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The Flyboy Podcast: Guest Jeff "Bodeen" Ellis · The Flyboy Podcast

• 0:09
  SPEAKER_01: Welcome to the Fly Boy 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 Jeff Ellis, callsign Bodine.
• 0:19
  SPEAKER_01: Jeff and I were classmates in undergraduate pilot training.
• 0:22
  SPEAKER_01: Forty-four years ago, after pilot training, he stayed on as a first assignment instructor in the T-38.
• 0:28
  SPEAKER_01: He then went on to fly the F-15 and returned to the T-38 late in life.
• 0:33
  SPEAKER_01: He has more than 4,300 flying hours.
• 0:35
  SPEAKER_01: He retired in 2007 from the Air Force and then went to fly for several years with the Airlines in the 737 and later began working in foreign military sales.
• 0:45
  SPEAKER_01: So with that, Jeff, welcome to the podcast.
• 0:48
  SPEAKER_00: Well, thank you, Dave.
• 0:49
  SPEAKER_00: It's an or never.
• 0:50
  SPEAKER_00: It's an honor to be here.
• 0:51
  SPEAKER_00: Looking forward to this.
• 0:52
  SPEAKER_01: So, Jeff, tell us about your first solo.
• 0:54
  SPEAKER_00: Well, as you well know, we probably all had a couple.
• 0:56
  SPEAKER_00: So for me, my father, who was an engineer and a pilot in the Air Force, when I told him I wanted to fly jets, he goes, Well, you got a lousy grade point average with a lousy degree in a lousy state university.
• 1:07
  SPEAKER_00: So get out and sign up for a private pilot's license at Randolph at the time when they had aero clubs.
• 1:11
  SPEAKER_00: So I did that.
• 1:12
  SPEAKER_00: And my first solo was in an old T-41, Cessna 172.
• 1:16
  SPEAKER_00: I had a great instructor pilot.
• 1:17
  SPEAKER_00: They did spins with me in the 172.
• 1:19
  SPEAKER_00: So the tweet wasn't such a surprise when we got it the first time.
• 1:22
  SPEAKER_00: And then probably the most memorable solo was one of the solos we did when we were in pilot training and the tweet, I'm out there solo.
• 1:29
  SPEAKER_00: And I think you as you remember, we weren't allowed to go in the weather, but they asked me for a pyrup and I said I was in the weather.
• 1:35
  SPEAKER_00: So that didn't go so well.
• 1:38
  SPEAKER_00: My pilot report is I'm in the weather.
• 1:41
  SPEAKER_00: I don't remember if they asked me to come home or not.
• 1:43
  SPEAKER_00: I don't I don't think they did.
• 1:44
  SPEAKER_00: They just said stay, get out of the weather.
• 1:46
  unknown: It's like, okay.
• 1:47
  SPEAKER_01: You know, it's funny.
• 1:47
  SPEAKER_01: My night solo when we were going through uh flight school, I lost an engine coming up initial.
• 1:52
  SPEAKER_01: Compressor stall.
• 1:53
  SPEAKER_01: I think my uh radio call was post-7-1, initial emergency.
• 1:57
  SPEAKER_01: So I loved that.
• 1:59
  SPEAKER_00: Jeff, tell us what's your favorite flying memory?
• 2:01
  SPEAKER_00: This is gonna sound kind of goofy because obviously we have a lot of good flying memories from flying the F-15, flying T-38.
• 2:08
  SPEAKER_00: But when I was a fape and you went to A10s, we were what, 24 years old?
• 2:12
  SPEAKER_00: We're not usually attuned to ethereal kind of things that are really cool.
• 2:15
  SPEAKER_00: And I was on this flight with a student out of Willie.
• 2:18
  SPEAKER_00: We landed at Edwards, and remember the night where you had to get a night sorted, so you waited for 15 minutes after sunset, take off.
• 2:24
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 2:24
  SPEAKER_00: So we take off and we're we're just filed into the mid-20s and we're going north up the coast, right?
• 2:30
  SPEAKER_00: He's flying, he's doing a good job.
• 2:31
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm sitting in the back and I'm just looking around at my surroundings.
• 2:36
  SPEAKER_00: And we're in Northern California.
• 2:37
  SPEAKER_00: It's like February.
• 2:38
  SPEAKER_00: And you remember the Arizona flag with the big rays, the golden rays?
• 2:41
  SPEAKER_00: So the sun, the sun had set over the horizon, and the entire western sky was those solid gold rays.
