This week's episode highlights US Coast Guard pilot Miranda Fay. She is here to chat about what it takes to become a US Coast Guard aviator, the challenges involved, stories of her first lives saved, the value of mentorship, and her work as a mentor for Big Brother's Big Sister's of America. Following a tale of inadvertent Instrument Meteorological Conditions, we really dive into the importance of obtaining an instrument rating, and share a brief lesson on spacial disorientation and the leans. Join us on this educational and inspiring story of a woman who fulfilled her dream, and has now begun her life saving journey.
This week's episode highlights US Coast Guard pilot Miranda Fay. She is here to chat about what it takes to become a US Coast Guard aviator, the challenges involved, stories of her first lives saved, the value of mentorship, and her work as a mentor for Big Brother's Big Sister's of America. Following a tale of inadvertent Instrument Meteorological Conditions, we really dive into the importance of obtaining an instrument rating, and share a brief lesson on spacial disorientation and the leans. Join us on this educational and inspiring story of a woman who fulfilled her dream, and has now begun her life saving journey.
You're listening to the forever on the fly podcast what a baby nerds Welcome to Episode numero quatro, forever on the fly podcast, your bi weekly dose of aviation inspiration, education and entertainment. I'm your host, Jose, and some people call me host B. And I'm Diane, people just call me Diane. And we're here, you guessed it to get you guys hooked on aviation. I'm really excited to introduce our next guest on the show. She's a real life hero, flying mh 65 for the US Coast Guard. She's here to share her journey and what it took to become a Coast Guard aviator. The challenges involved stories about her first life saved. And her work as a mentor with the Big Brothers Big Sisters of America. I was so stoked to chat with this incredible woman. As many of you guys might know, once upon a time I was enlisted in the US Coast Guard. And still to this day, I really look up to Coast Guard aviators and the life saving work that they do. She has some really incredible stories to share. And just a small reminder to punch that follower subscribe button. And that reviews and ratings really help us out on the Apple podcast app and of course are much appreciated. We always love to hear from you guys and what you think of the show and always what we can do better. We sure do. And we hope you guys enjoy the episode roll with Tanya Rita Ronin, Miranda Faye, we weren't gonna be able to get anywhere near them and hoist them. So that made things a lot more dynamic. Hey, I'm Miranda Fey. And I'm forever on the fly. Hi, Miranda, welcome to the show. Thank you for joining us. Hi, thank you for having me. Oh, my gosh, I'm so happy to have a female on the show. Finally, you're our first female interview. And I just started noticing a trend of like, Dude, we're only we've only interviewed dudes. I know you are first female. So I congratulate you when far between in aviation and then even smaller in helicopters for sure. exciting to be on here. I know. So yay. That's exciting. And your Coast Guard girl after my own heart. I'm a little jealous of the career path that you've taken because it was something that I wanted to do a while ago, and I just ended up. It just wasn't my path. But amazing that you were able to become a Coast Guard helicopter pilot. So thank you. It's been a dream of mine forever. So I'm super excited about it. So Sunita, what made you want to join the Coast Guard. Um, so when I think back on it, I remember watching the Hurricane Katrina footage when I was younger, that was all over the news. And I saw these orange helicopters just pulling people off roofs. And I thought that was just the most amazing job I could think of because they were, you know, saving people in the worst time of their life. And for some reason, I just remember sitting there on the couch. And I was like, Oh, I'm gonna do that one day. And I kind of went away from it. But I have a whole bunch of family members that fly. So really, as I was going through high school, I just kept having this feeling that I wanted to be a pilot. I didn't know how in the world that was going to happen because I was a girl from small town, Indiana. By May I just had this feeling that this is what I wanted to do. My parents were super supportive of it. But they were like, Let's see if you even like being in the air. So they gave me a few lessons as Christmas presents and stuff. And I was hooked right away. Oh, yeah. That's awesome. What were the lessons were they in a Cessna or a helicopter? I took one in the Cessna. And then after I went to the Coast Guard Academy, so I got into the Coast Guard Academy for college. And I knew I wanted to be in the Coast Guard cuz I wanted to fly helicopters. And they had the more humanitarian mission. For some reason I applied to all the academies got into all of them. So then I had this decision of what I wanted to do. I knew I wanted to do aviation. And I still wanted to buy helicopters from that news reel. So I ended up choosing the Coast Guard Academy because of that mission in particular. Yeah, once I was there, my parents were like, Okay, again, this is kind of a crazy thing for you to do. So let's see if you want to actually fly helicopters. And I flew a little Robinson for the first time ever. I was so bad at it. It was also the most like exhilarating, fun thing in the world. So I was hooked. Yeah, 22 is a little different than flying those mh 60 fives you got up there now? Yeah, much better. AFCS and trim. Yeah. Yeah, hover button. So yeah, dude, that's I can totally relate to that. Just the mission of the Coast Guard and just wanting to get out there and help people with that skill. I mean, that just says something about you and who you are and the things that you want to do in the world and, and your heart. So that's amazing. You went to the Coast Guard Academy right after high school, or did you wait a couple years? How old were you and you initially went to school. So I went right after high school. So I was 18, when I, you know, signed the dotted line to the oath swore that I was going to defend the Constitution. And yeah, I still had this dream of becoming a pilot. But that just seems so far away in my mind at the time, as I was going through school and everything. So that was 18 years old. When I made that decision. Nice, pretty big decision to 18 for sure. Yeah. Right. Impressive that you got into all those academies as well. Yeah, I, I worked really hard at it, because I just knew I wanted to fly helicopters. And I knew that was not going to be an easy thing to do outside of it. So in my mind, I was like, oh, obviously go to an academy. So I just worked my butt off until I made that happen. And that's awesome. What was the academy? Like? Was it like a boot camp on steroids? Or what? Um, for the first year, for sure, it's a it's all the little things of boot camp, you know, like the squaring your meals, squaring your corners, greeting everyone by their last name and Sir, Ma'am, and marching in section the class. You do that for the first year. So it isn't the workload as well as super intense. I think at one point, I was taking, like, 24 credit hours. Wow. And you have to do a sport. And I was involved in a bunch of clubs and everything. So it was it's a lot they demand a lot out of you but Superwoman, yeah, man, everyone there for sure. It's but you know, it really set me up for my future and what I wanted to do, so I wouldn't, I wouldn't change that. What was the attrition, like, right there at the school, it sounds pretty intense, was moderately intense. I'm not sure like the numbers wise, but I know my class, we came in at a time where they weren't accepting many students. So we came in with about 232 