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Speaker 1: Oh, beat force. If it doesn't work, you're just not

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Speaker 1: using enough. You're listening to Software UP Radio, Special Operations,

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Speaker 1: military news and straight talk with the guys and the community. Well,

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Speaker 1: hello out their internets, and welcome to another episode of

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Speaker 1: SOFTWAREP Radio. As you've already guessed, I am not Navy

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Speaker 1: Seal Brandon Webb, nor am I s a s badass,

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Speaker 1: big phil campion. But who I am is Alex Hollings,

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Speaker 1: tech editor and senior staff writer for softwarep dot com

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Speaker 1: and journalists that spent the last few years trying to

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Speaker 1: study the way defense technology informs foreign policy. And in

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Speaker 1: that pursuit, I've met some pretty interesting dudes. One of

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Speaker 1: them we're gonna be talking to today. In just a

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Speaker 1: few minutes. We're gonna talk to Justin Lee, Major Justin

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Speaker 1: Hazard Lee. He's an F thirty five pilot instructor who

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Speaker 1: has nearly four hundred hours of combat flight time at

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Speaker 1: the stick of an F sixteen. He transitioned from the

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Speaker 1: F six team to the F thirty five. I want

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Speaker 1: to say sometime after two thousand fifteen, is that right, Justin? Yeah,

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Speaker 1: about two thousand seventeen. I transferred from the sixteen to

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Speaker 1: the F thirty five. Now, he makes his living teaching

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Speaker 1: the next generation of fighter pilots how to handle the

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Speaker 1: F thirty five, who, unlike Justin, are actually coming up

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Speaker 1: and they're going straight to the F thirty five as

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Speaker 1: opposed to learning on a fourth generation platform. Is that right? Yeah?

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Speaker 1: We call them pitching babies because they don't know how

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Speaker 1: hard it was back in the day. I feel like

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Speaker 1: that's like my daughter is growing up in a world

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Speaker 1: where we have Netflix and like a TV in the

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Speaker 1: living room and you can watch anything you want, any

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Speaker 1: time you want. She's never really going to appreciate just

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Speaker 1: how bad things were with the twenty five in n

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Speaker 1: TV and a VCR. You know, Yeah, they they're spoiled

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Speaker 1: absolutely now. Other than being an F thirty five pilot,

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Speaker 1: Justin's a busy dude. He also hosts The Professionals Playbook,

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Speaker 1: which is a podcast that focuses on kind of gleaning

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Speaker 1: the experiences and the wisdom from other guys that are

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Speaker 1: kind of the top echelon and their respective fields. You know,

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Speaker 1: Justin's interviewed c i A operatives, Navy seals, astronauts. I

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Speaker 1: think most recently you interviewed MLB picture Jim Abbott on

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Speaker 1: the podcast. Can't recommend The Professionals Playbook enough, not just

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Speaker 1: because I was once a guest on the show, but

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Speaker 1: also because it's really a great opportunity to learn the

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Speaker 1: nuts and bolts of these really interesting fields that you

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Speaker 1: might not have thought of otherwise. You know, justin how

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Speaker 1: long have you been running the podcast podcast? It's been

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Speaker 1: going on for about a year. It started as a

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Speaker 1: speech I gave on Memorial Day the city of care Free.

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Speaker 1: You wanted somebody who had been to combat who could

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Speaker 1: discuss their experiences. So after I gave the speech, there's

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Speaker 1: a woman in the crowd who is a member of

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Speaker 1: the Veterans Heritage Project, and she reached out and she

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Speaker 1: wanted me to come speak to some of the groups

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Speaker 1: and schools that they're associated with. And after doing a

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Speaker 1: bunch of the speaking, I realized that there's a lot

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Speaker 1: of people out there that want to do something great,

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Speaker 1: but they don't know what or they don't know how,

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Speaker 1: And so I thought I could help bridge the gap

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Speaker 1: by going to some of these world class experts and

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Speaker 1: talking to them about what their successes were like, what

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Speaker 1: their failures were like, how they over came those failures

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Speaker 1: and what they do on a day to day basis

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Speaker 1: to perform at a high level, you know. And one

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Speaker 1: of the things I really do enjoy about your show,

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Speaker 1: not to just make this an advertisement for your podcast,

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Speaker 1: but it really humanizes these experts in a real way

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Speaker 1: for me. You know, it's easy to think of enough

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Speaker 1: thirty five pilot or let's say, an astronaut or a

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Speaker 1: fortune CEO as not real people. You know. It's easy

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Speaker 1: to think of them in terms of their accomplishments or

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Speaker 1: in terms of the objectives they have in their day

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Speaker 1: to day tasks. It's harder to think of them as

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Speaker 1: like a real guy or a real girl who goes

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Speaker 1: home and has insecurities, has to work at being good

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Speaker 1: at what they do, you know. And that's the thing

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Speaker 1: I really appreciated about your podcast. It's not just learning

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Speaker 1: about how to excel in different fields, but it's also

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Speaker 1: about learning about how to excel as a human being,

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Speaker 1: you know, like as a real person with real challenges. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: They're just normal everyday men and women. And I think

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Speaker 1: the big difference I see in them is they have

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Speaker 1: a growth mindset, and every day they're trying to get

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Speaker 1: a little bit better at something. One of the commonalities

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Speaker 1: is that they're able to see a goal way off

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Speaker 1: in the distance not be intimidated by that goal. So

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Speaker 1: they see that goal, they start heading up that mountain

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Speaker 1: and then they're just looking looking at their feet as

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Speaker 1: they're walking every day and not going too far out

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Speaker 1: to get intimidated. Well, at the risk of sounding like

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Speaker 1: I'm kissing your ass, that's kind of how you ended

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Speaker 1: up in the seat of an UGH thirty five as well, Right, Yeah,

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Speaker 1: I mean, I think another attribute that I see out

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Speaker 1: of these guests is mental toughness. And for me, that

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Speaker 1: dates back to when I boxed at the Air Force Academy.

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Speaker 1: So that was in Colorado Springs, and color of Springs

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Speaker 1: is right next to the Olympic Training Center, and so

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Speaker 1: we would have sports psychologists come over and talk to

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Speaker 1: us about visualization, mental self talk, staying in the present moment,

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Speaker 1: all these things that the Olympians did. I was able

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Speaker 1: to apply it to boxing, but more than that, I

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Speaker 1: was able to apply it to flying, and I think

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Speaker 1: that's why I was able to do well and excel

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Speaker 1: on poly training. You know, I watched Broken Arrow just

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Speaker 1: recently with my wife. We're working on I was doing

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Speaker 1: this for another article I was writing. John Travolta and

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Speaker 1: Christian Slater played b two Pilots and Broken Arrow, and

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Speaker 1: the movie opens with them in this huge, like incredible

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Speaker 1: boxing jim just beating the hell out of each other

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Speaker 1: without headgear on, like this is terrible sparring. And I

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Speaker 1: turned to my wife and I was like, yeah, right,

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Speaker 1: like air first pilots really go box. I'm an asshole.

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Speaker 1: It turns out your first pilots really go box. I

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Speaker 1: love to mix it up. Yeah, Well, I know you

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Speaker 1: do a lot of combative sports, and I think it's

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Speaker 1: great for like I said, mental toughness. It's boxing is

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Speaker 1: one of the toughest things I've done. You're training against

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Speaker 1: an opponent that is training every day to kick your ass,

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Speaker 1: and you're gonna fight under the bright lights with your

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Speaker 1: friends and family watching, and it could end an embarrassment,

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Speaker 1: a whole bunch of things. You can get hurt, a

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Speaker 1: lot of things could happen, and you have to overcome that.

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Speaker 1: You know, that's a huge point. Man. When I back

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Speaker 1: in my m m A days, I was on the

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Speaker 1: Marine Corps first mixed martial arts team and then my

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Speaker 1: first civilian tournament, which was kind of my first big

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Speaker 1: audience fight, I did exact way that I almost got

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Speaker 1: tapped out by kind of a chunky guy with blackmail

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Speaker 1: polish on who is too fat to go shirtless. He

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Speaker 1: wore an under arm or shirt into the cage. What

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Speaker 1: you're saying really rings true for me. The idea that

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Speaker 1: you know you can practice and you can train, but

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Speaker 1: until you really step into the ring, you don't know

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Speaker 1: how your training is going to manifest, and you don't

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Speaker 1: know how your opponents training is going to manifest. But this,

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Speaker 1: this actually leads me to a question. I wrote an

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Speaker 1: article a few years ago about strategy for air combat

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Speaker 1: and how there are parallels between that and mixed martial arts,

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Speaker 1: or I would argue boxing, and that, like for the

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Speaker 1: in the F thirty five, you have a system that

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Speaker 1: actually tells you ahead of time, if at all possible,

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Speaker 1: what aircraft it is that you're closing with, if it's

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Speaker 1: an enemy aircraft, and what capabilities it has. Is that

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Speaker 1: accurate to say so? Yeah, the plane does as much

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Speaker 1: as it can to augment what we're doing, but ultimately

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Speaker 1: it comes down to the pilot, And like you said,

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Speaker 1: there is a lot of similarity. I would say the

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Speaker 1: biggest thing is the enemy always has a vote. You

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Speaker 1: could be going up against an opponent you don't know

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Speaker 1: what he's doing. He could be the Golden Gloves champion,

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Speaker 1: and you're gonna get your asking no matter what happened.

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Speaker 1: So there's that area of uncertainty, the fog of fog

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Speaker 1: of war, and that applies to boxing and applies to

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Speaker 1: flying fighters as well. It's that old football adage that's

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Speaker 1: why we play the game right. Just because someone's the

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Speaker 1: favorite on paper doesn't mean will be the victor of

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Speaker 1: that absolutely. But what I'm getting at with the idea

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Speaker 1: of kind of knowing what you're squaring off against. When

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Speaker 1: I was in my fighting days, I would do my

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Speaker 1: best to know as much as I could about my

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Speaker 1: opponent ahead of time to kind of inform my training

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Speaker 1: strategy leading into that fight. If I'm going to be

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Speaker 1: fighting against a guy who's a stand up fighter who's

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Speaker 1: got a significant reach, my training is going to aim

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Speaker 1: towards mitigating those strengths that he's got, right, I'm going

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Speaker 1: to focus on my ground game. Conversely, if my opponent

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Speaker 1: is a black belt in Brazilian jiu jitsu, I'm gonna

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Speaker 1: focus on my stand up game and trying to keep

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Speaker 1: him there. I have to assume there's a certain bit

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Speaker 1: of that when it comes to mitigating threats posed by

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Speaker 1: enemy aircraft. If you're gonna be going into contested airspace

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Speaker 1: and you know for a fact that they have certain

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Speaker 1: air defense assets, you're gonna adjust your strategy to suit.

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Speaker 1: Whereas if you're going into uncontested airspace but maybe you

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Speaker 1: have concerns about enemy air assets or something like that,

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Speaker 1: you're gonna take on a very different approach. Is that

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Speaker 1: fair to say? Mission planning and finding the weaknesses, finding

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Speaker 1: your strengths as compared to the enemy is where the

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Speaker 1: game is won. So we do a lot of intel,

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Speaker 1: we do a lot of research, we do a lot

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Speaker 1: of training, We do a lot of mission planning so

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Speaker 1: that we can compare our strength with the enemy's weakness.

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Speaker 1: And mission planning really is kind of that missing magic

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Speaker 1: ingredient to stealth that a lot of people, I think

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Speaker 1: don't really understand. When people say stealth, you know, when

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Speaker 1: they're talking about a platform like the F thirty five,

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Speaker 1: they tend to think of it as like this one technology,

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Speaker 1: Like there's a box that you bolt in that makes

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Speaker 1: the F thirty five invisible to radar. But that's not

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Speaker 1: really what stealth is. Stealth is, you know, a bunch

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Speaker 1: of different overlapping technologies kind of approaches to the fight.

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Speaker 1: Right that you need to make sure that you're you're

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Speaker 1: leveraging the strength of the aircraft against the weakness of

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Speaker 1: the opponent. Right, And I would go even further past that.

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Speaker 1: It has to do with how we're fighting these these

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Speaker 1: tactical battles and ultimately the strategic wars. So you have

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Speaker 1: to assess your strengths and be able to be honest

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Speaker 1: with yourself. So that's probably the toughest thing in assessing

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Speaker 1: your strengths, and then you have to the tougher part

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Speaker 1: is assessing the enemy's weakness, the enemy strengths and figuring

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Speaker 1: out a way to to mitigate that. And that goes

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Speaker 1: across the entire spectrum from the from the Army guys

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Speaker 1: on the ground to the Navy seals out there to us.

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Speaker 1: I think as a U S force, what really makes

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Speaker 1: us strong use our teamwork, and that starts at exercises

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Speaker 1: like Red Flag where we have people come in. You'll

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Speaker 1: be the mission commander and you'll be in charge of

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Speaker 1: seventy aircraft out there, and your job is to win

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Speaker 1: a tactical objective out there and bring the group together,

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Speaker 1: because that is ultimately where the wars are won in loss,

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Speaker 1: not in the sexy you know, stealth and the missiles

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Speaker 1: that go you know, super far, super fast. It's one

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Speaker 1: in the communication and making sure everybody's on the right crypto,

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Speaker 1: to make sure everybody's on the right page, to make

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Speaker 1: sure everybody has the right contracts so that when when

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Speaker 1: shep hits the fan, that you're able to be a

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Speaker 1: part of the team. Now, for anybody who's not familiar

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Speaker 1: with Red Flag, I think the best way to describe

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Speaker 1: it would really be kind of a scrimmage between air assets.

