#44 - Modern Warfare Beyond the Clouds with A-10 Pilot Jon Yost

Explore the exhilarating journey of our guest, who grew up amidst the vibrant aviation culture of Larkspur, Colorado, with a family legacy of flying. This episode promises a deep dive into his transformation from dreaming of a civilian aviation career to navigating the complex pathways of military aviation, particularly within the Air National Guard. Inspired by a family friend’s experience, he shares the hurdles and triumphs inherent in pursuing a fighter pilot position.

Listeners are taken through the rigorous training process at Vance Air Force Base, from mastering the basics in a T-6 Texan to the adrenaline-pumping experience of handling an F-16. Our guest opens up about the unique challenges and high stakes of the Introduction to Fighter Fundamentals course, known for its high washout rate, and the intense G-force training that prepares pilots for the demands of combat. He vividly recounts the transition to flying the F-16 and the strategic intricacies of real-world combat missions, highlighting the crucial role of aircraft like the A-10 Warthog in providing close air support.

In the latter part of the episode, we delve into the shifting landscape of modern warfare and the future of military aviation. From the strategic coordination required in combat missions in Syria and Iraq to the potential phase-out of the A-10 aircraft in favor of newer technologies like the F-35, our conversation touches on the enduring necessity of ground troops and the irreplaceable support of close air missions. Whether it’s maneuvering through the fog of war or making split-second targeting decisions, the complexities of a pilot’s world are laid bare, offering invaluable insights into both the thrill and responsibility that come with the skies.

Chapters

• 0:09 Navigating Paths to Military Aviation
• 7:14 Pursuing Air National Guard Fighter Positions
• 15:11 Air Force Pilot Training and Aircraft
• 28:25 Introduction to Fighter Fundamentals Washout Rate
• 32:20 Transitioning to F-16 Training and G-Force
• 36:43 Experiencing G-Force in Pilot Training
• 43:54 F-16 Fighter Training and Missions
• 55:05 A-10 Warthog Close Air Support
• 1:07:21 A-10 Warthog Gun and Rounds
• 1:13:09 Deployment With the a-10 Warthog
• 1:18:08 A-10 Warthog Combat Missions and Refueling
• 1:27:31 A-10 Mission and Air Support
• 1:36:55 Combat Missions in Syria and Iraq
• 1:48:48 Combat Missions and Rules of Engagement
• 1:59:16 Flight, Earth, and Future Air Support
• 2:03:37 Future Warfare and Aircraft Capabilities
• 2:08:26 Managing Targeting Decisions in Combat
• 2:14:02 Financial Education for Military Members
• 2:24:47 Supporting Veteran-Owned Businesses

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:09

Why don't we just jump right into it? Give me an introduction yourself and where you're born. We'll just we're gonna roll right into it.

Speaker 2: 0:14

All right, sounds good. Yeah, so I'm born and raised in Colorado. Okay, yeah, grew up in a small town called Larkspur, which is, I mean, like real small, but it's close enough to.

Speaker 1: 0:28

Where's it?

Speaker 2: 0:28

located. It's in between Denver and Colorado Springs.

Speaker 1: 0:30

Oh, okay, so do you know where Lyman is? Yep, okay, I spent a lot of time out there, yeah, nice.

Speaker 2: 0:34

Okay. So yeah, grew up out there and was always flying airplanes, you know for, you know, my, my dad was a pilot, okay, grandparents pilots, so it's always around around aviation, so it's kind of like all right, pretty sure I want to end up flying, flying planes were they doing like a lot of crop dusting out there?

Speaker 1: 0:53

what type of flying are they doing?

Speaker 2: 0:54

well, so my, my dad was, uh, he was a civilian his whole his whole career. Um and then, um, you know, he was an, he was an airline guy, and then grandparents, one flew military, the other civilian.

Speaker 1: 1:09

So it was destined. It's in your blood.

Speaker 2: 1:11

Yeah, I knew I was going to be flying something, okay.

Speaker 1: 1:14

So I mean childhood. You're in and around planes quite a bit, so that obviously sparked the interest. Did you know immediately that you wanted to go military route or you just wanted to fly in general?

Speaker 2: 1:31

I was mostly just I want to go military route, or you just wanted to fly. In general, I was mostly just I want to go, I want to go fly something. I want to fly, fly aircraft. And and you know being I look back at it I'm like you know I was, I really didn't have these like incredible goals. I just go fly airplanes, cool, figure it out, yeah and um, you know that. You know military was always on my mind. Oh yeah, cool, go find the military. You know military was always on my mind. Oh yeah, cool, I'll go fly in the military.

Speaker 2: 1:46

You know, just from minimal exposure around, you know we didn't have like any. You know the Air Force Academy was close, but didn't really. You know, that's just a school. So in terms of actual bases, though, around there isn't too much, and so I wasn't able to really see too much of the Air Force bases, and so I was like, well, whatever, that would be neat, but let's just keep going with the track of just flying airplanes. So eventually, you know, graduate, go graduate high school, go on to college Again. Just hey, cool, go get an aeronautical science degree and go fly and get all my civilian flight ratings and get all my civilian flight ratings Okay and finish up graduate college in 2001, like May 2001. Okay, and I'm like, okay, cool, I'm now on my track, I'm going to I mean just going to go fly civilian, maybe don't know what I'm going to do, yet Probably end up in the airlines eventually.

Speaker 2: 2:46

it's kind of what I figured well, sure enough, something else happens in 2001, okay, you? Know, september 11th rolls around and that's that then gives a whole different perspective on things, and so so at that point I'm like, okay, I'm just, I'm just out of college, I know how to fly airplanes, and just like probably you know most guys in our generation at that point you know like the lines of people to go you know, join the military on like September 12th, and so at that point for me it was like, okay, holy cow, I've got to get into this fight.

Speaker 1: 3:26

You know I, so it changed everything for you. Yeah, definitely.

Speaker 2: 3:30

And you know again, I've always thought the military was awesome. I just didn't know that much about the flying stuff and you know, and really what all it took.

Speaker 2: 3:39

So now I'm a little behind the eight ball in terms of, you know, it's time to join. I'm already done with college. I'm kind of on a career progression, somewhat thinking I am at least. And so then it's like, well, I want to fly and I want to fly in the military, and so then you know, getting into that rabbit hole of, okay, all the different ways that there are Because now you already have your degree, I have a degree, so you skip that process of going the ROTC route, right?

Speaker 1: 4:10

Yep yeah.

Speaker 2: 4:11

And so really, you're looking at the different options you have and it's actually pretty interesting. There are a lot of different paths to get into military aviation.

Speaker 1: 4:22

You're talking just all the different branches and what each one offers.

Speaker 2: 4:25

And and and, yeah, the different branches and and, then just the different paths to get into the different services as well. So you know, just, you know, I mean army. Obviously you can be warrant officer, you can be an officer and then you can fly helicopters, whatever. But just be an officer and then you can fly helicopters, whatever. Um, but just just on the air force side, when you look at it, um, you know there's the path of being in college, being rotc, or go to a service academy, air force academy type thing, where you're commissioned yep right after graduation and then you go and then you start flying. Um, you could also do that really anytime after you graduate as well. You could just join the air force and now you, and now you're giving them a 10-year commitment.

Speaker 1: 5:09

Oh, okay.

Speaker 2: 5:10

And then I also had heard of, you know, you can just join on Air National Guard or the Air Reserves, air Force Reserves and I was like, ooh, that actually sounds pretty interesting. And we had a family friend who was flying in the New Mexico Guard and he was like, hey, this is actually a really good deal. You can, you know, you're full-time for the first few years as you get spun up, and then you can be what's called a traditional guardsman where you can fly in the military and then you can also have a civilian job on the side. That's nice. Oh, well, now that that sounds really cool. Okay, I was like, man, maybe I should, you know, should start pursuing that, and so. So again, this is, um, you know, 2001. And then, um, and then and I was like, cool, I'll go, I'll go join the guard, and thinking, all right, 2001 probably be, get hired, go to pilot training, rock and roll, I'll be in the fight in like six months a year. Very ignorant, don't know how it really was at that point.

Speaker 2: 6:20

Well, so joining the international guard or getting hired as a pilot in the Guard is a pretty in-depth process. How so? Well, you have to have your packet, your application packet ready to go before you'll get interviewed. Oh okay, so you have to go through all the like, the AFOQT, the Air Force Officers Qualification Test, the BAT test, which is like a hand-eye coordination test, and first you have to get somebody who will let you even take that test, because you know you go to a recruiter and most recruiters are like, well, we just want you to just enlist or just you know here, just go do this. But for them to go through the whole process of getting you all these tests and go through all the paperwork, and then now they might not even see you again. So, figuring that whole thing out and then to see which Air National Guard units are hiring, you know you have to reach out. This is kind of I mean 2001,.

Speaker 2: 7:23

Obviously Internet's around, but it's not as it wasn't as easy as it is now to just do a quick search and so you're really hunting down each guard unit. You personally yeah, personally you have to hunt down every guard unit that you think you'd want to go to.

Speaker 1: 7:41

Really.

Speaker 2: 7:42

Yeah. So every, you know, every state pretty much has a, has a, an air, an air national guard flying unit, um, and then you know some of them, you know they're going to fly c-17s, kc-135s, c-130s, you know. And then all the fighters as well, or most of the fighters, are in in the guard. So so, really, you got to you. You've got to reach out to those squadrons or to those units and say, hey, are you guys hiring Interesting? And you're going to hear, yes, hey, we are, we're doing our interview board in June. Okay, great. And then you submit your packet to them.

Speaker 1: 8:20

Is this like a once-a-year thing that they do it?

Speaker 2: 8:22

is oh really. Yeah, so they do like a once a year thing that they do. It is, oh really, yeah, so they do their interviews once once a year.

Speaker 1: 8:27

Damn. So you I mean you got to have everything together.

Speaker 2: 8:34

If you're trying to fast track it like you are, like you're ready, yeah, you've got it it's and to have that packet of you know, every, every unit is going to be a little bit different what they require. Some of them are like hey, we actually want you to have your full like medical and air force flight medical, and how the hell am I supposed to do that? And um, and you know it's a lot of it's attention to detail, so you're really following what, what they want you to have, and then getting your packet in on time, and then um, this is like a legit job interview.

Speaker 1: 9:00

It seems more civilian it is structured than it is military. It's like get in line here you go, sign this paper, go through a class and see if you make it right, yeah, it is. It's a lot different, you're legit trying to get hired as a job, hired as a job and into the military, and you know a few there's.

Speaker 2: 9:19

You know, the guard is very um, there's a lot of similarities to active duty flying, okay, and then there's a lot of differences. One of the main differences when you're hired at an Air National Guard unit, you are there for life. In theory, you could be Like you could be. Hey, I'm hired at the Idaho Air National Guard, you can stay there forever.

Speaker 1: 9:44

You can do your whole career there.

Speaker 2: 9:45

Unlike, you know, active duty. As you know, you're at the whims of the core.

Speaker 2: 9:49

Yeah, they're like hey guess what You're going here, you're going here, you're going here, okay. And so it's one thing, it's one aspect that's really awesome about the. Guard but it's also. It makes it. You know, the barrier to entry is a lot harder because they don't want to bring you on unless because they're like dude, bringing this guy on for life and if we don't like him it's a lot. It's really tough to get you out. I never thought of that so yeah and so um.

Speaker 2: 10:20

So when they hire and the way that the Air National Guard hires, they bring in every year, they're going to hire a guy, not every year, but most of the time they're going to bring in one, maybe two guys from active duty, maybe like a captain or a major, and then they need new blood as well. So they're going to hire one guy off the street to be as a lieutenant. That's it. Yeah, Sometimes they'll hire two.

Speaker 1: 10:49

What's the application percent? I mean, are you talking hundreds of guys applying for this or is it like a do?

Speaker 2: 10:54

you know, yeah, so all the fighter squadrons are going to see in that range of like 80 to 120 applicants and maybe one or two guys are going to get picked for this.

Speaker 1: 11:05

Yeah, you get one or two that they hire.

Speaker 2: 11:09

And so I just, you know, it's like okay, I'm single at the time and so I really didn't care where I lived and I just said, look, I really want to fly fighter or attack aircraft.

Speaker 1: 11:22

So you knew going into it. Yeah, that's what I wanted.