and 35 of us, and we graduated 195. So we actually kept a lot of people. Most classes had a little bit more people that you know, just decided it's not for them, or can't make it academically or whatever. Any other different reasons. couldn't cut it. Yeah, exactly. Dang. Inside joke. I say dang a lot. Back and editing these podcasts is just every other like setting who's like she told me about this like, probably two weeks ago, and I've been like thinking about it a lot, you know. And one of the last interviews we just did the last interview we just did. I kept like my Danks to three, and we told the guy that we're interviewing that. And he was like, Dude, this whole interview process. I just wanted to hear dang from you all the whole time. And I was like, Dude, I'm trying to work on it, but gonna make my own shirts. Just say dang on it. Make it like a drinking game anytime. Anytime. That make the interviews very interesting. They'd be longer than an hour. Probably. Probably. It'd be worse than that song rock sand. Forever. Yeah, yeah, I guess we'll never be able to leave. You would be like that podcast sucks. Bad guy just kept saying, dang. We're getting off topic getting off. Alright, so going back when you're going through the academy. Did you knew right off the bat that you wanted to fly? Were there? Was there a specific path in the academy that you had to take in order to get into flight school by the end of it? Or what was the process like to get into flight school? And did you have anybody to mentor you along the way that kind of solidified your desire to fly for the Coast Guard? Oh, absolutely. So there is not a particular path. You just have to apply to flight school and your senior year. And then you go through an application process, medical process, and then you get selected if they have a spot for you. But through the entire year i or the entire four years. I just made it known to every single person that was on the academy grounds that I wanted to be a pilot, and I would just talk about it all the time. So I got really close to a bunch of the instructors. We have military instructors, that some of them were pilots. So my academic advisor was a pilot, my sponsor family, he was a pilot. There was a few other people within the command structure so Laura Holbeck she worked with the cadets, a lot of people were afraid of her because she was the one that would get us in trouble. But I really reached out to her and she became a fabulous mentor for me because she, you know, was a 65 pilot, and she had a family and she, you know, was doing great things had gone on deployments with the Coast Guard had done this amazing thing. And I knew that's what I wanted to do. So I really look to her for advice. And she provided so much mentoring to me throughout the process, and was able to, you know, just give me tidbits of advice. As I was going through and really solidified that I knew what I was getting into when I applied to flight school. There are countless other people but they're, she's the one that kind of no mentorship for flying. And that was incredible. For me, it really, again solidified that this is what I wanted to be doing. This is the community I wanted to be a part of. Yeah, and that's been invaluable to have like a mentor. I think a lot of people don't understand, like having a mentor could go a long way. And just helping you get where you need to get and just guiding you, you know, and being like a rock whenever you need it to kinda, you know, not to give up. Oh, for sure. I wouldn't be where I am today, if it wasn't for the countless other women. And, you know, some of the men mentors that I've had as well, that have really steered my career path and encouraged me and told me, you know, I can set do whatever I set my mind to. Yeah, it's been fantastic. Man, you made it known and you put it out there. No, absolutely. No, no. No, we learned a new phrase from this guy. You're at gallon. I don't know if you follow him on Instagram that I fly heli guy. Oh, yeah, we are. We interviewed him a couple of weeks ago. And he calls that being pleasantly persistent. And it's like, total line between being persistent and being annoying about something. You know, if you can find that line, and just be pleasantly persistent, and keep showing up and keep talking to the people that have the things that you want. And that can help you along the way. That's an invaluable skill to have to be able to put yourself out there and say, This is what I want. You have it? How do I get to where you are, when I was in the Coast Guard. And I was kind of talking about wanting to go to flight school and such. So I joined after high school when I was 17. I did the whole just enlisted for four years. And so I didn't have a college degree. So I didn't do the academy path, which probably would have been a better option if I was like really serious about wanting to go to flight school, the Coast Guard, but everybody had told me like, oh, well, your girl, you'd be a shoo in for flight school, they would pick you up immediately. Like, how does that carry any weight whatsoever? Did you feel like you got any sort of preferential treatment? Because you were a female getting into flight school? Or do you think that it was right, right on their on par with the guys and how competitive it was for them. You know, I had people say that exact same thing to me. But going through the application process for flight school, which is very rigorous. I would say that doesn't even hold a candle to the actual process. Like they could care less what my idea was, they were like, because then the awesome thing about the Coast Guard is if they're sending you to flight school, they expect you to make it through like they don't you know, I went to Navy flight school and they just sent bodies, it seems like for the Coast Guard, it's like they are really, really invest in you because flight schools expensive. And they want if you get a pilot spot, they want you to be a pilot. So all they cared about was the merit aspect of it. And whether you had proved that yes, this is what you want to do. You're serious serious about it, and you'd make a good candidate for it. Did you have a commitment that you had to make up to they sent you to flight school have an additional amount of years? How much did they have you sign away again? Yes, so that is quite a lot. I got five years of required service after graduating from the Academy. And then on top of that, after getting my wings, I have eight years as well. Oh my god. So it's a long time. Yes, you have to be very, very serious about wanting to do it. Because it is a long time. My time going to flight school accounts is two of those years. Is it the same for other branches? Do they have to sign away eight years after they go to flights? Probably not right? I mean, like army lines when I went to go talk to the recruiter for the army. When I was inside when I was in the army. And I was thinking about going through their Warrant Officer Program. They told me the guy told me that it was going to be about an eight year enlistment for it. Now it wasn't all gonna be active. But yeah, yeah. Interesting. Yeah, that's a lot of time. So I guess I really do need to make sure yes, you're serious. Yes. This is something that you want to do and you're going to be sticking around. And how often do you get to fly I fly probably three to four times a week and that's without having SAR cases. So training that's just scheduled trading flights so it's fantastic. I'm on a small unit so we have are able to spread out our flight time between all the pilots really, really well. It's been fantastic. So you fly the MH 65 E. So for anybody who doesn't know what an MH 65 is, that is the Dauphine. Anytime I hear that sound coming down the beach. I'm like my ears just perked up. I'm like, Yes. Where is it? Where is it? Now, so when you went to flight school after