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The Flyboy Podcast: Guest Matt McKeon · The Flyboy Podcast

• 0:09
  SPEAKER_01: Welcome to the Flyboy Podcast, where we bring you just one thing: cool flying stories.
• 0:14
  SPEAKER_01: I'm your host, David Moore, and today I'll be talking with Matt McKeon, Callsign Knife.
• 0:19
  SPEAKER_01: Matt has more than 7,000 flying hours.
• 0:23
  SPEAKER_01: He started out flying F-4s at Seymour Johnson and then later flew Hawks with the Royal Air Force.
• 0:30
  SPEAKER_01: He then followed that with three assignments in the F-117, both at Tonopah Test Range and later at Holliman Air Force Base.
• 0:40
  SPEAKER_01: He's been an instructor pilot and a flight examiner in every assigned aircraft, and he was the squadron commander for the Black Sheep during Operation Iraqi Freedom.
• 0:49
  SPEAKER_01: After retiring from the Air Force in 2007, he has taken up flying in the Los Angeles area at Glendale Community College where he teaches general aviation.
• 0:59
  SPEAKER_01: Matt, welcome to the podcast.
• 1:02
  SPEAKER_00: Never.
• 1:02
  SPEAKER_00: It's been a minute.
• 1:03
  SPEAKER_01: It has indeed.
• 1:04
  SPEAKER_01: Tell me, what was the first moment you knew you wanted to be a pilot?
• 1:08
  SPEAKER_00: I don't have a military background.
• 1:10
  SPEAKER_00: My uh dad went to Korea for a year, but that's it.
• 1:14
  SPEAKER_00: Knew nothing about the military.
• 1:16
  SPEAKER_00: I uh used to build models though when I was a kid, and I I really enjoyed that.
• 1:21
  SPEAKER_00: Probably up through, you know, freshman sophomore year in high school.
• 1:24
  SPEAKER_00: I used to build, you know, World War II models, hang them in my room.
• 1:28
  SPEAKER_00: I was sort of into that.
• 1:29
  SPEAKER_00: And uh became a senior in high school and uh got recruited to uh go play water pole and swim at the Air Force Academy.
• 1:37
  SPEAKER_00: When I got there, I found myself going down to the uh avionics lab.
• 1:42
  SPEAKER_00: They had old movies, you know, those old uh Vietnam movies, World War II movies.
• 1:47
  SPEAKER_00: And so I I can remember watching Chuck Yeager, uh Steve Ritchie, um Robin Olds, Carl Richter, Lance P.
• 1:56
  SPEAKER_00: Sai John, you know, these sort of icons of the uh of the Air Force at the time.
• 2:01
  SPEAKER_00: You know, I just kind of took that all in, sort of trying to just understand what I was doing.
• 2:06
  SPEAKER_00: Um, because prior to that I thought the whole world revolved around a pool, right, with water polo and swimming.
• 2:12
  SPEAKER_00: Then I I started, well, maybe this flying thing might work out.
• 2:16
  SPEAKER_00: So I went up, I I took the the 141 program and my senior year, and I went out with I was fly my instructor, was an old F4 guy from uh Vietnam and threw her out one day, and he goes, Hey, let me let me show you this, like, you know, one of those hold my beer things.
• 2:33
  SPEAKER_00: And and he whips it in about a 60 or 70 degree bank turn, trims it up, right?
• 2:39
  SPEAKER_00: So he's kind of hands off, reaches over, I'm in the left seat, and unlocks my door, and with his left foot jams a door open, right?
• 2:48
  SPEAKER_00: And he's like, Look down there, you know, and we're we're at about three grand or so.
• 2:52
  SPEAKER_00: I'm looking down, nothing bit between me and the terra firma, right?
• 2:56
  SPEAKER_00: And I said, Wow, uh, this is dangerous.
• 2:59
  SPEAKER_00: I could really learn to like this.
• 3:01
  SPEAKER_00: So I sort of like, okay, this this is what I was meant to do.
• 3:06
  SPEAKER_00: Now I sort of look back at on that after uh the fact, and I kind of go, wow, it was kind of fate, making models, uh, watching videos and all that kind of stuff, and it was just my brain catching up to fate.
• 3:19
  SPEAKER_00: But to come full circle, believe it or not, I show up at Seymour Johnson, brand spanking new, first lieutenant, got my in-processing stuff from RTU and everything, marching, you know, got the scarf on, everything.
• 3:35
  SPEAKER_00: I walk into the duty desk and sitting behind the duty desk, no kidding, is Chuck DeBelvy.
• 3:41
  SPEAKER_00: He stands up, he's a lieutenant colonel, shakes my hand, just says, Hey, welcome to the Chiefs.
• 3:46
  SPEAKER_00: I was like, wow, life just came full circle.
• 3:49
  SPEAKER_01: So you had seen film of him flying in Vietnam?
• 3:52
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, interviews and stuff.
• 3:54
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, young captain or lieutenant, and uh I got to meet him in real life, you know, five years later or whatever it was.
• 4:02
  SPEAKER_00: Can't make that up, right?
• 4:04
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, that's pretty cool.
• 4:05
  SPEAKER_01: So, how many different types of airplanes have you flown?
• 4:09
  SPEAKER_00: I flew F-4Ds uh in RTU, F4Es, and then uh went off and flew the Hawk, uh, REF lift training.
• 4:16
  SPEAKER_00: And then I came back uh to the States and did the F-117, and then I ended up at Randolph for a year flying the T-38C, uh, the glass cockpit with the new motors, and then took a break, went went and worked for the federal government for 10 or so years, and then I went back to flying in the GA worlds.
• 4:38
  SPEAKER_00: I've flown 172s, 152s, 182s, uh all the diamond stuff, um, Cirrus, a lot of pipers as well.
• 4:47
  SPEAKER_00: And and be quite frank, they all fly about the same.
• 4:51
  SPEAKER_01: Let me uh talk about flying as an exchange pilot with the Royal Air Force for a moment.
• 4:56
  SPEAKER_01: How would you describe sort of the flying cultures in the Royal Air Force versus the U.S.
• 5:01
  SPEAKER_01: Air Force?
• 5:01
  SPEAKER_01: How are they different?
• 5:02
  SPEAKER_01: How are they the same?
• 5:03
  SPEAKER_00: To answer that course, you really got to know the the two Air Forces, and they are culturally different.
• 5:09
  SPEAKER_00: And that defines sort of you know how, you know, the the interactions and the squadrons and everything.
• 5:15
  SPEAKER_00: The U.S.
• 5:16
  SPEAKER_00: Air Force relies a lot on, well, you know, we got the best kit, right?
• 5:20
  SPEAKER_00: Best technology uh money can buy and everything else.