Speaker 2: 11:24

You at least wanted that's what I really that's, that's what I was really going for, and so I just I I called all those squadrons, found out their applications and sent out the packets to to all of those, and so then, so now we're into 2002, in the summer is kind of when they start. When I started interviewing they, you know, they call it rushing, you know whatever, and and um and um in that that first summer, you know, on you, just on your own dime, you're flying to these units so you're technically not in the air force yet, correct?

Speaker 1: 11:55

not you're still civilian applying to try to get a job in the air force.

Speaker 2: 11:59

Yep, this is so weird coming oh, I know, this is so like opposite of everything I've ever learned. It really is, and I'm learning as I'm going you know where it's like oh okay, now I guess I'm buying a ticket to St Louis to interview at the you know St Louis.

Speaker 2: 12:19

Garden, really it's so weird, so you're like, all right, well, whatever, this is the way it is, yeah, and so I make the in 2002, I'm making the rounds, go interview all over the place and I was happy to at least get an interview, because you know, out of 100 applicants, to at least get an interview, you're feeling good.

Speaker 1: 12:38

How many did you shock and blast out to? I mean, do you remember?

Speaker 2: 12:42

Like all the fighter squadrons okay and um in in the country so you went all and and then out of all of those, and again, you know, I would, you know, I would say maybe I don't, I couldn't tell you how many states have fighter squadrons. Maybe 20, okay, and then the rest, you know, it's like um heavy units and then, out of the 20, how many gave you the callback?

Speaker 2: 13:05

I had that first year. I had like eight or nine interviews, Okay, okay. And so they're going to interview maybe 10 or 15 guys that they kind of narrow down out of the packets.

Speaker 2: 13:17

So go around, interview, get the thumbs down from everybody. I'm like, oh shit, okay, that sucks, but good experience. And so now I'm just continuing along flying, you know, just doing some like little cargo flying jobs and whatnot, flying out of Denver, and just continue, press along Like okay, well, we'll see what happens. But at the same time now a war is like really starting to pick up in rage in Afghanistan 2002, 2003. Shit, okay, I really need to get rolling here. Um, this kind of just, you know, keep keep going, um, keep interviewing, keep interviewing.

Speaker 1: 13:53

Well, it takes, you know, three years of interviewing. No kidding, and um you know, for not quitting on that.

Speaker 2: 13:56

Well, you know, and in hindsight you know, would have been easier just to go active duty probably. But you know, I was, uh, you know I started down that path of the guard and um, and I'm really happy, you know the way it turned out. But, yeah, you know, I finally get hired again. I'm shotgunning packet, packets everywhere and all over the country. I don't really care, there's just fighter attack aircraft, yeah, and um, I, I, I ended up getting hired in Fort Wayne, indiana, okay, and I have no, no connection to that, that town, but um, you know, they they picked me up to go um and get hired. They have, um, they were flying F-16s at the time. So I was like, dude, awesome, this is great, and um, so that's, and so that's. That's where I first started to get hired there.

Speaker 1: 14:44

So you see these videos of these guys graduating Air Force I guess flight school and they get assigned their position. You got to skip all that. So you were like, okay, this is what's presented to me, I'm taking it, and that was F-16s right out the gate.

Speaker 2: 15:03

Right.

Speaker 1: 15:04

What did you think of that? I mean, obviously that's a pretty badass jet. So I mean, that was probably. Was that a sigh of relief? Or what were you hoping for? F-16s? I mean, I know you wanted fighter attack. If you would have had your dream, what would it have been?

Speaker 2: 15:17

Well, so honestly, I was a little ignorant to. I mean, I knew what obviously all these airframes did and what their mission was, but it was just like I don't care. I was like I think A-10s are awesome F-16s are awesome.

Speaker 1: 15:38

You just wanted in. They were all great.

Speaker 2: 15:41

And so I didn't intimately know what they're doing in terms of you know, it's like, oh cool, yeah, obviously I know f-15s are in air-to-air platform and a-10s are air-to-ground mostly, and so it's like, well, but I'm, but I was fine with with whatever um, and then. But once I went to pilot training, you know you really get, you know when you're talking to the pilots and you know all these guys that flew those and then you really find out what's what. And but again, I was happy with F-16.

Speaker 1: 16:10

So F-16 training school? I mean, do you show up? I mean you're going from like these commercial cargo planes and then now, all of a sudden, it's happening. I mean, what's the feeling and thought going through your mind at that point?

Speaker 2: 16:27

Yeah, well, and I mean kind of to back up too. I mean, once you're hired, you know you're like okay, cool, hired. Well, now you're in the pipeline they call it.

Speaker 1: 16:37

And now?

Speaker 2: 16:38

you're in, you know, coming off as a civilian well, now I got to go get commissioned. Coming off as a civilian well, now I've got to go get commissioned. And then that's where the line of okay, I'm in the Air National Guard versus active duty, now you're just basically during the training pipeline. It's all the same, okay. And you know, I go to Vance Air Force Base in Oklahoma, enid Oklahoma, for Air Force pilot training, and it was actually a joint pilot training base at the time, so we had Navy pilots and Air Force pilots. And so you show up day one and really you know like, yeah, I knew I was hired to fly the F-16, but you still get rack and stacked with all your active duty bros in the class. Oh, okay. And if you're not making the cuts at every you know all the checks basically they're either going to just say, hey, you're done, or hey, you're doing, okay, but not good enough to go fly fighters, so you need to go find a C-130 unit or something.

Speaker 1: 17:41

What would wash you out of this program? I mean, what are they looking for?

Speaker 2: 17:52

um, I mean air force pilot training in general. They're they do a really good job of screening to to because it's it's very, it's very expensive, right for the time I imagine for sure, and so they don't want to send somebody there who's not going to make it through pilot training. But what they can't determine is if you should go be a fighter pilot or not that's a, that's a really hard thing to hire what separates the difference between an ac-130 and f-16 pilot?

Speaker 1: 18:14

what's the you know when you hit that y in the road?

Speaker 2: 18:17

yeah, and well, and that's what one thing I mean. Like the air national guard, you you know, when they're hiring they have a really hard time picking a guy off the street to go be a fighter pilot, like, because there's nothing that says like, okay, if you can be, if he has this, this, this and this, he will come back to you as a fighter pilot. And there was a huge issue for a while in the National Guard. I think it still exists. Some of these squadrons. They went like five years of hiring and all their guys for five years in a row were washing out somewhere in the process. It's because it's really hard to determine what makes a good fighter pilot.

Speaker 2: 19:03

But again, the Air Force does a really good job of saying look, if you do well enough on you know these certain tests, we know we can get you through just air force pilot training. Okay, we can't guarantee that you're going to go be an f-22 pilot, but maybe you're great at flying a kc-135 tanker pilot. And so the first part of Air Force pilot training it's called a T-6 Texan and it's a single-engine turboprop and you're just basic and it's your basic like hey, this is how to take off land, fly the Air Force patterns, they call it instrument flying and then, once you're finished with that phase, is when they really that's the first cut land, fly the Air Force patterns, instrument flying. And then, once you're finished with that phase, is when they really that's the first cut, really, where they say okay, these individuals, you're going to go fly fighter-bomber route, these individuals, you're going to go fly cargo or tanker route.

Speaker 1: 20:04

But how are they deciding that? Is it reaction? I mean, obviously they're watching and testing everything. Does it just come down to the individual, do you think? I mean, are these guys that involved in the whole process that they're watching? I mean, what separates for me going to be a tanker? Versus an F-16?.

Speaker 2: 20:24

Well, I think the overlying thing is the needs of the air force you know, sometimes there would be like a well, like hey, we don't need any fighter guys, like luckily that hasn't been the case for quite a while. Okay, they've needed fighter guys really heavily for a while. But, um, but you know, if you're doing um guys who do really well on their check rides or didn't have any, didn didn't have problems getting through, okay, they're like okay, we're pretty confident that you're going to make it through the next couple phases, so, but then they'll even so. Then so that gives you down. That breaks it down into saying, okay, yeah, you could go fly the fighter attack slash and bomber route. Fly the fighter attack slash and bomber route, so that you're all then, so all of us. You move to the, the next aircraft, which is the t-38, and then, if you're going to go fly heavies and cargo, you go fly a t1, which is kind of like a small little business jet. Okay, you learn to fly, you know more and it's catered more to what the cargo.

Speaker 1: 21:24

Maneuverable-wise and all that Right, so they don't need something that's going to be much quicker.

Speaker 2: 21:28

And then the T-38, that's a. You know, that's the plane they used in the first Top Gun, as the you know, the MiG-28s, they called them. They were all the black Russian MiGs. What was that like?

Speaker 1: 21:40

So that's incredible Moving them. What was that like moving up and?

Speaker 2: 21:42

moving up. I loved that airplane the T-38 was just that was so much fun.

Speaker 1: 21:45

What was it like getting? So it's a two-man, then right?

Speaker 2: 21:48

Yep, yeah, you always have an instructor, so what's it like?

Speaker 1: 21:50

I mean, do you remember the first time getting in it and rolling down the runway getting ready?

Speaker 2: 21:53

to take off. Yeah, I mean, it's not like a blow-your-socks-off crazy fighter, but it's still a trainer and so but it's still, it's got two afterburners, supersonic, it's a um and and it's a difficult aircraft to fly the t-38.

Speaker 2: 22:11

It's an well it's. It's. It's really old, it was built in like the 50s or something. Okay, and they're finally replacing it now and, um, it has a really thin wing on it. That makes it stall. Characteristics are just terrible. And so, like on a normal airplane, if you get slow, that's when airplanes start to stall. They're just not getting enough airflow over the wings and most airplanes are designed to be like have a pretty benign stall. So when it stalls, okay cool, you get a little shudder and you recover stall. So it wouldn't stall, okay cool, you get a little shudder and you recover. Well, um, the t38 it would like. You're constantly in like a near death situation of stall when you're coming into land on the final turn it's called.

Speaker 2: 22:53

It sounds like there's mice dancing on the wings. You'd hear this like and that's kind of the, you're close to stall, go stall. But then the second you hear like elephants on the wing, like do the? Things about a little bit the things and it won't just stall, it'll like goes, it'll like stall, spin gone just immediately yeah and so, um, you know, unfortunately they've lost a lot of guys in t-38s throughout the years, because it's, just it's a tough airplane and is that why they?

Speaker 1: 23:17

you think they do that because if you learn to fly something right off the gate, that's that I you know, I think it I, I mean, I, I think it's just, I mean the aircraft, it's just.

Speaker 2: 23:29

I would, honestly, it's probably a design flaw. Okay, I mean it's built in the 50s, you know. You mean you're gonna see aircraft today.

Speaker 2: 23:35

That would just they're a lot more forgiving, yeah and um and um, but it's great, great time, a lot of fun to fly again. It's you know you're hauling ash, doing low levels, and so it was. And so once you finish that, when you finish T-38s, then that's your. You have what's called the drop night, and drop night is, you know, at the club, and they just they'll show a picture on the screen.

Speaker 1: 24:04

So you don't know what you're. You're actually getting picked, yet for though, correct right.

Speaker 2: 24:08

Well, I since, since I'm hired to go fly an f-16 it's pretty much as long as once I made it into the t-38. It was like as long as I don't, you know, screw up in 38s, yep, and then in the next the follow-on. There's like a couple other follow-on courses. That's the aircraft I'm going to go to.

Speaker 1: 24:27

Okay, but for the normal enlisted guys it's a different route.

Speaker 2: 24:30

Yeah, so if you're just in, you know, and if you're in active duty, drop night's a pretty big night.

Speaker 1: 24:35

I've seen some videos of it. It looks pretty cool.

Speaker 2: 24:37

Yeah, and you know, guys, emotions are high and everyone's freaking out because you know that that's going to tell them hey, they're going to be flying a b-52, because that's, you know, in that 38 it's back to, you're going to be flying either a bomber or a fighter, okay and um, you know.

Speaker 2: 24:53

So some guys you know they're destined. They want to be a general, that's their whole goal and they've got to get into an f-22 and that's their thing. And like they think their whole life is over if they get a B-1 or something. Or some people just have huge dreams and ambitions of flying a certain airframe.