• 2:47
  SPEAKER_00: And then I look to the right and the Sierras are covered with snow.
• 2:51
  SPEAKER_00: And the orange light from the sun is casting on the snow.
• 2:54
  SPEAKER_00: And then I look off the nose and it's dark where we are, and that there's the lights of San Francisco.
• 2:58
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm sitting there looking, and I remember going, hey.
• 3:01
  SPEAKER_00: And the kid up front's going, What?
• 3:03
  SPEAKER_00: I'm going, look, look outside.
• 3:05
  SPEAKER_00: He goes, What am I looking for?
• 3:06
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know.
• 3:07
  SPEAKER_00: Just take this, take this in.
• 3:09
  SPEAKER_00: This is flying, man.
• 3:10
  SPEAKER_00: Look at this.
• 3:11
  SPEAKER_00: The golden rays, the snow, the orange, the lights of San Francisco.
• 3:14
  SPEAKER_00: It was just amazing.
• 3:15
  SPEAKER_00: And I've told that story several times over the years, going, I was just fibergassed, and I laugh at it, going, I was 24 years old.
• 3:21
  SPEAKER_00: What was I doing thinking of stuff like that?
• 3:23
  SPEAKER_00: But that was cool.
• 3:24
  SPEAKER_01: So you flew the F-15.
• 3:26
  SPEAKER_01: For those who haven't flown it, put us in the cockpit.
• 3:28
  SPEAKER_01: What's it like?
• 3:29
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I flew the uh guys called it the steam driven, started with the A model at Holland, and then went to Luke for a short period of time, and then went down to Tyndall as an IP.
• 3:37
  SPEAKER_00: I was started with A models, then we started getting C models, and then at my last Eagle time it was at Langley in the C model.
• 3:43
  SPEAKER_00: Fighter aviation's obviously come a long way since then because the little radar screen was about four by four, five by five, whatever it was.
• 3:49
  SPEAKER_00: We had an RWR.
• 3:50
  SPEAKER_00: A radar warning receiver.
• 3:52
  SPEAKER_00: Then we had an axe panel.
• 3:54
  SPEAKER_00: The old A model had a manual axe panel, and then we got a what's the manual axe panel?
• 3:59
  SPEAKER_00: Uh probably what you had in the A-10.
• 4:01
  SPEAKER_00: You're flipping buttons to set things up, the tanks and all that.
• 4:04
  SPEAKER_00: And then we got a uh an MFD.
• 4:06
  SPEAKER_01: Multifunction display.
• 4:08
  SPEAKER_00: And then when I left the Eagle, we had a situation display on there, which actually showed airspace and other things.
• 4:14
  SPEAKER_00: And since I left the Eagle, they got full up Link 16 and digital, you know, all that stuff.
• 4:19
  SPEAKER_00: So it's pretty wild.
• 4:20
  SPEAKER_00: So the F-15 was a huge cockpit.
• 4:22
  SPEAKER_00: It was beautiful.
• 4:23
  SPEAKER_00: And uh a lot of guys had different technique.
• 4:25
  SPEAKER_00: I'd run the seat all the way up.
• 4:26
  SPEAKER_00: I used to like the stick way down for fighting, and I'd bring the canopy as far down, the canopy bow as far down as I could sit up in the Eagle.
• 4:33
  SPEAKER_00: So you could see all the way around.
• 4:35
  SPEAKER_00: It was a Cadillac to fly.
• 4:36
  SPEAKER_01: So talking about the radar screen, I was surprised to learn talking to another F-15 pilot that in the early models, literally the radar screen was like four inches square.
• 4:44
  SPEAKER_01: I had no idea it was so small.
• 4:45
  SPEAKER_01: So how much did it change over time?
• 4:48
  SPEAKER_00: Well, in my time it it changed quite a bit, and it's kind of funny because it started out with you'd get aspect angle of the target just in like a 1-6 left or 1-6 right up at the top.
• 4:58
  SPEAKER_00: I think it was a 24K radar at the time.
• 5:00
  SPEAKER_00: So you had blind zones at particular miles and uh a lot of ground clutter.
• 5:04
  SPEAKER_00: And then the D model updated the radar and they started adding to the radar capability, and you started getting more icons on that radar screen.
• 5:12
  SPEAKER_00: And at the end, guys used to call it the drool cup because you'd be sitting there looking at four-inch screen trying to decipher what you're seeing, and off you go.
• 5:20
  SPEAKER_00: The drool cup.
• 5:21
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, the drool cup.