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Speaker 1: You know, we've got pilots that would be assigned to

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Speaker 1: either side, and it really is like a pretty large

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Speaker 1: scale mock air battle. Yeah, it started in Vietnam, so

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Speaker 1: we're realizing that we're losing a lot of pilots out

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Speaker 1: there and that if we could just get a pilot

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Speaker 1: past ten missions in combat, that his chances of survival

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Speaker 1: went up astronomically. So they started Red Flag to be

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Speaker 1: as close to combat as possible, where we're bringing in

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Speaker 1: different assets and we're going up against top tier enemies,

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Speaker 1: and it's one of the best training tools that I've

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Speaker 1: ever seen. You know, That's something that I think a

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Speaker 1: lot of people don't realize about Vietnam is that the

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Speaker 1: air war, the air battles over Vietnam, we're really dramatic,

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Speaker 1: and in a lot of ways, the dog fights over

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Speaker 1: Vietnam were more like the dog fights that you see

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Speaker 1: in movies and a lot of other you know, more

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Speaker 1: modern conflicts really were. The Vietnamese pilots actually had a

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Speaker 1: really high success rate against American pilots for some time there,

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Speaker 1: to the point where there are even legends about like

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Speaker 1: a Colonel tomb who's supposedly had I think it was

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Speaker 1: something like thirteen kills against American fighter pilots. I wrote

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Speaker 1: a story about this recently because I think that's actually

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Speaker 1: kind of bullshit. But one thing that is in the

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Speaker 1: Vietnamese pilots favor is that those guys were in the

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Speaker 1: engagement through the entirety of the conflict. To your point

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Speaker 1: about if you've got ten combat missions, your your experience

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Speaker 1: levels make you that much more likely to survive. You know,

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Speaker 1: these guys had an entire wars worth of missions under

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Speaker 1: their belt, whereas most combat pilots from the United States

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Speaker 1: Air Force had one year in theater to accumulate kills.

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Speaker 1: So when you hear about like there being a lot

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Speaker 1: of a lot of really successful fighter pilots out of Vietnam,

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Speaker 1: there is some truth to that. But they also had

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Speaker 1: a lot longer than the American pilots to rack up

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Speaker 1: that air kills. But to Justin's point about Red Flag

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Speaker 1: and also about the Navy's Top Gun School, these are

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Speaker 1: both programs that came in a very real way as

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Speaker 1: a result a bus kind of getting beat up by

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Speaker 1: old Soviet era aircraft that had been given to the

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Speaker 1: Vietnamese during the Vietnam conflict, and the paradigm had changed

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Speaker 1: a little bit. So in the fifties and sixties it

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Speaker 1: was all how high and how fast you could go.

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Speaker 1: It is all about going mocked two point five at

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Speaker 1: sixty feet. But in Vietnam we realized that it's more

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Speaker 1: of a turning battle, and these missiles that we had

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Speaker 1: weren't doing as well as they should have. And what

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Speaker 1: came out of that was John Boyd and his Uda

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Speaker 1: lup as well as coming up with the F sixteen,

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Speaker 1: which was again the paradigm had changed from going high

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Speaker 1: and going fast to being able to turn extremely tight.

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Speaker 1: And today that paradigm has changed again to being all

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Speaker 1: about data sinser fusion, being able to work together, having

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Speaker 1: network aircraft. So uh so it's just about keeping up

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Speaker 1: with technology. Well, absolutely absolutely, And to that point, I

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Speaker 1: wouldn't I really would like to talk to you about,

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Speaker 1: let's say now, as an F thirty five pilot, Let's

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Speaker 1: say in some future conflict and whatever war, whatever nation

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Speaker 1: it may be in you're given a target that needs

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Speaker 1: to be neutralized. What as an F thirty five pilot,

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Speaker 1: as a member of the overall command structure, where do

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Speaker 1: you go from there? You know that we've got a

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Speaker 1: structure that's full of bad guys. We know we need

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Speaker 1: to put a whole bunch of ordinance on it. Not

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Speaker 1: what we'll all talk to what we do in training here,

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Speaker 1: because that's a little bit a little bit better for

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Speaker 1: for talking on here. But we work from the target backwards.

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Speaker 1: So what are we trying to do? What effect are

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Speaker 1: we trying to have? Are we trying to take out

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Speaker 1: a leader? Are we trying to take out a power supply?

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Speaker 1: What is the best way that we can have the

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Speaker 1: effect that we want because it's gonna cost a lot

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Speaker 1: of fuel, it's going to cost a lot of time,

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Speaker 1: potentially will cost lives sending in pilots to go and

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Speaker 1: take out this target. So you need to have the

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Speaker 1: intel correct and you need to have the coin correct

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Speaker 1: as well, making sure that you're having the effect. Once

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Speaker 1: you have the effect that you want, say it's taking

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Speaker 1: out a building, then from there you work backwards. So

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Speaker 1: what do we need. We need a GBU thirty one

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Speaker 1: to impact with a you know, a slight delay, all right,

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Speaker 1: So what aircraft is capable of that? Well? F sixteen

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Speaker 1: is F thirty five, is F fifteen is pretty much

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Speaker 1: they all are. Is this an extremely heavily contested area. Well,

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Speaker 1: if that's the case, then potentially that's when you're going

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Speaker 1: to use an F thirty five, which has stealth, to

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Speaker 1: go ahead and and go in there. So it's all

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Speaker 1: about working from the target backwards. You're also gonna need

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Speaker 1: a whole lot of support assets. So are their enemy

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Speaker 1: fighters out there? Okay, Well you're probably gonna need some

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Speaker 1: sort of air support. So the strength of the raptor

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Speaker 1: probably comes into plane. You probably want some raptors out

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Speaker 1: there that are taking out enemy fighters. All right, what

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Speaker 1: about the surface air missiles that are trying to shoot

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Speaker 1: you down? Okay, well we probably need thirty five in

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Speaker 1: the mix so that, you know, we can mitigate that.

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Speaker 1: We probably also need some growlers out there that are

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Speaker 1: doing some jamming. Oh, you know this is going to

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Speaker 1: be more than a couple hundred miles away. You're probably

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Speaker 1: gonna need tankers on station. You also are gonna need

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Speaker 1: all those big aircraft out there. You're gonna need a wax,

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Speaker 1: You're gonna need a rivet joint. You're gonna need a

319
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Speaker 1: ton of a ton of stuff goes into all this,

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Speaker 1: and like I said before, it's all about getting these

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Speaker 1: people on the same page, making sure we're communicating, making

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Speaker 1: sure our contracts are correct. We don't want, you know,

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Speaker 1: some random aircraft out there transmitting a bunch of bad data.

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Speaker 1: We want to make sure it's necked down to the

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Speaker 1: appropriate amount so that they're not basically spamming you. They're

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Speaker 1: giving you relevant data. It can't be too narrow that

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Speaker 1: they're never gonna see it. So it's it's coming up

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Speaker 1: with these contracts, and so, just like anything, the devil

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Speaker 1: is really in the details. Well, that's one thing I'll

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Speaker 1: think a lot of people don't realize is that air

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Speaker 1: combat operations in a real way are like conducting a symphony, right,

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Speaker 1: because there's a real risk that if things aren't exactly

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Speaker 1: on time, you're gonna lose lives, and not even to

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Speaker 1: enemy fire. When it comes to refueling, for instance, Not

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Speaker 1: only is that an incredibly dangerous thing to do that

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Speaker 1: you guys you know, do like it's an old hat,

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Speaker 1: but as we saw last year with the U. S.

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Speaker 1: Marine Corps F A E T and Super Hornet, it

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Speaker 1: is incredibly dangerous and little mistakes can cost a lot

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Speaker 1: of lives when it comes to midair refueling. So, when

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Speaker 1: you're talking about so many really dangerous variables that are

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Speaker 1: all ultimately in the interest of combat operations, where you

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Speaker 1: really are it's us against them, lives are almost always

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Speaker 1: going to be lost during combat ops, right, So the

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Speaker 1: idea is to make sure that it's not none of

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Speaker 1: our lives that are lost. That's about mitigating risk, not

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Speaker 1: just at the point of attack, not just when that

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Speaker 1: F thirty five is dropping that GPU thirty one, But

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Speaker 1: that's about mitigating risk for the tanker cruise mitigating risk

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Speaker 1: for the air support cruise, mitigating risk for the troops

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Speaker 1: on the ground that might be gathering intelligence, or for

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Speaker 1: the intelligence apparatus. There is a huge number of variables

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Speaker 1: that go into play, even for what we would consider,

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Speaker 1: you know, as a journalist, a pretty straightforward air strike,

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Speaker 1: you know, the kind of air strikes that we tend

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Speaker 1: not to cover because in Afghanistan we blow up another

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Speaker 1: mud hut. The media at large tends not to be interested.

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Speaker 1: But as far as the people that are actually conducting

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Speaker 1: the operations, there are a huge number of variables. There's

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Speaker 1: a lot more work that goes into it than just

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Speaker 1: hopping aboard your fighter jet and going zooming around looking

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Speaker 1: for a target. One of the harder things to plan

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Speaker 1: is just the taxi plan, So just who's going to

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Speaker 1: take off in one sequence. We're flying with fighters that

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Speaker 1: don't have a lot of gas. So you know, if

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Speaker 1: you have a hundred aircraft that are getting ready to

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Speaker 1: take off, that's going to take a long time. And

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Speaker 1: I've seen I've seen a lot of mission planners overlook

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Speaker 1: that and that costs them the mission, you know, And

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Speaker 1: when we're talking about a fighter running out of gas,

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Speaker 1: we're not talking about running out of gas on a

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Speaker 1: road trip. You know, if you are in a enough

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Speaker 1: thirty five that runs out of gas, you're now dead,

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Speaker 1: you know, unless you found to find a place to land,

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Speaker 1: you're in a whole lot of trouble. So when we

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Speaker 1: talk about things like fuel, where we really are talking

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Speaker 1: about life or death. It's all about fuel, all about weapons,

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Speaker 1: and being in a fighter's kind of a it's kind

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Speaker 1: of an interesting experience because in Afghanistan a place like that,

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Speaker 1: you'll be flying around and you'll be pretty comfortable, definitely

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Speaker 1: compared to a lot of your listeners who are who

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Speaker 1: are in the mud. So you're you're a twenty feet

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Speaker 1: you're pretty comfortable, but you always know in the back

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Speaker 1: of your head that you are five minutes away from

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Speaker 1: having to outrun a group of Taliban that are chasing

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Speaker 1: you up a hill, and all you have is your

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Speaker 1: M nine pistol out there. So it's kind of a

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Speaker 1: kind of a eurie feeling, especially when we're just flying

389
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Speaker 1: around as a two ship and your wingman is is

390
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Speaker 1: long gone, he's gone to the tanker and you're just

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Speaker 1: out there by yourself. So it's it goes back to

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Speaker 1: that mental toughness that I learned in boxing. No, that's

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Speaker 1: a really really good point. That's not something that I

394
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Speaker 1: think a lot of us think of often, is the

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Speaker 1: chance that you might end up being shot down and

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Speaker 1: having to eject, and then you are going to be

397
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Speaker 1: very much alone out there. That actually leads me to

398
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Speaker 1: a question. I knew last year the Air Force star

399
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Speaker 1: contracting out for M four service rifles that could be

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Speaker 1: broken apart to be carried inside the cockpit of aircraft,

401
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Speaker 1: but I wasn't sure when they were going to start

402
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Speaker 1: actually getting distributed. So I'm assuming that you guys have

403
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Speaker 1: not yet received those, so you're still sticking with just

404
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Speaker 1: a side arm in the cockpit. Yeah, I haven't heard

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Speaker 1: about that. I know some some of the European countries

406
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Speaker 1: were flying around with that. That would be nice, but honestly,

407
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Speaker 1: it's probably not going to turn out well for a

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Speaker 1: single pilot that ejects out there. You're talking about one

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Speaker 1: of the most violent things that can happen to the

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Speaker 1: human body, ejecting from a jet. So we will pull

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Speaker 1: up to nine g s in our day to day flying.

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Speaker 1: So if you've ever been on a roller coaster and

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Speaker 1: you kind of had your head pushed down a little

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Speaker 1: bit from a from a loop that's about two and

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Speaker 1: a half geese, and we'll pull up to nine g

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Speaker 1: s and at that G force, you'll see the world

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Speaker 1: closing in, so it's basically like you're looking through a

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Speaker 1: toilet paper roll. What we're trying to do is we're

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Speaker 1: trying to squeeze that blood back into our brain, because

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Speaker 1: if you pass out at the speeds we fly, you're

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Speaker 1: gonna impact the ground in about fifteen against and it

422
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Speaker 1: takes about thirty seconds for you to recover from a blackout.

423
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Speaker 1: So we've lost about one pilot a year for the

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Speaker 1: last thirty years to a G induced loss of consciousness.

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Speaker 1: So that's nine g s. That's about what the human

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Speaker 1: body can handle ejecting. You're talking about fifteen g s

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Speaker 1: and that's not even the wind blast. If you're going

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Speaker 1: you know, three knots four and or knots supersonic, you're

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Speaker 1: probably gonna break every bone in your body. So it's

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Speaker 1: not gonna not gonna end well. After that, you're having

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Speaker 1: to do a p l left with a small shoot

432
00:21:30,280 --> 00:21:32,399
Speaker 1: that's probably been ripped apart a little bit, so it's

433
00:21:32,440 --> 00:21:35,119
Speaker 1: like jumping off a two story building probably similar to

434
00:21:35,200 --> 00:21:37,920
Speaker 1: what a lot of your listeners have done, so trying

435
00:21:37,920 --> 00:21:40,160
Speaker 1: not to roll an ankle. We don't practice doing those

436
00:21:40,200 --> 00:21:43,720
Speaker 1: plfs too much. So at this point you're probably injured,

437
00:21:43,880 --> 00:21:46,520
Speaker 1: is probably cold in the middle of the night, and

438
00:21:46,680 --> 00:21:48,840
Speaker 1: you're not sure exactly where you are, and now you

439
00:21:48,880 --> 00:21:50,720
Speaker 1: have a group of Taliban who just saw a jet

440
00:21:50,760 --> 00:21:53,120
Speaker 1: crash and they're trying to trying to chase you down.