• 5:23
  SPEAKER_00: And that really puts you know constraints on the way airplanes are flown, probably a little bit.
• 5:30
  SPEAKER_00: You know, these are precious assets and uh you want to be careful with them.
• 5:33
  SPEAKER_00: In the Royal Air Force, they rely tremendously on pilot talent.
• 5:39
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not gonna say that one Air Force has better pilots than the other, it's just that the Royal Air Force really depends on judgment and airmanship of their pilots to get the job done.
• 5:50
  SPEAKER_00: And it was it was really a joy to fly with them.
• 5:53
  SPEAKER_00: You can't help but develop sort of a British accent because they we never heard any uh American uh language ever uh down there in South South Devon uh for almost three years.
• 6:05
  SPEAKER_00: So uh you could develop this British accent and you have to sort of speak like them for them to understand you.
• 6:12
  SPEAKER_00: Uh it was uh fantastic working with them and their pilot culture and their talent, their history, right, is is second to none.
• 6:23
  SPEAKER_01: So, Matt, what's the coolest thing you've ever done in an airplane?
• 6:28
  SPEAKER_00: Uh well, there's been a few, right?
• 6:31
  SPEAKER_00: But I can honestly say that the the first time I did this event, I I said to myself, this, okay, I've flown a lot of places around the world.
• 6:41
  SPEAKER_00: This is this is really cool.
• 6:43
  SPEAKER_00: Prior to being out here at um uh LA, we were we actually lived in Queens for seven years.
• 6:50
  SPEAKER_00: I worked at LaGordia and did part-time flying out at Farmingdale.
• 6:54
  SPEAKER_00: We would every so often take, you know, uh Discovery Flight or something, take somebody, you know, take off and Farmingdale's right east of uh JFK, so then you sort of dip down under the Bravo there and then pop back up, go over the Verizano Bridge, and then you'd fly right down the Hudson River at a thousand feet on the um east side.
• 7:16
  SPEAKER_00: So you're you're flying like right on the western edge of Manhattan at a thousand feet.
• 7:22
  SPEAKER_00: And I I remember the first time I did it, and I'm like, I I I seriously cannot believe this is you know legal and people actually do this, right?
• 7:34
  SPEAKER_00: Because you got the Statue of Liberty there, uh Battery Park, uh Madison Square Garden, Intrepid, uh, and of course, One World Trade, you're like, you know, one world trade is here, and you're like here.
• 7:48
  SPEAKER_00: It's almost like you could touch it.
• 7:50
  SPEAKER_00: And then you keep going north, you make these um uh landmark calls, you know, and the pe and then you fly right over Central Park.
• 7:59
  SPEAKER_00: You know, you contact LaGuardia Tower, you say, hey, I'm uh, you know, I'm RTB uh Farmingdale, and they go, okay, uh climbing right turn, 1500 feet, go over Central Park and Rose uh Roosevelt Island, and then right over uh the tower at LaGuardia.
• 8:16
  SPEAKER_00: You know, uh God bless the uh FAA for you know allowing that to happen.
• 8:22
  SPEAKER_00: But uh I I just I just remember doing that thinking this there's no way this is really legal.
• 8:29
  SPEAKER_00: So that really is cool.
• 8:32
  SPEAKER_01: That sounds like great fun.
• 8:33
  SPEAKER_01: Let's go a different direction for a moment.
• 8:35
  SPEAKER_01: What's the worst in-flight emergency you've ever experienced?
• 8:40
  SPEAKER_00: Probably like most of your guests, we have a menu to choose from, right?
• 8:44
  SPEAKER_00: But the one I'll share with you is probably something I'm not really proud of.
• 8:49
  SPEAKER_00: But uh, you know, it's it's about time I so whereas your your guests probably all had the uh act of God behind, you know, an emergency, this one was my fault completely.
• 9:02
  SPEAKER_00: We were deploying uh eight eight or ten jets over to Gills Ryan for a summer uh deployment.
• 9:10
  SPEAKER_00: Uh this is like in '94.
• 9:12
  SPEAKER_01: What type of airplane?
• 9:13
  SPEAKER_00: Uh 117s.
• 9:15
  SPEAKER_00: So we take off out of Holliman, we find uh Langley, and then uh two days later we launch out of there, and then we go to Gills Ryan.
• 9:24
  SPEAKER_01: And where is that base?
• 9:26
  SPEAKER_01: Uh to let our listeners know?
• 9:28
  SPEAKER_00: Gills Ryan is in it's either in Belgium or the Netherlands.
• 9:34
  SPEAKER_00: I can't remember.
• 9:34
  SPEAKER_00: I think it's in Belgium.
• 9:35
  SPEAKER_01: It's there in northern Europe somewhere.
• 9:37
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, yeah, yeah.
• 9:39
  SPEAKER_00: Great, great, great place.
• 9:41
  SPEAKER_00: Anyway, uh I'm deploy I'm the lead uh of the second four ship.
• 9:46
  SPEAKER_00: So I've got uh three three other guys with me.
• 9:49
  SPEAKER_00: We launch out of of Langley.
• 9:51
  SPEAKER_00: It's doggy weather, and so we take off on this rad uh this trail departure, and I don't think we even joined up until we were like near New Jersey, right?
• 10:01
  SPEAKER_00: And then uh picked up our tankers, my uh number two and I jumped on the first tanker and three and four on the second tanker and boom.
• 10:09
  SPEAKER_00: And we were just it was it's just one of those bad days, you know, weather everywhere.
• 10:15
  SPEAKER_00: Um sometimes it was, you know, quarter mile viz or whatever, and sometimes it opened up a little bit more.
• 10:22
  SPEAKER_00: You know, and everything's kind of going well.
• 10:23
  SPEAKER_00: We're up at 280.
• 10:26
  SPEAKER_00: And I came off the boom, and we were in kind of some thicker stuff, come off the boom, you know, because you're sitting there sipping about you know every 30 minutes or something.
• 10:36
  SPEAKER_01: In-flight air refueling every every little bit, so you got enough gas to divert if there's some problem.
• 10:41
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, in theory, you have enough gas.
• 10:43
  SPEAKER_00: In theory on paper, right?
• 10:46
  SPEAKER_00: So I came off the boom about a third of the way through the the flight, and the number two tanker was like right there.
• 10:55
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, he was like in station keeping, and I I figured out later he's just trying to stay visual on the Lee tanker.
• 11:02
  SPEAKER_00: It was it was grossly too close.
• 11:05
  SPEAKER_00: So I I pop up to the right wing.
• 11:07
  SPEAKER_00: Next time I go down, you know, I kind of hug the my tanker, right?