• 5:22
  SPEAKER_01: I seem to remember that from Saturday Night Live.
• 5:24
  SPEAKER_01: Look out the window.
• 5:25
  SPEAKER_01: Look out the window.
• 5:26
  SPEAKER_01: That begs a question.
• 5:28
  SPEAKER_01: How did you transition from beyond visual range radar engagement with the target to engaging visually?
• 5:35
  SPEAKER_01: How did you make that or manage that transition from long range on radar to visual contact with the target?
• 5:42
  SPEAKER_00: Aaron Powell So it changed over time.
• 5:44
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, when I first got in the F-15, it was AIM7s and AIM9 and a gun, and then we got AMRAM and all that stuff.
• 5:50
  SPEAKER_00: And the tactics changed a little bit, but basically, I mean the A model didn't even have chaff or flares.
• 5:56
  SPEAKER_00: So if you're going to a merge, we used to be really good at going to merge an idle to try and survive the first merge, but that was about as good as it could get if it if they were nose on.
• 6:05
  SPEAKER_01: But okay, hang on, hang on just a second.
• 6:07
  SPEAKER_01: For anyone who is not quite following what you're saying, the merge is when two aircraft cross going opposite directions.
• 6:14
  SPEAKER_01: So you're going up against a bogey, an enemy fighter, whatever it might be.
• 6:18
  SPEAKER_01: And at that moment you are passing, you want to be an idol to cool your engine.
• 6:23
  SPEAKER_01: Is that right?
• 6:24
  SPEAKER_00: If if your adversary had an all-aspect missile that could a heat-seeking missile that could shoot you nose on, you got as fast as you could go if you're committed to a merge, as I recall.
• 6:33
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, we're going on the way back machine here.
• 6:35
  SPEAKER_00: And you got as fast as you could, and if you had to survive the initial merge, you tried to cool the engines down as much as possible because you had no flares.
• 6:42
  SPEAKER_00: So poof, you go through and and then did what you could turn in after that.
• 6:46
  SPEAKER_00: And hopefully you didn't bleed too much airspeed.
• 6:48
  SPEAKER_01: But so you would actually have to be an idol then a good ways before the merge, because that's when they would shoot.
• 6:54
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 6:55
  SPEAKER_01: Wow.
• 6:56
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 6:56
  SPEAKER_01: Things I did not know.
• 6:58
  SPEAKER_01: It didn't work very well very well.
• 7:00
  SPEAKER_01: Going into a fight in idle never sounds like a good idea to me.
• 7:04
  SPEAKER_01: So and of course in the A-10, you know, the throttle just had two positions, you know, taxi and fly.
• 7:09
  SPEAKER_01: And that was it.
• 7:10
  SPEAKER_01: So, Jeff, what's the worst weather you've ever flown through to land an airplane?
• 7:14
  SPEAKER_00: Iceland.
• 7:15
  SPEAKER_00: So when the Soviet Union was around, they had a whole squadron up there for it was a remote.
• 7:20
  SPEAKER_00: It's the only remote in the F-15.
• 7:22
  SPEAKER_00: Well, after the wall came down and we started to reduce in size, that squadron went away, but they still wanted the commitment up there, so they started tasking units to go up there TDY.
• 7:30
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm at Langley, and uh, I think they put the F-16s up there in the summertime and they put us up there in the wintertime.
• 7:36
  SPEAKER_00: You had to be experienced, whether you were wingman or a flightly, you had to be experienced to go up there because the weather was dodgy.
• 7:42
  SPEAKER_00: And it was really bizarre when you think about it looking back on in the days is you'd wake up in the in the queue room there, look outside, and it's dark and the snow's blowing straight across the window.
• 7:51
  SPEAKER_00: So you go out to the squadron and you'd brief, and they had this the CRM checklist at the desk.
• 7:56
  SPEAKER_00: Trevor Burrus, Jr.
• 7:57
  SPEAKER_00: Crew resource management, like planning for safety.
• 8:00
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know if I have the numbers exactly right, but I mean I think we could fly in 15-foot sea state, something goofy.
• 8:06
  SPEAKER_00: The water was like 36 degrees.
• 8:08
  SPEAKER_00: All the everywhere you were flying is out of the water.
• 8:11
  SPEAKER_00: And before you could take off, the tanker had to be airborne to call in code one, because they always had a tanker airborne, because your closest divert was Scotland.
• 8:18
  SPEAKER_00: And then the helicopter, the rescue squadron, had to call in code one.