441
00:21:53,200 --> 00:21:56,679
Speaker 1: So it's not an ideal situation. If you're interested in

442
00:21:56,720 --> 00:21:58,720
Speaker 1: trying to test your ability to do this, what I

443
00:21:58,760 --> 00:22:01,600
Speaker 1: would recommend is jumping into a video game, like a

444
00:22:01,680 --> 00:22:04,359
Speaker 1: racing game like Forsa, get into one of the faster

445
00:22:04,480 --> 00:22:06,760
Speaker 1: cars that you can get, get going as fast as

446
00:22:06,800 --> 00:22:08,360
Speaker 1: you can, and then have a friend choke you out,

447
00:22:09,680 --> 00:22:11,960
Speaker 1: and then when you wake up, try not to crash

448
00:22:12,160 --> 00:22:15,119
Speaker 1: and you can go from there. You know, but I

449
00:22:15,160 --> 00:22:17,879
Speaker 1: can only imagine, especially when it comes to just the

450
00:22:17,960 --> 00:22:21,080
Speaker 1: sheer force of the ejection itself has been known to

451
00:22:21,200 --> 00:22:24,600
Speaker 1: really really hurt, even compress the spine of pilots in

452
00:22:24,640 --> 00:22:28,720
Speaker 1: the past. So if once you land, assuming everything goes

453
00:22:28,920 --> 00:22:32,119
Speaker 1: according the plan, which what's the real likelihood that everything

454
00:22:32,119 --> 00:22:34,680
Speaker 1: will go according to plan? You see it all the time.

455
00:22:34,720 --> 00:22:37,040
Speaker 1: Even with the United States with the most advanced air

456
00:22:37,080 --> 00:22:40,320
Speaker 1: force on the planet, ejection seats don't always work. A

457
00:22:40,400 --> 00:22:42,200
Speaker 1: year and a half ago, a b n B Lancer

458
00:22:42,240 --> 00:22:44,879
Speaker 1: crew attempted to eject. There was a malfunction in the

459
00:22:44,880 --> 00:22:48,719
Speaker 1: ejection seats. They had to land the stricken aircraft themselves,

460
00:22:49,000 --> 00:22:51,439
Speaker 1: which was really real heroism if you ask me. But

461
00:22:51,920 --> 00:22:54,040
Speaker 1: that's not because a b n B Lancers are a

462
00:22:54,080 --> 00:22:57,280
Speaker 1: broken down, rickety old aircraft. It's because sometimes things just

463
00:22:57,359 --> 00:23:00,120
Speaker 1: go wrong. For that to happen over the United States

464
00:23:00,400 --> 00:23:03,320
Speaker 1: was an incredibly dangerous set of circumstances that they were

465
00:23:03,359 --> 00:23:06,560
Speaker 1: able to manage. If that were to happen over Afghanistan,

466
00:23:07,040 --> 00:23:09,440
Speaker 1: you know, you're looking at it and another thing entirely,

467
00:23:09,680 --> 00:23:12,520
Speaker 1: you know, and our strength is flying fast, so we're

468
00:23:12,520 --> 00:23:14,879
Speaker 1: gonna be real far out there from the front line.

469
00:23:15,280 --> 00:23:17,399
Speaker 1: So if you adjecked, it's going to take a long

470
00:23:17,480 --> 00:23:20,520
Speaker 1: long time or a helicopter to come pick you up.

471
00:23:20,840 --> 00:23:25,240
Speaker 1: Absolutely absolutely. Now, while we're talking about prior to that ejection,

472
00:23:25,240 --> 00:23:28,040
Speaker 1: while everything's still going well, when you're up there zooming

473
00:23:28,080 --> 00:23:29,560
Speaker 1: around in the F thirty five, I want to go

474
00:23:29,600 --> 00:23:32,680
Speaker 1: back to talking about like the red flag exercises, because

475
00:23:32,680 --> 00:23:34,280
Speaker 1: one of the things I really wanted to talk to

476
00:23:34,320 --> 00:23:38,000
Speaker 1: you about is the F thirty five data fusion capabilities. Now,

477
00:23:38,080 --> 00:23:40,240
Speaker 1: Justin and I have talked a bit about the F

478
00:23:40,320 --> 00:23:43,520
Speaker 1: thirty five offline. Actually right now, if you go to

479
00:23:43,560 --> 00:23:45,359
Speaker 1: news stands, I think it's still out there. You can

480
00:23:45,400 --> 00:23:48,119
Speaker 1: pick up an issue of Popular Mechanics that's got a

481
00:23:48,119 --> 00:23:51,240
Speaker 1: picture of a guy driving around on a leafblower hovercraft

482
00:23:51,240 --> 00:23:53,600
Speaker 1: on the cover. Right there, on page sixty eight, you

483
00:23:53,640 --> 00:23:56,680
Speaker 1: can find an interview between Justin and I talking about

484
00:23:56,720 --> 00:23:58,760
Speaker 1: what it's like to fly the F thirty five. So

485
00:23:58,800 --> 00:24:01,160
Speaker 1: if after this episode you're really interested in what it's

486
00:24:01,200 --> 00:24:03,320
Speaker 1: like to be at the stick of this aircraft, I

487
00:24:03,359 --> 00:24:05,719
Speaker 1: really recommend you go out and get that. I'd love

488
00:24:05,720 --> 00:24:08,200
Speaker 1: to tell you it's my writing that made this interview interesting,

489
00:24:08,280 --> 00:24:10,280
Speaker 1: but really it's Justin's answers. You get to learn a

490
00:24:10,280 --> 00:24:13,280
Speaker 1: lot about the platform that I didn't know from all

491
00:24:13,280 --> 00:24:15,520
Speaker 1: the open source journalism that I've done over the years,

492
00:24:15,520 --> 00:24:17,240
Speaker 1: that Justin was really able to shed a lot of

493
00:24:17,280 --> 00:24:19,760
Speaker 1: light on. But but getting back to that, those red

494
00:24:19,800 --> 00:24:22,639
Speaker 1: flag exercises something that I always hear. I hear it

495
00:24:22,640 --> 00:24:24,800
Speaker 1: from you, I hear it from the Lockheed Martin reps

496
00:24:24,840 --> 00:24:27,399
Speaker 1: that I speak to is this phrase quarterback in the

497
00:24:27,440 --> 00:24:31,040
Speaker 1: sky to describe the F thirty five. The stealth capabilities

498
00:24:31,040 --> 00:24:33,080
Speaker 1: of the platform tends to be less touted, and I

499
00:24:33,119 --> 00:24:36,440
Speaker 1: think that's because we all know that the thirty five

500
00:24:36,480 --> 00:24:39,199
Speaker 1: is a really stealthy platform, but this quarterback on the

501
00:24:39,240 --> 00:24:41,000
Speaker 1: sky thing, I think a lot of people aren't as

502
00:24:41,040 --> 00:24:42,840
Speaker 1: sure about. Could you explain to me what that is?

503
00:24:43,480 --> 00:24:46,600
Speaker 1: So we're gonna have fortune fighters, and by fortune I

504
00:24:46,640 --> 00:24:50,360
Speaker 1: mean F sixteens and F fifteens that were designed in

505
00:24:50,400 --> 00:24:54,120
Speaker 1: the seventies. They're gonna be around until at least the forties.

506
00:24:54,680 --> 00:24:56,520
Speaker 1: So it would be nice if we could I could

507
00:24:56,560 --> 00:24:58,560
Speaker 1: just snap my fingers and everything would be a fitch

508
00:24:58,640 --> 00:25:00,480
Speaker 1: in fighter. But these things are gon to be around

509
00:25:00,480 --> 00:25:02,480
Speaker 1: for a long long time. And so what that means

510
00:25:02,600 --> 00:25:05,119
Speaker 1: is we have to work together as a team. And

511
00:25:05,160 --> 00:25:08,040
Speaker 1: that fifteen can carry a lot more missiles than I

512
00:25:08,080 --> 00:25:11,040
Speaker 1: can in my F thirty five, so it's important that

513
00:25:11,119 --> 00:25:13,720
Speaker 1: we work together as a team. My strength and that

514
00:25:13,840 --> 00:25:16,840
Speaker 1: thirty five is being stealthy and being able to see

515
00:25:16,840 --> 00:25:19,760
Speaker 1: a lot of things. So with those two strengths, I

516
00:25:19,800 --> 00:25:22,880
Speaker 1: can be a quarterback out there and let the Fortune

517
00:25:22,920 --> 00:25:24,919
Speaker 1: fighters know where the bad guys are. If it's a

518
00:25:24,960 --> 00:25:27,560
Speaker 1: really bad guy, obviously we want to say our missiles,

519
00:25:27,600 --> 00:25:30,280
Speaker 1: but if it's a real tough target, then we'll go

520
00:25:30,359 --> 00:25:33,320
Speaker 1: in and kill that target so that we're not risking

521
00:25:33,480 --> 00:25:36,560
Speaker 1: the Fortune guys out there. But ultimately we want to

522
00:25:36,640 --> 00:25:40,199
Speaker 1: use their weapons and their missiles so that we can

523
00:25:40,240 --> 00:25:42,600
Speaker 1: stay on station longer. We're not having to burn gas

524
00:25:42,840 --> 00:25:44,840
Speaker 1: and use our missiles and have to go home, so

525
00:25:44,880 --> 00:25:47,240
Speaker 1: we'll be the quarterback out there. Additionally, we have a

526
00:25:47,240 --> 00:25:50,840
Speaker 1: lot of situational awareness, so no plan survives first contact

527
00:25:50,880 --> 00:25:52,800
Speaker 1: with the enemy. You need to have a mission commander

528
00:25:52,840 --> 00:25:55,480
Speaker 1: out there that can see the battlefield and make real

529
00:25:55,520 --> 00:25:59,880
Speaker 1: time smart audibles when things don't go perfectly according to plan.

530
00:26:00,480 --> 00:26:02,919
Speaker 1: And I think that's super important again to focus on

531
00:26:03,040 --> 00:26:05,440
Speaker 1: that point you made at the beginning. These fourth generation

532
00:26:05,520 --> 00:26:08,600
Speaker 1: fighters are gonna be around for a long time to come.

533
00:26:08,640 --> 00:26:11,879
Speaker 1: I mean the Air Force is ordering new fifteen e

534
00:26:12,040 --> 00:26:13,760
Speaker 1: x is that are going to start production here, in

535
00:26:14,840 --> 00:26:17,879
Speaker 1: which means those platforms, I mean, with twenty flight hours

536
00:26:18,000 --> 00:26:20,720
Speaker 1: anticipated out of them, are gonna be around for decades.

537
00:26:20,920 --> 00:26:23,480
Speaker 1: For those who aren't that familiar with fourth generation versus

538
00:26:23,480 --> 00:26:28,080
Speaker 1: fifth generation fighters. There isn't really an exact definition that's

539
00:26:28,080 --> 00:26:32,800
Speaker 1: axempted worldwide differentiating between them. It's kind of more branch

540
00:26:32,960 --> 00:26:36,480
Speaker 1: and industry specific. You know, some companies have some variations

541
00:26:36,480 --> 00:26:38,880
Speaker 1: on what they consider the definition. But a fifth gen

542
00:26:38,960 --> 00:26:43,560
Speaker 1: platform usually is stealthy by design. Instead of being an

543
00:26:43,600 --> 00:26:46,879
Speaker 1: aircraft first and then stealth added to it, salth was

544
00:26:46,920 --> 00:26:49,480
Speaker 1: intrinsic to the design of the aircraft. They tend to

545
00:26:49,480 --> 00:26:53,240
Speaker 1: have data fusion capabilities. They tend to be multi role fighters. Justin,

546
00:26:53,280 --> 00:26:54,960
Speaker 1: is there anything I'm missing out on that you would

547
00:26:55,000 --> 00:26:58,359
Speaker 1: say really differentiates a fifth generation fighter from a fourth

548
00:26:58,400 --> 00:27:01,400
Speaker 1: generation one? I think you old it with that, And

549
00:27:01,480 --> 00:27:05,560
Speaker 1: so fourth generation fighters, the big telltale characteristic that you

550
00:27:05,600 --> 00:27:08,080
Speaker 1: would say differentiates them from something like the F thirty

551
00:27:08,080 --> 00:27:11,119
Speaker 1: five Justin's flying, is that they're not stealthy. You know,

552
00:27:11,160 --> 00:27:13,880
Speaker 1: they do pop up on radar. The F fifteen has

553
00:27:13,920 --> 00:27:16,439
Speaker 1: got a huge radar cross section when compared to the

554
00:27:16,480 --> 00:27:19,560
Speaker 1: F thirty five. But there are some benefits to having

555
00:27:19,560 --> 00:27:22,800
Speaker 1: those fourth generation fighters around, Like Justin just mentioned the

556
00:27:22,840 --> 00:27:25,120
Speaker 1: F thirty five when it's in stealth mode, I guess

557
00:27:25,119 --> 00:27:27,160
Speaker 1: you could call it when the thirty five is trying

558
00:27:27,200 --> 00:27:30,400
Speaker 1: to be stealthy. It's payload capacity is only four weapons,

559
00:27:30,480 --> 00:27:33,080
Speaker 1: you know, maybe four air to air missiles or two

560
00:27:33,080 --> 00:27:36,000
Speaker 1: aired air missiles into you know, kind of ground bombs.

561
00:27:36,040 --> 00:27:38,960
Speaker 1: The F fifteen isn't trying to be sneaky, so you

562
00:27:38,960 --> 00:27:41,919
Speaker 1: can strap all kinds of ordinance to that platform and

563
00:27:41,960 --> 00:27:45,240
Speaker 1: feasibly using an F thirty five to to kind of

564
00:27:45,280 --> 00:27:48,840
Speaker 1: coordinate the battle. You can leverage the firepower an F

565
00:27:48,840 --> 00:27:51,440
Speaker 1: fifteen or on S sixteen carries into the battle way

566
00:27:51,480 --> 00:27:54,320
Speaker 1: better than you ever could before. Right, you nailed it.