Speaker 1: 25:10

Is there a plane in the fleet that nobody wants to fly? Is there just that one that?

Speaker 2: 25:20

people are like God. I got stuck on this. I'm sure there is. I think it would probably— what would be yours? I think a lot of guys would say on the heavy side would probably be like an AWACS.

Speaker 1: 25:37

What's an AWACS?

Speaker 2: 25:38

That's the aircraft that looks like. It has a giant Frisbee on the top of it. Oh, the control center one yeah because they're really just taking off and making big circles while you're in a big, heavy airplane. So I don't think people would really say, hey, raise their hand and say You're not jumping for joy when that picture pops up on your night. You know. What's amazing, though, too, is there are like the diehard A-10 guys too.

Speaker 1: 26:07

You know guys who are like.

Speaker 2: 26:08

I really want A-10s. I want them bad, and that was first time too. When I was in pilot training I was like man, you know you start, you know you're starting to talk to some of the pilots that came back from the war. Now they're in, now they're flying T-38s for their other assignment. You find out like holy shit, the Hog is a badass airplane. And so there were a lot of guys really wanting it.

Speaker 1: 26:32

It's such an iconic plane. Yeah, I mean, it's the most recognizable plane, I think, in the sky. Yeah, you know.

Speaker 2: 26:39

And that really too. That was the time where I first thought, oh, you know, that would be an incredible airplane to fly. Of course I was slated for Vipers Like cool, fine, I had no problem with that.

Speaker 1: 26:49

I mean it's still a pretty badass plane, yeah, so as you're moving up in training and then finally getting to the F-16, could I compare that to moving up in like a supercar? You're going from Ferrari to Bugatti, is that how it kind of feels in military terms? I mean, because you're going from a plane. I mean, obviously the F-16s are pretty ancient too, I mean most of the majority of it. I feel like our fleet is pretty historic. But as you're moving from these training planes, you're getting more G-force, more maneuverability out of these planes. Is it like? Can you compare that to moving up in like a supercar?

Speaker 2: 27:30

Yeah, I mean, that is a good analogy because you really like the T-6, like I mentioned before when you first started, yeah, that'd be, you know. Now you're in just like an older Mustang or something. You know it's a good airplane, but it's nothing crazy. Yep, an older Mustang or something. You know it's a good, you know it's a good airplane, but it's nothing crazy. And then, yeah, then, and then the 38, maybe, you know. You know, keep comparing better, better cars.

Speaker 1: 27:51

Yeah, so the F-16, you finally get chose or you get yours at night. I mean, you kind of knew it was coming. How was that? I mean, was it a pretty cool feeling getting in it for the first time?

Speaker 2: 28:02

Yeah, that was awesome and I'll tell you because it's a long way just to get there. You know I mean Air Force pilot training. You know that's a year long and then once you're complete with Air Force pilot training, you're winged now and you're feeling good. That's when you graduate with T38s. Well then, you have to go to a course called IFF, which is Introduction to Fighter Fundamentals, and it's really where they I think it has the highest washout rate, for sure.

Speaker 1: 28:34

Really.

Speaker 2: 28:34

In the whole pipeline Really, and because that's where they're really looking to see, like, hey, can we send this individual to go fly a 20 million dollar airplane by himself and can he do exactly what is being asked of him? And so which is a huge ask? It is, and they need to find out are you going to be able to not just fly a fighter, which isn't that difficult, but to employ a fighter aircraft as a weapon? And that's what's very difficult to do.

Speaker 1: 29:11

Why? I mean obviously, but why is it so much more difficult?

Speaker 2: 29:16

Well, so you know, modern day fighters are really designed to be easy to fly. We'll put it that way Because I mean I've put my kid. He was like seven and he was flying the A-10 sim like day zero, you know, no problem.

Speaker 1: 29:37

Okay.

Speaker 2: 29:37

And stick and rudder, you can fly it. But then if I was to ask him hey, hey, now go strafe something, you know like no way, okay, and um, and there's so much going on and especially when you're single seat, I mean it is information overload there's so much happening that iff really weeds out the, the guy who's going to be, who's unable to just do the. You know, we we call it admin, which is kind of your basic like hey, going get out there, get into the fight and get back without screwing anything up, and so they'd wash guys out for things. That would be you'd think you know, you're looking at it and you're like that's so ridiculous, how did I hook the ride? It's called a hook because it's a U, an unsat. And so if you, you know, if you do an unsat on the ride, then what is that means you? Just, you screwed something up.

Speaker 2: 30:28

Okay, you failed the ride. Okay, you failed the flight. So you, so you'd land, you know typical sortie, you know you brief it up, you go fly it, you debrief. They watch all your tapes, everything's recorded, you know from your hud and you're on your own on these, so you're.

Speaker 1: 30:41

This isn't a simulation this is you're. You're actually planning a mission to go out, You're running it and coming back and they're watching every single one.

Speaker 2: 30:49

Yeah, so you're always going to be number two or number two or four in a four ship. This is all during that IFF course. Okay, and you're in the T-38. And so a basic story. You know, there's an air-to-air phase and an air-to-ground phase, and they're not getting crazy into the tactics, because that's not what it's about. It's really the admin making sure you're exactly where you need to be in formation, making sure you're doing things exactly on time and being where you're supposed to be when you're briefed. And if you're messing things up like that, then they're like well, if you can't do this, you definitely can't do the next thing, and so they're.

Speaker 1: 31:26

They're wanting to see if you can follow when I say simplest tasks for you, for a fighter pilot. So they want you hitting all those checks on time yeah and so every time you're either ahead or late, I mean they're, those are just dings for you, yeah and so they're.

Speaker 2: 31:41

And if you screw up something wholesale, you know, and you have an instructor in the backseat and, worst case, they're seeing you just do unsafe things, things that are just unsafe, like dude, you're gone. You can't go fly a single-seat fighter if you're even remotely unsafe. So, okay, cool. And so getting through IFF was, you know, we were all, and that was a time too when there was a super high washout rate during that program. So you know, we were all really happy to get through that and it's like a two-month course or something like that. Okay, yeah, so yeah. So when I finished that and it's like, graduated, I'm done. I'm finally out of Enid, oklahoma, which you know small town, it's just Oklahoma.

Speaker 2: 32:30

Yeah it's cold. You're like, oh my gosh. Well then I get to go to Luke Air Force Base down in. Phoenix for the RTU. You know the basic course, the B course, basic course in the F-16. And so that was like everything about it was. It was just a great time in my life.

Speaker 1: 32:50

Why Well? I mean, obviously you're at Phoenix.

Speaker 2: 32:52

Yeah.

Speaker 1: 32:53

Phoenix is awesome, especially probably being a young single. I don't know if you're single at this time. Yeah, still single. So being at Phoenix doesn't suck.

Speaker 2: 32:59

I was driving a 1973 Ford Bronco with the top off, driving in the deserts on the weekends going to, you know, hanging out in Scottsdale, and you know the class I was with great group of guys, and our instructors the like I mean the fighter squadron I was in down there was. We just had amazing instructors, great leadership. You know All that matters so much, oh for sure. And then, of course, getting to actually get to fly an F-16 was great.

Speaker 1: 33:33

So that's your first time you're actually getting hands-on an F-16? Yep, yeah, that's the first time.

Speaker 2: 33:39

And they call it again the B course, which is the basic course, which is nine months long.

Speaker 1: 33:44

Not your basic course. Nine months, yep. How much of a difference from going from the T-38 to an F-16?. I mean you have a plane that was built in the 50s. When were the 16s brought in?

Speaker 2: 33:58

Yeah, they're like 1980s-ish technology.

Speaker 1: 34:01

So how much of a difference are you learning? That cockpit, I guess is, was it. It was a drastic going from. It is for sure.

Speaker 2: 34:10

I mean the s, the s16, it's, it's a great airplane, and I mean really for 1980s technology. So it's all fly by wire. And they used to say, you know, it has a side stick that barely moves. And they say, like you, when you're moving that stick, you're just you're voting, you're one of the and the um on you, like, if you say, hey, I want to go, I want the aircraft to go up, I'm going to pull the stick back. Well, now you're just, you're telling the computer, hey, I'm going to do this. Well, the computer is also going to has a say in that, because really, yeah, and I mean the flight controls are so you, you know, with this fly-by-wire system it's not old hydraulic lines like in the T-38. In the T-38, if you yank on that stick, as hard as you want.

Speaker 2: 34:50

You can stall out, rip the wing, whatever you're going to do.

Speaker 1: 34:53

Well an.

Speaker 2: 34:53

F-16 really protects you from that. And so it wants to stay in control as much as possible.

Speaker 1: 35:00

So it almost fights you in a way.

Speaker 2: 35:06

Yeah, so sometimes you can go full aft, stick and it's going to say like, for instance, one air-to-air engagement you do in an F-16 during training is called the high aspect, and that's where you start, where you're a few miles apart, facing right at each other, and the fight starts right as you cross each other. Well, the standard thing is the second you cross, you yank. Fight starts right as you cross each other. Well, the standard thing is the second you cross you, yank back as hard as you can, and then that's when the fight begins. Okay and um, well, on f-16 you can just go boom, full aft, and that that the computer is just going to go boom. We're going to move this thing right to nine g's.

Speaker 2: 35:38

It's maximum amount of maneuverability no shit versus like um, um, you know other other aircraft, the T 38, eight tens, you know you're if you you have to really control how much? Over G. You're. You know, you could just rip the wings off but in the 16 inches 16, boom, and that stick moves like like a quarter of an inch back. And now it's just going boom, and you're stuck now.

Speaker 1: 36:05

And you know, I mean it's going to rake it right to 9g, which is pretty. It's yeah, it's pretty incredible. That was what. Okay, so that was one of our the questions that a lot, a lot of people asked um explaining g-force. They want to know like true g-force and have you ever blacked? Okay, so there's kind of three questions that were I had multiple questions of have you ever come close to blacking out, blacking out out during G-force training or flying? Are some people more susceptible to just G's it doesn't bother them than others? Is that or is that a thing?

Speaker 2: 36:37

Yeah, so those that's good questions there. So so really, um, and that's back into the pilot training pipeline. Okay, you have to go to the centrifuge and you can just, yeah, where they just spin you and that's back into the pilot training pipeline. You have to go to the centrifuge where they just spin you.

Speaker 1: 36:49

And there's really funny videos on YouTube of that. I feel like I'm good with anything. You want to absolutely torture me? That contraption is it.

Speaker 2: 37:00

It is. It's pretty painful and really you actually have to do it twice. You have to do it before you go to T38s and I think that G profile. They have to see that you can get to like 7Gs or whatever, and then to move on to F-16, now you got to go back and they spin you to 9Gs, they spin you to nine G's and you have to do it from different, like the check six, where you're looking over your shoulder, um, just hunkering down hard, and they have a little camera right in front of you and so, um, and that's pretty stressful cause you don't know well, like, how's my body going to react to this? You know they tell you there's certain things you can do. Um, you know a lot of leg workouts. Uh, you know you can. If you have higher blood pressure, that actually helps. So if you're so kind of like who's successful to g-lock, it's really like lanky, uh long lanky running runners. I mean that doesn't affect them.

Speaker 1: 37:57

No, they are going to g-lock quick oh, g-lock's passing out when you hit your the yeah, so a g-lock is yeah, you've passed out. So the taller length, here guys get it the worst.

Speaker 2: 38:07

Yeah, because really what's happening is all that blood is flowing out of your head and it's pooling in your legs.

Speaker 1: 38:14

Is that why they tell you to flex and do this weird breathing? You wear a G-suit, which?

Speaker 2: 38:18

is they look like you know, you just strap them over your legs, plug into a hose and then it fills up with air. When you pull Gs because it's really contract, wants to contract your, your they're like yeah, just like chaps basically Okay.

Speaker 2: 38:36

And but, and so in the aircraft that's what you get to wear and it also squeezes around your abdomen, okay, um, I mean, you know I'm short, stocky dude and back then too, you know what you know I was like you know you're, you know thicker, bigger, and so jesus really didn't, really didn't bother, really at that point really yeah, short, stocky dude, so it definitely affects certain people yeah who are out eating cheeseburgers all day are going to actually do a lot better, really, really, than the tall, lanky guys.

Speaker 2: 39:06

They're the ones that you see G-lock a lot.