• 8:21
  SPEAKER_00: They didn't take off, they just were on alert and they had to call in code one.
• 8:24
  SPEAKER_00: And if the C states were a certain height, you were limited to 100 miles from land.
• 8:29
  SPEAKER_00: So here you are, 36 degree water temperature, a little one-man dinghy raft 100 miles off the coast in a poopy suit, going, hmm.
• 8:37
  SPEAKER_00: But anyway, uh so the worst way and a poopy suit is so comfortable to wear.
• 8:42
  SPEAKER_00: You get suited up for ice and you look like the uh stay puffed marshmallow man from uh what was that movie?
• 8:47
  SPEAKER_00: Uh Ghostbusters.
• 8:48
  SPEAKER_00: Ghostbusters walking out to the airplane.
• 8:50
  SPEAKER_00: But anyway, we had a soft and the soft sit would sit in the truck.
• 8:54
  SPEAKER_00: And so we're out flying.
• 8:55
  SPEAKER_00: We have two tanks of gas on, and we're out flying, and we just kept it pretty benign when you're uh when you're out there and the water's that cold.
• 9:01
  SPEAKER_00: But uh he he was really kind of funny, because I'm forgetting me sounded like uh Joe Pesci.
• 9:05
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, okay, okay.
• 9:06
  SPEAKER_00: He'd get on the radio, he goes, You guys need to come home right now.
• 9:09
  SPEAKER_00: And he goes, Shoot the approach, shoot the PAR, and I forgot the number of the runway, but it's to the west.
• 9:14
  SPEAKER_00: So you're coming in over land and you're shooting and you're picking up a radar precision approach.
• 9:18
  SPEAKER_00: So you connect with them, boom, start your descent on course on glide path, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
• 9:23
  SPEAKER_00: All the way down, and they talk to you constantly, your glide path and your course information.
• 9:27
  SPEAKER_00: And the decision height's a hundred feet.
• 9:29
  SPEAKER_00: So I get to a hundred feet and I go, hmm.
• 9:31
  SPEAKER_00: I only see weight.
• 9:33
  SPEAKER_00: Whoa, off we go.
• 9:34
  SPEAKER_00: So we go up to the tanker, take on the gas, and now soft comes back on.
• 9:39
  SPEAKER_00: He goes, Okay.
• 9:40
  SPEAKER_00: He goes, I think you can break out if you shoot the ILS to the opposite direction.
• 9:44
  SPEAKER_00: So now we're coming in overwater to the east to land in Iceland.
• 9:47
  SPEAKER_00: Well, it's a 15-knot tailwind.
• 9:49
  SPEAKER_00: So yes, we do break out.
• 9:50
  SPEAKER_00: And I think the runway condition had deteriorated because soon as I put on the the brakes, you can hear the Anasky just going.
• 9:57
  SPEAKER_00: It's like, okay, hooks coming down.
• 9:59
  SPEAKER_00: And then uh I didn't go in the the midfield cable as I remember, but I started the taxi clear and the jet started skipping sideways.
• 10:05
  SPEAKER_00: It's like I got it stopped.
• 10:06
  SPEAKER_00: I go, soft.
• 10:07
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not moving another inch.
• 10:09
  SPEAKER_00: Come come get the airplane.
• 10:11
  SPEAKER_00: So that was some challenging weather flying.
• 10:13
  SPEAKER_00: And then uh when it was clear, you could go out over the center of the island and there's not a tree in sight, right?
• 10:19
  SPEAKER_00: So you got snow on the ground, and the F-15 A and C didn't have a radar altimeter.
• 10:23
  SPEAKER_00: So you're flying low altitude, low level.
• 10:25
  SPEAKER_00: You you have no idea how high you are off the ground, other than guessing and going, hmm, I think we're okay.
• 10:31
  SPEAKER_00: You knew you were getting too low when the wingman started climbing up.
• 10:34
  SPEAKER_01: So it's always a good indicator.
• 10:37
  SPEAKER_00: Iceland was good challenging weather fine.
• 10:39
  SPEAKER_00: I thought I was going to Scott, but yeah, beautiful country too.
• 10:42
  SPEAKER_01: So what's the longest sort of you've ever flown?
• 10:44
  SPEAKER_00: Well, you do the ocean crossings and they're pretty arduous, but we did Southern Watch and Northern Watch over Iraq, and there was one mission that uh the U-2 would go up there and do its job, and we used to have to support it.