567
00:27:54,760 --> 00:27:57,439
Speaker 1: And part of that part of that situational awareness that

568
00:27:57,480 --> 00:27:59,840
Speaker 1: you get. I know you can't talk too much about

569
00:27:59,840 --> 00:28:02,960
Speaker 1: the eat A fusion capabilities the thirty five offers, but

570
00:28:03,000 --> 00:28:05,680
Speaker 1: I do want to make sure people understand just how

571
00:28:05,720 --> 00:28:08,720
Speaker 1: how awesome and important it is. Part of that is

572
00:28:08,800 --> 00:28:11,400
Speaker 1: the helmet interface, right, you know, the thirty five has

573
00:28:11,440 --> 00:28:15,640
Speaker 1: got famously these four hundred thousand dollar helmets that can

574
00:28:15,680 --> 00:28:18,520
Speaker 1: show you way more of the battle space than you

575
00:28:18,560 --> 00:28:22,080
Speaker 1: were able to really understand in one streamlined view when

576
00:28:22,080 --> 00:28:24,040
Speaker 1: you are in F sixteen pilot, is that something you

577
00:28:24,040 --> 00:28:28,800
Speaker 1: can talk to sure imagine it's true augmented reality, So

578
00:28:28,840 --> 00:28:32,439
Speaker 1: imagine the battlefield and you can look out there, and

579
00:28:32,520 --> 00:28:35,159
Speaker 1: you can see circles over all the good guys, and

580
00:28:35,160 --> 00:28:38,280
Speaker 1: then you can see numbers with the flight positions for

581
00:28:38,320 --> 00:28:41,480
Speaker 1: anybody that's flying in your formation. When you look out,

582
00:28:41,560 --> 00:28:44,480
Speaker 1: you see diamonds over all the bad guys, and you

583
00:28:44,520 --> 00:28:47,160
Speaker 1: can see you know, who's targeted to them. It's it's

584
00:28:47,200 --> 00:28:50,800
Speaker 1: pretty amazing, the true augmented reality of it. It's it

585
00:28:50,840 --> 00:28:53,960
Speaker 1: goes back to the sensor fusion. So in that sixteen

586
00:28:54,000 --> 00:28:56,240
Speaker 1: there's none of this. Every censor was tied to a

587
00:28:56,400 --> 00:28:59,480
Speaker 1: different display. In fact, in the sixteen we had quite

588
00:28:59,520 --> 00:29:02,400
Speaker 1: a few pie it's mis prioritized and they would run

589
00:29:02,400 --> 00:29:05,000
Speaker 1: into mountains and kill themselves. Again, we talked to one

590
00:29:05,120 --> 00:29:07,840
Speaker 1: pilot a year was lost to a a g lock

591
00:29:08,080 --> 00:29:11,240
Speaker 1: about a pilot a year was lost to a sea

592
00:29:11,240 --> 00:29:14,040
Speaker 1: fit controlled flight into terrain. So it was the pilot's

593
00:29:14,080 --> 00:29:17,080
Speaker 1: brain that was having to fuse all this information together.

594
00:29:17,240 --> 00:29:20,280
Speaker 1: And now some of those f sixteens have some augmented

595
00:29:20,360 --> 00:29:24,040
Speaker 1: reality systems, but this is that on steroids. So you

596
00:29:24,040 --> 00:29:27,640
Speaker 1: can just look out of your jet and see all

597
00:29:27,680 --> 00:29:31,080
Speaker 1: the data that would normally have been through different dials

598
00:29:31,120 --> 00:29:33,560
Speaker 1: and screens in front of you. Now, just think about

599
00:29:33,560 --> 00:29:36,240
Speaker 1: all those people who tell you about distracted driving, right,

600
00:29:36,280 --> 00:29:38,200
Speaker 1: you know, don't look at your cell phone while you're driving,

601
00:29:38,520 --> 00:29:41,600
Speaker 1: don't change the radio while you're driving. Imagine that you're

602
00:29:41,600 --> 00:29:45,280
Speaker 1: in a combat aircraft, you know, flying at mock one feasibly,

603
00:29:45,640 --> 00:29:49,480
Speaker 1: and you're trying to keep tabs on multiple displays that

604
00:29:49,560 --> 00:29:51,840
Speaker 1: are just below your field of view as well as

605
00:29:51,840 --> 00:29:55,720
Speaker 1: three and sixty degrees of what's around me. How fast

606
00:29:55,720 --> 00:29:57,560
Speaker 1: am I moving and how far am I from the ground.

607
00:29:58,000 --> 00:30:01,080
Speaker 1: That's just how complicated the job biz for your average

608
00:30:01,080 --> 00:30:03,080
Speaker 1: fighter pilot. And that's one of the ways that the

609
00:30:03,080 --> 00:30:05,840
Speaker 1: F thirty five is really changing the game, as it's

610
00:30:06,080 --> 00:30:08,840
Speaker 1: alleviating a lot of that stress and giving guys like

611
00:30:08,880 --> 00:30:11,800
Speaker 1: justin the chance to focus on the task at And Yeah,

612
00:30:11,840 --> 00:30:14,080
Speaker 1: a lot of people ask me what was more fun

613
00:30:14,120 --> 00:30:16,240
Speaker 1: to fly the F sixteen or the F thirty five,

614
00:30:16,320 --> 00:30:19,880
Speaker 1: And I think it's both equal. Like F sixteen when

615
00:30:19,920 --> 00:30:22,400
Speaker 1: it was designed, it was cutting edge, and people said

616
00:30:22,440 --> 00:30:24,680
Speaker 1: the same thing, it's too automated, it's doing too many

617
00:30:24,680 --> 00:30:27,080
Speaker 1: things for you. Same with the thirty five. But what

618
00:30:27,160 --> 00:30:29,800
Speaker 1: that allows you to do is take it a level up.

619
00:30:29,840 --> 00:30:32,680
Speaker 1: You're able to be a little bit more strategic, You're

620
00:30:32,720 --> 00:30:35,800
Speaker 1: able to again going back to being the quarterback out

621
00:30:35,800 --> 00:30:38,920
Speaker 1: there and making decisions that are just outside of your jet,

622
00:30:39,160 --> 00:30:41,720
Speaker 1: outside of your flight, so you can help out other

623
00:30:41,760 --> 00:30:45,239
Speaker 1: formations out there. So I think as fighter pilots, our

624
00:30:45,320 --> 00:30:47,600
Speaker 1: job is to make good decisions, and there are thousands

625
00:30:47,640 --> 00:30:50,880
Speaker 1: of decisions to be made every flight, and it augments

626
00:30:50,920 --> 00:30:53,000
Speaker 1: those decisions so we can make more of them and

627
00:30:53,120 --> 00:30:56,160
Speaker 1: better decisions throughout the course of a sorty, you know.

628
00:30:56,200 --> 00:30:58,280
Speaker 1: And this is a really this is a really important

629
00:30:58,280 --> 00:31:00,400
Speaker 1: thing to talk about as well, because the third five

630
00:31:01,040 --> 00:31:03,600
Speaker 1: wasn't built to be a dog fighting platform. That's not

631
00:31:03,680 --> 00:31:07,000
Speaker 1: its purpose. You know. The F twenty two raft, which

632
00:31:07,040 --> 00:31:09,160
Speaker 1: is also a fifth generation fighter. For those of you

633
00:31:09,160 --> 00:31:11,400
Speaker 1: guys that may not be that familiar with these aircraft,

634
00:31:11,720 --> 00:31:14,200
Speaker 1: the F thirty five does draw a lot of the headlines.

635
00:31:14,240 --> 00:31:16,480
Speaker 1: But prior to the F thirty five, there was the

636
00:31:16,520 --> 00:31:19,360
Speaker 1: F twenty two, which is really an air superiority fighter.

637
00:31:19,440 --> 00:31:22,440
Speaker 1: It's kind of the next generation of the F five

638
00:31:22,520 --> 00:31:25,120
Speaker 1: keys lineage, Whereas in a way you could kind of

639
00:31:25,160 --> 00:31:27,120
Speaker 1: say the F thirty five is the next of the

640
00:31:27,120 --> 00:31:30,120
Speaker 1: F sixtien lineage. Is that fair? Yes, the F twenty

641
00:31:30,160 --> 00:31:32,400
Speaker 1: two is kind of based on that fifteen and the

642
00:31:32,480 --> 00:31:35,680
Speaker 1: F thirty five is semi based on F sixteen. And

643
00:31:35,840 --> 00:31:39,200
Speaker 1: because of that, if you're trying to plan an operation

644
00:31:39,440 --> 00:31:42,760
Speaker 1: like Justin was mentioning earlier, and you've got enemy fighters

645
00:31:42,760 --> 00:31:45,120
Speaker 1: that you're worried about, the F thirty five is not

646
00:31:45,200 --> 00:31:48,600
Speaker 1: necessarily the platform that you would send to go engage

647
00:31:48,680 --> 00:31:52,080
Speaker 1: enemy fighters. The F twenty two, theoretically is the one

648
00:31:52,120 --> 00:31:54,760
Speaker 1: we have purpose built for those reasons. But the F

649
00:31:54,880 --> 00:31:58,320
Speaker 1: thirty five has had huge success in these red flag

650
00:31:58,400 --> 00:32:00,920
Speaker 1: training operations. I don't want to quote the number off

651
00:32:00,920 --> 00:32:03,000
Speaker 1: the top of my head, but we're talking like double

652
00:32:03,040 --> 00:32:05,760
Speaker 1: digits to one in terms of F thirty five enemies

653
00:32:05,840 --> 00:32:08,360
Speaker 1: killed versus F thirty five is lost. And these mock

654
00:32:08,440 --> 00:32:11,360
Speaker 1: dog fights. So obviously, even though the F thirty five

655
00:32:11,440 --> 00:32:14,480
Speaker 1: wasn't necessarily built to be a dog fighter, it is

656
00:32:14,560 --> 00:32:17,640
Speaker 1: really really good at engaging enemy fighters. But I would argue,

657
00:32:18,000 --> 00:32:20,120
Speaker 1: kind of in contrast to what we were talking about

658
00:32:20,120 --> 00:32:23,160
Speaker 1: with the Vietnam conflict, the F thirty five real moneymaker

659
00:32:23,240 --> 00:32:26,000
Speaker 1: is engaging opponents before they even know it's around, as

660
00:32:26,000 --> 00:32:28,920
Speaker 1: opposed to getting into real tight, turning dog fights like

661
00:32:29,000 --> 00:32:31,040
Speaker 1: you might have seen in the nineteen sixties. Is that

662
00:32:31,080 --> 00:32:32,640
Speaker 1: something you can talk to it all or is that

663
00:32:32,720 --> 00:32:35,240
Speaker 1: kind of verging on on the territory of up SEC.

664
00:32:35,640 --> 00:32:38,600
Speaker 1: I would say the paradigm is kind of changed again.

665
00:32:38,680 --> 00:32:41,680
Speaker 1: So we talked about how fighters were all about going

666
00:32:41,760 --> 00:32:45,000
Speaker 1: high and fast, then they became about turning. Now becomes

667
00:32:45,040 --> 00:32:49,560
Speaker 1: about detecting other fighters out there and being able to

668
00:32:49,600 --> 00:32:52,240
Speaker 1: be stealth and have them not see you. And that's

669
00:32:52,240 --> 00:32:54,240
Speaker 1: one of the biggest strengths of that thirty five is

670
00:32:54,280 --> 00:32:56,560
Speaker 1: we can see a lot of things. They have trouble

671
00:32:57,000 --> 00:33:00,000
Speaker 1: seeing us. So but that that raises a really, really

672
00:33:00,080 --> 00:33:02,120
Speaker 1: good point about when we're talking about the F thirty

673
00:33:02,160 --> 00:33:04,040
Speaker 1: five versus the F twenty two and what they're built

674
00:33:04,040 --> 00:33:06,800
Speaker 1: to do. The F thirty five wasn't necessarily built to

675
00:33:06,840 --> 00:33:09,920
Speaker 1: engage enemy fighters, but because of that paradigm shift, but

676
00:33:10,000 --> 00:33:13,200
Speaker 1: because the way air combat is changing, the F thirty

677
00:33:13,200 --> 00:33:15,680
Speaker 1: five has become dominant, at least when it comes to

678
00:33:15,720 --> 00:33:18,080
Speaker 1: these mock battles. We haven't seen the F thirty five

679
00:33:18,480 --> 00:33:21,560
Speaker 1: square off against an enemy fighter in real life yet,

680
00:33:21,800 --> 00:33:23,800
Speaker 1: but I want to make my prediction here because I

681
00:33:23,840 --> 00:33:26,440
Speaker 1: know for effect, no matter how are I try to

682
00:33:26,440 --> 00:33:29,440
Speaker 1: get Justin to talk about enemy aircraft, Justin will not

683
00:33:29,680 --> 00:33:34,360
Speaker 1: talk about Chinese airplanes, Russian airplanes, anybody else's airplanes, even

684
00:33:34,440 --> 00:33:36,640
Speaker 1: if I keep poking them. So I'm gonna make my prediction.

