PilotPhotog Podcast
A podcast all about fighter planes, military aircraft, and aviation history. We will take a look at the pilots, designers, engineers, and maintainers who have flown or worked on some of the most iconic aircraft in history. Available on all podcast steaming platforms, you can find a full directory here:
https://pilotphotog.buzzsprout.com
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Episodes
137 episodes
The Four Jets That Win Carrier Wars
An aircraft carrier can look like a steel monument to power, but the real story is what happens when it stops being a symbol and becomes a system. We walk through Operation Epic Fury as a blueprint for modern carrier warfare: two carriers in tw...
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Season 5
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18:54
Bone At The Gates
A freezing South Dakota night, wrenches crusted in frost, and a bomber built to bend physics and distance to its will. We take you from the flight line to the target area to unpack how the B‑1B Lancer—once a controversial Cold War project—becam...
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Season 6
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20:21
Eagles Down Over Kuwait
A blazing flat spin over Kuwait wasn’t the story anyone expected during Operation Epic Fury. Three F-15E Strike Eagles—flown by some of the most experienced crews in the world—were knocked down by a friendly battery while defending vital energy...
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14:52
Invisible Hours Before Sunrise
The sky over Tehran burned at 0300, but the outcome had been scripted hours earlier in the dark. We pull back the curtain on Operation Epic Fury to show how a fifth‑generation architecture—Raptors, Lightnings, carriers, growlers, drones, and ti...
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Season 6
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10:04
Cheap Drones, Costly Lessons
What if the smartest move isn’t building the strongest shield, but flooding the sky with cheap spears? We unpack the rise of LUCAS, a $35,000 one-way attack drone that turns the cost math of modern warfare on its head and forces a rethink of de...
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Season 6
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14:45
The C-17 Globemaster And The Quiet Power Of Logistics
A cargo jet that doesn’t dogfight, doesn’t sneak, and rarely breaks the speed of sound reshaped modern power by doing one thing better than anyone else: showing up with the right cargo, at the right place, right on time. We dig into the C‑17 Gl...
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Season 6
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15:14
The Air Force Is Betting $4.4 Billion That A Stealth Quarterback Can Command A Drone Army
A stealth “ghost” is quietly rewriting the future of airpower—and we pull the curtain back on what it means. The F‑47, centerpiece of the Air Force’s Next Generation Air Dominance program, isn’t just another fighter; it’s the quarterback for a ...
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Season 6
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19:15
Inside Ghost Mode: How A Silent Supercarrier Hunts Iran’s Air Defenses
A supercarrier doesn’t just vanish for drama; it goes silent to change the fight. We follow the USS Abraham Lincoln as it cuts its transponder, enters emission control, and sprints from the South China Sea toward Iran, transforming from a visib...
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Season 6
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12:31
Inside Operation Absolute Resolve And The Capture Of Nicolás Maduro
A defended capital went dark, the radars filled with ghosts, and minutes later the target was airborne over open water. We take you inside Operation Absolute Resolve, our most detailed breakdown yet of how stealth ISR, electronic warfare, and T...
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Season 6
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16:54
From Peacemaker To Raider: How Strategic Bombers Shaped Power, Deterrence, And Diplomacy
The most decisive missions are the ones that never launch. This episode tracks a living thread of strategic airpower—from the magnesium “Peacemaker” to the digital-native Raider—and shows how bombers shaped diplomacy as much as war. We start wi...
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Season 6
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4:14:30
Pickleball To Power Projection
Imagine launching a jet from a space smaller than a pickleball court and sending it 2,100 nautical miles to jam, scout, and fight—without a pilot on board. That’s XBat: a VTOL, fighter-powered, AI-driven aircraft that challenges everything we a...
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Season 5
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16:17
Why The F-35 Wins Before The Fight Starts
The most decisive move in modern air combat doesn’t happen at the merge—it happens minutes earlier, when one side quietly builds a picture the other can’t see. We explore how the F-35 flips the script from hero pilot dogfights to information-dr...
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Season 5
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13:21
Why The B-52 Still Rules The Sky After 70 Years
What if the most modern idea in airpower is a bomber that first flew in 1952? We dive into the B-52’s improbable journey from late‑1940s sketch to 21st‑century missile truck, showing how one airframe kept adapting while faster, sleeker, and ste...
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Season 5
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25:14
Raptor: Birth Of Air Dominance
A copper sunrise over the Mojave, a silent climb into the haze, and radar screens that fade to nothing—our story begins with a moment that changed how airpower thinks. We trace the F-22 Raptor’s path from Cold War anxiety to apex hunter, explor...
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Season 5
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23:40
Future-Proofing The Sky
The sky doesn’t forgive mistakes, and neither does history. We take you inside the F-35 Lightning II’s turbulent journey—from an “impossible” 1990s idea to the networked backbone of Western air power—and ask the uncomfortable question: is this ...
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Season 5
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20:20
Why The B-21 Raider Changes The Bomber Game
The horizon over the Pacific is crowded with sensors, and the old playbook doesn’t cut it anymore. We break down how the B‑21 Raider resets modern airpower with stealth tuned for infrared as much as radar, intercontinental reach that sidesteps ...
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Season 5
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17:48
The Last Message: Inside America's Doomsday Communication System
A devastating cyber attack wipes out power grids, data centers, and satellites. The nation is blind, its leaders cut off, and deterrence hangs by a thread. Yet deep beneath the oceans, ballistic missile submarines—the "boomers"—continue their s...
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Season 5
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20:51
B-47: How a Cold War Bomber Birthed the Modern Airliner
A sleek, swept-wing silhouette streaks across the sky—not a fighter, but America's first jet-powered nuclear bomber. The Boeing B-47 Stratojet wasn't just revolutionary; it was the aircraft that defined what modern jets would become.Des...
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Season 5
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47:02
A Flying Computer: The Triumphs and Troubles of America's Most Controversial Fighter
The F-35 Lightning II embodies aviation's greatest paradox—a marvel of engineering weighed down by political reality and sky-high expectations. Initially conceived as "one jet to rule them all," this fifth-generation fighter was meant to revolu...
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Season 5
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2:13:15
F-15EX: Old Airframe, New Dominance in Modern Warfare
The Eagle has landed – again. But this time, it's been completely reborn for the modern battlefield. While stealth fighters dominate headlines, the US Air Force is making a strategic pivot by investing billions in the F-15EX Eagle II, a fighter...
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Season 5
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15:26
Six Turning, Four Burning: The B-36 Peacemaker Legacy
The year was 1950, and in the skies over America flew a true engineering marvel – a magnesium-skinned colossus that dwarfed everything that came before it. Pilots described it as "sitting in a bay window while flying an apartment building," and...
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Season 5
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37:25
Operation Midnight Hammer: How Seven B-2s Rewrote Modern Warfare
Seven black bombers slip into the night sky as America launches its most daring military operation in decades. Operation Midnight Hammer has begun.What follows is unprecedented: a perfect storm of deception, stealth, and overwhelming fo...
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18:24
The F-22 Raptor: Unchallenged Champion of the Skies
The F-22 Raptor stands as the undisputed heavyweight champion of the skies. With a reputation so formidable that its mere presence changes the calculus of aerial warfare, this fifth-generation fighter has dominated for nearly two decades throug...
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Season 5
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13:55