Speaker 1: 39:08

Okay. So when you feel that, what's it feel like? I guess that was the third part of that question. Is it just weight? Does it feel like an elephant on your chest Because you see these videos and the dude's face is just sucked back?

Speaker 2: 39:25

Yeah, so it's pretty much you know like. So a G is a gravitational force, is what they call it. So when you're under G, you're under so like even when you're on an airliner and they rotate, you can feel you're now at like 1.5 Gs.

Speaker 1: 39:35

So when you're taking off on a commercial airline, yeah that's like 1.5.

Speaker 2: 39:38

Okay, like right now we're sitting here, we're at 1 G, okay, you know, or we're at 1G, you know where you just kind of barely on an airline, you just kind of feel that sinking and so if, like, your arm or something weighs 10 pounds, well, under 2Gs it's going to weigh 20 pounds and under 9Gs it's going to weigh 90 pounds. You know so, just and so um. So all that pressure, you know, can and it um, is what it can actually it does. It can be painful for sure, especially, especially like 9g's, and that's where you're seeing like capillaries start bursting on your arms and under your legs and they, they call really yeah and they call them.

Speaker 2: 40:21

You can get what's called jizzles jizzles yeah it's where it's, like little bumps from all those capillaries, like blowing up under your legs and under your arms. No, shit. And so yeah, so to answer some of those questions, like I've never G-locked and if you do, I mean that's a really big deal to G-lock when you're flying.

Speaker 1: 40:46

Oh okay when you're flying. Oh okay when you're flying not during the test.

Speaker 2: 40:48

Okay, um, I mean it, it, they've, they've um with new advancements in the aircraft, like in the f-16, since I've left, there's a new um, a new feature in there to where it'll actually self-recover the aircraft and um it goes autopilot huh it'll.

Speaker 2: 41:03

It'll just know like hey, something's not right, and then it'll pull the nose up and it's that's like saved dude's asses already a bunch. Because really, um, you know, we had a guy when I was down there at luke um, he was in a different squad in this and you know, he, he g locked on uh and and packed and packed it in, and so so it does.

Speaker 2: 41:26

It does happen and there's. You know you hear a lot of uh, you know they'll pay play tapes. You know of guys G locking and barely recovering or, you know, worst case, packing it all the way in.

Speaker 1: 41:38

Yeah, no kidding, that's insane. What are do the G's? Do G's feel different in the simulator than they do in a plane? They do. Yeah, okay, I mean the centrifuge.

Speaker 2: 41:48

It does a pretty good job, but it just for some reason the centrifuge. It doesn't feel the same.

Speaker 1: 41:53

It's just more of whipping you when you're actually pulling.

Speaker 2: 41:56

Yeah, you're just getting like just stuck to the yeah, to the back is what it feels. Feels like because that's all it's doing. It's just spinning okay the center fuse.

Speaker 1: 42:05

So now you're in, you're making it and you're flying. Yep, are you? Did you deploy it all with an f-16, or are you all stateside with it?

Speaker 2: 42:13

yeah, I didn't, I didn't get a chance to deploy so um. So you know, b course, nine months down there at luke and then I go back. So now I'm like, okay, I am, I'm, I'm done, it, I'm done.

Speaker 1: 42:23

It's like Holy shit.

Speaker 2: 42:25

After, um, you know just that, just all the whole training pipeline is over two years of uh to where you you start, you know civilian dipshit to now flying the.

Speaker 2: 42:36

F-16s. You know it's over two years long and um, and you know between all the time between courses and everything like that, you know I get to Fort Wayne, indiana, to start flying. Well, now you have to take another course once you're there. Okay, you have to get CMR or combat mission ready. Okay, Really, you know the F-16, you know all these initial courses, even though it's nine months long for that B course, the basic course, you're just not that good at any of them.

Speaker 1: 43:14

I mean, in nine months, what are you learning? Just the nose to tail of the plane and obviously the basic maneuvers, because you're not even learning combat flying yet.

Speaker 2: 43:23

Well you are, though, okay, but you're just even learning combat flying yet. Well you are, though Okay, you're just scratching the surface on it. So the first 30 days of it you're very heavy on ground school and simulators, and then you're also starting the flights.

Speaker 2: 43:39

at that point, and the flights that you start doing. You're just hey, let's learn to fly this airplane. Let's take off, let's land, go out, do some loops. Do're just hey, let's learn to fly this airplane. Let's take off, let's land, Go out, Do some loops, Do some rolls. See what it's all about?

Speaker 1: 43:49

How excited were you when you got in the F-16 for the first time.

Speaker 2: 43:52

Yeah, oh, I'll never forget. It's incredible for sure, yeah, just when you, I remember you pushed a throttle all the way up to take off, to take off, and then you actually bring it over a hump to get into afterburner and you can feel. I mean, you feel the afterburner light. It actually lights in phases and you can be like and it's just a rocket and it just sits you back, yeah.

Speaker 2: 44:18

I mean you are essentially just strapped to a rocket, yeah, and what's really awesome about that airplane is the visibility in it is incredible. I mean you're sitting, you sit up, you sit up really high in the bubble canopy. It actually kind of comes up and around and so you know, it's like sitting on, like a magic carpet ride or something, I mean so you don't feel like you're.

Speaker 2: 44:40

You're like, yeah, you don't feel like you're like in this thing. I mean, I feel like you're right. It's like they almost say you strap the airplane to your back, because it almost feels like you just have a jet pack on almost because you can see so much around you and you look over your shoulder and see behind you.

Speaker 1: 44:57

That's got to be a hell of a feeling.

Speaker 2: 44:58

So it's really yeah, it's a great aircraft for the visibility side for sure yeah makes it a lot of fun. Yeah, I really enjoyed flying that Again. It's such a smooth airplane being fly-by-wire.

Speaker 1: 45:15

Did you have any close calls in it or anything close with hiccups or anything like that?

Speaker 2: 45:24

I had a few um, you know they were some mechanical stuff like lost a hydraulic system. When you know that's an, that's in, they call it an ep emergency procedure where like, okay, you got to get back quick because it's a single engine aircraft, yeah too, and so you know if you have, you know if you, if the engine goes in, an f-16, you're punching out, and so it's kind of it's a little nerve wracking, but you know where a lot of the other fire aircraft, you know two engines on it. And then back in Fort Wayne during the, you know just a few minor, minor things, but I didn't really see any giant emergency procedures. Okay, but yeah, back to like the question like what else you're doing, kind of in the B course too.

Speaker 2: 46:03

minor, minor things, but didn't really see any giant emergency procedures. Okay, so, um, but yeah, come back to like the crowd, like what else you're doing, kind of in the b course too. So, yes, that first month the basic stuff, and then you move into, um, an air-to-air phase where you, you do bfm, so basic fighting maneuvers, which is, um, you fly out there with your wingman or you're the wingman for a flight, lead your instructor and and you'll go out and just practice basically dogfighting with just one V1.

Speaker 2: 46:30

And it's really neat. And again, it's a huge learning curve and you don't have the time at that, v course, to get anywhere good at it.

Speaker 2: 46:38

I mean, you are, we're studying our asses off when we're not flying. You're in the vault studying and studying. And because things are going fast, you know they're like okay, you have offensive bfm, defensive bfm, high aspect bfm like oh cool, barely scratched the surface. And then they're like okay, now we're moving into intercepts and we're doing um, like defensive, counter error, where now you're talking about like okay, it's time to protect the base and guys are trying to strike it and you have to intercept them, and so, and again, you're just, you don't get the reps to get good at it.

Speaker 1: 47:15

You know, it's just Literally the basics.

Speaker 2: 47:17

Yeah, it's like okay, you got it. You think you got this Okay you got the concept. Now we got to move on, and because the F-16, that's one thing that's unique about it, it is truly multi-role aircraft.

Speaker 2: 47:29

Yeah, yeah, I mean they're doing air-to-air fighting, air-to-service close air support they're trying to do. They really have that airplane doing. And then there's a lot of different models of the F-16 that where they're doing, some are doing, um, like the seed mission mission, which is suppression of air, air defense, and that's that, you know. That's a whole other, you know, course in itself, and so um, so to to do all this multi-role. You know you're the jack of all trades, master of none, yeah, and in that and so, so you finish that nine months.

Speaker 2: 48:02

Well, now you're like okay, I'm good enough to be dangerous really and so when you get then to your operational squadron, so all the guys that I was at Luke Air Force Base with, we all split. Then there was a few of us guard dudes and we knew where we were going, back to our guard units, and then the active duty guys. They find out then, okay, I'm go to korea or I'm going to go to wherever shaw, germany, and now they are really getting dialed into the model of f-16 that they're in and and the mission of that that they're supposed to do. Okay, really and really like I mean the more or less basic mission that everyone's going to be doing in the f-16 and it's like a strike fighter, meaning it's going to fight its way in and like on a big force, on force war, like, let's say, gulf war. Yep, it was like the first night of the gulf war. You know, you're seeing all the assets pushing in night one and the f-16s are going to be in there, radars are on, they're looking for enemy enemy aircraft, so they're going to be fighting those as they then get into their target area, like baghdad. They need, they have, and then they're going to strike their targets. They already have pre-assigned targets and then they need to fight their way out.

Speaker 2: 49:18

That's kind of what a strike fighter does versus a, like an f-22 or an f-15. Those are strictly air-to-air. So I mean there are some exceptions to that. They sometimes do additional things, but more or less you're going to see, those guys are going to be out there just doing the air-to-air side. And then A-10 is predominantly close air support. Yeah, we do a lot of other things, but that's and so kind of back to the f-16 side. So you're like okay, I'm, I'm in a strike fighter, that's pretty much what the aircraft does and um, but then some of them, they all have different. Each squadron has its unique role as well.

Speaker 2: 49:56

Okay, so that's when you go to, through your cmr course, your combat, get combat mission ready, and once you get that stamp of approval, yeah, dude, you're, you're good, you can go to war. We trust you to be a wingman. How long does that take? That's usually like a three month. Oh, okay, yeah, it's just like hey, man, look, we know, you know the basics. You need to now get really spun up and um, and on our specific aircraft and what we do at this squadron and then, and like at like at fort wayne, mean, really, at the time you know there is.

Speaker 2: 50:29

You know, now we're talking, you know it was 2000, 2007, 2008 timeframe, and so you know, of course, the war is still raging. There's a lot of other stuff going on. You got Iraq in the mix, afghanistan, you got all of these, and so it's like, okay, we're doing a lot of other stuff going on. You got iraq in the mix, afghanistan, you got all these, and so it's so it's like, okay, we're doing a lot of close air support, but we're also just doing like air interdiction. So it's like, hey, you've been, you've been tasked to go just drop a guided munition on here, and then, oh yeah, there's probably still a threat of an air-to-air fight somewhere so you show up to your unit and they, they could be like, hey, we, we're strictly air-to-ground here and then that's all.

Speaker 1: 51:03

you're going to be working with that unit.

Speaker 2: 51:05

Well, you still need to know all the other aspects and really, you know, in an F-16, they're all going to be somewhat air-to-air and somewhat air-to-ground, but then just a lot of them have different little specialties.

Speaker 1: 51:18

Okay, so how long did you ride out the F-16 for?

Speaker 2: 51:26

So you know, know, I was like okay, I'm here, I'm in fort wayne, I'm good to go. And then another thing with with the air national guard is they are like when you wonder like, well, why does a certain state have a certain airframe?

Speaker 2: 51:37

well, it's all, it's all politics, that's what it boils down to and it boils down to what senators want what type of aircraft and how much pull they have. Really, yeah, a hundred percent. I mean, that's all it comes down to. And it boils down to what senators want what type of aircraft and how much pull they have really, yeah, a hundred percent.

Speaker 1: 51:47

I mean that's all it comes down to, I mean there's.

Speaker 2: 51:49

They definitely look at the needs of like hey, like um, you know the the overall arching defense picture right, like um, like uh, hawaii has f-22s. They've always and they always had, like they had, f-15s. They've always and they always had, like they had F-15s before that. They have always had a very strong air-to-air presence and I think that's because you know the lessons from.

Speaker 1: 52:12

Lessons have been learned.