685
00:33:37,000 --> 00:33:39,320
Speaker 1: People always ask if the Sue thirty five could be

686
00:33:39,400 --> 00:33:41,600
Speaker 1: in F thirty five and a dog fight. The thirty

687
00:33:41,600 --> 00:33:46,000
Speaker 1: five is Russia's most capable fourth generation fighter, their fifth

688
00:33:46,080 --> 00:33:48,880
Speaker 1: generation fighter, the S fifty seven is dog shit. I'm

689
00:33:48,880 --> 00:33:51,320
Speaker 1: not worried about that. The thirty five is a very

690
00:33:51,320 --> 00:33:54,360
Speaker 1: capable fighter, but in my opinion, the F thirty five

691
00:33:54,360 --> 00:33:56,160
Speaker 1: would kill it before it put his pants on. The

692
00:33:56,480 --> 00:33:58,760
Speaker 1: thirty five and an F thirty five and the knuckles out,

693
00:33:59,120 --> 00:34:01,480
Speaker 1: you know, dog fight. Maybe you know it's real acrobatic,

694
00:34:01,520 --> 00:34:04,440
Speaker 1: it's real fast, it's got real tight turns. In my opinion,

695
00:34:04,480 --> 00:34:06,880
Speaker 1: the F thirty five would be the sniper in this instance,

696
00:34:06,920 --> 00:34:09,000
Speaker 1: and it wouldn't bother getting in the ring. I know

697
00:34:09,120 --> 00:34:11,440
Speaker 1: Justin won't probably talk about it, but I'll ask you anyway.

698
00:34:11,560 --> 00:34:12,799
Speaker 1: I mean, if you want, you can just kind of

699
00:34:12,840 --> 00:34:14,879
Speaker 1: like say wink and nod to me if you think

700
00:34:14,880 --> 00:34:20,880
Speaker 1: I'm right or all right, that's fair, that's fair. The

701
00:34:20,920 --> 00:34:23,080
Speaker 1: most important question I have for you, though, about this

702
00:34:23,080 --> 00:34:27,759
Speaker 1: augmented reality and these fo dollar helmets is are they comfortable.

703
00:34:28,239 --> 00:34:30,279
Speaker 1: I mean, you've got a lot of hardwarell especially under

704
00:34:30,320 --> 00:34:32,719
Speaker 1: G so it's gonna be a little bit heavier than

705
00:34:32,800 --> 00:34:37,080
Speaker 1: our fortune. Hammocks that we're fine within that sixteen. So

706
00:34:37,520 --> 00:34:39,640
Speaker 1: it's a little bit heavier, a little bit more cumbersome.

707
00:34:40,120 --> 00:34:41,920
Speaker 1: And now that the thirty five can pull up to

708
00:34:42,040 --> 00:34:46,000
Speaker 1: nine G s hurt your neck, so both short term

709
00:34:46,480 --> 00:34:49,960
Speaker 1: network right, yeah, I mean we'll do network A. Net

710
00:34:49,960 --> 00:34:53,560
Speaker 1: workouts and leg workouts are the biggest thing that that

711
00:34:53,640 --> 00:34:56,200
Speaker 1: will do to be able to survive the G forces.

712
00:34:56,400 --> 00:34:58,680
Speaker 1: So it is cumbersome. There are a lot of pilots

713
00:34:58,719 --> 00:35:01,120
Speaker 1: that end up going on to having neck and back

714
00:35:01,200 --> 00:35:04,440
Speaker 1: issues after flying, and that's true for for all the

715
00:35:04,480 --> 00:35:07,319
Speaker 1: fighters out there. I can only imagine. I don't want

716
00:35:07,320 --> 00:35:10,560
Speaker 1: to imagine. But you touched upon something there briefly that

717
00:35:10,600 --> 00:35:13,239
Speaker 1: I'm not sure people will really understand, and you said,

718
00:35:13,320 --> 00:35:16,320
Speaker 1: given that the thirty five can now call nine ges,

719
00:35:16,760 --> 00:35:19,120
Speaker 1: it's an increased issue. I want to point out to

720
00:35:19,120 --> 00:35:22,520
Speaker 1: people that you're not suggesting that something mechanically has changed

721
00:35:22,560 --> 00:35:25,080
Speaker 1: about the F thirty five in the recent past, but

722
00:35:25,160 --> 00:35:28,839
Speaker 1: we're talking about software upgrades, right, So these jets are

723
00:35:28,840 --> 00:35:31,680
Speaker 1: a lot more like your cell phone than like a

724
00:35:31,880 --> 00:35:35,000
Speaker 1: like an airplane, So everything is software dependent. If your

725
00:35:35,000 --> 00:35:37,120
Speaker 1: cell phone does not have good software, it's just a

726
00:35:37,120 --> 00:35:40,280
Speaker 1: paperweight out there. Same with these jets. So the software

727
00:35:40,360 --> 00:35:43,400
Speaker 1: was lagging a little bit. But we had new software

728
00:35:43,520 --> 00:35:47,040
Speaker 1: last year that allowed us to pull a lot more gs,

729
00:35:47,040 --> 00:35:49,239
Speaker 1: so we were able to pull what the airplane was

730
00:35:49,280 --> 00:35:52,239
Speaker 1: designed for nine g s. It also unlocked the gun,

731
00:35:52,360 --> 00:35:54,640
Speaker 1: so it's a lot like a video game, and that

732
00:35:55,080 --> 00:35:58,480
Speaker 1: everything is tied to the to the software, and overnight

733
00:35:58,840 --> 00:36:00,640
Speaker 1: the jet can get a lot better. So I would

734
00:36:00,640 --> 00:36:03,960
Speaker 1: say it's more like driving a Tesla than a nineteen

735
00:36:04,000 --> 00:36:06,480
Speaker 1: sixties Corvette now. And I mean you really need to

736
00:36:06,520 --> 00:36:09,160
Speaker 1: be a student of your platform all the time then

737
00:36:09,200 --> 00:36:11,120
Speaker 1: in order to stay on top of because I mean,

738
00:36:11,120 --> 00:36:14,080
Speaker 1: I can only imagine if you flew in f thirty five,

739
00:36:14,400 --> 00:36:16,879
Speaker 1: went to bed that night, got up the next day,

740
00:36:16,960 --> 00:36:20,880
Speaker 1: and the capabilities of the platform had been grossly opened up.

741
00:36:20,920 --> 00:36:22,839
Speaker 1: All of a sudden, it can do you know, more

742
00:36:22,960 --> 00:36:24,520
Speaker 1: gs and a turn. All of a sudden, it can

743
00:36:24,520 --> 00:36:27,080
Speaker 1: accelerate faster. All of a sudden, you have access to

744
00:36:27,120 --> 00:36:30,120
Speaker 1: a twenty millimeter canon. If you're not staying on top

745
00:36:30,160 --> 00:36:33,320
Speaker 1: of the study side of this, the the the academic

746
00:36:33,400 --> 00:36:36,120
Speaker 1: side A flying this platform, it's going to surprise the

747
00:36:36,160 --> 00:36:38,799
Speaker 1: hell out of you, i'd imagine. Yeah, that's the fun

748
00:36:38,920 --> 00:36:41,439
Speaker 1: part though too. We actually have a say in where

749
00:36:41,480 --> 00:36:44,400
Speaker 1: these tactics are going. In the F sixteen, the tactics

750
00:36:44,400 --> 00:36:46,440
Speaker 1: have been designed over the last forty years and that

751
00:36:46,560 --> 00:36:49,839
Speaker 1: thirty five. We're kind of making up new tactics as

752
00:36:49,840 --> 00:36:52,440
Speaker 1: we go along. So that's the fun part is being

753
00:36:52,480 --> 00:36:54,759
Speaker 1: able to be creative and figure out new things. The

754
00:36:54,760 --> 00:36:58,239
Speaker 1: difficult part, like you said, is things changed constantly, so

755
00:36:58,360 --> 00:37:01,839
Speaker 1: you always have to be studying. Before sortie, I would

756
00:37:01,840 --> 00:37:04,840
Speaker 1: say we've spent about three hours mission planning for the

757
00:37:04,880 --> 00:37:07,920
Speaker 1: flight itself. Will will show up in about two and

758
00:37:07,960 --> 00:37:10,440
Speaker 1: a half hours before we take off, and we'll go

759
00:37:10,480 --> 00:37:12,880
Speaker 1: through a flight brief, going through a rehearsal of everything

760
00:37:12,880 --> 00:37:15,520
Speaker 1: we're gonna do. We'll go and fly and just for

761
00:37:15,560 --> 00:37:17,480
Speaker 1: about an hour and a half, and then we'll come

762
00:37:17,520 --> 00:37:20,680
Speaker 1: back and we'll spend three to five hours debriefing every

763
00:37:20,719 --> 00:37:24,080
Speaker 1: single decision that we made and seeing if we could

764
00:37:24,080 --> 00:37:26,359
Speaker 1: have done it better. And on top of that, we'll

765
00:37:26,400 --> 00:37:31,080
Speaker 1: do some studying every day on new capabilities, on new

766
00:37:31,120 --> 00:37:34,160
Speaker 1: things that we're trying to work on. That's in that

767
00:37:34,239 --> 00:37:36,600
Speaker 1: after action report that the real gems are found. It's

768
00:37:36,640 --> 00:37:39,120
Speaker 1: my belief, and whether you're talking about flying a sword

769
00:37:39,200 --> 00:37:42,200
Speaker 1: in an thirty five or going on vacation with your

770
00:37:42,200 --> 00:37:45,319
Speaker 1: family to Disney World, after action reports them the most

771
00:37:45,360 --> 00:37:49,799
Speaker 1: important part, right, because that's the most important thing. And

772
00:37:49,840 --> 00:37:52,160
Speaker 1: that's actually one of the things that I've learned in

773
00:37:52,200 --> 00:37:55,600
Speaker 1: my podcast is a lot of these top professionals they

774
00:37:55,640 --> 00:37:59,160
Speaker 1: don't do a complete debrief in their field. So that's

775
00:37:59,200 --> 00:38:01,320
Speaker 1: one of the things that I think the whole world

776
00:38:01,320 --> 00:38:04,040
Speaker 1: can get a little bit better at having their debrief

777
00:38:04,080 --> 00:38:06,239
Speaker 1: a little bit more like a fighter debrief in that

778
00:38:06,280 --> 00:38:09,640
Speaker 1: we go through every decision point afterwards and figuring out

779
00:38:09,719 --> 00:38:13,240
Speaker 1: what we could have done better, consolidating that in lessons learned,

780
00:38:13,600 --> 00:38:16,200
Speaker 1: and then writing that down for the next flight, and

781
00:38:16,239 --> 00:38:18,520
Speaker 1: writing it down from the next flight. That's the crazy

782
00:38:18,560 --> 00:38:21,240
Speaker 1: important part here, because we're talking about not just making

783
00:38:21,239 --> 00:38:25,160
Speaker 1: this better for hazard, for Major League the next time

784
00:38:25,200 --> 00:38:27,120
Speaker 1: he jumps in an F thirty five. The end goal

785
00:38:27,239 --> 00:38:29,560
Speaker 1: here really is the thirty five is going to be

786
00:38:29,560 --> 00:38:32,960
Speaker 1: an operational aircraft for sixty years to come, or more right,

787
00:38:33,400 --> 00:38:35,520
Speaker 1: fifty years from now. Major Lee is not going to

788
00:38:35,640 --> 00:38:38,960
Speaker 1: be there to impart these lessons, right. That's the benefit

789
00:38:39,000 --> 00:38:41,759
Speaker 1: of these after action reports is that the flying that

790
00:38:41,880 --> 00:38:44,600
Speaker 1: Justin is doing today is going to inform the tactics

791
00:38:44,680 --> 00:38:47,640
Speaker 1: that are utilized in combat thirty years from now. And

792
00:38:47,680 --> 00:38:49,520
Speaker 1: when you think about that, that makes your day job

793
00:38:49,760 --> 00:38:53,520
Speaker 1: pretty crazy, right yeah, I mean, especially since this is

794
00:38:53,640 --> 00:38:56,560
Speaker 1: kind of the probably not the first, but the second

795
00:38:56,560 --> 00:38:59,799
Speaker 1: iteration of going through tactics and figuring out what's going on.

796
00:39:00,040 --> 00:39:03,120
Speaker 1: So what we set up right now, it's gonna it's

797
00:39:03,120 --> 00:39:05,359
Speaker 1: gonna live a long time in this jet, like you said,

798
00:39:05,480 --> 00:39:09,240
Speaker 1: is gonna be around for a very long time, longer

799
00:39:09,280 --> 00:39:11,719
Speaker 1: than I'm gonna be around, that's for sure. This is

800
00:39:11,719 --> 00:39:13,960
Speaker 1: a place where the United States is absolutely at the

801
00:39:14,000 --> 00:39:16,239
Speaker 1: forefront here, you know, because China and Russia both do

802
00:39:16,360 --> 00:39:19,680
Speaker 1: F fifth generation platforms. China has the J twenty and

803
00:39:19,719 --> 00:39:23,240
Speaker 1: eventually the J thirty one. Russia has the Sioux fifty seven. However,

804
00:39:23,719 --> 00:39:26,800
Speaker 1: and both of these instances we're talking about a token fleet.

805
00:39:26,920 --> 00:39:30,680
Speaker 1: You know. China has maybe fewer than twenty J twenties

806
00:39:30,680 --> 00:39:33,279
Speaker 1: that are operational, I think only one that has the

807
00:39:33,280 --> 00:39:37,080
Speaker 1: actual engine system that they intend to field the jet with. Likewise,

808
00:39:37,080 --> 00:39:39,319
Speaker 1: with Russia they have I think thirteen, so fifty seven

809
00:39:39,400 --> 00:39:42,160
Speaker 1: is one that's got the engine that they actually intend

810
00:39:42,200 --> 00:39:45,600
Speaker 1: to field these platforms with. So the United States, on

811
00:39:45,640 --> 00:39:48,280
Speaker 1: the other hand, we have hundreds of F thirty fives

812
00:39:48,280 --> 00:39:51,960
Speaker 1: I think a total of three have been delivered from Lockheed,

813
00:39:52,360 --> 00:39:54,640
Speaker 1: and then we have another hundred and eighty six total.