the academy, what did they have you training? Did you immediately go to helicopters? Or did they have you trained in airplanes? First? What was the process? Like for that? No. So it's Navy flight school that we go to? So it's the Navy pilots, the Marine pilots and the the Coasties just thrown in there with the rest of them. Yeah, so the Navy is all about making their jet pilots, you know, so they put everyone in a T six, bravo. To start at all actually, originally, we start out in Cessnas fly a little bit fuzzy like make sure we actually like it and then they throw us into the T six. And so you know the first time you're trying to land something you're going 240 Right? knots in yours. Terrifying. Yes, yeah. So fast. From it says no to that. Yeah, so we did two fixes. That's where we you know, we get our We do everything from just learning how to land and flare and we get to do a break overtop of the airfield consistently. You get to do all of your aerobatics throughout there, you're flying NGC, you're flying on oxygen, you got all this crazy stuff going on. And then you go through your initial instrument phase as well. So for a really, really fun time, and that's primary. And then after primary, you get selected in the Coast Guard for either a fixed wing or rotary wing. Everyone in the Coast Guard generally wants rotary wing, which is not the case in the Navy or the Marine Corps, necessarily. A lot of people really want jets or something like P threes there. So it's funny, because when you're a coasting student, they're like, Oh, so you want to go helicopters, or they would never say that to any other students, right? Because we have the cool version of helicopters, I would say. So once you finish primary and the T six you then get selected for rotary like I did, I got super lucky they had a spot for me and I took that right away. And then we go and find the THC sevens and then do basically the same thing we did in primary over again, but learning how to fly helicopters. Got it. Now. Part of the process of you going through flight school, was there any like part of it where you like came into like, a good amount of adversity something where you're like, Oh, crap, you know, do I need to do this? Or can I do this? You know, like, oh, shit moment kind of deal. You know? Absolutely. So I never in my life have I wanted to fly jets. Never. Like that's just not been my mentality, my dream or anything. So when I was flying the TSX I got so sick. Like I was every single flight I was throwing up like three or four times couldn't keep anything down. It was awful. They have the spinning puke chair. I had logged 24 hours in the spinning few chair just trying to make it through this course. And it was it was so scary because I was sitting there I was like, oh my goodness, am I even made to fly is this something that I will be able to do? You know, you can't throw up on your check ride, they won't pass you. Like that's just not something that's going to happen. So miraculously, I didn't get sick on my checkride and was able to solo and was able to go on in the program. But it took a long time. And I threw up on I would say a majority of my flights. But I got really good at memorizing emergency procedures and being able to recite them as I was getting sick. It was crazy girl. That was just another instance of having a great mentor somebody else that was in the the instructor cadre he had also gotten really sick in primary and so he was really good at like just encouraging me and telling me that I was gonna make it and it's gonna be okay. And you know, I was gonna come out in the end a better pilot because of it. So yeah, that's awesome. Girl. I feel you though. If I do any sort of aeroplane aerobatics, I get so sick. I messed up for days. So I think I'd probably being in exactly in the same boat, as you speaking about, I even got sick on the cutter that I was stationed on I got sick like every single time we deployed, it was absolutely. I feel I feel Yeah. Oh my gosh. But you made it through? I did, thankfully. Yes. You know, some people. I mean, some people would have given up, you know, but they would have said, Hey, this isn't for me. And I guess I should just stop while I'm ahead without having to continue it with the potential of failing because of, you know, something like that. So Good on you for sticking through it and overcoming that because I know that's not easy. If you fail, are you still on the hook for those eight years? You're not know, once you get your wings? been like, Oh my God. Yeah, that'd be scary. Yeah, that would suck. So it being stationed in Houston, you're down there and the good ole gulf. So you've probably experienced a lot of hurricanes and crazy weather. I know there's that's what everybody always says about Coast Guard pilots like those. Those pilots are insane with the weather that they fly in. What has been your experience so far? You got stationed there in 2019. And, and here we are today. So how many? Yeah, what's the craziest stuff that you've flown in? The craziest stuff I flown in. So we had five hurricanes this season. Just the season, it was craziness. And they all most of them hit our ao our, our area of responsibility or just a little bit closer into Florida. So we were still operating and responding. So that was crazy. I think the worst weather that I've flown in so far has been the day before one of the hurricanes. I don't remember which one it was, but it was we just, you know, we're just trying to see what was going on with the weather. And so we had a case, trying to get out as far as we could. I was flying along. And then all of a sudden, I'm just falling one little piece of land. And all of a sudden I was like, Oh, I can't see outside of our rotor disc really, except for like, just straight down. And so right then and there. I was just like, we need to turn around and my aircraft commander was like, Yep, let's turn around. And so we turned around immediately. Thankfully, it wasn't a search and rescue case. So we didn't have to, like keep going, or anything like that. But it was, it's pretty gnarly, you know, it started raining. We got socked in pretty quickly. And thankfully, we knew we weren't very far from home plate. So we knew where we were flying super well. So we were able to get around it. And with our new aircraft update, we have a fantastic radar system. So we were able to pull that up really quickly. Our weather radar, get it going and we avoided something that could have been a lot worse. We avoided it really quickly. Yeah, that's awesome. Now when you get into like a situation like that, and you do get into IMC, I take it you guys could just go IFR. You know if Yeah, absolutely. And for anybody who out there who doesn't know what IMC or IFR means that's instrument meteorological conditions, or instrument flight rules, which is what you the rules that you fly under if you're in this instrument conditions where you have to fly solely by your instruments, and you can't see outside of the aircraft. So that's what we're talking about here. So what would what would be the case, if that was a search and rescue mission. So you got deployed, you get out there, and boom, you're just in the soup? Yeah, so we have procedures with our center, so the tower around here, and we just ask for a certain type of departure from the airfield. And then basically, they just drop us to a point in space, and we just circle down and we get down as close to the water as possible. And we can put in a computer approach to hover into our aircraft and we can come down to about 50 feet, just like computer flying it and then you know, hopefully, we break we plan on breaking out before the end. We just as soon as we break out, we'll come down, right out and then start our search as necessary. Because unfortunately, people get into bad situations and go missing in not the best weather. So we have to be able in