• 11:13
  SPEAKER_00: Get under there, get some gas, and then I pop back up to the the right wing again, and I'm now I'm looking at the right window and I'm trying to see where this guy is, and I can barely see his right wing tip, and that's it.
• 11:27
  SPEAKER_00: And you you know how bad the visibility was uh looking out the back of the 117.
• 11:32
  SPEAKER_00: And you're in the goon bag, right?
• 11:34
  SPEAKER_01: For the goon bag, meaning the anti-exposure suit, which is going to be a dry suit, it's very cumbersome and bulky, yes.
• 11:42
  SPEAKER_00: Exactly.
• 11:43
  SPEAKER_00: So, you know, you had that canopy handle right here, right?
• 11:46
  SPEAKER_01: And so I can see what's coming.
• 11:48
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, without thinking about it really, I'm I'm kind of leaning on it because I am you know concerned about where how close this guy is, and boom, canopy.
• 11:58
  SPEAKER_01: So you put your hand on the canopy handle.
• 12:00
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, lean leaning on it with the goon, you know, the goon bug is kind of, you know, no excuses here.
• 12:07
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, and then uh that handle flies forward.
• 12:10
  SPEAKER_00: I get the canopy unlock light, I get a rapid decompression.
• 12:15
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, and if you've ever read or heard about a rapid decompression, it's all true.
• 12:22
  SPEAKER_00: I could I couldn't see anything because all the dirt and grind, you know, everything that's on the ground kind of gets pushed out of the cockpit and it goes right in your eyes.
• 12:31
  SPEAKER_00: Fortunately, I had the mask on at that point.
• 12:34
  SPEAKER_00: The airplane instantly goes to pressure breathing, and the air's blasting out of the right here because it can't hold the seal.
• 12:42
  SPEAKER_00: Your ears go from 7,000 feet to 28,000 feet like that.
• 12:47
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm in the weather, so I'm struggling just to stay in position and go, you know, what just happened?
• 12:55
  SPEAKER_00: And um, you know, what am I gonna do about it?
• 12:58
  SPEAKER_01: Is it day or night?
• 12:59
  SPEAKER_00: This is day, and we are somewhere we're like six or seven hundred miles south of Keflovik.
• 13:06
  SPEAKER_00: So that was the closest divert.
• 13:08
  SPEAKER_00: And then a lot of waves and open ocean and sharks, right?
• 13:13
  SPEAKER_01: And sharks.
• 13:15
  SPEAKER_00: So uh, you know, I thought about it for a while.
• 13:19
  SPEAKER_00: Um I, you know, kind of gained my bearings for a little bit and and try to figure out, okay, what am I gonna do?
• 13:27
  SPEAKER_00: Because I knew that two other guys had lost their canopies in the 117 previous to this.
• 13:33
  SPEAKER_00: All right, I'm probably gonna need gas.
• 13:35
  SPEAKER_00: There's no way I'm gonna get under the tanker to get my gas with an unlocked canopy or the canopy unlocked light.
• 13:42
  SPEAKER_01: Because of what could happen with the canopy flying off and hitting the refueling boom and all that.
• 13:48
  SPEAKER_00: And then ricochet hitting the tail, and then the jet goes out of, you know, uh all those things went through my mind.
• 13:54
  SPEAKER_00: I'm you know, now you're processing at light speed, right?
• 13:57
  SPEAKER_00: All the possibilities, courses of action.
• 14:00
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, what am I gonna do?
• 14:01
  SPEAKER_00: All that.
• 14:02
  SPEAKER_00: Uh and I knew what the checklist said.
• 14:04
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm I'm thinking, I'm I probably don't have enough gas to get there comfortably.
• 14:10
  SPEAKER_00: So I decide, all right, we're gonna, I'm gonna fix this, at least um partially fix it.
• 14:17
  SPEAKER_00: So I I store all my all the pubs that I figured I might need to get to Keflovik because I'm anticipating that if this canopy goes, everything's gonna go with it.
• 14:26
  SPEAKER_00: Lunch, you know, pubs, everything.
• 14:29
  SPEAKER_00: I I put what I can under my legs or in the G suit and I go, I'm I'll never forget this.
• 14:36
  SPEAKER_00: The canopy handle's like sitting right here, right?
• 14:39
  SPEAKER_00: It's right right there, right?
• 14:40
  SPEAKER_00: And I I go, okay, I put my arm on it and I go, okay, if I was on the ground in the hangar and I just closed the canopy, which direction would I move this handle?
• 14:52
  SPEAKER_00: Because because it's either forward or back.
• 14:55
  SPEAKER_00: You know, it's a coin toss, right?
• 14:57
  SPEAKER_00: I I literally did that, and I go, okay, I'm on the ground in the hangar, I just lowered the canopy.
• 15:03
  SPEAKER_00: What am I gonna do?
• 15:04
  SPEAKER_00: And so I go, okay, the canopy flies out from here forward, and I I pushed forward, light goes out, I disconnect, you know, yeah, that the O-ring, that you kind of disconnect the the arm, swung it back, you know.
• 15:22
  SPEAKER_00: Um one problem though, it didn't fix the uh uh pressurization.
• 15:28
  SPEAKER_00: So now I am I have bought pressure breathing for the next three and a half hours.
• 15:35
  SPEAKER_00: And uh I'm here to tell you that's uh that's an experience you don't want to have.
• 15:39
  SPEAKER_00: And the other thing that I learned is uh when you get under the tanker to refuel with no pressurization, those motors are so loud there you can't hear anything.
• 15:52
  SPEAKER_00: You can't even hear yourself think.
• 15:54
  SPEAKER_00: They are just blasting away.
• 15:55
  SPEAKER_00: So the boomer was saying something to me.
• 15:57
  SPEAKER_00: I I had no idea.
• 15:59
  SPEAKER_01: Is that the 117 motors or the tankers motors?
• 16:02
  SPEAKER_00: No, the tanker, though the four, and these were our models, so they had the big big motors, and they are just blasting away like you're you're sitting, you know, a couple feet away from them.
• 16:14
  SPEAKER_00: So we get we get closer to England, and I I had just come off the uh you know my exchange tour.
• 16:21
  SPEAKER_00: So once I saw the coast of England up at the outer Hebrides, which you know I I'd actually flown up there too, I was like, okay, I know where I am.
• 16:29
  SPEAKER_00: And I said, look, we we don't need any more gas.
• 16:32
  SPEAKER_00: I took the four ship out of the, I descended, I took us out of the L Trav and said, all right, we got to get down to 12.5 because the other problem was I was running out of oxygen.
• 16:42
  SPEAKER_00: I was I had eight like eight or nine liters when it started, and I was like down to a half a liter.