814
00:39:54,760 --> 00:39:57,840
Speaker 1: So in terms of operational fewer F twenty two, the

815
00:39:57,920 --> 00:40:01,920
Speaker 1: United States has two operational fifth generation aircraft in the

816
00:40:01,960 --> 00:40:04,960
Speaker 1: skies right now, which really sets us apart from other

817
00:40:05,040 --> 00:40:07,480
Speaker 1: nations in the world. But you know what we're talking

818
00:40:07,520 --> 00:40:09,360
Speaker 1: about here is that in fifty years that will no

819
00:40:09,440 --> 00:40:12,120
Speaker 1: longer be the case. So in fifty years, it's gonna

820
00:40:12,160 --> 00:40:16,800
Speaker 1: be this headstart that pilot instructors like Justin are creating

821
00:40:16,800 --> 00:40:19,560
Speaker 1: for the United States that's going to continue to give

822
00:40:19,600 --> 00:40:24,120
Speaker 1: us the advantage as this technology becomes more pervasive worldwide.

823
00:40:24,120 --> 00:40:26,759
Speaker 1: But that leads me to another important question for for

824
00:40:26,760 --> 00:40:28,720
Speaker 1: the folks out there that might not be that familiar

825
00:40:28,760 --> 00:40:31,920
Speaker 1: with F thirty five or just fighter operations in general.

826
00:40:32,200 --> 00:40:34,640
Speaker 1: How much time would you, say, a week or a month,

827
00:40:34,719 --> 00:40:38,440
Speaker 1: do you actually spend in your aircraft getting accustomed to

828
00:40:38,480 --> 00:40:41,880
Speaker 1: flying the platform or really taking into the skies. How

829
00:40:41,960 --> 00:40:44,520
Speaker 1: much time do you spend in the cockpit? Well to

830
00:40:44,560 --> 00:40:47,040
Speaker 1: answer or to add on to what you said before,

831
00:40:47,080 --> 00:40:49,920
Speaker 1: it's pretty cool. I went through pilot training out here

832
00:40:49,960 --> 00:40:53,080
Speaker 1: in two thousand eleven. There are only F sixteens out here.

833
00:40:53,200 --> 00:40:56,880
Speaker 1: I came back in two seventeen and there were I

834
00:40:56,920 --> 00:41:00,399
Speaker 1: think they're about fifty thirty five's out here and we're

835
00:41:00,440 --> 00:41:03,000
Speaker 1: just constantly getting a stream of them. My new squadron,

836
00:41:03,320 --> 00:41:06,200
Speaker 1: we started off with two F thirty five and now

837
00:41:06,200 --> 00:41:08,160
Speaker 1: we have a full squadron out here. So it's been

838
00:41:08,239 --> 00:41:11,239
Speaker 1: really fun to see these new jets show up from

839
00:41:11,239 --> 00:41:14,560
Speaker 1: the factory with six seven eight hours. When I was

840
00:41:14,560 --> 00:41:17,799
Speaker 1: flying F six teams before at a Korea that had

841
00:41:17,800 --> 00:41:20,800
Speaker 1: been had been built. I think in the eighties I

842
00:41:20,880 --> 00:41:22,840
Speaker 1: had a buddy was a Harrier mechanic in the Marine

843
00:41:22,840 --> 00:41:24,799
Speaker 1: Corps and he was like, we do not have a

844
00:41:24,800 --> 00:41:27,719
Speaker 1: single aircraft that is younger than me. Yeah, well they

845
00:41:27,719 --> 00:41:29,719
Speaker 1: have that thirty five now, so I think they're the

846
00:41:29,760 --> 00:41:32,320
Speaker 1: biggest jump from going from a Harrier to F thirty

847
00:41:32,320 --> 00:41:36,680
Speaker 1: five by that's one out But in terms of weekly flying,

848
00:41:36,760 --> 00:41:40,040
Speaker 1: it just depends. So we all have different jobs that

849
00:41:40,120 --> 00:41:43,040
Speaker 1: we do on the base, so these different jobs will

850
00:41:43,080 --> 00:41:45,560
Speaker 1: be being a flight commander, being in charge of some

851
00:41:45,600 --> 00:41:49,080
Speaker 1: other pilots out there, making sure that their officer performance

852
00:41:49,120 --> 00:41:52,000
Speaker 1: reports go up, all the standard stuff that's that's in

853
00:41:52,000 --> 00:41:56,560
Speaker 1: the military. So I would say we average about three

854
00:41:56,680 --> 00:41:59,719
Speaker 1: flights a week, but it just depends if you have

855
00:41:59,760 --> 00:42:02,360
Speaker 1: a more important job to the base. If you're the

856
00:42:02,360 --> 00:42:05,880
Speaker 1: wing commander, you're probably flying only once a week. So

857
00:42:05,960 --> 00:42:08,840
Speaker 1: it just depends. It goes in phases as well, depending

858
00:42:08,880 --> 00:42:11,839
Speaker 1: on when people are going on leave, what exercises we're doing.

859
00:42:11,920 --> 00:42:14,399
Speaker 1: So some people are getting a lot more flight time

860
00:42:14,440 --> 00:42:16,920
Speaker 1: than that, some people a lot less. But so that

861
00:42:17,080 --> 00:42:20,600
Speaker 1: goes back to why it's so important. Flying these jets

862
00:42:20,640 --> 00:42:25,239
Speaker 1: is incredibly expensive. So much man hours and time goes

863
00:42:25,280 --> 00:42:27,239
Speaker 1: into building these things. I was able to go to

864
00:42:27,239 --> 00:42:29,359
Speaker 1: the factory and for worth a couple of months ago.

865
00:42:29,880 --> 00:42:33,000
Speaker 1: It's almost a mile long of just people putting together

866
00:42:33,560 --> 00:42:36,160
Speaker 1: parts for that thirty five. And you'll look into one

867
00:42:36,200 --> 00:42:38,719
Speaker 1: of these clean rooms and there are people in these

868
00:42:38,760 --> 00:42:41,520
Speaker 1: clean rooms for ten hours a day that are laying

869
00:42:41,600 --> 00:42:45,080
Speaker 1: carbon fiber strips just to make one panel for your

870
00:42:45,080 --> 00:42:48,279
Speaker 1: f thirty five. So it's it was almost it was

871
00:42:48,360 --> 00:42:51,000
Speaker 1: humbling and also and made me want to be a

872
00:42:51,000 --> 00:42:53,880
Speaker 1: better pilot because so much, so many people are working

873
00:42:54,160 --> 00:42:57,279
Speaker 1: so hard to to make this program work. So that's

874
00:42:57,280 --> 00:42:59,919
Speaker 1: why it's so important to do your studying so import

875
00:43:00,040 --> 00:43:04,080
Speaker 1: into debrief, important to visualize what you're doing. So going

876
00:43:04,160 --> 00:43:07,840
Speaker 1: back to some of that mental training and pilot training especially,

877
00:43:08,280 --> 00:43:11,120
Speaker 1: you can fly a whole sorty in your brain seeing

878
00:43:11,120 --> 00:43:13,480
Speaker 1: different things out there and what you would do. So

879
00:43:13,560 --> 00:43:15,520
Speaker 1: it's it's it's kind of like playing a sport and

880
00:43:15,560 --> 00:43:18,080
Speaker 1: that you can visualize exactly what's going on, and then

881
00:43:18,080 --> 00:43:20,440
Speaker 1: on game day you might see some variations of that,

882
00:43:20,719 --> 00:43:23,400
Speaker 1: but you've already fought the battle in your head. And

883
00:43:23,520 --> 00:43:25,440
Speaker 1: while we're talking about the F thirty five, there's a

884
00:43:25,440 --> 00:43:27,560
Speaker 1: few just easy ones I wanted to toss your way,

885
00:43:27,600 --> 00:43:30,160
Speaker 1: Like one question I really wanted to ask was for

886
00:43:30,160 --> 00:43:33,239
Speaker 1: the people out there who have never been in the military. Uh,

887
00:43:33,280 --> 00:43:36,440
Speaker 1: you know, I've never been around military aviation. What is

888
00:43:36,480 --> 00:43:39,480
Speaker 1: something about flying the F thirty five or the platform

889
00:43:39,480 --> 00:43:42,480
Speaker 1: itself that you think might surprise folks that their only

890
00:43:42,520 --> 00:43:45,280
Speaker 1: understanding of this aircraft has come from headlines on CNN.

891
00:43:45,560 --> 00:43:48,000
Speaker 1: You know, is there is there anything to your experience

892
00:43:48,080 --> 00:43:50,760
Speaker 1: or to the aircraft itself that you think people didn't

893
00:43:50,880 --> 00:43:54,640
Speaker 1: notice that is actually really really cool or just really interesting.

894
00:43:55,080 --> 00:43:58,160
Speaker 1: It's a good aircraft. I think I'm not that biased

895
00:43:58,200 --> 00:44:00,600
Speaker 1: because I grew up on the F sixteen. F sixteen

896
00:44:00,600 --> 00:44:03,399
Speaker 1: will always be my first love, but that thirty five

897
00:44:03,480 --> 00:44:07,120
Speaker 1: is a much better aircraft. I think it's a technological

898
00:44:07,320 --> 00:44:10,799
Speaker 1: s curve. It's like when the first iPhone came out.

899
00:44:10,800 --> 00:44:12,799
Speaker 1: It was it had a lot of issues. It had

900
00:44:12,800 --> 00:44:15,759
Speaker 1: a lot of bugs because everybody was using blackberries at

901
00:44:15,760 --> 00:44:18,640
Speaker 1: the time. But you can see there's no blackberries around anymore.

902
00:44:18,640 --> 00:44:21,040
Speaker 1: Everybody is using smartphones now. And it's the same thing

903
00:44:21,040 --> 00:44:22,879
Speaker 1: with the F thirty five. When it first came out,

904
00:44:23,280 --> 00:44:25,359
Speaker 1: they had a lot of bugs. They were working through it.

905
00:44:25,600 --> 00:44:29,239
Speaker 1: That's same with any new technology. But we finally hit

906
00:44:29,280 --> 00:44:33,440
Speaker 1: the inflection point I think was the big moment when

907
00:44:33,520 --> 00:44:35,759
Speaker 1: you know, we unlocked a lot of the capabilities of

908
00:44:35,800 --> 00:44:38,200
Speaker 1: that thirty five, And in five years this jet is

909
00:44:38,200 --> 00:44:40,279
Speaker 1: going to be a beast. In ten years, it's going

910
00:44:40,360 --> 00:44:44,480
Speaker 1: to be incredible. I have a new kid on the way.

911
00:44:44,960 --> 00:44:48,000
Speaker 1: When that kid, you know, if he becomes a fighter pilot,

912
00:44:48,440 --> 00:44:50,200
Speaker 1: this chet is going to be a whole new animal.

913
00:44:50,200 --> 00:44:52,359
Speaker 1: Look what we did with F sixteen. It was when

914
00:44:52,440 --> 00:44:55,080
Speaker 1: it first came out in the nineteen seventies, it was

915
00:44:55,160 --> 00:44:57,840
Speaker 1: just a BFM machine with some AIM nine papas on

916
00:44:57,840 --> 00:44:59,800
Speaker 1: the wings. And now it's doing SEED, it's doing CA,

917
00:45:00,520 --> 00:45:02,800
Speaker 1: it's doing d c A, it's doing all these mission

918
00:45:02,840 --> 00:45:05,600
Speaker 1: sets that it was never designed to do. So that's

919
00:45:05,680 --> 00:45:08,880
Speaker 1: sixteen fifteen had a had a forty year head start

920
00:45:08,920 --> 00:45:12,600
Speaker 1: in terms of optimization, is going to get there. People

921
00:45:12,600 --> 00:45:16,360
Speaker 1: really do forget that the F sixteen originally was in

922
00:45:16,400 --> 00:45:18,319
Speaker 1: a big way kind of intended to be an air

923
00:45:18,320 --> 00:45:22,200
Speaker 1: superiority fighter. It wasn't really built specifically to be a

924
00:45:22,280 --> 00:45:25,440
Speaker 1: multi role or like you said, a close air support aircraft,

925
00:45:25,520 --> 00:45:28,400
Speaker 1: and and the intervening decades it has proven itself to

926
00:45:28,440 --> 00:45:32,200
Speaker 1: be incredibly effective as a ground engagement platform, but that

927
00:45:32,280 --> 00:45:34,719
Speaker 1: wasn't necessarily what it was set out to be. Likewise,

928
00:45:34,719 --> 00:45:37,920
Speaker 1: with the thirty five, it was designed to be a

929
00:45:37,960 --> 00:45:41,080
Speaker 1: ground engagement platform, and it has since proven, at least

930
00:45:41,120 --> 00:45:44,440
Speaker 1: in training environments, to be an incredibly capable dog fighter.

931
00:45:44,719 --> 00:45:47,600
Speaker 1: You know, So, I think that your your analogy really

932
00:45:47,600 --> 00:45:50,000
Speaker 1: holds true that it takes a little bit of time

933
00:45:50,040 --> 00:45:53,400
Speaker 1: to really figure out the real strengths of these aircraft

934
00:45:53,440 --> 00:45:55,480
Speaker 1: once you get them into the sky, once you get

935
00:45:55,560 --> 00:45:57,960
Speaker 1: them into the hands of capable pilots. I want to

936
00:45:58,000 --> 00:45:59,520
Speaker 1: point out that you mentioned you've got a kid on

937
00:45:59,560 --> 00:46:02,280
Speaker 1: the way, which, of course congratulations, because anybody who follows

938
00:46:02,280 --> 00:46:04,160
Speaker 1: me on Instagram knows that I am the world's most

939
00:46:04,160 --> 00:46:06,879
Speaker 1: boring dad. But I want to ask you I talked

940
00:46:06,880 --> 00:46:09,239
Speaker 1: to you about this before. I know that this is

941
00:46:09,280 --> 00:46:11,239
Speaker 1: kind of a sensitive subject, but we really need to

942
00:46:11,239 --> 00:46:14,000
Speaker 1: talk about the movie Iron Eagle, because you got it

943
00:46:14,600 --> 00:46:18,120
Speaker 1: right that I haven't seen this movie in probably twenty

944
00:46:18,120 --> 00:46:20,319
Speaker 1: five years, but I do really remember as a kid.