training for terrible, terrible weather to be able to go and do our mission. Do you do a lot of simulator training or is it all hands on? We do have some simulator training. We do that about once a year. Just for proficiency wise, you know, we can't practice auto rotations and stuff in the aircraft. So we do do those things in the simulator. But most of our training is in our actual aircraft and we just simulate that we are socked in and we're just coming down but obviously we have the people in the back looking out for us. and keeping us safe. Ma'am. mad respect sangrita that's crazy. Are you in the crew pretty tight? Do you fly with mostly the same crew members when you go out on when you're on duty? Well, so the ascension Houston is super, super small, like compared to Coast Guard air stations. And I absolutely love that. Because it enables me to know all of our flight Max and all of our rescue swimmers really well. And you know, we can build that trust and communication and bond so that I know that, you know, they're doing their absolute best, and they know that I'm doing my absolute best as well. That's another thing I love about the 65 community is because it's such a small aircraft. We're all working together so so closely, that, you know, I've got my flight next hand right behind me, and he's watching the same instruments I'm watching. So I'm not about to do anything wrong, because they will call me out on it. Nice. And I would hope so. Yeah. You're finding the hurricanes. Is it like that movie Guardian with Kevin Costner? You know, the one? Everyone bring up that movie? Like when? Whenever you say, Oh, he's gonna go through like, oh, like Kevin Costner and Ashton Kutcher. I'm like, Oh, my God, there's was only one that I know. management decisions that would have gone very, very poorly. They actually they filmed that it's cave D, where? Yeah, that was quote, unquote, Alaska. And actually, the scene where they rescued all the people out of the cave, people would actually get stuck in that cave all the time. And we have to coordinate with people to get them out of there. Because the tide would come up and then get sucked out. It was yeah, no, that's actually a pretty gnarly spot. But I know every single time people always have to mention the guardian. I don't know, just like, I think of the movie. And I think of them flying in the movie. And I think if you find in the hurricane, and I'm like, yeah, they're probably pretty close, you know, waves. A lot of when I start thinking about just the opening scene, where they're out there on a rescue case, and they're like, their frickin fuel light is on and like, Wait a second. Well, how far are you away from shore? And you're just right there like, yeah, we got fuel and Kevin Costner's. Like, if we leave a die. Yeah, if you don't go, you're all going to die. Come on, bro. The decision making process. Swiss cheese happened. You know, it sounds a lot cooler than our typical bingo conversations tend to go. Bingo. Nice. I only I never actually got to ride along on any helicopters. When I was in the Coast Guard. We did a bunch of Heli ops and the crew members up there would always send us down some candy in the basket or goodies. Do that to bribe them. They like training with us. Nice. I mean, it was always such a cool experience. I mean, obviously, just I fell in love with helicopters from working just with them. And under them being like, Oh, I don't want to be down here. I want to be up there. Yeah, we had somebody one of the one of the trainees had hit their tail rotor on our mast one time when we were out doing heli ops and we all had to like hit the duck. There's sparks flying everywhere. They ran off and did an emergency landing at the helo pad nearby. And luckily, nothing was you know, too broken up. But it's crazy. I couldn't appreciate exactly how terrifying that was until I became a pilot. Oh my gosh, that would have been so terrible. Even code Brown. Myself. Lovely. That's absolutely terrifying. Yeah, there was another pretty crazy story about a guy who was stationed there before. I had gotten there that electrocuted himself by grabbing the static line while he had like the lightning rod, or whatever you would call it to jump the electricity. And I guess he thought the electricity had jumped. So he reached up and he grabbed the weight and just boom got electrocuted from it, that's a job. So in order for them to lower the basket, so So this was just normal crew membership, like this is what you had to do. The helicopter would be hovering above you were in like 20 foot seas, you know sometimes the helicopters having to adjust like it's crazy mad skills now I bet and so they're lowering the bath that before they lowered the basket down they have to ground it to the boat. So they are sending down the this line with like a weight on it at the end of it. And we all like are wearing helmets and we're running around the deck trying to avoid getting hit by this thing. And they're just like remember in the back has to be like Why were these one and then just drop it On the deck, and everyone's just hoping you don't get hit by it. We're just running around the deck like chickens with their heads cut off. Yeah, it was kind of a shit show. I thought oh, yeah, I guess. Oh, great. Now I have to add that to my mental model. The guys on the static line? Yeah. It's good to be looking out your window. Really? Oh, god. What was your first save? What was the first life that you ever saved? And how did that feel? Did it solidify your the feeling that you were in the right place and that you were doing what you were supposed to be doing? Yeah, so that's actually a pretty funny story. So my first life saved was a lost kayaker. There's a lot of marshy lands north of Galveston, Texas. And, you know, people go out there and fish not pay attention to the tides, the title go out. And it's just marshland that they're stuck in. And you can't really get anywhere. So thankfully, this guy had his cell phone and was able to call for help. And so we knew exactly where his location was. That was nice. There was no searching involved. We just went directly there and picked him up. I also was qualified at this time, I had just qualified actually, in sitting on the right seat. So I was the one that was going to hoist. This is like the first time one of the first times I was posting in the right seat, I was very nervous. We get the call. We're ready to go. It was like 1130 at night. So had only been like asleep for an hour. Wake up was like, oh, gosh, we're doing this. Okay. And so we go, and I'm in the right seat. Thankfully, it was just as we trained. So I felt fairly comfortable. It was a pretty dark night out. So that was a little difficult. I didn't really have eyes on him very much. So I'm just, you know, looking out into the blackness, trying to find whatever I can use to hover to keep that point solid, but had a fantastic light neck in the back. And he you know, was able to con me exactly where I needed to go. And that was amazing. We put the basket down and it's marshland so we expected it like it started coming up. And I was like, Oh, this smells bad. I was like, this smells really bad. And they're like, oh, yeah, it's just the mud. It's just the mud. I was like, okay, whatever. We pull up, and he gets in the aircraft, we pick up our swimmer, we actually go and take him his wife was waiting, like his wife and the police were waiting, probably 2000 yards away on Interstate 45 and just couldn't get to him. So we dropped them off in a parking lot with his wife and the police and he was good to go. Our rescue swimmers come back on the headset, and was like, Oh my gosh, guys. Like, that's not something great to hear what's happening. He's like, the guy brought the fish with him. And so he did last he had like a backpack with all his personal belongings. A Yeti cooler in our summer was like, you could take