• 16:48
  SPEAKER_00: Uh so we went down to 12.5, which was uh which was the altitude that you know was legal.
• 16:53
  SPEAKER_00: And uh, and then we flew across England uh through my Charlie 6 over to uh uh and then you know to to compound my stupidity, uh I said rock the four ship in and brought them up initial, pitch out and landed.
• 17:07
  SPEAKER_00: You know, the huge crowd there and everything.
• 17:09
  SPEAKER_00: So uh completely uh my fault and um not a fun experience.
• 17:16
  SPEAKER_00: Um that that whole pressure breathing thing, I was turning it off, you know, for a few seconds, and but you know, but your eyes just water up and you can't you can't really see, you know, and I needed to see because we're in the weather uh flying formation.
• 17:32
  SPEAKER_00: So yeah, but that's over, and I never have to worry about that again.
• 17:37
  SPEAKER_01: The only time I remember experiencing a massive uh decompression was in the altitude chamber.
• 17:42
  SPEAKER_01: You went from like 8,000 to suddenly to 35,000 and and all of the moisture in the air precipitates out like fog instantly.
• 17:52
  SPEAKER_00: It does.
• 17:53
  SPEAKER_00: That doesn't last long, though.
• 17:54
  SPEAKER_00: It's like a vapor cloud that just like goes away pretty quick.
• 17:58
  SPEAKER_00: Meanwhile, you know, all the dirt's in your eyes.
• 18:01
  SPEAKER_01: All the dirt is in your eyes.
• 18:02
  SPEAKER_01: The floor of the cockpit is much cleaner than it was.
• 18:06
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, yeah.
• 18:06
  SPEAKER_00: You know, you look down, you go, oh, it looks pretty clean.
• 18:09
  SPEAKER_00: It's not.
• 18:10
  SPEAKER_01: That sounds like it was quite an ordeal.
• 18:12
  SPEAKER_01: Uh let's go a different direction.
• 18:14
  SPEAKER_01: What's your favorite flying memory?
• 18:16
  SPEAKER_00: You know, you know, the memory I'm gonna I carry with me all the time is uh one in which I I wasn't even involved in the flying.
• 18:25
  SPEAKER_00: Uh it was at uh OAF, our first night where we went into trying to get Saddam Hussein.
• 18:32
  SPEAKER_00: OIF hadn't officially started yet, and you know, we get the phone call to send two jets up to Baghdad to try to get Saddam, uh, you know, with a quick strike.
• 18:44
  SPEAKER_00: Um, you know, who knows, maybe it ends the war uh before it starts.
• 18:48
  SPEAKER_00: That mission, I didn't even fly in, um, but it's the most memorable one uh for me.
• 18:54
  SPEAKER_00: It was really the culmination of a about a year and a half of preparation.
• 18:59
  SPEAKER_00: After 9-11, there was a a new nature of warfare um emerging.
• 19:06
  SPEAKER_00: Uh I had just come off a tour at JSOC in the J3, where I got to plan all their missions, you know, like the Maduro raid, stuff like that.
• 19:18
  SPEAKER_00: We did all that.
• 19:20
  SPEAKER_00: And so I had that sort of mindset, and as this new nature of warfare uh began to usher itself in, the 117 needs to be it's really good at you know, 24-hour planning cycle, you know, mass raid.
• 19:35
  SPEAKER_00: But what we're not good at is small, quick hit, small package, very responsive and flexible.
• 19:43
  SPEAKER_00: So we spent a year and a half in the squadron, and uh, you know, I had I was blessed with just a fantastic squadron.
• 19:51
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, they were awesome.
• 19:52
  SPEAKER_00: And we had maintenance too at that time.
• 19:54
  SPEAKER_00: So it was it was just a really we it just clicked.
• 19:58
  SPEAKER_00: And we uh we practiced um miss we we shrunk the mission planning process down to like two hours from 24.
• 20:06
  SPEAKER_00: Uh we practiced dynamic targeting, re-rolling folks in the air.
• 20:10
  SPEAKER_00: Uh sit we sat alert, and this is just on normal daily sorties.
• 20:14
  SPEAKER_00: We're set alert and we would activate them.
• 20:17
  SPEAKER_00: We actually got Lockheed and the Air Force to modify six of our airplanes that carry the Combat Track 2, which is a device that we could pass notes, you know, kind of the front runner of um, you know, the Link 16 or or you know, the data in the cockpit, right?
• 20:35
  SPEAKER_01: So you could communicate real time digitally with other planes in the area?
• 20:39
  SPEAKER_00: Now it wasn't supposed to work because we didn't have a you know a GPS um um antenna.
• 20:46
  SPEAKER_00: So we're running all this off a blade antenna, which theoretically sh shouldn't work, but we got it to work somehow.
• 20:54
  SPEAKER_00: And then uh and then we did other stuff like uh practice blackout taxing, and then we ended up doing two um uh tactical deception exercises for the chief of staff um that were really interesting.
• 21:08
  SPEAKER_00: One didn't go very well at all, working with SOF, and then the next one, you know, was was really good.
• 21:15
  SPEAKER_00: So I felt when we deployed to OID uh OAF that we were, I mean, we were as ready for combat, I felt like as a squadron could be.
• 21:25
  SPEAKER_00: Where were you deployed?
• 21:27
  SPEAKER_00: We uh we were at Al Udeed.
• 21:29
  SPEAKER_00: And and at that time they were so you know, they're still pouring the ramp.
• 21:34
  SPEAKER_01: You know, it's brand new.
• 21:36
  SPEAKER_01: It's brand new.
• 21:36
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, oh brand new.
• 21:38
  SPEAKER_00: But they put us in these uh um shelters, which which was nice, but we're we're living in tents.
• 21:44
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, you know, it's it is what it is, right?
• 21:46
  SPEAKER_00: We're we've been there about a month or this is before the war has started.
• 21:50
  SPEAKER_01: So everyone So you're in place, but um it's not officially kicked off.
• 21:55
  SPEAKER_01: Uh second Gulf War.
• 21:57
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, so we're we're flying um Local training sorties, getting everybody acclimated and two two night goes, right?
• 22:04
  SPEAKER_00: And then at the end of the night go, you know, I'm usually up ever uh every night, so we'd get a group and we go over to do some mid-raths at the at the chow hall, right?
• 22:13
  SPEAKER_00: So we're over there, and then no kidding, it's 1:30 in the morning.
• 22:16
  SPEAKER_00: And somebody runs over from the squadron and says, Hey, uh, the chaok uh needs to talk to you in the skiff, which is uh okay.
• 22:28
  SPEAKER_00: So I run over and they go, and you need to hurry.