Speaker 2: 52:12

Yeah, pearl Harbor happened and we're not going to let that happen again. So, they're going to put the most badass fighters out there, and so obviously that's what a horrible spot to be stationed. Yeah, I know. So that's now like above, just state politics. You know that's going to be like a national level.

Speaker 1: 52:29

That's a strategic play.

Speaker 2: 52:31

Right. But for, like, fort Wayne Indiana, where I was like, okay, we have F-16s here, but they could just as easily in Fort Wayne Indiana have whatever aircraft frame they want, have whatever airframe they want. And so there was a big shuffle about that time of like, hey, we need to just kind of move around what we want for different guard bases. So a lot of them were shut down, you know, and and then they just moved aircraft Really Around, which really in hindsight made no sense. Okay, military, yeah, military standard.

Speaker 1: 53:03

Don't make it make sense.

Speaker 2: 53:04

No. And so they were like hey, fort Wayne, you guys are going to switch from an F-16 to an A-10. All the leadership there like this makes no sense. We want to just stay in the Viper and then just move to F-35s, was their goal, because that was kind of what was. That was the progression that you'd see, like once they phased out f-16s, you go to an f-35, um.

Speaker 2: 53:25

But for some reason they said we're gonna go to the a-10 and so yeah, and so so I had been back there in fort wayne for a little over a year and they and I remember you know I'm sitting back in the vault studying and my commander comes back there. It's me and another lieutenant and he's like hey guys, what are you doing this summer? I'm like I don't know, sir. I'm like you know that doesn't sound good, right? And he's like do you guys want to go to Davis-Monthan and go learn to fly the A-10? We're like what Are you serious? Yeah, like it, it's pretty official. We're going to the A-10, and we want to get things going and we have there's two openings for two courses and we want to send you two guys. We were both, again, two young, single dudes. They don't care, no. And we're like, well, it would have been nice to at least get more flight time in the F-16. You know you go through all that pain in the ass.

Speaker 1: 54:20

Right, as you're getting comfortable, yeah exactly Right.

Speaker 2: 54:23

when you're feeling comfortable, you're good to go. That's the military though, and then they're just like pull the rug out from under you and they're like all right, you're going to go to Davis-Monthan and go fly the whole thing Start all over again.

Speaker 2: 54:34

Yeah, and luckily you know flying. So, the way we saw it, we were like, well, this is going to be a great time. Yeah right, we know how to fly fighters, we know how to do close air support, and now we're just going to do it in a different airplane, and but it's back to a six-month course down there. We're like, well, this will be, this will be a breeze, we'll have a fun time down here. So we rent a giant house in the foothills thinking we're just going to be, you know, partying. And then just going and fly.

Speaker 2: 55:05

Well, we didn't realize the a10 community. They take close air support like very serious like to a whole other level I feel like it's a pretty serious thing yeah especially with troops, and how much? Yeah, and I mean I don't mean to say like the f-16 community does not, but they have a lot on their plate, for sure is what I mean. And they have there's.

Speaker 2: 55:26

There's just a lot going on in the f-16 community to where, like, yeah, they're, they're good at close air support and they obviously take it serious, but they're not, like, they're not experts in it by any means, and they will admit that the f-16 community is not experts and they can't be um, you know, they just don't have the time.

Speaker 2: 55:42

Well, the a10 community, that's their pride themselves yeah, they pride themselves on that and they kick serious ass at close air support, but with that they make sure their pilots, you know, are busting their asses. And so when we thought we knew close air support, we didn't know shit until we started in the a10 for sure.

Speaker 1: 55:59

Really, was that almost taking a step back in technology? Because I feel like the A-10 is just a workhorse that you know. I mean, obviously you know it way better than I do. But I feel like, how did that feel going from the 16 back to I don't want to say back to an A-10, if it's a different?

Speaker 2: 56:17

Yeah so it was. You know it's definitely a. It's a different aircraft, I mean obviously, but in terms of it's a different mission. You're doing different things and you know it's not a. It's not this sexy-looking fighter, it's you know we call it.

Speaker 2: 56:42

go ugly early, get the A10s. Now you're in a Jeep. Basically it's just a battle-hardened beast. It was a little different, for sure. You're like oh man, I remember we were saying in the F-16, the first time you push up the throttles all the way, you get the lab afterburner and it's so cool yeah and in the A-10, so my first flight in the A-10, again, this is you know they don't make two-seat A-10s, they're all single-seat.

Speaker 2: 57:11

So my first flight. You're chased from your instructor and so he's just basically there, quiet, just right behind you in another a10 but you're talking on the radios, you take off.

Speaker 2: 57:34

And I remember taking off slowly rolling. I'm like dude, come on, man, let's roll. And um take off. And I'm, and then I'm climbing out and my instructor, he's like um, he's like hey, you know, whatever, I call it dragon one. Wherever we're calling, we were like the dragons. I think you're on fire. I'm on fire like this is my first sortie ever and I'm like okay, and I'm looking, oh shit, okay, I look over my shoulder. You can see the motor. That's just just white coming out, that motor so your first flight, yeah, first flight.

Speaker 2: 57:56

So now I'm just oh, this is just great. Now I'm in this piece of shit thing. It's on fire and I have to shut the motor down and divert into a little drone base on the Mexican border. Yeah, and just leave this A-10 down there. And you know, I'm like, hey, I'm coming in, I'm an emergency, and all these drones are flying everywhere, getting out of the way and it's an army base and so they don't know what to do with it and they just kind of leave it at the end of the runway and take a three-hour ride back to base okay let's see how this course goes, but uh this is.

Speaker 1: 58:37

This is your very first experience very first time.

Speaker 2: 58:39

That is hilarious, you're airplane.

Speaker 1: 58:40

That is hilarious. You're like well, this is my future, I'm here.

Speaker 2: 58:43

Yeah, but so then you know, fast forward like two weeks Now, things are going good. Obviously you know and I don't mean to knock the hog because it's my I love her, she's the greatest thing ever, and you don't realize it until you know. So the you know again about two weeks later is when you get to shoot the gun. Okay, and everybody remembers the first time they get to shoot.

Speaker 1: 59:09

What caliber is this again? So it's a 30 millimeter, 30 mil.

Speaker 2: 59:13

And you know the Gow 8 Avenger. So you got seven barrels. It's a beast of a gun and you know the thing weighs like 620 pounds. It's 20 feet long.

Speaker 1: 59:25

Is it true that they built the plane around the gun? You hear that as.

Speaker 2: 59:30

Yeah, well, it's true. So when the initial contract came out to build the A-10, they were like, okay, we need a dedicated close air support aircraft. And that was lessons learned from vietnam. And they saw in vietnam like the the most badass close air support aircraft they had was the a1 sky raider and and you'll have to like google a picture of that, because what it is? It really looks a lot like an a10, except it looks like a mix between like it's an a10, like a p47.

Speaker 2: 1:00:06

It has a big propeller on the front but has huge wings with a lot of hard points to hold, uh hold weapons that was more of an ordnance dropping, then that's, that was their close support.

Speaker 1: 1:00:15

Yeah, it was that era, yeah, so it was just 19.

Speaker 2: 1:00:18

Yeah, no, no, no giant gun on it, but it would had a lot it held. It had again all those hard points to hold munitions, yeah, and it could fly low, it could fly slow. The problem was it got crushed. I mean, I think they lost close to 300 of those Jeez. Is those the ones?

Speaker 1: 1:00:37

that you see the slow video and they're dropping the napalm like right over a tree line.

Speaker 2: 1:00:44

That would have been that usually that plane, yeah, and it would also be involved in, like, the combat, search and rescue, which is another huge mission for the a10, where, okay, you know, if a pilot has to eject, they roll in with with, like, the jolly greens, the big helicopters that help find the down pilot, and so so the air force saw, like this, these are like we need this. And the army said, hey, air force, we need close air support, we need you guys then yeah and having these.

Speaker 2: 1:01:06

The air force was obsessed at the time with these big fast bomber, you know, fighter bombers, yeah, like uh, f-105s, f-111s and um, and because really the big threat, you know pre-vietnam and you know was pre-Vietnam and you know we're thinking Soviet Union and how are we going to? And we need large type fighter bomber that can roll in and drop nukes pretty much on Soviet Union. Well then, they had those same type aircraft in Vietnam and they saw that, okay, we, you know this isn't exactly what we need and um is that what sparked the birth of the A-10?

Speaker 1: 1:01:46

Yep.

Speaker 2: 1:01:47

Yeah. So that's when they said and you know, the A-1 Skyraider, that's a Korean war aircraft. And so they're like, okay, we need something to do close air support. Well, um, of course, what was still going on is cold war. You know, this is the 70s. And so they said we also need this thing to be able to take out armor. And so we're going to develop this gun. They put out a contract, we need a big, badass gun that's going to be able to take out armor. And then they said, okay, we're also going to have a contract, take out armor. Like, and then they said, okay, we're also going to have a contract for an aircraft. So they put it out, hey, whatever aircraft this is, it has to be able to carry this. You know, 620-pound gun, that's 20 feet long. So you're that goes under.

Speaker 2: 1:02:37

I mean almost to the tail there, yeah you're pretty much just like it's just, it's underneath you and it goes like halfway through the airplane. That is massive. So yeah, it's a beast.

Speaker 1: 1:02:47

So they take these two contracts and birth the A-10 Warhawk?

Speaker 2: 1:02:52

Yeah so whoever wins Fairchild Republic wins the contract. It was like the YA-10 at the time. Now it's the A-10. And it goes through a couple different changes at the time. Now it's the a10 and um, and you know it goes through a couple different changes throughout the time. And then find the production model which shows up in like 1977, I think that's now the now is the a10a and that was. And then it's like, okay, this thing is designed to do close air support and it's also designed to stop the onslaught of the sylvia armor. You know, they always, they always predicted that was going to happen as part of germany, the fold, a gap, that's what it's called. That's where they thought. That's where all the military planners at the time, when they saw, when they were playing what was going to happen for world world war three yeah, was the sylviats were just going to send in just thousands of pieces of armor through the Fulda Gap, and so they were like we need to build a ton of warthogs, they're cheap.

Speaker 2: 1:03:51

They were like $1.2 million.

Speaker 1: 1:03:53

Which is nothing, I guess, compared to now. Oh, insane, yeah, I mean that's also 1970s dollars.

Speaker 2: 1:03:58

I think it translates to whatever $12 million. Now, I yeah, I mean that's also 1970s dollars.

Speaker 1: 1:04:01

I think it translates to like whatever $12 million. Now I still feel like that's pretty cheap for what we have in the air now.

Speaker 2: 1:04:04

Yeah, and it also is a different airplane. The A-10 in the 1970s versus an A-10 now is a different piece how so it is just they have upgraded it so much. Technology, I mean cockpit and everything I mean it's still old school, like flight controls and stuff, but you know a lot of it. They've kept everything that works in there, which is a lot of it, you know. It has so many redundant systems, starting with just two motors.

Speaker 1: 1:04:32

That's pretty nice Versus an.

Speaker 2: 1:04:33

F-16, one motor. And the F-16 is, I mean, you know it's a fragile airplane and it's not really designed to be taking fire at all. I mean you could take down an F-16 pretty easily with, you know, with stuff that even, like you'd see in Afghanistan versus the Hog, it's really designed to take those hits. You know, like the front windscreen, you know it can stop. Like it's like, you know, whatever three inches thick it can stop a 23 millimeter round, really yeah, and you sit in a titanium bathtub where to where you know to stop, you know light triple A basically.

Speaker 2: 1:05:14

And then you have self-sealing fuel tanks, you have redundant flight control systems, so much I mean, that you can take all kinds of fire and it'll just the thing just keeps keeps, keeps going, huh.

Speaker 1: 1:05:26

So shooting, the shooting, the main gun yep, that's the first time. Well, it was I mean. So now this thing weighs 600 pounds, 20 foot long, and you're, you're riding it yeah, yeah and it's, and you're doing like 70 rounds a second yeah you know, and I mean those are are big-ass 30-millimeter.

Speaker 2: 1:05:44

It's not like the 30-millimeter on the Apache, I mean, it's a lot larger.

Speaker 1: 1:05:49

I have a dummy round downstairs. I should have brought it up for people, yeah, so it's a beast.