one thing, but that's it. And the guy decides to bring his fish a Yeti cooler, those things are like 500 bucks. Dude, you can take one thing he's like, I'm gonna take my fish. Dude, that's crazy. It had become like a unit joke that my first Lifesaver was a fish. I had never caught a fish before fishing, but I can catch on to the helicopter and a basket. So that was that was pretty interesting. I thought it was really exciting to be able to say that, like, this is what I trained for. This is what I want to do. And I got to say that I accomplished it. So that's awesome, amazing. First life saved. That's so that's such an awesome story with the fish. I still can't believe he left the Yeti cooler. Were there any other cases thus far in your career that really stuck out as memorable or kind of a crazy story? Yeah, I had another one where I saved, we got to live saved. And this was actually one of the first cases with our brand new version of the 65. So we're flying 65 Echo now, all glass cockpit. It's awesome. Gives us a great radar, a lot more enhanced search capabilities, which is fantastic. So it was really cool to have just transition to that aircraft and to be able to go on a case pretty much right away. So for that case, I was woken up at two in the morning because we had heard of a vessel that had run aground off of one of the rivers probably about 30 minutes south of my air station. And so we went out there in the transit of us getting ready to go and flying out Their the weather started deteriorating wasn't wasn't terrible. But definitely like the there were storms coming, and they wanted to get off their boat right away, the water picked up and the waves were kicking pretty bad, started causing some issues with their boat and they started taking on water. So we really needed to get them out of their small boat responded as well. And they weren't able to get anywhere close to them. But thankfully they had located them. So we didn't have to do a lot of searching again, we just went directly there. We found them right away. And we noticed that their sailboat was just getting rocked back and forth. So this mass was swinging almost from one side of the water to the other side of the water and back. So we knew right away, we weren't gonna be able to get anywhere near them and hoist them. So that made things a lot more dynamic. Because you know, we can't get our rescue somewhere too close to the boat. We don't want to get tied up in that mask with our cable or anything like that. So that was pretty interesting. Just that was the game planning of what the heck are we going to do to get these people off. Thankfully, it was one of our rescues and was able to, you know, get onto the boat full of people off the boat and swim out one at a time. So swim them out. The waves were going kind of crazy. You can I think I sent you the video. You can see them in the hoist cam footage. You can see the waves crashing right onto the boat. And pretty scary, but we were able to get the waste done. Well, we rescued two people, drop them off at rescue them flew away, went to station, Freeport, the Coast Guard station there, they had cleared the parking lot for us. And then we landed in the parking lot deliver the two people and they took them to the local hospital. And then from there we were able to fly away and go home so it was only like a two hour evolution and we were able to you know rescue those two people but man that's so it was scary. Like normally you don't always do a sailboat anyways. But normally you're not having to worry about the sailboats mast, just doing wild and crazy things. So pretty dynamic one, especially with the weather coming down, it started raining halfway through, so visibility was restricted. But again, I had a fantastic, fantastic crew that I trusted completely to help us work through those issues. And it will get the job done. Were they crying when you'd like you guys when they got into the helicopter, really. So I they sit behind me. So I normally don't see them. They don't get on ICS or anything, so I can't hear them. But I did see them as when we had landed and they got off the aircraft to go into the to go into this mobilization. And they looked like they had been stuck out there for a long time. And they just did not look like they were doing well. They were very thankful. And they were super nice to us and like waved and said thank you. But yeah, any of those situations, you know, those people are not there. They're in bad situations. And thankfully, we're there to help them out. Have you had anybody ever come back to the station to thank you for helping them out. I'm not at my cases so far. But we definitely have some people that we have, you know, crazy stories of like, live saved, and those people sometimes people will come back and it's just an awesome experience to be able to see, like, get the closure of it. Because you know, when we drop somebody off at the hospital, like we don't really know what happens after that, like, there's no way for us to be able to track it. Unless they reach out back to us. Yeah, it's just really cool to see the impact you've been able to make and that you, you know, help someone. Yeah. Was it everything you thought it was gonna be? When you like first thought and Katrina? You know, like that feeling of like, succeeding, you know? Or anything, so I haven't quite made it back to that full 3060 moment. Yeah. Um, but yeah, the more that I've gotten into the Coast Guard and seen what we actually do, the more I'm just so so thankful to be living my dream, man, that's badass. Really cool. That's pretty badass. Yeah, I know. I'm a little jealous. Not gonna lie. Yeah, me too. For a while. Wait, anybody? Yeah. Yes, you have every time you deliver an organ transplant that I guess is saving a life I guess. Yeah, yeah, you guys do almost very, very best bet you're saving a life yeah, it's a it's a it's a weird thing flying organ transplant and And if anybody's listening that doesn't know what Jose and I both fly. We, for the majority of the time we fly medical teams that are transporting organs, organ transplants and it's kind of the same thing when we drop off the Oregon we don't get to see the result of what we just did. We don't get to see the patient we don't get to meet the families is just sort of dropping off a cooler and a team and just knowing in our hearts that like yeah, we just did something good but It's kind of a weird thing because somebody has to lose their life first in order for someone else to be saved. But you know, the people who are the donors are just complete angels for for doing that, but I mean, it's not exactly hoisting anybody from a marshland but I'd like to do a search and rescue someday I you know, I think we need to get I need to get into utility first. That's that's the thing in order to get to kind of doing what you do. You got to go through utility get long line experience, it's the whole you can go through the golf the whole thing you don't have to or golf golf. Yeah, yeah, that's true. We're gonna go down to Mexico and just be like, Screw it. I'll just save people who is that? He's coming spray paint on the side of the helicopter. Rescue one Do not be I'll come work for you in a few years. I can tell you about the benefits package, but you know, be competitive. Sounds good. I guarantee you Taco Tuesday. Maybe a couple of dental needs dental when you have oh, now but yeah, that. That is super awesome, though. Where you do? All this aside? That's pretty badass. And you're mad respect? Yeah. Yeah, Coast Guard power, some creepy girl power. All good things, man. Insane. Have you had any emergencies, had an instructor go. I get incapacitating vertigo in flight school. And that was terrifying, because we also punched in the clouds in the mountains in Nashville. And I hadn't gone through instruments in the hills of Nashville 57 yet, and we were you know, doing