• 22:31
  SPEAKER_00: So I run over there, and the LO on the other lines, like, hey, um General Moseley's the uh CFAC, is talking to the president right now.
• 22:41
  SPEAKER_00: They want to know if you can put two jets over uh Baghdad in um by five five o'clock.
• 22:47
  SPEAKER_00: And it was 1.30.
• 22:49
  SPEAKER_00: And it's and I knew it's about a two and a half hour flight.
• 22:52
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm like, we have an hour and a half or an hour to get these guys airborne.
• 22:57
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, so literally Okay, so to put this in perspective, one hour before the planes are supposed to launch to take out Saddam, and that's the question you've got on the phone hall on the phone call to the chaos saying, can you launch in one hour to take out Saddam?
• 23:15
  unknown: Wow.
• 23:15
  SPEAKER_00: You know, that's not a question you say no to, right?
• 23:19
  SPEAKER_00: Indeed, not I don't see that word coming out of my mouth.
• 23:22
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm like, not a chance.
• 23:24
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not like thinking, well, we we practiced all this stuff.
• 23:28
  SPEAKER_00: I'm just uh how are we gonna make it work?
• 23:30
  SPEAKER_00: I I picked two pilots, ops officer and weapons officer.
• 23:34
  SPEAKER_00: They were just standing right in front of me.
• 23:35
  SPEAKER_01: You were the commander of the squadron.
• 23:37
  SPEAKER_01: You you chose the the two, right?
• 23:39
  SPEAKER_00: They're they're they're like, you know, they were just eating pancakes, and now they're getting their flight gear on to go north, right?
• 23:47
  SPEAKER_00: So you guys get ready.
• 23:48
  SPEAKER_00: See, what had uh what had to happen is every a lot of things that that happened sequentially in a in a in the planning of a normally normally, yes.
• 23:58
  SPEAKER_00: Normally, all had to happen parallel, in in parallel, you know, uh all at the same time.
• 24:04
  SPEAKER_00: So um I got the main uh maintenance OIC over, she came over, I said, here's what we need.
• 24:09
  SPEAKER_00: Luckily, and this probably the only reason we were able to do it, is luckily we had gotten um our first shipment of eGBUs, laser-guided bombs with the GPS enhancement.
• 24:21
  SPEAKER_00: If the bomb didn't see the laser, it was going to be pretty pretty accurate, like a JDAM.
• 24:27
  SPEAKER_00: We had just gotten that shipment, and and so I had maintenance that morning load one of our airplanes with two of the bombs because none of us had done the switchology, and the switchology was completely different.
• 24:40
  SPEAKER_00: So I cycled all the pilots through during the day, and they got got to see all the switchology.
• 24:46
  SPEAKER_00: And so we had a jet that was loaded.
• 24:49
  SPEAKER_00: It wasn't rammed out, but it was loaded and ready to go.
• 24:54
  SPEAKER_00: That was like, okay, we're what we at least got one airplane ready to go.
• 24:59
  SPEAKER_00: Well, just top it off with fuel, zero ram it, which takes about 20 minutes, and then okay, yeah, we got to get the other bomb uh bombs loaded, and it's like across the airfield, a 45-minute drive.
• 25:14
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, you know, a little old lady from Pasadena is, you know, driving this bomb dump truck, you know, at about five knots.
• 25:22
  SPEAKER_00: They finally get it and you know, step the pilots.
• 25:25
  SPEAKER_00: They are in the airplanes, okay, no mission materials whatsoever, because those guys are still doing their thing.
• 25:32
  SPEAKER_00: And the bomb uh loaders are building the bomb right in front of the one airplane, and there's you know, and they're and they're fueling both of them.
• 25:41
  SPEAKER_00: All this is going on at the same time.
• 25:45
  SPEAKER_00: And uh and then I'm trying to brief the opso and the um and the the weapons officer uh saying, okay, well, I don't have any of that information, I don't know where your tanker is, I don't know if anyone's gonna jam for you.
• 25:58
  SPEAKER_00: No, I don't know what you're I just know we got to get you airborne quick.
• 26:03
  SPEAKER_00: So in it in amongst all that, because I had, I mean, we had just brilliant captains uh on the squadron, that the decision was made, and I didn't, I didn't, I wasn't involved with this, to Rolex 30 minutes.
• 26:17
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, and uh that was to synchronize our efforts with like 40 T Lambs that they were gonna launch at this site right after we went through.
• 26:25
  SPEAKER_00: And so when I was looking at my watch, I was like on the original timeline, and then they said, Oh no, we got uh we got an extra 30 minutes.
• 26:32
  SPEAKER_00: I go good because we wouldn't have made five o'clock, but we did make uh 5 30.
• 26:37
  SPEAKER_00: So anyway, long story short, we get uh get the bot, uh get the jets loaded, uh, get them uh the pilots, their mission materials, they launch, and I must say it was the one of the most uh helpless uh feelings I've ever had when you do all this, and then it's just like you give the two airplanes to the CFAC and you have zero control now.
• 27:02
  SPEAKER_00: I I was in you know total control to zero control, just like that.
• 27:08
  SPEAKER_00: And um, we're driving back from where we had launched, and one of the captains, great, great kid, and he looks over at me and goes, Wow, that's everything that we practiced the last you know year or two.
• 27:22
  SPEAKER_00: And I it hadn't even occurred to me, you know.
• 27:25
  SPEAKER_00: Wow, wow.
• 27:27
  SPEAKER_00: So we get back to squadron, I I call everybody in, get everybody out of their hooch, and I say, Hey, look, we're uh we're getting ready to go to war tonight, you know, office officer, uh weapons officer, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
• 27:38
  SPEAKER_00: And so we all crowd into this uh little uh room at the end of the uh Quantet Hut.
• 27:44
  SPEAKER_00: And there's this little you know break room that had a you know TV the size of this, you know.
• 27:50
  SPEAKER_00: It was color, but that's it.
• 27:52
  SPEAKER_00: And we're we are just all huddled around this, and we know what the TOT is, and we're watching CNN and they got a little cutout for Baghdad.
• 28:00
  SPEAKER_00: And 529 in like 30 seconds rolls around, they cut to a commercial.
• 28:07
  SPEAKER_01: They cut to a commercial, they go to a commercial pressure target time.
• 28:11
  SPEAKER_00: You know, right after, you know, about 20 seconds later, they come back on this guy.
• 28:17
  SPEAKER_00: Something's happening in Baghdad, you know.
• 28:19
  SPEAKER_00: They go to the widescreen, the T Lamb's all hit, and all the smoke and everything.
• 28:24
  SPEAKER_00: What an experience.
• 28:25
  SPEAKER_00: They come back, they land.