945
00:46:20,600 --> 00:46:22,640
Speaker 1: You know, I've got I've got vision problems, I've got

946
00:46:22,840 --> 00:46:24,480
Speaker 1: you know, so I would never have been able to

947
00:46:24,480 --> 00:46:27,640
Speaker 1: be a fighter pilot. But when young Alex was aspiring

948
00:46:27,640 --> 00:46:30,600
Speaker 1: to be a fighter pilot, I'd watch movies like Iron Eagle,

949
00:46:30,840 --> 00:46:33,400
Speaker 1: where it seemed a lot like being a fighter pilot

950
00:46:33,520 --> 00:46:35,600
Speaker 1: was just like having like a hot rod that you

951
00:46:35,640 --> 00:46:37,839
Speaker 1: worked on in your garage that you can feasibly take

952
00:46:37,840 --> 00:46:41,200
Speaker 1: out whenever you want. And I can't really remember too

953
00:46:41,280 --> 00:46:43,840
Speaker 1: much of Iron Eagle. I remember he was flying around

954
00:46:43,840 --> 00:46:47,040
Speaker 1: with a walkman, and I remember there's Chappie and he

955
00:46:47,080 --> 00:46:49,440
Speaker 1: went and saved his dad and I ran by himself,

956
00:46:49,520 --> 00:46:52,120
Speaker 1: so I forgot about the memories. Able to play music

957
00:46:52,120 --> 00:46:55,040
Speaker 1: while you're flying unfortunately not and there's just too much

958
00:46:55,080 --> 00:46:57,240
Speaker 1: going on. You want to focus on on the radio

959
00:46:57,280 --> 00:46:59,440
Speaker 1: calls that are out there. Yeah, I can imagine it

960
00:46:59,480 --> 00:47:01,440
Speaker 1: would not go over well if someone was trying to

961
00:47:01,440 --> 00:47:03,480
Speaker 1: talk to you on the radio and you were playing

962
00:47:03,640 --> 00:47:07,000
Speaker 1: you know, the danger Zone. But al right, so that

963
00:47:07,080 --> 00:47:08,680
Speaker 1: was the real choir and Eagles set me up for

964
00:47:08,719 --> 00:47:12,600
Speaker 1: some high expectations. So I I I've been consistently disappointed

965
00:47:12,800 --> 00:47:16,800
Speaker 1: ever since that. I firmly believe that eventually your son's

966
00:47:16,800 --> 00:47:19,000
Speaker 1: gonna get to steal in f thirty five with a

967
00:47:19,160 --> 00:47:21,560
Speaker 1: salty old colonel to go and rescue you from wherever

968
00:47:21,640 --> 00:47:24,560
Speaker 1: it is that we're going to war. But still, Lord knows,

969
00:47:24,600 --> 00:47:26,439
Speaker 1: I hope you're not still a major by the time

970
00:47:26,480 --> 00:47:29,640
Speaker 1: your kids flying. But well, Tom Cruise in his new

971
00:47:29,719 --> 00:47:33,719
Speaker 1: in this new movie, is still a I think a colonel.

972
00:47:35,040 --> 00:47:36,759
Speaker 1: I'm not even sure if he's a colonel. Yeah, but

973
00:47:37,080 --> 00:47:39,120
Speaker 1: I will see that. The trailer for Top Gun Too,

974
00:47:39,360 --> 00:47:41,680
Speaker 1: I honestly really enjoyed the trailer for Top Gun Too.

975
00:47:41,800 --> 00:47:43,759
Speaker 1: I stand by the fact that my opinion is that

976
00:47:43,840 --> 00:47:46,520
Speaker 1: Maverick was an asshole. He was not the good guy

977
00:47:46,520 --> 00:47:49,440
Speaker 1: on that movie. I think ice Man is the superior pilot.

978
00:47:49,640 --> 00:47:51,799
Speaker 1: I'd love to get your take on that. But the

979
00:47:51,840 --> 00:47:55,200
Speaker 1: Top Gun two trailer was really really exciting. But man

980
00:47:55,400 --> 00:48:02,240
Speaker 1: Ed Harris is old, so it's just hard to they've aged.

981
00:48:02,680 --> 00:48:04,759
Speaker 1: But yeah, I think that's one of the we when

982
00:48:04,880 --> 00:48:08,400
Speaker 1: you're asking some questions before about misconceptions, one of the things,

983
00:48:08,840 --> 00:48:11,759
Speaker 1: especially now is will be the mission commander is quite

984
00:48:11,760 --> 00:48:13,680
Speaker 1: a bit and you can't do out there and be

985
00:48:13,760 --> 00:48:17,239
Speaker 1: an asshole and you know, get the best performance out

986
00:48:17,239 --> 00:48:20,040
Speaker 1: of your team, even though everybody has different capabilities, some

987
00:48:20,120 --> 00:48:23,040
Speaker 1: better than others. You can't kind of, you know, be

988
00:48:23,120 --> 00:48:26,040
Speaker 1: an asshole and alienate one of the members of your team.

989
00:48:26,080 --> 00:48:28,200
Speaker 1: So I think it's about being a leader. And we're

990
00:48:28,200 --> 00:48:30,680
Speaker 1: trying to train the next generation of fighter pilots out here,

991
00:48:31,040 --> 00:48:33,239
Speaker 1: and we go to great lengths to try and make

992
00:48:33,280 --> 00:48:36,920
Speaker 1: sure that people are confident, but they're not overly cocky.

993
00:48:37,120 --> 00:48:40,239
Speaker 1: And another misconception was you're talking about eye problems. I

994
00:48:40,360 --> 00:48:43,319
Speaker 1: get asked all the time, they have eye problems, Can

995
00:48:43,400 --> 00:48:45,359
Speaker 1: I still be a fighter pilot? There are a lot

996
00:48:45,360 --> 00:48:48,000
Speaker 1: of fighter pilots out there with glasses. So just go

997
00:48:48,120 --> 00:48:50,600
Speaker 1: see your flight doc, or go see a doctor and

998
00:48:50,800 --> 00:48:54,040
Speaker 1: see if you can actually fly because their surgeries you

999
00:48:54,080 --> 00:48:56,080
Speaker 1: can do. There's waivers, you can get a lot of

1000
00:48:56,239 --> 00:48:59,959
Speaker 1: fire pots don't have perfect vision. Unfortunately in my case

1001
00:49:00,040 --> 00:49:05,799
Speaker 1: it's temporary blindness. So so I'm out but feeling Yeah,

1002
00:49:05,880 --> 00:49:09,680
Speaker 1: absolutely right. But based on your response there, I would

1003
00:49:09,680 --> 00:49:11,880
Speaker 1: assume you're more of an iceman, although ice Man was

1004
00:49:11,920 --> 00:49:15,600
Speaker 1: I'll admit gruff, but uh, it's my opinion that his

1005
00:49:15,680 --> 00:49:18,000
Speaker 1: position that what we need to be doing is ensuring

1006
00:49:18,040 --> 00:49:20,880
Speaker 1: the safety of the other pilots around us instead of

1007
00:49:20,920 --> 00:49:23,719
Speaker 1: making sure that we are the coolest fighter pilot. I

1008
00:49:23,760 --> 00:49:26,040
Speaker 1: think that's that's a better That's a leader i'd like

1009
00:49:26,080 --> 00:49:28,000
Speaker 1: to follow into a fight as opposed to Honestly, I'm

1010
00:49:28,000 --> 00:49:30,480
Speaker 1: gonna have to go back in and rewatch the original

1011
00:49:30,520 --> 00:49:33,759
Speaker 1: Top Gun, I'm sure with Top Gun two coming out,

1012
00:49:34,120 --> 00:49:36,960
Speaker 1: watch Top Gun again with the Alex Hollings mindset of

1013
00:49:37,040 --> 00:49:39,840
Speaker 1: Iceman's the good guy and Mavericks a prick. So I

1014
00:49:39,880 --> 00:49:43,239
Speaker 1: actually haven't watched too many fighter movies. They're just so unrealistic.

1015
00:49:43,320 --> 00:49:45,960
Speaker 1: But I think that might be a fun, fun day

1016
00:49:46,000 --> 00:49:48,600
Speaker 1: going back and watching a bunch of fighter pilot movies.

1017
00:49:48,840 --> 00:49:50,840
Speaker 1: I can only imagine because what I hate about watching

1018
00:49:50,840 --> 00:49:54,440
Speaker 1: Marine Corps movies is usually the vernacular. You know, nobody

1019
00:49:54,480 --> 00:49:57,040
Speaker 1: ever gets the way we speak to each other, right,

1020
00:49:57,239 --> 00:49:59,480
Speaker 1: But when it comes to in an aircraft, there's so

1021
00:49:59,560 --> 00:50:02,120
Speaker 1: much tech chnical stuff to also get wrong. I think

1022
00:50:02,120 --> 00:50:04,480
Speaker 1: it was behind enemy lines that that did it for me,

1023
00:50:04,600 --> 00:50:06,919
Speaker 1: That the missile that chased him around for about five

1024
00:50:07,000 --> 00:50:09,359
Speaker 1: minutes after that was like, I'm done? Was that Owen

1025
00:50:09,400 --> 00:50:12,319
Speaker 1: Wilson was that It's kind of like I have to

1026
00:50:12,320 --> 00:50:14,600
Speaker 1: It's kind of like The Fast and the Furious mixed

1027
00:50:14,640 --> 00:50:17,440
Speaker 1: with the military movie. A lot a lot of military

1028
00:50:17,480 --> 00:50:20,440
Speaker 1: aviation movies really are, you know? But that actually I

1029
00:50:20,480 --> 00:50:22,600
Speaker 1: would like to ask you a few questions about kind

1030
00:50:22,600 --> 00:50:25,480
Speaker 1: of pilot culture. Here is we're winding down. One question

1031
00:50:25,719 --> 00:50:27,839
Speaker 1: I'd really love to ask you about. I know that

1032
00:50:27,880 --> 00:50:30,240
Speaker 1: you don't have a ton to say on the subject,

1033
00:50:30,280 --> 00:50:33,080
Speaker 1: but it's been big news in the past few months

1034
00:50:33,120 --> 00:50:37,240
Speaker 1: that a few videos that were recorded from the nose

1035
00:50:37,320 --> 00:50:39,440
Speaker 1: the Fleer camera on the nose of some f A

1036
00:50:39,480 --> 00:50:42,920
Speaker 1: E ten super hornets, some Navy aircraft of what looked

1037
00:50:42,920 --> 00:50:47,279
Speaker 1: like UFOs or tic tacks or unidentified flying objects unidentified

1038
00:50:47,320 --> 00:50:49,879
Speaker 1: aerial phenomenon. A lot of people are calling them now,

1039
00:50:49,960 --> 00:50:53,719
Speaker 1: among other things, anomalous aerial phenomenon. Someone corrected me on

1040
00:50:53,760 --> 00:50:57,319
Speaker 1: Twitter the other day. So the Navy now is establishing

1041
00:50:57,800 --> 00:51:02,080
Speaker 1: a very clear procedure for how to report unusual sightings,

1042
00:51:02,360 --> 00:51:05,520
Speaker 1: anomalous sightings up your chain of command to see whether

1043
00:51:05,640 --> 00:51:08,200
Speaker 1: or not at warrants further investigation. And in two thousand

1044
00:51:08,280 --> 00:51:12,480
Speaker 1: seventeen it was revealed that the Pentagon really does investigate

1045
00:51:12,760 --> 00:51:17,040
Speaker 1: reported sightings of unusual objects in the sky normally provided

1046
00:51:17,040 --> 00:51:21,280
Speaker 1: by military aviators, because there are a few professional observers

1047
00:51:21,320 --> 00:51:24,040
Speaker 1: that are more respected when it comes to identifying something

1048
00:51:24,160 --> 00:51:26,960
Speaker 1: strange on the horizon, you know, in the sky. So

1049
00:51:27,280 --> 00:51:28,960
Speaker 1: just and I get the gist that you've never seen

1050
00:51:29,160 --> 00:51:31,440
Speaker 1: a UFO yourself, or anything that you weren't really sure of,

1051
00:51:31,560 --> 00:51:34,200
Speaker 1: Is that fair to say? No, I honestly have not

1052
00:51:34,360 --> 00:51:37,360
Speaker 1: seen a UFO. I've never even heard of any of

1053
00:51:37,400 --> 00:51:40,600
Speaker 1: the pilots that I've been with seeing a UFO. Their

1054
00:51:40,680 --> 00:51:42,879
Speaker 1: clints of light things like that. I don't know how

1055
00:51:43,000 --> 00:51:46,520
Speaker 1: somebody could I guess it's unidentified. But when you're looking

1056
00:51:46,560 --> 00:51:48,600
Speaker 1: at the sky, there's there's lots of clints of light

1057
00:51:48,640 --> 00:51:50,840
Speaker 1: and things like that. So I know I'm not gonna

1058
00:51:50,880 --> 00:51:54,360
Speaker 1: see some alien spaceship with et on it, but I

1059
00:51:54,400 --> 00:51:57,560
Speaker 1: guess that's That's an important question is do you feel

1060
00:51:57,600 --> 00:51:59,759
Speaker 1: as though you don't know any pilot who's ever felt

1061
00:51:59,760 --> 00:52:01,600
Speaker 1: as a a we's seen anything. Do you think that

1062
00:52:01,600 --> 00:52:04,560
Speaker 1: that could be because pilots are reluctant to talk about it,

1063
00:52:04,640 --> 00:52:06,600
Speaker 1: or do you think it's that they just really haven't

1064
00:52:06,600 --> 00:52:09,560
Speaker 1: seen anything. I'm not suggesting that it's just because they're

1065
00:52:09,600 --> 00:52:11,720
Speaker 1: reluctant to talk about it, but I would be interested

1066
00:52:11,719 --> 00:52:14,520
Speaker 1: to know among fighter pilots, are you gonna get laughed

1067
00:52:14,520 --> 00:52:17,440
Speaker 1: at if you say, hey, man, I saw something weird,

1068
00:52:17,719 --> 00:52:20,120
Speaker 1: you know, flying off my left wing on that last storty.