our land nav following the road. And we punch in and my instructor is like leaning his head over, like can't even sit up straight. And I'm like, okay, my controls and just start climbing away, don't know where I am. Because there's mountains like, you know, we're down on the road. And there's mountains just up on both sides of us. And I just climb away. And I hear all the other instructors on the radio popping up and getting, you know, pop up clearances, and I just start parroting what they're saying because I don't know, I'm not you know, I had done instruments and the tes T six had an instruments in the helicopter. So I didn't know how to program anything. I was like, here we go. So climbed up away, finally got away from the mountains. That was awesome. Plenty of sound like a little hole of VFR and just circled there until I got up with approach. Got off with them. And then they just started sending me off into the abyss and I was like, Okay, here we go. Come to find out this was we weren't supposed to be flying instruments on this. So the instructor was fairly new as well. He comes back around. He can't I'm not letting him fly at all. But he has his, you know, iPad, and it's got the manual for the GPS we have in there, which was a GPS none of us were trained on. So he goes to the manual figures out how to plug in this approach. Thankfully plugs in suppose we break out like 300 feet or something and I just land the helicopter and I walked away. I was like, Oh my God, I don't wanna talk to anybody. I'm terrified. Like, everyone comes around to me. They're like, why were you on the radio? Like, you're not the instrument pilot here because there was a student in the backseat. He was the one that was beaten by instruments but he was you know, locked in the backseat and we can't land or do anything and it was that was probably the scariest my life yeah, Jesus man that takes How many hours did you have in a helicopter when that happened? You're pretty new, I guess. 10 110 hours and yeah, it was it was our first our first cross countries was we all VFR fairly easy cross country. I had just learned the aircraft just gotten out of context phase, which just means like, I learned how to land I learned how to take off I learned how to rotation. I know all the EPS and then was this the you said it was daytime or nighttime. It was nighttime, nighttime and you guys just boom right into the cloud. Yeah, it was the weather was not predicted to be that bad, you know, had no idea punched right into it. It was, you know, we went over a hill came back down Falling this road, and we're socked in immediately. It couldn't see anything. I think it's time I was about to say I think this might be a dang moment. Seriously, I can't believe you're alive. I know it was it was scary that the student behind me was because I was thankfully You know, in flight school, you're so trained for the worst things to happen that you just immediately start going into action. So when I realized that my instructor just passed down, not fly the aircraft, I, you know, did the two challenge rule immediately probably shouldn't have done the challenge will probably should have taken controls. But I did write, you know, that I was supposed to start getting away from the deck had a general idea of where I should be going, because we had briefed it beforehand. And then I had the student in the back, just like Hawking my VSI and altimeter and was like, You're 10 feet off. I was like, I know, but that's fine. Like, let me just do this. And, you know, thankfully, he was like, able to talk me through he's like, Okay, now you need to do this and you need to do this. And it was really, really scary time management though. That's so absolutely. So lucky for that. Definitely shouldn't have declared an emergency I realized that now. I could have gotten approach I knew how to input or you know, just had them take me to the ground. Yeah, for sure grant control approach or something like that, which I would have been able to manage. But did you tell ATC what your situation was at all? A little bit. I so I pushed back on the approach when they first gave it to us. I was like, requesting the ILS and they're like, negative can't give it to you. And I was like, and then my instructor had come back. He's like, I think I can figure this out. We had still like, probably 30 miles to go or something. So it was getting to the like, we had some like wiggle room in there. I had slowed back a lot. You know, we had some transit time where I could figure out what's going on. You know, if we can't get this approach put in then I'm you know, gonna declare an emergency and give you the ILS I don't even like broken arrow. Yeah, I was. I don't know why. You would figure in bad weather. They would. Yeah, you would give an ILS rather than a GPS altimeter. Was it an was a IFR at the airport. I broke out. You said you broke out at like 300. Yeah. Wow. So yeah, no, actually not. Maybe it was 300 above. It was 300 above MDA. So I broke out with a plenty Oh, God. Probably like, I want to say it's like 1000 1500. So it wasn't great. But it was like marginal, right. Yeah. Man. That's crazy. Did they give you a medal? Anything? Did they give you anything when you success? Like, my instructor was like, I think you should pass the rest of flight school. He's like, I think you're good. Yeah, what happened to the instructor to he? Like, I mean, obviously things happen. You know, it's nothing that he had done, right. Get this, you know, we had all he had done the exact same planning as all the other instructors. And, you know, we were kind of in like a string of 50 sevens. There was like, four aircraft or something. And, you know, he had done the exact same preparation. It was just one of those freak things that happened. So he got the lions. Yeah, I would say, Yeah, his head was like on my shoulder. So wow, it was just it was really bad. I'm so sorry. Go ahead. I don't know why. It was so bad for him. And you know, I didn't feel anything. The student in the back didn't feel anything either. We work perfectly fine. You know, it's hard to say in those types of things. But really, yeah, I gave him a lot of credit because he you know, voiced it right away, said, This is what happened. So many people learned from it. And I think it's probably one of the stories that they probably tell in flight school now. Graduated that day. You should go, damn good job. I think you'll I think you'll be fine. Like, okay, I got the liens pretty bad. And in our 44 instrument, stay dried at nighttime. Definitely, I felt like a 30 degree bank was straight and level. It's like the it's the craziest weirdest feeling. So for people at home, if you're listening and you don't know what the liens is, or what spatial disorientation is, kind of how we were talking about earlier, IMC instrument meteorological conditions where you have really bad visibility outside of the aircraft, a pilot needs to be able to orient themselves to the horizon. So you need to be able to see outside of the aircraft, and if you can't, you have to be able to know how to fly the aircraft, on the instruments themselves. But what can happen is if a pilot's looking outside and all of a sudden, boom, they're in the soup, they're in IMC, they can't see anything. And then now you don't have any reference to the horizon, you have no way to tell which way is up which weighs down. Turning might feel like you're going straight in level of climbing might feel like you're slowing down and then the pilot will put in improper inputs into the aircraft and put themselves into an unusual attitude and potentially crash the aircraft into the ground or into an obstacle. So the lens is if you think about the inner ear and the workings of the inner ear, how you have the little summer Circular canals, semicircular canals with the, what do you call them knowledge, the little tiny hairs in the