• 28:27
  SPEAKER_00: Great job, both of them.
• 28:29
  SPEAKER_00: They get DFCs.
• 28:31
  SPEAKER_01: Distinguished Flying Cross, yes.
• 28:32
  SPEAKER_00: They did, yeah.
• 28:33
  SPEAKER_00: And uh the CFAC flew his his or had his airplane, you know, his little citation or what whatever it was, flew flew that to LUD and flew those guys to the COOC and presented uh the DFCs to uh the two in front of the chaos.
• 28:51
  SPEAKER_00: I thought that was pretty cool.
• 28:52
  SPEAKER_00: They they earned it, you know.
• 28:54
  SPEAKER_00: And uh, you know, they get them back, and we're me and the ops officer walking back later.
• 29:00
  SPEAKER_00: Um, you know, it's 9 30 or 10 at night, sun's blaze or in the morning, sun's blazing.
• 29:05
  SPEAKER_00: We're going to bed and we just kind of look at each other and go, yeah, what did we just do?
• 29:10
  SPEAKER_00: You know, we didn't know yet whether it was sex successful, but it turns out there wasn't a bunker where Intel thought it was, but but you know what, our our bombs got there uh and and right on time.
• 29:21
  SPEAKER_01: So where they told you to put them, you got them there on time.
• 29:25
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 29:25
  SPEAKER_01: And if Sodom had been there, it might have been the end of the war before it even started.
• 29:30
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, who who knows how how history would have played out, but that has to be by far, you know, the most memorable experience.
• 29:38
  SPEAKER_01: So what's the closest call you've ever had in an airplane?
• 29:44
  SPEAKER_00: Like a lot of um military aviators, fighter pilots, um you probably have a a few to to um recall, but I I think the one that that got me the most, actually, I was like speechless after it happened.
• 30:00
  SPEAKER_00: I was I was flying the hawk, right?
• 30:03
  SPEAKER_00: And I was actually that day I was sitting at I was I was the duty pig, so I was running the flying op, um, launching, launching the student stories.
• 30:11
  SPEAKER_00: And we usually flew three goes, as I recall.
• 30:14
  SPEAKER_00: And I think this was like the last go of the day.
• 30:17
  SPEAKER_00: And anyway, one of the pilots he comes to the duty desk, he says, Hey Matt, I I can't fly.
• 30:24
  SPEAKER_00: I gotta go do something.
• 30:25
  SPEAKER_00: I just remembered, or I got a phone call or whatever.
• 30:28
  SPEAKER_00: Here's the map.
• 30:29
  SPEAKER_00: Uh the student's already been briefed.
• 30:31
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, it's a low-level two scenario, whatever, you know, the can scenario.
• 30:37
  SPEAKER_00: So go get your flying gear and we'll get someone else at the desk and uh you go fly with us.
• 30:42
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, and by the way, uh target one, my wife is at this target, so you know, give her a good looking after, you know, as you uh as you go.
• 30:55
  SPEAKER_00: So uh so that's what I did.
• 30:57
  SPEAKER_00: And we and she was down in southern Devon and the route, you know, uh formation flight, and then what we do in the hawk is uh uh the wingman, uh the student then would uh fall on the trail, they're solo, and they fall on the trail, and then uh we do a level attack and then and get back to battle formation.
• 31:15
  SPEAKER_00: There was rising terrain in the back.
• 31:18
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, you know, not not gross, but it was was sloping up.
• 31:22
  SPEAKER_00: But of course I had a little bit of target fixation.
• 31:25
  SPEAKER_00: And so I'm coming in there, I filmed the whole thing.
• 31:28
  SPEAKER_00: And uh, and so boom, fly right over the the this mansion, okay.
• 31:35
  SPEAKER_00: And then as you do, you kind of look over the side, right?
• 31:38
  SPEAKER_00: And as I'm as I'm looking over the side, I I catch a telephone wire go right under the airplane, like you know, super close.
• 31:48
  SPEAKER_00: And that when I when I looked at the film, I could see my flight path marker, and there's there's the there's this telephone wire, and it is um, it's like that far above it, you know, my flight path marker, and it goes right under.
• 32:05
  SPEAKER_00: And I just looked forward and just you know, pulled for everything I had and um uh miss missed what was in front of me, and then um, you know, had one of those episodes where you you're like speechless for a couple minutes.
• 32:21
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know if you experienced that, but it it it's it's a it's a thing.
• 32:26
  SPEAKER_00: It's a real thing.
• 32:28
  SPEAKER_00: So it took me two or three minutes to kind of collect myself as I'm getting back into tactical formation with the student who knows you know nothing about what just uh about happened.
• 32:39
  SPEAKER_00: And so what I did is, you know, lesson learned on that, I just I I took a clip of that target, you know, with my pipper on it, and I kept it with me, kept it under my desk, under the glass, you know, wherever I I went to remind me, you know, you uh you can't set the record uh for flying low.
• 33:00
  SPEAKER_00: You can only tie it, right?
• 33:02
  SPEAKER_00: So um yeah, learned learned a little bit about uh you know um being being more uh thoughtful on everything else.
• 33:13
  SPEAKER_00: So you know it's sort of inadvertently, but hey, it happened, so uh learned from it.
• 33:19
  SPEAKER_01: Always good to learn from those experiences for sure.
• 33:22
  SPEAKER_01: Well, it's uh you you've told us about the your experience leading the squadron in OIF and the strike against Saddam.
• 33:31
  SPEAKER_01: But I'd like you to put us in the cockpit of one of your combat sorties.
• 33:35
  SPEAKER_01: Tell us about some of your flying in combat.
• 33:37
  SPEAKER_00: You know, some of your previous guests and their descriptions of you know what it looks like, tracers, missiles, uh SAMS, they're all accurate, and there's probably nothing I can add to enhance that.
• 33:51
  SPEAKER_00: But one of my more memorable events, uh, it turns out at the end of the combat sortie, uh, post-tanker, and the tanker plan was was not the best.
• 34:03
  SPEAKER_00: It took them a few, the chaotic a week or so to sort of iron out the the tanker plan.
• 34:09
  SPEAKER_00: I show up with my wingman after uh hitting our targets, and there's like six airplanes on the tanker in front of us.
• 34:16
  SPEAKER_00: This all at night, I got them on the iReds, I'm looking at them, okay.
• 34:20
  SPEAKER_00: All right, so we'll hang back about three or four miles till till they clear.
• 34:24
  SPEAKER_00: And we're hanging and hanging and hanging in.
• 34:27
  SPEAKER_00: This is a track uh sort of in the western part of Saudi.
• 34:31
  SPEAKER_00: Then the second two ship, who's supposed to be behind us, shows up.