• 10:55
  SPEAKER_00: And it would start on one side of the country and just basically loop the the country back and forth doing what it did.
• 11:00
  SPEAKER_00: And we used to plop along with it with caps in the north and the south.
• 11:04
  SPEAKER_00: So you'd end up using two ships, two two ships on the cap while one's getting gas at all times, and it'd flop across the country.
• 11:11
  SPEAKER_00: And it took them a long time to map that country.
• 11:13
  SPEAKER_00: I think the longest sortie I flew from Pisa, which is done by Rion, it was like eleven and a half hours in the cockpit.
• 11:19
  SPEAKER_00: So I think that's the longest one.
• 11:20
  SPEAKER_00: It was painful.
• 11:21
  SPEAKER_00: I believe it.
• 11:21
  SPEAKER_01: So have you ever flown a place you weren't supposed to?
• 11:24
  SPEAKER_00: Uh not that I know of.
• 11:26
  SPEAKER_00: Oh well, I can say that, and that's back in pilot training.
• 11:29
  SPEAKER_00: Uh I don't know if you remember IIP Johnny Weiss.
• 11:32
  SPEAKER_00: He he knew my mental makeup and he never raised his voice, but he'd always go, Jeff, Jeff, what are we doing?
• 11:38
  SPEAKER_00: And I was doing a navigation ride and flying along, I think I got it wired, and all of a sudden he goes, Hey, Jeff, look out the left side.
• 11:45
  SPEAKER_00: What's that airfield down there?
• 11:46
  SPEAKER_00: Uh sir, that's Navy El Centro.
• 11:48
  SPEAKER_00: He goes, Yeah, let's go down there and do an overhead.
• 11:50
  SPEAKER_00: It's like, but that's not part of my plan, sir.
• 11:52
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, let's go down there and do an overhead.
• 11:54
  SPEAKER_00: So I get it done and I go blasting out of El Centro and all of a sudden I hear him going, Hey Jeff, Jeff.
• 11:58
  SPEAKER_00: Jeff.
• 11:59
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, sir, where are we going?
• 12:01
  SPEAKER_00: We're going home.
• 12:02
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 12:02
  SPEAKER_00: Look out the left side of the window again.
• 12:04
  SPEAKER_00: Do you see appreciable, I'll never forget this, appreciable difference between the housing that's underneath of us and the housing that's behind us.
• 12:11
  SPEAKER_00: I'm going, Oh, I don't know.
• 12:12
  SPEAKER_00: And he goes, Can we get out of Mexico, please?
• 12:14
  SPEAKER_00: So I had I had dialed in attacking and was zooming straight into Mexico.
• 12:18
  SPEAKER_00: So yes, I was not supposed to be there.
• 12:22
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 12:22
  SPEAKER_01: You know teaching uh students to fly the A-10 out of Tucson, we regularly flew along the border.
• 12:28
  SPEAKER_01: And the instructors at the time, this was before they had all the radar balloons and that sort of thing along the border.
• 12:34
  SPEAKER_01: If a student flew into Mexico, they would start speaking Spanish on the radio.
• 12:40
  SPEAKER_00: Nice.
• 12:40
  SPEAKER_01: So, Jeff, what's the coolest thing you've ever done in an airplane?
• 12:44
  SPEAKER_00: Well, if you've spent a career flying the Air Force, there's a lot of cool stuff that you do.
• 12:47
  SPEAKER_00: When I got to go back to the T-38.
• 12:49
  SPEAKER_00: Sorry to leave the Eagle, but the T-38 was fun and I thoroughly enjoyed it.
• 12:53
  SPEAKER_00: I was fortunate enough to be an ops officer and squadron commander.
• 12:56
  SPEAKER_00: And the cool stuff was the young students, when you finally get to be an old dude, uh, I'm sitting there in my office one day, and difference when you and I went through pilot training, they had a graduation every three weeks when I was there.
• 13:07
  SPEAKER_00: So every three weeks you got a new class, and we went from eight flights in a T-38 squadron to four flights.
• 13:12
  SPEAKER_00: So it was more much more like a fighter squadron, and you'd only get like seven or eight students per class in each one of these classes.
• 13:18
  SPEAKER_00: So Friday night they do a track select, so they all get T-38s and they all party.
• 13:23
  SPEAKER_00: So it's like one o'clock in the morning and I'm asleep on a Friday night, and I get a phone call that says your brand new class is all in jail.
• 13:30
  SPEAKER_00: I'm going, hmm, okay.
• 13:32
  SPEAKER_00: Where are they in jail?
