could take off, I mean now normally in an F-16, I'd I'd get them ready for it and I'd say, look, you know, the first thing we're gonna do can be a little intimidating, but I I don't want you to miss the opportunity of having the elevator ride of your life.
• 26:59
  SPEAKER_01: So we're gonna stay on the deck and fill out the burner until 400 knots, and then I'm gonna smoothly pull the nose up until we're vertical, and we're gonna accelerate going straight up until we get to 10,000 feet.
• 27:10
  SPEAKER_01: When I get to 10,000 feet, this is where it's gonna be a little bit uncomfortable for you because if I push over, you're not gonna feel really good.
• 27:18
  SPEAKER_01: So the only way I can actually get back to level flight is if I roll the aircraft upside down and then get to level flight and then roll it over.
• 27:26
  SPEAKER_01: I said, but here's the deal if I do the flying right, you could hold a cup of coffee in your lap right in front of you.
• 27:33
  SPEAKER_01: And the entire maneuver from going you know vertical to rolling over and pulling out, I said, you would not spill a drop of coffee.
• 27:41
  SPEAKER_01: I said, so if I fly this right, all that's gonna be intimidating to you is looking outside.
• 27:45
  SPEAKER_01: But the feeling in the cockpit, if I fly this well, is gonna be very comfortable.
• 27:50
  SPEAKER_01: And then as soon as I got leveled off at 10,000 feet, I would give them the stick.
• 27:54
  SPEAKER_01: I'd say, okay, now we're gonna fly, and I would just let them fly for as long as it took for me to listen to their breathing.
• 28:01
  SPEAKER_01: And I would listen to the breathing, and it would go from an the intimidation breathing, which is sort of a you know, fast pace, you know, right, to all of a sudden you could you could actually do it.
• 28:12
  SPEAKER_01: And everybody was the same.
• 28:14
  SPEAKER_01: There was all of a sudden this deep breath, a big exhale, and then slow breathing.
• 28:20
  SPEAKER_01: And as soon as I got to that point, I knew I could do anything with that airplane, they would never get sick because they were in control mentally.
• 28:27
  SPEAKER_01: And so for young people, you know, I tell them, hey, just go up and really enjoy and fly the airplane, right?
• 28:35
  SPEAKER_01: The person you're with is not gonna let you crash.
• 28:38
  SPEAKER_01: So go ahead and turn the airplane to the left, turn the airplane to the right, pull the nose back, you know, push the nose forward, really get the feeling of what it feels like to fly.
• 28:48
  SPEAKER_01: And I think you're gonna just absolutely love it.
• 28:50
  SPEAKER_00: JD, I have one more question, but before I ask, I want to take a moment just to remember something.
• 28:56
  SPEAKER_00: Uh a favorite memory of mine from when we were at Holliman.
• 28:59
  SPEAKER_00: And it goes back to you being a musician.
• 29:01
  SPEAKER_00: On your back porch, you were playing the guitar, and Dawn came out with a harmonica, and she held the harmonica up for you so that you could both play and you know, it in between singing and also play the harmonica.
• 29:15
  SPEAKER_00: And I struggled just to play the basic guitar, and I just marveled at that level of coordination.
• 29:23
  SPEAKER_00: Seeing you and Dawn working together musically was just great fun.
• 29:27
  SPEAKER_01: I'm pretty sure it was a Bob Dylan song that we would we would work on together, and yes, we have we had a lot of lot of fun with that.
• 29:36
  SPEAKER_01: Heart of gold.
• 29:37
  SPEAKER_00: Heart of gold.
• 29:38
  SPEAKER_00: So here's my last question.
• 29:40
  SPEAKER_00: We know flying can be dangerous, and all of us have lost friends, fellow aviators, and and others along the way.
• 29:49
  SPEAKER_00: Can you tell us about some of the people you've lost who we should remember today?
• 29:53
  SPEAKER_01: So I as you know, as as the CFAC, as the air component commander and a space component commander for Central Command for two years, I lost 23 airmen.
• 30:02
  SPEAKER_01: And you may not see it behind me.
• 30:04
  SPEAKER_01: I've got a small book with every one of their names and their stories and their hometowns.
• 30:07
  SPEAKER_01: And you know, every year uh on Memorial Day, especially as chief, I would go by and visit most of them who were buried at Arlington Cemetery.
• 30:16
  SPEAKER_01: There was one young man, Tyler Voss.
• 30:18
  SPEAKER_01: Tyler was uh the co-pilot of a KC-135 that we lost, um, taking off out of Manas uh in Afghanistan.
• 30:26
  SPEAKER_01: And as I was reaching back to handwrite a note to his family and then reach out to them, I realized that he's from my hometown.
• 30:35
  SPEAKER_01: He's from Bernie, Texas.
• 30:37
  SPEAKER_01: And the middle school that uh is you know a mile from here where I'm sitting right now is Tyler Voss Middle School, named after Tyler.
• 30:49
  SPEAKER_01: And you may know that we you know recently lost a KC-135 over Iraq.
• 30:55
  unknown: Yeah.
• 30:57
  SPEAKER_01: Well, I reached out to Tyler's mom, Marcy, and dad Wayne, and I said, Hey, I I just want you to know that I know this has got to bring back a lot of memories, and just want you to know that I'm thinking about you on your wing here for you.
• 31:11
  SPEAKER_01: And you know, this is about what our families are about.
• 31:14
  SPEAKER_01: Marcy reached out to me and said, Listen, you know, these families need to grieve with their family, but at the right time, I'm here to reach out to the wives and mothers, especially, to help them through the grieving process.
• 31:26
  SPEAKER_01: That's what this Air Force family is all about.
• 31:29
  SPEAKER_01: Indeed.
• 31:29
  SPEAKER_00: Sir, thank you for being on the Fly Boy Podcast today.
• 31:32
  SPEAKER_00: It's it's been wonderful to hear these incredibly heartfelt stories of your experiences.
• 31:39
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you for your leadership and friendship.
• 31:43
  SPEAKER_01: Same, same.
• 31:44
  SPEAKER_01: Same back at you.
• 31:46
  SPEAKER_00: You've been listening to the Flyboy Podcast.
• 31:48
  SPEAKER_00: This podcast is brought to you by our parent organization, the Flyboy Lab.
• 31:52
  SPEAKER_00: The mission of the Flyboy Lab is to elevate awareness and appreciation of aviators, their service, sacrifices, and contributions, and hopefully we've fulfilled that mission today.
• 32:03
  SPEAKER_00: New episodes of the podcast drop every Thursday morning, and you can find previous episodes on our website, theflyboypodcast.com.
• 32:11
  SPEAKER_00: Until our next sortie, push the mock, use the vertical, and fly safe.