• 34:35
  SPEAKER_00: So now we got four, and I think a fifth actually showed up.
• 34:40
  SPEAKER_00: Anyway, so we have five airplanes that we're sitting, and I'm finally I I think I said some, and the guys that this group of six kind of just moves off to the side, so we move up into position.
• 34:52
  SPEAKER_00: And as we're getting closer, I realize it's a drogue tank.
• 34:56
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, yeah, and I've just overflown my bingo probably a lot, and my wingman.
• 35:04
  SPEAKER_01: Um and just to clarify for for listeners, a drogue tanker is where the air refueling boom is not a stiff boom, which is what we use in the Air Force, but it's a drogue that is like a garden hose, if you will, with a basket on the end, and that's equipped for refueling Navy.
• 35:21
  SPEAKER_00: Well, uh those were all Navy airplane.
• 35:23
  SPEAKER_00: You know, they were all um F-14s or Hornets or so it was like we get uh get closer.
• 35:29
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, oh man, this is not good.
• 35:32
  SPEAKER_00: So uh we start, um, one of the wingmen goes, hey, uh Jabbers, you know, uh zero uh 090 for 140 miles or something like that.
• 35:41
  SPEAKER_00: And so we like snap vector, and okay, that's the closest field, that's where we're going.
• 35:46
  SPEAKER_00: And I was trying to tell AWAX the whole time, uh, getting a word in edgewise, hey, we're we're all diverting off this tanker track uh to Jabber.
• 35:56
  SPEAKER_00: And they were like, you know, Nordo, right?
• 35:58
  SPEAKER_00: They're not listening.
• 35:59
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm I I kept transmitting um that was a bit frustrating because you know, I don't know what we're we're sort of uh against the flow or at least running sideways, you know, folks flying in out of Saudi and coming out, and we're flying sideways, you know, eastbound.
• 36:15
  SPEAKER_00: And I was afraid, what altitude do you go to?
• 36:17
  SPEAKER_00: You know, we didn't have a deconfliction plan for that.
• 36:19
  SPEAKER_00: I finally, and it's the only time I ever, ever have done this in my entire career, squawk emergency.
• 36:25
  SPEAKER_00: And uh boom, got so I got a nice response from Maywax right away.
• 36:29
  SPEAKER_01: Finally.
• 36:30
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, exactly.
• 36:31
  SPEAKER_00: Aircraft squawking emergency, what's your problem?
• 36:33
  SPEAKER_00: And I go, okay, thanks for listening.
• 36:35
  SPEAKER_00: Here you go.
• 36:36
  SPEAKER_00: And so we we get into Jabber, and I so I told everybody with me, I said, hey, look, uh, we're all gonna do no-shoot landing.
• 36:44
  SPEAKER_00: So we have uh no one has any gas, so it's it's gonna be no problem, no bomb.
• 36:49
  SPEAKER_00: So you know, we'll do a no-shoot landing, which is what we did when we were light.
• 36:53
  SPEAKER_00: So we do that, and then we all get into the arming area at the far end, and there's probably another eight or nine airplanes, kind of just no, no rhyme or reason how they're parked, they're just kind of crowded in there.
• 37:06
  SPEAKER_00: A10s, there's some hornets, maybe some F-15Es, and then us, and we just kind of, and now we're just there's no organization, and then we're just sitting there.
• 37:15
  SPEAKER_00: We waited for another 20 minutes for them to like go up and down the runway to um to find our shoots.
• 37:22
  SPEAKER_00: I'm like, we don't, we didn't drop any shoes, but they wouldn't believe us.
• 37:26
  SPEAKER_00: And so I told Ground, I said, hey, look, I'm gonna flame out here.
• 37:31
  SPEAKER_00: Um, in five minutes, we can't get rolling here.
• 37:34
  SPEAKER_00: And so they finally released us and we shut down with like fumes, right?
• 37:39
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, crazy.
• 37:40
  SPEAKER_00: All right.
• 37:40
  SPEAKER_00: So we all get out of the airplane, five airplanes, and guess what?
• 37:44
  SPEAKER_00: There was another airplane then.
• 37:45
  SPEAKER_00: So now we have six airplanes at Jabber.
• 37:47
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, this is interesting.
• 37:49
  SPEAKER_00: How are we gonna get a crew chief up here to to launch us out of here?
• 37:53
  SPEAKER_00: And it's like, you know, apocalypse now.
• 37:55
  SPEAKER_00: You got stuff going off, you know, Patriots, and you know, this, this, this, you know, this great this brown haze, um, uh night haze, you know, it just as it turns out, there was a 117, a former 117 uh crew chief who was a A-10 guy.
• 38:10
  SPEAKER_00: We we got a hold of him.
• 38:12
  SPEAKER_00: He came out, he refueled us, everything.
• 38:14
  SPEAKER_00: So it's it's what was really funny though was we're all in this pickup, so five of us get into the back of this pickup, and we're headed back to this, you know, this trailer, ops trailer, so I can call Al Yud and say, hey, look, we're here, but it looks like we're gonna be able to make it back.
• 38:31
  SPEAKER_00: And there's a pickup going the other way like this.
• 38:34
  SPEAKER_00: And I look in the back, and there's one of the captain who flew the air the other airplane.
• 38:40
  SPEAKER_00: I'm like, stop, stop the vehicle.
• 38:43
  SPEAKER_00: I get out, I run over, and he's sprawled out in the back like he's going to the beach.
• 38:48
  SPEAKER_00: And I said, I was like, Chemo, you know, what you got bombs on your airplane?
• 38:52
  SPEAKER_00: He said, uh, yeah.
• 38:53
  SPEAKER_00: I I um I aborted pre-strike for the tanker.
• 38:57
  SPEAKER_00: Do you have a drag sheet or not?
• 38:58
  SPEAKER_00: He goes, No, I don't have a drag sheet.
• 39:00
  SPEAKER_00: And how much gas did you put on board?
• 39:02
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I had him fill it up to 18,000, which is which is full.
• 39:05
  SPEAKER_00: So you're completely grossed out on your fuel and uh bombs.
• 39:09
  SPEAKER_01: And bombs.
• 39:10
  SPEAKER_00: And you have no drag chute.
• 39:11
  SPEAKER_00: I go, okay, here's what you're gonna do.
• 39:14
  SPEAKER_00: You have a hundred hours in the airplane, I have a thousand.
• 39:17
  SPEAKER_00: You're gonna fly my airplane back, it's got a drag chute, it's got 12,500 on the gas, or will and no bombs.
• 39:23
  SPEAKER_00: And no bombs, right?
• 39:24
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, go go get in my airplane and fly home now.