• 13:34
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, they're down at the security cops office.
• 13:37
  SPEAKER_00: So I go, okay, at least they're on the base.
• 13:38
  SPEAKER_00: So I call the flight commander and go, can you go get them out of out of jail?
• 13:41
  SPEAKER_00: And he goes, Yeah.
• 13:42
  SPEAKER_00: So I said, have them to report to me at on Monday morning at nine o'clock.
• 13:46
  SPEAKER_00: And he they go, okay.
• 13:47
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm sitting there in my office on Monday morning, and it's pretty funny because the ops officer is in there.
• 13:51
  SPEAKER_00: He goes, What are you going to do?
• 13:52
  SPEAKER_00: He goes, I said, You'll see.
• 13:54
  SPEAKER_00: So they have a designated spokesman, they report, they come in and they line up and they report in a military fashion.
• 14:02
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm trying to put on the meanest face I can.
• 14:04
  SPEAKER_00: And I go, explain yourselves.
• 14:06
  SPEAKER_00: So listening to lieutenants trying to explain how they were roofstomping their previous flight commander and got arrested by the security police was hard to not smile.
• 14:15
  SPEAKER_00: So I listened to this whole thing.
• 14:17
  SPEAKER_00: And I go, okay.
• 14:18
  SPEAKER_00: And the whole time there they had one uh female student, she was on the end and her legs were shaking.
• 14:23
  SPEAKER_00: I could physically see her legs shaking.
• 14:25
  SPEAKER_00: She was so nervous.
• 14:26
  SPEAKER_00: It's like my career's over.
• 14:26
  SPEAKER_00: I just got here.
• 14:28
  SPEAKER_01: And I and we need to pause for just a moment to explain what a roof stomp is for our listeners who aren't familiar.
• 14:34
  SPEAKER_01: So how I would describe it, a roof stomp is a hospitality check where you get a ladder, climb up onto the roof of somebody's house, and stomp on the roof, and you expect them to come out and offer you beer and libations and to come on into the house.
• 14:47
  SPEAKER_01: Food and food.
• 14:48
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 14:49
  SPEAKER_01: All of that.
• 14:49
  SPEAKER_01: That's that's a roof stop.
• 14:51
  SPEAKER_00: What happened is they had the uh the psychologist for the hospital live next door and had never heard of roof stop, so she's the one that called the security piece.
• 14:59
  SPEAKER_00: But anyway, so I listen to their story and I go, okay, go back to your flight room while I decide what your punishment's gonna be.
• 15:05
  SPEAKER_00: And uh they go back and I let them sit there for about 15 minutes and I I ring the flight and I said, come back up here.
• 15:11
  SPEAKER_00: So they report back in.
• 15:12
  SPEAKER_00: I go, okay, you all ready to receive your punishment?
• 15:14
  SPEAKER_00: They said yes.
• 15:15
  SPEAKER_00: And I went, All right.
• 15:16
  SPEAKER_00: It is uh I forgot what time it was, like 9 45 or something.
• 15:19
  SPEAKER_00: I go, by 1600 this afternoon, I need a 15-foot folding stepladder painted red, hung in the crud room at the officers club with a sign that says safety roof stopping ladder, courtesy of the 87th Flying Train Squadron.
• 15:34
  SPEAKER_00: And what the fun part was you could see their little brains going, like, what did he just say?
• 15:39
  SPEAKER_00: I said, Do you understand your punishment?
• 15:41
  SPEAKER_00: Sir, yes, sir.
• 15:42
  SPEAKER_00: I go, dismissed.
• 15:42
  SPEAKER_00: So they beat it and they come back and report a little bit later, going, Sir, mission accomplished.
• 15:47
  SPEAKER_00: And I go, good, go, go learn how to fly jets now.
• 15:51
  SPEAKER_00: So that's that's the cool stuff that was fun with those lieutenants.
• 15:55
  SPEAKER_01: Absolutely.
• 15:56
  SPEAKER_01: So, Jeff, what's the closest call you've ever had in an airplane?
• 16:00
  SPEAKER_00: The closest call I I ever had, I didn't even know it.
• 16:02
  SPEAKER_00: We're at red flag.
• 16:03
  SPEAKER_00: I forgot what year it was.
• 16:05
  SPEAKER_00: We're flying raging around red flag, and I think my wingman is either stripped or gone or amort or something.
• 16:11
  SPEAKER_00: I'm alone right over the farms.
• 16:13
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know.