ear canals, they're called cilia, cilia CI, Li A, you have fluid inside of your ear canals, and it goes over these little sensory hairs inside of your ear canals. So when you're turning or you're moving, that fluid moves around inside of your ear canal and tells your mind, basically, what you're doing. So if you're in a prolonged turn, for an extended period of time, all of that fluid will move to one side. And when you straighten out your head, it'll feel like you're still in the turn. So the pilot will go back into the turn that they originally in. Now, they think they're straight and level, but they're actually not they're back in the turn that they were in to combat that we learn how to fly on our instruments. And the number one thing to fight that is to just trust your instruments over your body, which is really hard to do, because your brain is telling you one thing, but your instruments are telling you another right? Yeah, bad dude, I haven't explained that. Since I was a flight instructor. Yeah, sounds pretty good. Anyways, so yeah, that's the spatial disorientation lesson for the day. That's actually a really dope story. Thank you for sharing that. Because that's like a huge learning lesson. So glad that you're allowed to share that story. But definitely, if you find yourself in that situation, that's also why you know, instrument rating is so important. I have people ask me, is it necessary to get an instrument rating? And I always just say, yes. Just because it's I think it's necessary for survival. Even if you are deciding to get a job that doesn't require you to have an instrument rating. That's a skill that could save your life some day. Just like in this situation, so and the Coast Guard, do you guys have like callsign? Yeah, we do have callsign. mudslide or under line is not very cool. too. It is pegleg. Can you tell us the story. It's not too bad. It's just super, super embarrassing. I was at my transition course, which is the course that the Coast Guard uses to teach you how to fly the 65. And I was there and I had been studying because I had a test the next day. So I had been studying for hours and I was sitting like cross legged in my chair. Gosh My phone was asleep. And so you know, sometimes when your foots asleep, you like get up to walk around. Yeah, like naked, or ever so asleep. I didn't realize it was like completely upside down. I put all my weight on it. And I just felt like a log. It was so bad. I ended up like breaking like a tendon or two in my flight. Oh my. Of course of course my commanding officer was there that week. And so I like crouched down to the wardroom to get my food the next day because I'm on full on crutches can't fly or anything. And he just looks at me he's like, What the heck I'm so sorry. He's like, I'm bringing this back to the wardroom in Houston and this will be your callsign like I hadn't even showed up to the unit yet. I already had like messed up in front of this. Yo, I couldn't believe it. pegleg Miranda pegleg fe? Yeah, that's good. Do you guys have it like on your helmets like they do in the movies? Or? Oh, we've got it on our our name tags on our flight suit. Oh, really? That's so official. Yeah, man, that is official. It's no getting away from your callsign at that point, and unless you do something even more embarrassing. We're talking about call signs with another person that we interviewed, you know, and his name was rain. And I was like, huh, I thought he didn't want to do training in the rain. That's why they called rain. He wouldn't tell us the story though. He said that you needed to we needed to get a few beers in him before he would come out with it. Yeah, that's how most of them are thankfully mine just embarrassing because I did something stupid but most of them were like they're all acronyms for something and it's not nice I never realized that call signs were acronym mean either that the cooler they sound the worse they actually really yeah. Oh yeah. I'm going to be that golden my if I could pick my island would be like Mexican dinner. He always thinks he can can't pick your own though. That was about to say you can't take your own callsign because then they'll make up a really bad one for you be like Dude, this guy. The audacity to try to make his own callsign like yours too much. They'll take it away from you. Oh really? Oh yeah. So if you like You just have to pretend like you hate it. But if you just got dead embroiled in your tags Oh, well, you're like I just made these again again, stop. You stop. You guys. Jose, like once the giggle button gets switched on this guy, he literally can't see. Exactly. How many pilots are you stationed with? Are you guys all friends? Do you hang out outside of work? Yeah, we're super close. So there are 16 pilots and irritation, Houston. And it's just a tight knit family all around. So all of us are very close friends and everything. How many females? There are three females. So there's two of us currently there. And we have one that's about to report. So very excited to have her cool. Do you get to talk to her before she comes on board? Like, are you guys in touch? She's been added to our group chat. So we've been messaging a little bit but haven't met her yet. I've heard of fantastic things I've heard. She's a great pilot. So really excited about that. Did she come with the callsign already as well? Not yet. She doesn't have you know, we I didn't I don't think I made up any I suggested somebody should get theirs taken away from them because they liked it too much. That happens so I would have hated you. If I was the one that like you're that girl like a mommy, you know, it wasn't just me, it was like a joint effort. All of us that were like this guy needs to change it and he's got he's gotten too cocky. gotta knock him down a peg peg when I was going through my first turbine job, and I was transitioning from doing flight instruction into our 22 into an EC 130 And I'm flying along we're going like 120 And the guy hadn't done any training with me in regards to like auto rotating or anything like that. He just straight up gave me an engine failure. And an AR 22 The last like two years of me flying it's you punch the deck with the frickin collective right you just friggin slam it down. Well come to find out it's a little different when you're going 120 turbine helicopter. You don't have to slam down the collective. So when he said engine failure, it was such a trigger word. My arm was freakin spring loaded still and I just punched the deck and we literally went into this like low gravity. Our asses were about 10 inches off the seat. And then finally got the air like everything shook like I thought I broke the helicopter. This is like my first training flight in a turbine helicopter. And he just looked at me he was like, Dude, I have controls. Alright, flame out. So then like gummy flame out. Didn't really like catch on because no one really knew what that was about. But this one guy just called me flame. I was Chris gone. Yeah. Yeah, so that was a good one for sure. I know. I was like, that's actually kind of a cool not the worst one in the world. But yeah, I totally thought I friggin broke the helicopter. Luckily, I did not. Lesson learned of when you're not flying around saving lives. What do you like to do on your off time? What do you do for fun? What do you do in your spare time? Is there anything that you're super passionate about? Yeah, I have. I've been super passionate about the Big Brothers Big Sisters program for a really long time. You know, like I talked about earlier. Mentorship has meant so much to me, I've been able to, you know, get to where I am because of the women that have taken me under their wing and taught me what they know and given me advice and encouragement as I've gone on. And I've recognized that and seen how powerful it can be. And so with Big Brothers Big Sisters, I get to do that for