• 39:28
  SPEAKER_00: I'll I'll take care of your airplane.
• 39:31
  SPEAKER_00: And basically, you're taking off with no abort option.
• 39:35
  SPEAKER_00: Well, so if you lost uh a critical system like a motor on takeoff, it was gonna be a pull and and then punch, right?
• 39:42
  SPEAKER_00: And I I knew that, but you know, what am I gonna do?
• 39:45
  SPEAKER_00: Let this young captain fly that airplane back?
• 39:49
  SPEAKER_00: No way in hell.
• 39:50
  SPEAKER_00: So anyway, flew that thing home, and then the trick was to, you know, not get hot brakes and get it back to the chalks so it could make the second go.
• 40:01
  SPEAKER_00: So I dumped everything I could possibly, you know, can't dump everything, you can't dump the center fuel, but I dumped everything and then you know did my best aerobrake job and was able to get it in the chalks with just barely glowing brakes, so they were able to turn it for the for the second go.
• 40:19
  SPEAKER_00: So I started that combat sortie, I can't, I don't it must it was third or fourth one maybe, in one jet, and then I finished it in a in a different airplane.
• 40:30
  SPEAKER_01: In a different airplane.
• 40:31
  SPEAKER_00: Probably a little bit unique, anyway.
• 40:33
  SPEAKER_00: Remember that one more.
• 40:34
  SPEAKER_01: So just a couple more questions.
• 40:36
  SPEAKER_01: What sortie has given you the greatest sense of accomplishment in the course of your flying career?
• 40:42
  SPEAKER_00: Uh well, that's an easy answer.
• 40:44
  SPEAKER_00: And it was, you know, it's not a um glamorous sortie at all.
• 40:48
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, it was uh it was the redeployment flight from Langley to Holliman, right?
• 40:54
  SPEAKER_00: I I'd already sent the OPSO home with six airplanes.
• 40:58
  SPEAKER_01: This is coming back from Iraqi freedom.
• 41:00
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and then two days later, or yeah, I guess two days later we left, but then we got stuck in Langley for weather.
• 41:07
  SPEAKER_00: So we finally get airborne and we get and we land at Holliman.
• 41:12
  SPEAKER_00: And I just remember getting getting on the ground, and it was like I am physically and mentally exhausted, but with a huge sense of accomplishment that uh, you know, we had gotten everybody over there.
• 41:28
  SPEAKER_00: We had done exactly what they had asked us to do.
• 41:31
  SPEAKER_00: We didn't have any collateral damage issues, war crime, none of that.
• 41:36
  SPEAKER_00: And I was I was I was really hot on that.
• 41:39
  SPEAKER_00: Briefed everybody, you make make darn sure that whatever you put your pipper on is is what you're supposed to hit.
• 41:45
  SPEAKER_00: And you do everything within your power to make sure, you know, you hit the right thing.
• 41:50
  SPEAKER_00: Because I I don't bu I I don't want to be walking away from this knowing that you know we we slung bombs over Baghdad um unprofessional um activity, uh, you know, all the rest of it.
• 42:04
  SPEAKER_00: So we had done everything they had asked us to do, and then we got everybody home uh safely, and I was just I was like, oh I'm ready for a I'm ready, it's Miller time, right?
• 42:15
  SPEAKER_00: I'm ready for a break.
• 42:17
  SPEAKER_00: So I took um it took um three or four days, you know, before I was, you know, back back 100% because uh it ri it it just it was a draining experience.
• 42:29
  SPEAKER_01: But how long were you deployed over there?
• 42:31
  SPEAKER_00: I think three and a half or close to four months maybe.
• 42:37
  SPEAKER_01: Four months can still be a long time in a tent in the desert.
• 42:41
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, but you get you know what you get used to that tent thing.
• 42:45
  SPEAKER_01: So knife, and I and I should say your call sign knife, I believe is a play on Mac the knife, is that right?
• 42:52
  SPEAKER_00: It actually is, and sort of a uh acknowledgement of my uh soft uh, you know, my JSOC, you know, experience, which was um incredible.
• 43:04
  SPEAKER_01: So my last question for you today.
• 43:06
  SPEAKER_01: When you meet young people who are interested in becoming pilots, what advice do you give them?
• 43:12
  SPEAKER_00: You know, that's something that I answer a lot because in my role now, I'm I teach a lot of young folks.
• 43:18
  SPEAKER_00: It seems like every week, you know, you're reading about some horror story uh GA accident.
• 43:24
  SPEAKER_00: I really don't want any of my uh students, you know, falling into that trap.
• 43:30
  SPEAKER_00: So I I tell them there really is no such thing as a part-time pilot.
• 43:35
  SPEAKER_00: When you get your wings, when you are certified to fly, you treat it as if it's your full-time job, you know, when you're getting ready to fly.
• 43:44
  SPEAKER_00: And if you are non-current or it's been a while, you grab a an instructor and you get current.
• 43:52
  SPEAKER_00: But there's none of this, you know, winging it and oh, you know, I'm I'm you know, I'm just gonna go out for uh a quick um milk run over to Camarillo or no.
• 44:02
  SPEAKER_00: None of these young folks have the foundation and experience to sort of uh be able to do that.
• 44:09
  SPEAKER_00: So I said, there's there's no such thing as a part-time pilot anymore, you know, for you.
• 44:14
  SPEAKER_00: You you know, you get your wings, you're gonna be fully committed to the profession, or you don't do it.
• 44:21
  SPEAKER_00: Don't try to do it on the cheap or uh, you know, sort of half-ass.
• 44:26
  SPEAKER_00: You've gotta you gotta be fully committed and do the right things every time.
• 44:30
  SPEAKER_00: And that way, you know, we're not gonna be reading about you.
• 44:34
  SPEAKER_00: And uh it that seems to resonate pretty well.
• 44:37
  SPEAKER_00: They all know where I stand on all that information, you know, that subject.
• 44:42
  SPEAKER_01: Well, Matt, thanks so much for joining us on the podcast today.
• 44:46
  SPEAKER_00: Thanks, Never.
• 44:47
  SPEAKER_00: Good luck with the project.
• 44:48
  SPEAKER_00: Get the word out and keep the faith and all that stuff.
• 44:52
  SPEAKER_01: That's you've been listening to the Flyboy Podcast.
• 44:56
  SPEAKER_01: This podcast is brought to you by our parent organization, the Flyboy Lab.
• 45:00
  SPEAKER_01: 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.
• 45:10
  SPEAKER_01: New episodes of the podcast drop every Thursday morning, and you can find previous episodes on our website, theflyboypodcast.com.
• 45:17
  SPEAKER_01: Until our next sorting, push the mug, use the vertical, and fly safe.