• 16:13
  SPEAKER_00: You remember the farms, Rachel right there in the middle.
• 16:15
  SPEAKER_00: I'm turning right, engaging a target.
• 16:17
  SPEAKER_00: Everything's cool.
• 16:18
  SPEAKER_00: And we come back in the debrief.
• 16:20
  SPEAKER_00: Remember the what was it, RFMDS, the red flag mission debrief system?
• 16:23
  SPEAKER_00: So we're going through not the mass debrief, but the individual stuff that we used to do prior to going to the mass debrief.
• 16:29
  SPEAKER_00: And the guy running the RFMDS goes, hey, pull up cockpit number four, pulls mine up, sees it, and he goes, pull up cockpit number such and such.
• 16:36
  SPEAKER_00: And it was a uh an aggressor, F-16.
• 16:39
  SPEAKER_00: And he's turning right, engaging a target.
• 16:42
  SPEAKER_00: And we had a 150-foot co-altitude pass, belly to belly, never saw each other.
• 16:46
  SPEAKER_00: And they pointed it out in the RFMDS.
• 16:49
  SPEAKER_00: And we're look that he's looking at both of us, going, Did you guys see each other?
• 16:52
  SPEAKER_00: I'm going, No.
• 16:53
  SPEAKER_01: Wow.
• 16:54
  SPEAKER_01: It's a good day to be lucky.
• 16:57
  SPEAKER_01: So, Jeff, what's the most challenging sortie you've ever flown?
• 17:01
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, for me, it was in the F-15 doing the upgrading to IP and upgrading to Mission Commander, leading the eight and twelve ships and stuff like that.
• 17:10
  SPEAKER_00: It's I don't know what it'd be like now, but back then it was all map drawing and a lot of talking on the radio, a lot of picture building.
• 17:17
  SPEAKER_00: Those were always quite challenging.
• 17:19
  SPEAKER_01: Aaron Powell So can you paint the picture for us?
• 17:20
  SPEAKER_01: You've got an eight-ship or a twelve-ship fighting against each other on each side and so forth.
• 17:25
  SPEAKER_00: Aaron Powell If it was a 12-ship AE was like a red flag, if you're flying as blue air as as F-15s, you got 12 airplanes, you're probably going against 12 adversaries or more.
• 17:35
  SPEAKER_01: Aaron Powell It's like 24 airplanes in a fight.
• 17:37
  SPEAKER_00: Aaron Powell Well, yeah, air to air wise, and then you had the striker.
• 17:40
  SPEAKER_00: So the red flags were some type 60, some airplanes out there running around.
• 17:44
  SPEAKER_00: But just building the plan, you get everybody up on the tanker, you got your push time, and then you push out, and then trying to keep SA because everything Situational awareness was from the radio and your bullseye on your thing.
• 17:56
  SPEAKER_00: And that's all you had, and you built the picture in your head.
• 17:58
  SPEAKER_00: And uh once once you start to lose SA, it's hard to build it back up.
• 18:01
  SPEAKER_00: Trevor Burrus, Jr.
• 18:01
  SPEAKER_01: So we had the AWACS that would be calling the positions of the enemy fighters.
• 18:06
  SPEAKER_01: And you've got your onboard radar, you've got visual, and you're painting a picture in your mind of where everybody is.
• 18:16
  SPEAKER_00: And back then, uh like the ESA radar, now you don't have to L-wheel, so you don't have the this business.
• 18:23
  SPEAKER_00: So you'd have overlapping radar responsibilities.
• 18:26
  SPEAKER_00: And the weird part about it is like if you're spread out, let's just say it was a four shift.
• 18:29
  SPEAKER_00: If four's over here on the left and he's got the look down responsibility for the left side, and then the other guy has the look down responsibility on the right side.
• 18:36
  SPEAKER_00: Well, number two over here looking high can go paint a target that's in his sort responsibility, number four, who's looking low, up at high altitude.
• 18:44
  SPEAKER_00: So it at meld range, number four would have to listen to the radio and go, okay, I've got somebody on my side.
• 18:49
  SPEAKER_00: My sort responsibility is up here at 32,000 feet.
• 18:53
  SPEAKER_00: So when we meld at a certain range, I have to throw the radar up and go find my sort responsibility.
• 18:58
  SPEAKER_00: So it was it was challenging all across the board, whether you're one, two, three, or four.
• 19:01
  SPEAKER_00: I think it's gotten more automated now.
• 19:03
  SPEAKER_01: So, Jeff, have you ever come close to ejecting?