someone else. And it's just been awesome. It's a nationwide you know, a nationwide volunteering service. So any place I move with the Coast Guard, I can find a little there and be able to invest in my community and being able to invest in one person's life and just provide them encouragement. So it's been phenomenal. I have two littles now I had one in Pensacola when I was going through flight school. She since graduated high school and is doing great and I still talk to her a lot and then I have a really small little now and she is just a seven year old bald sunshine and it's just really fun to you know, get to invest in both of them and Yeah, give back what has been given to me, which is awesome. Do they match you with a little that wants to be a pilot someday or anything like that? Or is it just random, randomly selected? Well, depends on the needs of the area. So if they have a little, it's a lot of personality matching. So my little in Pensacola was very shy, and I am not. So it were like trying to, you know, build her confidence and get her a little bit out of her bubble. And I think that worked, because she is fantastic. I mean, she's always been fantastic. But now she, she talks about a storm, and it's lovely, that's great. And then here in Houston, my little, she's seven year old, seven years old, and says she wants to be a firefighter. And that's just the coolest thing in the world. My best friend from back home is a female firefighter. So I've been able to like, connect them. And it's just really cool to be able to see somebody else that wants a job that's not particularly female dominated field, and just to be able to encourage her in that. And that's just such an invaluable thing for a little girl to have somebody like you and someone like your friend who gives their free time to that to give encouragement, and to just be a presence in their life. Somebody to aspire to and that you're able to connect this little girl who wants to be a firefighter with a female firefighter. And now she has this role model in her life that she can look up to and be like, okay, yeah, like, it's probably like, solidifies her dream, to see that it's something that's possible for her as a girl. And I definitely think that's something. You know, in the last couple years, I've seen a lot more young people, young girls wanting jobs that are kind of in the male dominated industry. It's, there's definitely a shift happening. Definitely a shift. And then there's more role models like you and your friend, and yeah, getting to show what's possible, amazing work that you do with that. It's obviously it's pretty fun for me too, because you get to, you know, pretend to be a kid for a little bit, which is always fun. Heck, yeah. Bring out that inner child. So you're from Indiana, you know, I knew like a bunch of people that were stationed with that hadn't even seen the ocean before. And they were from the Midwest. Was that the case for you? Did you join the Coast Guard without ever having seen the ocean? No. So I knew the ocean and my dad had gone to the Naval Academy. So like I knew about the academies. I still didn't really know what the Coast Guard was. I was like, oh, it's like water police. Yeah. Just like not wrong, but it's not wrong. Yeah. I always heard it was like, lifeguards on steroids. So when people told me Yeah, which I guess I'm a lifeguard to the helicopter, I would say but yeah. Cool. But yeah, I didn't I didn't really understand what we did until I went to the Academy. And, you know, got, like, did the summers where I was working in the Coast Guard and stuff like that. But yeah, I think we have like, one Coast Guard station in Indiana, and it's up on the lakes. So oh, that I didn't even know there was one in Indiana. I didn't know that either. That's crazy. Yeah. A lot of people don't leave Lake stations. Like they're they stay there forever. Yeah, Tahoe or any of the Great Lakes. Yeah, good luck ever getting a billet there are people that fly up there to my girlfriend's at Traverse City Michigan, and they like land on the ice and stuff in a 60 Wow, that's cool. What are you doing? Crazy my first time flying up there was like out in Chicago and I used to fly in the airlines and flying over the like when we were coming on the approach coming down they set us up for like Final but we're over the Great Lake. I don't know which one it is next to Chicago but you know, one of them. And it was like I was pretty surprised when I saw it. The first time was like holy shit. Like this is like the ocean out here. I can't even see the other side like oh, like what kind of Lake is weird that so funny story when I was flying towards the Grand Canyon. I had we fly over Lake Mead, which is a huge lake where that supplies all of the freshwater to Vegas and parts of southern California. And I'm explaining this, you know, okay, well they dammed off the Colorado River with the Hoover Dam and it created this like reservoir and one of my passengers looks outside and he goes across the ocean. And I was like No sir that's actually Lake Mead. It's freshwater and he goes no, I see ocean just like looked at him like Alright bro, it's the ocean. And all the other passengers are like what is this guy talking about? It but he was so adamant. He's like Now, ocean. Okay, you went I'm not gonna argue with you. Cool, I guess we're flying over the ocean in the middle of the desert cool. Super weird, super weird before. This I know, I don't even know. But like I just thought of it when you said Grand Canyon, there's like, we always give a safety brief you know before you get passengers in the helicopter, and I tell everybody to turn their phones on airplane mode. And like, you know, you see people do it, some people don't. And we always got like this isolated turbulence on the southern side of this backside of a mountain. And every time like we hit it, I was like, who forgot to put their phone on airplane mode. I would look back, and I would only see one person like this person brilliant. That's amazing I just thought of that. Every time I was like, oh my God I got fired. Thank you so much for taking the time to talk to us. This has been so enlightening and awesome. And I'm so happy that I got to chat with you because I have never talked to actually, I've probably had to talk to a couple of Coast Guard helicopter pilots. But I definitely have never talked to a female Coast Guard helicopter pilot. So it was so awesome to get your perspective on things. And congratulations on fulfilling your dream and getting to do this amazing work saving lives and kicking ass out there. Oh, thank you. Yeah, it was great talking to you guys, too. It's been fun listening to your podcast, so I'm glad I got to be a part of it. Yeah, for sure. Thank you. That was awesome. Yeah, that was so dope. Yay. Thanks. You're pretty funny. friggin awesome, feel so inspired by Miranda story, she really put into perspective how much work it actually takes to become a Coast Guard aviator, you gotta really really want it to put yourself through what it takes to get there and to make that long commitment. So kudos to Miranda for putting herself out there and going after what she wanted, you know, Oh, for sure. You know, it really drives home getting that instrument rating you know, I can't tell you how valuable that is in saving your life or getting you out of a jam you know really builds that foundation of being a solid pilot salt solid pilot yes silent pilot Hearing no 100% You know I that's definitely a really good takeaway for people out there to Oh, hell yeah. Yeah, you know, nobody has this hair shoot on a serious Hey. But yeah, no, it's true. Story. Well, anyways, you guys again, I'm not gonna you know, drive down your throat again, but liking and subscribing and all that shiznit you guys, you guys know what to do. So we hope you join us for the next episode and have a beautiful day out there.