1069
00:52:20,640 --> 00:52:22,239
Speaker 1: Will you get laughed out of the room or would

1070
00:52:22,280 --> 00:52:24,520
Speaker 1: people listen? It depends on who it is. If it's

1071
00:52:24,520 --> 00:52:26,640
Speaker 1: the brand new pilot out there, he might get laughed

1072
00:52:26,640 --> 00:52:29,279
Speaker 1: out of the room. But no, I don't. I think

1073
00:52:29,440 --> 00:52:33,600
Speaker 1: I think we would definitely definitely accept a you know,

1074
00:52:33,800 --> 00:52:37,040
Speaker 1: if somebody saw something out there. I just I guess

1075
00:52:37,080 --> 00:52:39,640
Speaker 1: I don't really believe in UFOs out there. There may

1076
00:52:39,640 --> 00:52:42,439
Speaker 1: be airplanes that you don't know about flying out there,

1077
00:52:42,480 --> 00:52:47,040
Speaker 1: but definitely not some sort of alien spaceship around, so

1078
00:52:47,080 --> 00:52:50,360
Speaker 1: I've never seen it. I'm pretty confident that the pilots

1079
00:52:50,360 --> 00:52:52,279
Speaker 1: that I fly with, if they saw something, they would

1080
00:52:52,280 --> 00:52:55,759
Speaker 1: definitely let me know. And there's so many recording devices

1081
00:52:55,840 --> 00:52:59,080
Speaker 1: and stuff on the jets that you'd have a pretty

1082
00:52:59,080 --> 00:53:03,000
Speaker 1: good indication be able to look at it afterwards and

1083
00:53:03,120 --> 00:53:06,080
Speaker 1: assess what it is. But there are thousands of airplanes

1084
00:53:06,080 --> 00:53:09,160
Speaker 1: flying around their different times of the day where the

1085
00:53:09,200 --> 00:53:12,239
Speaker 1: sun once off different aircraft and can make it look

1086
00:53:12,320 --> 00:53:16,000
Speaker 1: kind of funky. So I really don't believe in UFOs,

1087
00:53:16,080 --> 00:53:18,920
Speaker 1: and don't the pilots who are talking about UFOs. I

1088
00:53:18,920 --> 00:53:21,160
Speaker 1: think they believe they saw something, but I think if

1089
00:53:21,160 --> 00:53:24,399
Speaker 1: you actually go into the physics of what was going on,

1090
00:53:24,960 --> 00:53:28,399
Speaker 1: that they just saw some point of lighter something like that. No, man,

1091
00:53:28,440 --> 00:53:32,759
Speaker 1: I totally get that, I really do. I'm spoil the topic. No, No,

1092
00:53:33,040 --> 00:53:34,960
Speaker 1: that's this is actually this is the way I always

1093
00:53:35,000 --> 00:53:37,720
Speaker 1: spoil this topic. Every time I start talking about UFOs.

1094
00:53:37,840 --> 00:53:42,080
Speaker 1: I'm torn because I want, I really do love the idea,

1095
00:53:42,400 --> 00:53:46,000
Speaker 1: you know, of spawning something unusual, something foreign and truly

1096
00:53:46,040 --> 00:53:48,200
Speaker 1: exotic in the sky. But you know, but then I

1097
00:53:48,239 --> 00:53:50,200
Speaker 1: do things where you know, I took a map of

1098
00:53:50,480 --> 00:53:53,120
Speaker 1: UFO sightings that have been recorded from you know, one

1099
00:53:53,120 --> 00:53:56,320
Speaker 1: of those websites that colates them, and then overlaid it

1100
00:53:56,360 --> 00:53:59,319
Speaker 1: over military installations in the United States, and you'll find

1101
00:53:59,360 --> 00:54:02,600
Speaker 1: that their group over military installations and things like that.

1102
00:54:02,680 --> 00:54:06,600
Speaker 1: I do genuinely believe that the vast majority, the vast

1103
00:54:06,680 --> 00:54:09,880
Speaker 1: majority of weird lights that people see in the sky

1104
00:54:10,080 --> 00:54:14,200
Speaker 1: are misidentified military aircraft, you know, helicopters that aren't flying

1105
00:54:14,239 --> 00:54:16,400
Speaker 1: like commercial aircraft. So in the distance, you go, what

1106
00:54:16,440 --> 00:54:18,840
Speaker 1: the hell is that? You know? But I will stay

1107
00:54:18,960 --> 00:54:21,439
Speaker 1: lighter after burner at night. You know, the thing will

1108
00:54:21,520 --> 00:54:24,279
Speaker 1: shoot out about fifty feet behind us. So if we're

1109
00:54:24,400 --> 00:54:27,680
Speaker 1: just flying over a rural neighborhood and lighter after burner,

1110
00:54:28,040 --> 00:54:29,759
Speaker 1: you don't see anything, and all of a sudden you

1111
00:54:29,760 --> 00:54:32,120
Speaker 1: see it is huge flash of light, and then once

1112
00:54:32,120 --> 00:54:34,400
Speaker 1: we come out of after burner, it will disappear. So

1113
00:54:35,040 --> 00:54:36,880
Speaker 1: I think it's it's more things like that, and it

1114
00:54:36,920 --> 00:54:38,960
Speaker 1: will be a tremendous amount of noise as well, So

1115
00:54:39,000 --> 00:54:40,960
Speaker 1: I think it's things like that. I am inclined to

1116
00:54:41,000 --> 00:54:43,800
Speaker 1: believe you. However, when I see reports like Commander Favor,

1117
00:54:43,880 --> 00:54:46,640
Speaker 1: who was the f A team pilot who recorded that

1118
00:54:46,640 --> 00:54:50,520
Speaker 1: flee footage. Uh, he's pretty convincing. And I do love

1119
00:54:50,760 --> 00:54:53,160
Speaker 1: the idea of not being sure, you know, I'm I

1120
00:54:53,239 --> 00:54:55,200
Speaker 1: try my best to keep my mind open to the

1121
00:54:55,239 --> 00:54:58,560
Speaker 1: possibility that I'm wrong. Logically speaking, I have yet to

1122
00:54:58,600 --> 00:55:01,200
Speaker 1: see any evidence for an thing that really sells me

1123
00:55:01,280 --> 00:55:04,080
Speaker 1: on the idea that aliens are here just kind of

1124
00:55:04,239 --> 00:55:06,319
Speaker 1: hanging out and making a reality show out of us,

1125
00:55:06,640 --> 00:55:08,480
Speaker 1: and on the cell phones are on the planet. Each

1126
00:55:08,520 --> 00:55:11,440
Speaker 1: cell phone has a has a camera in it, So

1127
00:55:11,760 --> 00:55:15,280
Speaker 1: just show me one good picture of alien spaceship and

1128
00:55:15,320 --> 00:55:17,480
Speaker 1: I'll be convinced. But but I think where you and

1129
00:55:17,520 --> 00:55:19,680
Speaker 1: I part ways is that you have a bit of

1130
00:55:19,680 --> 00:55:22,279
Speaker 1: an adversarial role here. You're You're pretty sure it's not

1131
00:55:22,360 --> 00:55:25,359
Speaker 1: whereas I want there to be. UFOs. I just haven't

1132
00:55:25,400 --> 00:55:27,759
Speaker 1: seen any evidence that's convinced me yet. But Man, as

1133
00:55:27,760 --> 00:55:29,600
Speaker 1: soon as I see some evidence, I'm gonna be stoked.

1134
00:55:29,600 --> 00:55:33,200
Speaker 1: You'll see me sharing it on Facebook. I'll be too,

1135
00:55:33,400 --> 00:55:35,520
Speaker 1: I'll be just as excited. I think that'd be cool.

1136
00:55:35,640 --> 00:55:38,680
Speaker 1: It might be like Independence Day, which actually I that's

1137
00:55:38,680 --> 00:55:40,760
Speaker 1: what I should have brought up, but hopefully not quite

1138
00:55:40,760 --> 00:55:42,719
Speaker 1: like Independence Day. I mean, we did win at the end,

1139
00:55:42,880 --> 00:55:44,360
Speaker 1: but I don't want to have to rebuild the burger

1140
00:55:44,440 --> 00:55:47,319
Speaker 1: king down the street from my house. So well, man,

1141
00:55:47,360 --> 00:55:49,840
Speaker 1: I gotta tell you this has been a genuine blast

1142
00:55:49,880 --> 00:55:51,960
Speaker 1: getting to hang out and talk to you. Before we go,

1143
00:55:52,080 --> 00:55:53,759
Speaker 1: I want to make sure that I one more time

1144
00:55:53,800 --> 00:55:56,600
Speaker 1: remind everybody to check out your podcast, which is called

1145
00:55:56,640 --> 00:56:00,239
Speaker 1: The Professionals Playbook. You can find it on on Itune wounds,

1146
00:56:00,280 --> 00:56:01,799
Speaker 1: but you can find it on Stitcher and all sorts

1147
00:56:01,840 --> 00:56:05,000
Speaker 1: of other places where podcasts are available and where else

1148
00:56:05,000 --> 00:56:07,200
Speaker 1: can people find you if they just want to engage

1149
00:56:07,200 --> 00:56:09,520
Speaker 1: with you on social media or you know, become fans

1150
00:56:09,520 --> 00:56:11,920
Speaker 1: of your work. I do do a lot on Instagram

1151
00:56:11,960 --> 00:56:15,160
Speaker 1: at Justin Fighter Pilots, so that's probably the best place

1152
00:56:15,200 --> 00:56:18,080
Speaker 1: to find me. And honestly, check out his instagram because

1153
00:56:18,120 --> 00:56:22,040
Speaker 1: if if you like military aviation, particularly the F thirty five,

1154
00:56:22,400 --> 00:56:24,960
Speaker 1: you're gonna see some awesome pictures and some awesome videos

1155
00:56:24,960 --> 00:56:26,400
Speaker 1: from the stuff that Justin and the rest of the

1156
00:56:26,400 --> 00:56:29,319
Speaker 1: guys he works with are doing. That You really do

1157
00:56:29,360 --> 00:56:31,560
Speaker 1: have an incredible job, man, you know, I gotta tell you,

1158
00:56:31,600 --> 00:56:34,440
Speaker 1: I'm pretty jealous every time I'm scrolling through and I'm

1159
00:56:34,440 --> 00:56:37,520
Speaker 1: posting another picture of you know, my keyboard and uh,

1160
00:56:37,640 --> 00:56:40,359
Speaker 1: and I see you flying around in ANOUGH thirty five.

1161
00:56:40,360 --> 00:56:42,799
Speaker 1: I gotta tell you, I'm pretty jealous. Well, it's it's fun.

1162
00:56:42,800 --> 00:56:44,560
Speaker 1: It's something I've wanted to do since I was five

1163
00:56:44,640 --> 00:56:47,120
Speaker 1: years old. So it's it's awesome to be able to

1164
00:56:47,600 --> 00:56:50,120
Speaker 1: live a dream come true. And hopefully I'm helping out

1165
00:56:50,160 --> 00:56:52,880
Speaker 1: other people do that via the podcast, whether they want

1166
00:56:52,880 --> 00:56:55,120
Speaker 1: to be a fighter pilot or not. Awesome man, And

1167
00:56:55,160 --> 00:56:58,040
Speaker 1: again I remind everybody go pick up this month's copy

1168
00:56:58,080 --> 00:57:00,200
Speaker 1: of Popular Mechanics, where it's gotten an interview you with

1169
00:57:00,320 --> 00:57:02,480
Speaker 1: Justin Wee in there where you can learn more about

1170
00:57:02,520 --> 00:57:04,840
Speaker 1: the F thirty five, more about what it's like to

1171
00:57:04,880 --> 00:57:07,600
Speaker 1: fly this platform, and more about how hard it is

1172
00:57:07,640 --> 00:57:10,239
Speaker 1: to become Justin how hard it is to become an

1173
00:57:10,280 --> 00:57:13,439
Speaker 1: F thirty five pilot. He's a pretty, you know, unassuming guy.

1174
00:57:13,520 --> 00:57:15,480
Speaker 1: He makes it seem like he's just a regular dude.

1175
00:57:15,800 --> 00:57:18,680
Speaker 1: It's a pretty incredible feat to become, you know, the

1176
00:57:18,720 --> 00:57:20,880
Speaker 1: person in charge of a hundred million dollars worth the

1177
00:57:20,880 --> 00:57:24,280
Speaker 1: state's secrets, you know. So congratulations to you man for

1178
00:57:24,400 --> 00:57:26,800
Speaker 1: your career in the Air Force and for your podcast,

1179
00:57:26,800 --> 00:57:29,120
Speaker 1: and thanks a lot for your time today. Well, thanks, Alex,

1180
00:57:29,160 --> 00:57:31,680
Speaker 1: I appreciate it. Awesome. All right, I'll catch you later,

1181
00:57:32,040 --> 00:57:37,439
Speaker 1: all right. Use them Listening to self red Radio. New

1182
00:57:37,520 --> 00:57:41,480
Speaker 1: episodes up every Wednesday and Friday. Follow the show on

1183
00:57:41,600 --> 00:58:00,360
Speaker 1: Instagram and Twitter at self red Radio.