• 19:06
  SPEAKER_00: Not in the air, thank goodness.
• 19:08
  SPEAKER_00: The the funny part about it was that the F-15 had a little handle that you'd throw up to safe the seat.
• 19:14
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 19:14
  SPEAKER_00: The T-38 didn't.
• 19:16
  SPEAKER_00: And you remember the old thing where as soon as you clear, you put the pins in the seat?
• 19:19
  SPEAKER_00: Yep.
• 19:20
  SPEAKER_00: Thank goodness for seat pins, because I shut down, unstrapped, and was in a hurry and go jumping up and I get caught and I had a reflex, did it again, and then looked down and my G suit hose had gotten lodged between the ejection handle and the T thirty eight, and then side of however was jammed in there, and it was like, whoo! If you had not pinned the seat, what what would have happened?
• 19:42
  SPEAKER_00: There would have been a seat hitting me in the rear end going off the thing.
• 19:46
  SPEAKER_00: It was uh it was pretty crazy.
• 19:48
  SPEAKER_01: Uh Jeff, we all know that uh spline can be dangerous.
• 19:51
  SPEAKER_01: Have you lost any friends along the way?
• 19:53
  SPEAKER_01: And is there anyone you want to be sure that we remember today?
• 19:57
  SPEAKER_00: There's a few.
• 19:58
  SPEAKER_00: Uh th there's one I know you know him because we he was a classmate ours, Daryl Kinney.
• 20:02
  SPEAKER_00: And uh he was my roommate in pile training for a little while until he met his future wife and then he moved out, and then that's when I got Mark Major as a roommate.
• 20:09
  SPEAKER_00: He he went to T-33s and then he went to F-15s, and uh he had the unfortunate case of flying in the weather in Alaska and flying into a mountainside.
• 20:18
  SPEAKER_00: And then the other one was a good friend of mine, uh guy named Zane Lowry, weapons school grad.
• 20:23
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, when I was a Tindall in the wing, he was down at the weapons evaluation group, and then we both got reassigned to Randolph.
• 20:28
  SPEAKER_00: He was lucky enough to be the uh command C fee, so he got to fly still.
• 20:32
  SPEAKER_00: And I was on a non-flying job, but we had dinner, and then the next day he was going up to fly.
• 20:36
  SPEAKER_00: He was leading, I don't remember if he was leading an eight-ship or four-ship or whatever, but he gets out to end of runway and they code three his airplane, so he taxis back in and he's the lead, so he's in a hurry.
• 20:45
  SPEAKER_00: He spares out, jumps in the airplane, taxis out, takes off, and that's the airplane when they did maintenance on it, they cross controlled, they rigged the uh horizontal stabilizer wrong, and he crashed on takeoff.
• 20:56
  SPEAKER_00: Very sad.
• 20:58
  SPEAKER_01: Nickel on the grass.
• 21:00
  SPEAKER_01: I am sometimes no, not sometimes, frequently surprised to think back to have made it through all those takeoffs, all those landings, and still be here.
• 21:10
  SPEAKER_00: What's what's sad is when we get to be old guys, and especially here in Texas, when the cumulative nemus builds up beautiful and he can see it rising.
• 21:17
  SPEAKER_00: And he's going, Man, I would just love to have some JPA to go race around those clouds, up and around through the canyons.
• 21:22
  SPEAKER_00: Cloud chasing was the best.
• 21:25
  SPEAKER_01: Jeff, it's so great to reconnect and thanks so much for being on the podcast.
• 21:30
  SPEAKER_00: Well, thank you, Dave.
• 21:31
  SPEAKER_00: I appreciate it.
• 21:31
  SPEAKER_00: Hopefully uh the stories were somewhat entertaining.
• 21:34
  SPEAKER_01: Guaranteed.
• 21:35
  SPEAKER_01: Are you been listening to the Flyboy Podcast?
• 21:38
  SPEAKER_01: This podcast is brought to you by our parent organization, the Flyboy Lab.
• 21:42
  SPEAKER_01: The mission of the Flyboy Lab is to elevate awareness and appreciation of aviators, their service, sacrifices, and contributions.
• 21:48
  SPEAKER_01: Hopefully we've fulfilled that mission today.
• 21:50
  SPEAKER_01: New episodes of the podcast drop every Thursday morning, and you can find previous episodes on our website, theflyboypodcast.com.
• 21:58
  SPEAKER_01: Until our next sorting, push the mock, use the vertical, and fly safe.