Speaker 2: 1:05:55

And again you're by yourself, your first time. You're always by yourself in the A-10, which is great, you don't have a backseater, so it's roll in. You're out on the range, there's a, you know there's a target. It's probably going to be like a tank or whatever they have down there in the middle of the desert roll in.

Speaker 1: 1:06:14

How loud is it inside the cockpit?

Speaker 2: 1:06:16

so you know you're, you have, you know with your helmet and all your. So it's not like it's like deafening loud by any means, but it's just you just feel that you just it's just that rumble, that and. But I mean you're talking like I mean the whole airplane shakes and I mean like dust is coming up and then the the cockpit, you get the smell of cordite, you know the gunpowder smell and it's just like, oh my gosh, that's insane yeah that is incredible yeah, for sure I mean yeah, is it a trigger or button?

Speaker 2: 1:06:48

it's a trigger okay.

Speaker 1: 1:06:50

So which makes it even cooler yeah, how long are you okay? So here's a question that this was a commonly asked question too, true or false? Will the a10 stall out if you just hold down the trigger that's in the? I feel, like the enlisted ground community, that oh, they got to do it in bursts because it'll stall the A-10 midair. Is that true or false?

Speaker 2: 1:07:13

No, and really, and it's funny, I don't know where that really comes from. I know and I get asked that when you go to air shows all the time too, Okay. And you kind of think about it, or I mean it's a 40,000 pound airplane and I think about the amount of like inertia.

Speaker 1: 1:07:28

For sure.

Speaker 2: 1:07:28

You know you have 9,000 pounds or 18,000 pounds of thrust coming out and pulling the trigger. So it really like just physics says that there's no way and you don't even feel anything besides the vibration. Right yeah, the physics says that there's no way, and you don't even feel anything besides the vibration.

Speaker 1: 1:07:43

Right, yeah, you're not going to stall out. How?

Speaker 2: 1:07:45

many rounds can that plane hold? Like around 1,300. How fast does that go? So yeah, I mean you're shooting, you know, 70 rounds, a second out of it, and so I mean literally, you just squeeze and that's 70 rounds. Yeah. So what we tend to do is like a two second burst. Okay, you know, it's like, like you know, one mississippi, two mississippi, type and that's enough to take out really any type target that you need that quick, yeah, and it's super accurate too that's another thing with that gun.

Speaker 2: 1:08:19

Um, you know, you pull the trigger to the first. There's two detents, so you pull the trigger to the first. There's two detents. So you pull the trigger to the first detent and now you've engaged what's called pack, and what that does is it basically locks all your flight controls.

Speaker 2: 1:08:32

So you're not then just being squirrely down. We call it down the chute. So as you're diving down, we like to be at a pretty high angle of attack or a pretty high dive angle, so we're, as you're, diving down towards your target. Now you get, now you put the PIPR right on whenever you're trying to target. What's the PIPR? The PIPR be like PIPR. Okay, yeah, so it's like a gun cross.

Speaker 1: 1:08:55

You're literally looking at a gun cross, yeah.

Speaker 2: 1:08:57

Through in your, in the, in the HUD, and it's constantly being computed too, because it knows how it's looking at the elevation.

Speaker 1: 1:09:04

What's the HUD?

Speaker 2: 1:09:07

In your screen or is this on your? The HUD is a piece of glass in front that you're looking through and it has your airspeed, your altitude.

Speaker 1: 1:09:16

Almost like a heads-up display on a car. Now, yeah, it's almost. Yeah, okay.

Speaker 2: 1:09:20

So you just basically now you don't have, you can, just you, you just look through the windscreen but you can see, so you're not having to look down as much, and there's just a cross right there, and that's what you're lining it up, yep so you line that up on your target, put it to the first detent.

Speaker 2: 1:09:33

Now things are like freezing the aircraft is going to just say, okay, I'm going to lock, so you're locked. And now you're like, boom, you wait another like half a second. Yes, this is exactly where I want to go. Pull the trigger, and now I mean the disbursement of of rounds. You're gonna see they're all gonna be hitting there.

Speaker 2: 1:09:50

It's not like really you know, like in the movies where they show strafing, and it's like you know the the plane strafes and it's just like across you know hundreds of yards yeah, like that's not, does not happen in a hog and and really in any fighter. But you're, yeah, you're not just strafing in a huge line, you're just, you're like you're gonna strafe something and whatever's under that pepper is toast are you capable of doing a strafe like, or is that just hollywood?

Speaker 2: 1:10:15

that's. Yeah, I mean, you could, but you really just wouldn't do that there's really not a not a. I mean, I've seen you know if, if you're trying to hit a huge line of something, um, I mean, yeah, there's, there's ways to do that for sure.

Speaker 2: 1:10:29

But but we, you know, you want to be as accurate as possible, and so it's usually like, whatever your target is, um, I mean, if there's a you know, if, let's say, your target set is like enemy packs you know, and enemy personnel and enemy personnel and they are somewhat dispersed in the area and they require and they really do require gun, I mean you can in theory, you know you can strafe all that and you can still override that pack, so you can kind of move it a little bit left and right.

Speaker 1: 1:10:55

So if you had a convoy of vehicles you can kind of get multiple instead of just one blast well.

Speaker 2: 1:11:00

So if there is a combo, one thing we don't like to do is it's called like two target strafe. So you're going to, just you're going to, you're going to really hone in on one vehicle, get 200 rounds into it, shift, move to the next one, get 200 rounds into it, because really I mean just one or two rounds. You know, you maybe get like a mobility kill or something, but you're not going to really get a full K kill, meaning that thing is just destroyed God.

Speaker 1: 1:11:21

200 rounds into a target. I mean, there's nothing left.

Speaker 2: 1:11:25

No, and especially when you consider the type of rounds that are in the A-10.

Speaker 1: 1:11:31

What are you guys running?

Speaker 2: 1:11:33

So, on a typical combat that we've been seeing over the last 20 years, you're going to see HEI, so a high explosiveexplosive incinerary.

Speaker 1: 1:11:43

So they're hitting there.

Speaker 2: 1:11:44

It's going to hit and then it's going to be exploding. Also, there is the API, the armor-piercing incinerary rounds, and that's the depleted uranium, which is the hardest element in the world, whatever close to it. And so something really nasty is it'll do a combat mix, you know. So it'll be like three rounds of armor piercing followed by three rounds of the HEI. So now it's cutting through a tank and then the rounds right behind it are exploding, and so you know you put you really got to hate somebody for that, yeah so you put like 200 rounds of that into a tank and it's done Versus.

Speaker 2: 1:12:20

You know, in the scenario of trying to like strafe a convoy, yeah, you know you'd put one or two rounds and yeah again, maybe you get one through an engine block. But you really, I mean, if you're going to go after it, you really want it to be destroyed.

Speaker 1: 1:12:32

Yeah, so you get all spun up. Now you're in it 're, you're an a10 pilot. Now, yeah, what's next for you?

Speaker 2: 1:12:41

so finished up down at dm and now, after I finished that course, I was, you know, down at davis month and now I'm hooked, obviously, on the a10. Oh for sure, it's like, okay, s16 was cool, that was fun. But you realize, like, dude, the hog is just, it's a beast it's just a workhorse it is so much fun to fly.

Speaker 2: 1:13:01

You're down low the whole, you know, you're rooting around looking for targets and I'm just like I love this airplane. It's so awesome. And so while I'm down there, my, you know, I was originally supposed to go back to Fort Wayne. Okay, and while I'm at Davis Month in Arizona they call me the guys from Fort Wayne oh, hey, we're not going to get A-10s for another two years. Now we're going to send you to Boise. And they got an Idaho Air National Guard. They have A-10s and they said that they'll put you through your combat mission ready your CMR, and then you can fly out there until we get them back in Fort Wayne. I was like again, okay, whatever.

Speaker 1: 1:13:42

I'm a single dude, I don't care. Meets the Air Force, yeah.

Speaker 2: 1:13:45

I don't care. So go show up in Boise and go through CMR, get fully combat mission ready. And then I was out in Boise for like about a year and I'm like, oh man, this place is super cool. In out in boise for like about a year and I'm like, oh man, this place is super cool. You know, both guard units like fort wayne, indiana, and in boise they are in terms of like the squadrons, just top notch. You know, like the guys that are in them, you know, just like dude, like great bros, like really run really well and um, you know, so I love, I love being in fort wayne and, um, you know, I also had that same feeling in boise, except the only difference is, you know, I was born and raised in colorado and so I love idaho, I love the mountains and the skiing, yep, and so. So I'm like, well, shit, I dude, I really wanted to stay here and so, um, so make the drug deal calling back. Hey, I'm not coming back to fort wayne yeah, sorry, yeah, they were really cool about it.

Speaker 2: 1:14:45

They understood, and so then I ended up where I am now. Yeah, just continuing to be in in boise and, um, full up, just flying the hog no shit, yeah.

Speaker 1: 1:14:56

So deployment wise. Obviously you joined. You know he wanted to get into the action that ever happened it did.

Speaker 2: 1:15:02

and it's so funny because, you know, when I start, when I was looking back at it, you know I started that, you know, after september 11th, really looking like okay, cool, and just like just naive of how the process works, you know I didn't. You know I thought I was going to be like, okay, sign up, boom, good to go, here's a course, now you're off to war. You know I thought I was going to be like, okay, sign up, boom, good to go, here's a course, now you're off to war. Like you know, you hear the stories back in World War II and stuff. Well, obviously it didn't work like that for me. I didn't get into combat until 2012. Okay, so you know, so there's.

Speaker 2: 1:15:35

you know, of course, that war had been cranking for a long time and it still went on for a few more years after that so still got to definitely be part of it what's that like?

Speaker 1: 1:15:45

so now, I mean, obviously, dreams coming true. You're finally getting in it after, yeah, years, years of of the training to get to the that position, and now you get the word that you're deploying with an a10. I mean that's got to be a pretty awesome feeling.

Speaker 2: 1:15:59

Yeah, it was for sure especially because you're deploying with an A-10, I mean, that's got to be a pretty awesome feeling. Yeah, it was for sure, especially because you're seeing, you know over the past 10 years of what the hog had been doing overseas, and it was like, okay, this is cool, this is. I want to be part of this. Yeah, you know, we always say like our number one mission in the A-10 is the 18-year-old with the rifle on the ground For sure. Mission in the a-10 is the 18 year old with the rifle on the ground for sure, and, and so it's like so of course, everyone's like just dude, I want to go help them, I want to help those guys out. You know, you hear on the news, you're seeing intel reports of injuries, kias yeah you know, you know, dude, this is terrible.

Speaker 2: 1:16:33

I want to go be a part of it. So it felt, felt it just it felt great to actually get out there in 2012 where?

Speaker 1: 1:16:40

where'd you go? Where was your first deployment?

Speaker 2: 1:16:42

I went to Bagram, bagram yeah.

Speaker 1: 1:16:44

Okay.

Speaker 2: 1:16:48

And it was a good deployment. You know there's ups and downs really with how things go out there, as you know For sure, with ROE change and when we were there, you there, things were definitely picking up. I mean there were some deployments where A-10s or F-16s, f-15s, strike Eagles, whatever are out there and they wouldn't drop anything. And it's like you talk about severe frustration. Oh, I bet, where you know there's enemy all around but the ROE would be so tight you can't do anything. When we were there it was still some really tight ROE, you know it wasn't just. You know you read these books of guys in World War II and they'd see a train and they'd just roll in and get to strafe it.

Speaker 1: 1:17:34

Yeah.

Speaker 2: 1:17:34

No, talk to anybody.

Speaker 1: 1:17:35

Yeah, you know, like, oh, and we know it's enemy. They got videos of it. Oh, I know.

Speaker 2: 1:17:39

And you know, oh cool, there's a you know bringing supplies to the Nazis, let's go strafe it. Well, that's nothing like it is now, and so you have stricter ROAs and you know some of it. Okay, great, you know a lot of it's to prevent civcasts, which is 100% valid, but some of it the majority- of it is is like political, for you know, this is the way we want to fight the war. Yep, so um. But you know, and so I was obviously a young a10 guy you kind of want to just go rage.

Speaker 1: 1:18:11

Yeah, we still definitely got to have um, so you ran some, some combat missions over there, yep, so so that was one of my one of our questions what, what? What was it like running your first. We're going hot. This is it what. What was that like?

Speaker 2: 1:18:27

yeah, that you know again. You know there's. There's certain things you never, never forget. You know, like first time you you shoot the gun in the a-10 and the first time you drop in combat, okay for sure, and um, you know it was like I was there for about two weeks in country that's quick Before it happened, okay, and you know you have there are fighter aircraft airborne like 24-7 in Afghanistan. You know one of the main missions that you'd have would be XCAS in're. You would take off and you get a full intel brief beforehand like hey, this is all the shit that's going on in the ao area of operation that you're going to be in. Yeah, um, and you're going to fly for whatever long ass time, go to the tanker two or three times and you're just going to sit up there and wait for something to kick off what's a tanker?

Speaker 2: 1:19:19

um, like a, yeah, like a bigger aircraft that you fly up to to get gas.

Speaker 1: 1:19:23

Oh, you could in-flight on an A-10? Yep, oh, I didn't know that. Yeah, how is, before we get into the combat, what is that's got to be shitting your pants? Levels like just pucker level 10? You know, you get used to it, Okay, and it's not too bad.

Speaker 2: 1:19:40

I mean, we all have crazy stories for sure, but I mean it's. You know the air refueling receptacle. It's on the nose. So you just fly up, park right behind this tanker and then you can actually see the guy in the window. It's like an enlisted dude laying on his stomach and he's controlling the boom left and right up and down. So you just park it and then you let him try to just kind of fly it into it and then, um, and then he plugs in. You can kind of you can talk to him there on the interphone hey what's up, man?

Speaker 2: 1:20:13

really yeah, hey, not much cool, all right, yeah, I need whatever five thousand pounds of gas and he's like, okay, sounds Top off, peace out. Go get back to the fight.

Speaker 1: 1:20:23

How long does it take to fill up? I mean 5,000 pounds.

Speaker 2: 1:20:27

I don't know the actual flow rate, but it's pretty quick.

Speaker 1: 1:20:37

I mean, you're up there for like two or three minutes and you're topped off.

Speaker 2: 1:20:41

No shit, yeah, I mean it's just like, and then once you're looking at like two hours maybe.

Speaker 1: 1:20:47

Oh really, that's quick.

Speaker 2: 1:20:49

I mean you can definitely max endure, which means go up high, pull the throttles way back. But if you're down in the fight you need to be thinking, and that's one thing with fighters You're always running low on gas. That's just the way it is. I mean you come off the tanker and you're thinking Now, it's the first thing. You're thinking Okay, now, where the hell am I? The tankers will drag you wherever You're in a certain tanker track. So now you're immediately. You're always planning gas Like okay, what's my bingo fuel from here? What can I? Because I've got to travel 50 miles to go do Overwatch over here. And then I need to calculate how much it's going to take me to get back to base, how much is it going to take me to get to a tanker.

Speaker 1: 1:21:34

And so you're just always thinking that's always in the back of your head is just fuel.

Speaker 2: 1:21:41

Everything is fuel. Yeah, you're always like okay, where's my out? Where do we get to go if shit hits the fan, Like if the airfield crumps at Bagram, that's a single runway and it would close. Now you're in trouble, you know. It's like you got to go hold on a tanker. You got to go plan to divert. So when you're holding on a tanker, you're just swapping and you're just following them until you need more fuel again. And then, yeah, you had to do that. Yeah, um, yeah I mean that would be a oh my god.

Speaker 2: 1:22:10

I mean really like, if you think about, like when you're taking a10s across the ocean. Yeah, I mean, you're you, you pretty much you just stay with the tanker the whole time and we're constantly all topping off because you want to have to be able to divert. If you had to, you got to be holding enough gas to be able to get to a certain because it's like it'll happen, like you'll be tanking and all of a sudden, oh shit we got to go my jet won't take gas for some reason.

Speaker 2: 1:22:34

It's broken and you don't want to be over the ocean and be like, well, I have no options. So you're always thinking you got to have an option to where, so that? So we're always like staying topped off so every so. Once the cycle of a10s filter out, you're pretty much rolling right back in yeah, I mean, you get a, you know, and and again, you have it all pre-planned so you know like there's certain areas of the ocean where you're like, okay, dude, we got to be constantly staying long stretch before there's anything.

Speaker 2: 1:22:58

Hey, we're over land like dude. We're good. If we got a problem, just drop in and land it, land it here. But but yeah, doing pond crossings, that's what we call it crossing the ocean, you're going to be, you're going to be on the tank.

Speaker 1: 1:23:09

I've never thought of that I didn't even know. That's how. That's how it works yeah that's pretty. I mean a 30 minute gap in between an hour.

Speaker 2: 1:23:15

I mean obviously you said it varies, but I mean, if so, if you're overseas and there's a dust storm or the base is shut down and you've got to follow a tanker around, I mean that could be Well and really I mean, if an airport, if a base is like crumped, like the runway is gone or they're, and like dude, you're now thinking divert mode, your mind's like okay, because you don't want to just be the guy who's just waiting around. I mean, you know, an airport base can be closed for six hours.

Speaker 2: 1:23:46

So it's like okay, a base is closed. Dude divert Got it.

Speaker 1: 1:23:50

So back to your first mission. You get the green light, you guys are loaded up. I mean, what's going through your head? I mean, do you know, were there pre runs before this like this is it? And then you get all excited, then it gets shut down, or was this so?

Speaker 2: 1:24:05

so really, you know, like I say, you're doing that, a lot of that x cast meaning you're airborne, you're, you don't really know what's going to happen. Sometimes you'd be like, um, hey, we want you to, um, just go to this fob and make sure they're good to go, just go hold over the fob they've been taking indirect fire and um. And then so you check in with the jtac, joint tactical controller on the ground. Hey, hey, what's up? Man, this is, you know, hog five one I'm, I'm just overhead, okay, cool, thanks. And then crickets, quiet, nothing happens.

Speaker 2: 1:24:36

Because again, you know we're talking aircraft, or overhead, you got b1s, strike eagles, you know 15es vipers everything's out there okay and um, we're all in the navy, the marines, they're all in different aos, we're all covering different areas and um and everyone's and everyone's. You're on that like on call stuff and that's afghan so that's like an afghan scenario. There are exceptions to that, for sure. Like sometimes you'd show up for your sortie and they'd be like okay, here's a targeting packet. This is like a no shit, we have like a high value asset, oh really.

Speaker 2: 1:25:14

We know this guy, we're following him and you'd go out the door. That's your target. Did you get any of those?

Speaker 1: 1:25:22

Yeah, yeah, so you'd go out the door. That's your target to strike. Did you get any of those?

Speaker 2: 1:25:23

Yeah, yeah, so you'd get those Really, but really those were few and far between in Afghanistan again, because really our main role was close air support, which was go out, and so the worst-case scenario that every hog guy that makes the hair on the back and your neck stand up is you check in on the radio and, um, same thing, hey, go check in over here. Or you get the call, hey, there's a tick troops in contact. Okay, you go in, check in, check in with the jtac on the ground and he keys the and all you hear is screaming and gunshots. And you're like, okay, it's on, it is on, and you know shit's going to get real. And you know there's always a level of progression.

Speaker 2: 1:26:14

We always do with trying to figure out what's going on, and a lot of times you'll show up and just kind of do like a show of force and a lot of times that's enough to just break contact, because that's the whole.

Speaker 2: 1:26:25

The whole idea is if, if they're calling you in, like yeah, I mean like, as you know, marines, you guys are, you're trained to be in contact, right, that's not like a bad thing, yeah, but what's bad is when you're being overrun, and so if and so sometimes all it takes is just a hog to just do a quick flyby, popping flares or whatnot, and just just to show, hey, like we're here, get, get back, and that'd be enough. Okay, and that would get them to wait to leave. But, um, most of the time they're, they're in the fight. You know, taliban, they're fighting, they're not going to stop, and so so then it's just like, what do we need to do here? And the JTACs? Then you know they're like, first thing you want to know where are my friendlies at, and so you try to get a good picture, battle picture, in your mind.

Speaker 1: 1:27:13

What elevation are you flying? Are you going off maps and grids from the JTAC? Or are you actually looking at the battlefield underneath you as you guys are kind of building a plan? Or is it a little bit of everything?

Speaker 2: 1:27:26

Yeah, it's a little bit of everything. So what you do, so you're going to be, you know. So, as you're just in your air, you go to the tanker, you get gas and then you'll get a call. We're all working on SATCOM at this point, you know, talking about all the upgrades that we, um, these are that the a10 has had. So get a radio, get the call, or they can even, like, send you a text message. Hey, you need to go, you need to proceed to, and there's all um, it's uh, it's all broken up into. They call them kill boxes. Okay, so you just and it's just now you have a map and you know the whole country's broken. So you know they're not going to tell you like, go fly to blah blah, blah blah valley. Yeah, we don't know the hell that is.

Speaker 1: 1:28:03

You know, kill box 32a.

Speaker 2: 1:28:05

Yeah, you know that like go to a kill box 32 alpha, okay, cool. Well, I can find that on a map, yep. And then you just and, or, and then you just get grids, go where you're going, start hauling ass, get a frequency for for who you're fighting with, and and then cruise over there and then from there. Now you get there. And now what's also a huge advantage for A-10 guys is we're big time looking outside and it sounds kind of obvious. You'd think, well, of course you're going to look outside. Well, really like an F-35, they're really high up.

Speaker 2: 1:28:42

I mean, go fly on an airliner, you know, and look outside, you're like I don't know where the hell things are. But when you're down low and you can see what's going on, and so when we check in with the um you know the j tag he's like hey, dude, all friendly troops are south of this river. Did you see the river? Yeah, we see the river. All right, do you see this? Do you see our line of humvees here? Yeah, we see those. Okay, there's I see four of them. Yeah, that's us.

Speaker 2: 1:29:06

Okay, are there any other friendly troops in the area? No, okay, where are you guys taking fire from the north side of the river? Like everything on the north side of the river is bad, they're hostile and they're taking they were taking lots of fire from there.

Speaker 1: 1:29:16

So then you're like okay oh, my god, that's got to be such a like. I mean, at this point, is it just the adrenaline starting? I mean, you know it's happening, you're about to be in this and you're helping troops on the ground, which is, I feel and correct me if I'm wrong like for an A-10 pilot. That is, the ultimate mission is communicating with troops on the ground and being able to support them. I I that I feel like it's. It doesn't get any cooler than that as an a-10 pilot yeah, for sure.

Speaker 2: 1:29:46

I mean that that's our number one mission, absolutely.

Speaker 1: 1:29:49

I mean for every troop on the ground it's a dream to watch the a-10 come in and just completely obliterate a tree line and everyone fuck yeah, you know, and you guys are banking off. I mean that's that is a grunt like wet dream every day.

Speaker 2: 1:30:03

I mean they think about that until they're on their deathbed, if they've ever lived that experience oh for sure, and and you know, and it goes back to really you know how I said how, how intense I guess the a-10 community is with close air support to where you're. You're training so, so hard for those scenarios and, um, like when we're training, when we're doing training strategies, we're getting to shoot the gun almost every day. Okay, so it's like our bread and butter weapon. You know it, we shoot it. Well, we do. And we're doing close air support, um, so you can do things. It enables us to do things. That the you know, the f-35 stuff, they just they just don't have that capability.

Speaker 1: 1:30:42

They don't have.

Speaker 2: 1:30:42

they don't practice enough. They don't, they can't get down low and dirty.

Speaker 1: 1:30:45

So You're way more personal. It's a very personal air to troops or pilot to troop weapon Right.

Speaker 2: 1:30:54

Yeah, yeah, you're definitely, you definitely feel a lot more connected with the guys on the ground and and yeah, so I will never forget.

Speaker 2: 1:31:03

You know, my first time shooting, actually it was at night, and you know it's really hard to get the full essay on what's going on at night and, of course, it's never as easy as like the little scenario like, oh yeah, we're 400 Vs and everything under the north is bad, shoot the bad guys, we show up and it's just pure chaos. Okay, I mean, it's like an op. That kind of didn't go well and so they thought they were supposed to just take down suspected Taliban leaders inside a village at night, leaders inside a village at night. And so when we and and um, and they show up, there's, you know, way more taliban than they thought, and there's, they're getting shot at from all different directions.

Speaker 2: 1:31:50

The guys are running everywhere and we're, there's apaches on station, there's us, we're all looking, you know, and you know, just, you know, from our perspective now. So now we're overhead and we're we're, you have night vision, goggles. Well, it's pretty much like looking through a soda straw. It's not like it doesn't turn day or night to day, um, and so. So you, you know, so you're looking through, you know, a little tiny soda straw, trying to figure out what's going on? You have your targeting pod, which is like an ir, which is that's your biggest sa enhancement tool what's a targeting pod.

Speaker 2: 1:32:24

So this is on the plane yeah, so it's a, it's a, it's a huge and, like you think of infrared camera, it also shoots a laser out.

Speaker 2: 1:32:31

Yeah, so you were able to pin four so now you, you, you, you can type in a grid and slew that targeting pod to those grids. It'll just automatically go there, and so, so we're talking to JTAC same thing, you know. I mean he's we're trips in contact, blah, blah, blah. We're taking fire from this side. This is building here. We don't know if there's guys here. We're over on this building.

Speaker 1: 1:32:51

I was like dude, like okay, okay, hold on, and this is all pitch black and the picture you're trying to, and then, of course, kind of back to okay, holy shit now or how long are we going to be here?

Speaker 2: 1:33:05

back to that, how much gas do we have? Where the? What kind of terrain like? In afghanistan, there's like 15 000 foot mountains for sure, and in the hog we're rooting around in these canyons and you have, um, you know you're dealing with weather, you're dealing with all, just you know. So there's just a, there's a lot going on and you, you're trying to build this picture in your mind. What do we need to do here? And then you know it's game time and the second they're like stand by nine line and that's JTAC's the way that they send you all their targeting data, and so at that point you're ready to.

Speaker 2: 1:33:35

Yeah, that's when it's like dude, arm everything up, we're about to go hot.

Speaker 1: 1:33:39

What does that feel like?

Speaker 2: 1:33:42

It's everything up. We're about, we're about to go hot. What does that feel like? It's, yeah, you're, like you know again, you're, you're, we're so trained on on that stuff it was. It's really just like dude, pull up the second nature and let's go.

Speaker 1: 1:33:50

Really, yeah, it's like okay, hell, yeah, here we go. So now you're, you're arming things, things are going live nine lines.

Speaker 2: 1:33:56

You write it all down and then it's a nine line, because it's really. You write nine lines worth of information. You know, like, where are the friendlies, where's the target, where do they want you doing? You know coming in and off from, and what type of munitions do they prefer? Um, and so they're like so we dial it down. We're like, okay, we're pretty damn sure it's this building right here. I shoot a laser on it with an ir sparker, sparkler. Get him to confirm the jtac. He's got night vision. He can see that ir light. He's confirming it. We got, um, you know they have all the robots up there flying and also all the drones they're trying to help us with the you know, situational awareness as well. Um, there's air weapons team, the apaches are below us and they're striking another target, you know.

Speaker 2: 1:34:40

So that kind of pulls your essay, we're like well, wait, like what's going on over here? And like no, that's the air weapons team. We got them on a different target. Don't shoot that and stay away from them.

Speaker 2: 1:34:50

Basically so you're trying to coordinate between those two. And then it was like okay, and you're hearing, you know, we're hearing. Okay, we got friendly troops within like 300 meters of where they want us to shoot. That's pretty close, you know. 300 meters, uh, I mean in relative to you know how I mean that's that that's just being off target, just a hair an inch at your height, yeah so you're.

Speaker 2: 1:35:14

So it's like okay, I'm, I'm, I'm pretty damn comfortable, I know where. I know the start. Cool, we, you pass a fighter to fighter, meaning like I tell my wingman, hey, this is what we're going to do, and we both roll in strafe, come off. And you know you're, you know that dude. I'm like 99.9999% sure, but you still have it back in your mind. I remember coming off target. Just you know, I just like I hope I hit him, I hope I hit it.

Speaker 2: 1:35:44

And then you know there's that pause, and then you hear from the j tag he's just like good, hits good hits, good hits, number two shooter, number one shot you're like okay, dude awesome oh, I just felt like such a relief oh, I bet, because you know my first time dropping in combat and you just want it to go well yeah. You don't want to miss. And then, obviously worst, worst case, you know you hit friendlies, which would be detrimental, and so we both strafed, hit the target and then, you know, rolled back around a few more times, hit a few other targets and ended up working out.

Speaker 1: 1:36:16

No shit. So one of my personal questions was have you ever had to run like a danger close mission? Because you? I mean, I've seen footage. I have buddies that one of my buddies has GoPro footage where they're in a river bank and I mean, and that A-10 comes down and like almost lights up, they're down in the river and it almost I'm talking. It had to have been within 50 yards, yeah, and they were all just laid down and it's pretty intense. And when he was showing me this, have you ever had anything that you made you pucker Like, put you on the uncomfortable side?

Speaker 2: 1:36:51

I did for sure. You know any the danger close scenarios I was in, you know. Luckily, I had really good J tax on the ground who were just like, hey, dude, this is danger close, here's our initials, this is what we need. Like no shit, this is what you want and I want you in from the east. And then they're very confirmatory with their comm, Like, hey, this is where we are. Yes, I see you. And then you're being very, very clear. You know, as the flight lead, hey, this is what I'm going to be doing and you're all good with it. It's like, yeah, absolutely.

Speaker 1: 1:37:22

Run it.

Speaker 2: 1:37:22

Yeah, just go for it.

Speaker 1: 1:37:23

What do you consider danger?

Speaker 2: 1:37:24

close Well, it all depends on what munitions you have on there too, and we'll use a lower CDE or collateral damage estimate. Like weapons, the closer troops are and you know those distances. Like weapons, you know the closer troops are and you and you know those distances, and so you know you're not going to drop like an airburst, a 2,000 pound airburst bomb.

Speaker 2: 1:37:47

I mean that would just blow us entire canyon up yeah and so we always we're, you know, we're always thinking okay, well, what's like really, the um, you know, what can I do to break contact on that? So, um, you know, back to what I was saying before you, really that's the ultimate goal, right? You don't want the good guys getting getting attacked anymore, and so sometimes, just like in a danger close scenario, sometimes you can do a show force or you can follow it up with like a couple willie pete rockets, which is just um white phosphorus, so the rocket comes out lights white phosphorus.

Speaker 1: 1:38:17

We use those for marking, yeah and um.

Speaker 2: 1:38:19

So, which is it's kind of a two-fold thing. You could roll in, shoot a couple of rockets and they're really loud, and then your JTAC could be like, I mean, you know, more or less, now he has a good way to definitely know like, hey, dude, from your smoke, I want number two to strafe like north of that 20 meters or whatever it is. So. And so now we're continuously upping the type of munition. And so then if it's like, okay, you strafed, do we need more? We need, we need something more. And we're, we're now getting, um, you know, all the good guys are going to move more out of the way you're going to be.

Speaker 2: 1:38:53

Now you're like, okay, we can move it up to bombs if we need to, but how's that dropping bombs? Bombs are awesome, um, more, the old school bombs are a lot more fun to drop, which is like a dumb bomb, you know, because you're, you're actually, you know, diving at the ground, you're aiming it, you're targeting, you've got to put the pipper right on it. And now, with, like the latest upgrades I mean in the latest, I mean I shouldn't be saying the latest, but when they converted the a10 from the a10a to the a10c, okay, that's when they really um, they put in the gps ins iggy is what they call an embedded gps ins system. And because really, in today's battles you cannot just be going out like ripping yeah, mark, you know, like six mark, 82s over, like vietnam style yeah, you know most of our target, or not most, but say, let's say, a fair amount of the targets we go after.

Speaker 2: 1:39:48

It's going to be like one guy on a moped in a town. Well, you know it. So you can't just blow up a city block to take this guy out for sure and so so we really have low cd weapons or precision guided.

Speaker 2: 1:40:03

More, you know, is really what we're after. And so precision guided munitions you're looking at like a gbu 38, a gbu 12, gb 54, so those are gps or laser guided weapons. So you're going to be dropping those really from, you know, medium, high altitude you're not down low because they need time to find their target and arm and everything correct.

Speaker 2: 1:40:27

And so you're up at higher altitudes. Sometimes you're just going to shoot a laser and then it'll hone in on that signal, Okay. Or sometimes you just type in a grid and it just the bomb falls off, it goes to.

Speaker 1: 1:40:44

Did you ever get the opportunity to drop ordinance on somebody, like on a moped or anything?

Speaker 2: 1:40:48

Oh, yeah, yeah, really yeah, yeah, you, you drop it.

Speaker 1: 1:40:51

Like it was a common thing.

Speaker 2: 1:40:52

Well, so in Afghanistan, you know you're, I think I, I mean I probably um, I think we were there. You know, I was only there for like 50 days or something and you know you're dropping, maybe once every couple weeks.

Speaker 1: 1:41:07

What's it like when you know you have this guy, he's lasered and you I mean bombs away, pretty much right.

Speaker 2: 1:41:14

Yeah.

Speaker 1: 1:41:15

What's I mean? Do you get to watch the impact? Are you pulling off and circling around? Yeah, so a lot of those you know you're.

Speaker 2: 1:41:20

You're from a higher altitude and you're dropping, and maybe your wingman's going to laze it in for you, or?

Speaker 2: 1:41:24

whatever the tactic is, it really depends on the weather. You know, okay, the threat, all that stuff, and so so you, you, but you, yeah, you see it, look out the window and you're going to see the boom or you're just going to see it. More likely, you know, you're looking on your targeting pod because you're looking for really what's going to happen next. What you're always thinking it's not just, it's never just, hey, swing by, drop a bomb and go home. It's like, okay, dude, there's we know that there's like enemy inside this building.

Speaker 1: 1:42:01

Yeah.

Speaker 2: 1:42:01

So you've got to drop the building. Well, now you've got to be really watching that building, First like squirters, you know, like guys coming out of the building, and now you need to be tracking them or you need to think of a secondary attack to go after them. Yeah, and so most of the time you're staring in that targeting pod to really see what really like the effects and what's going to happen next.

Speaker 1: 1:42:25

No kidding, that's going to be pretty wild, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2: 1:42:29

But really you know where things where we were really dropping a ton was when, like on my second deployment, where were you at for this? So that was in 2016. On the fight against ISIS in Syria.

Speaker 1: 1:42:45

Really.

Speaker 2: 1:42:47

And also in Iraq a little bit too. Okay, but that's a whole other ballgame. Why is that? So there was very minimal US troops on the ground, so the mission was a lot different. It wasn't as much about the as the 18 year old with the rifle and you know, just helping him survive and helping him. Helping him it was. It was a pretty clear mission of dude. We gotta eradicate isis from syria, like that was it you know, and there's a and and the politics were a lot different, because it wasn't this nation-building weird stuff.

Speaker 2: 1:43:21

I know Syria has made a lot of headlines in the past few weeks with Assad's regime going down. Well, that civil war, I mean, that's been cranking since like 2012. And that country has just been in just total chaos since then. And so when we were there in, like, when the US first showed up, you know, I think it was like 2014-ish I think, and you know so their civil war is, you know, full up. The Russians are there to help the Assad regime. There are so many different factions out there. There's, like the SDF, the Syrian Defense Forces, which are the Kurds who we ended up being friends with. There's ISIS, there's the Assad regime, who's friends with Russia, and then there's just multiple I mean so many groups of just mercenaries who are working, who, literally, I mean we'd show up on like an intel brief and be like oh yeah, you know how you're working with these guys. Now they're over here, they're now working with ISIS because they don't care.

Speaker 1: 1:44:29

They want what the money went.

Speaker 2: 1:44:30

Yeah, they want the money. Yeah, and so if the SDF is paying them, one day, cool, we'll fight ISIS. Well, sdf will quit paying them Now, and STF will quit paying them Now. They're going to go fly for ISIS. So there was a ton of just what is happening you know in so many of these towns and villages, cities, really I mean like Aleppo and all those that made the news, and they are just war-torn, like you know.

Speaker 2: 1:45:04

I mean like really out of like World War II type scenarios where you just see is just tore up, no civilians, really just completely destroyed. Really, yeah, it was, it was definitely it was.

Speaker 1: 1:45:09

It was, it was shocking for sure so how are you guys finding targets there? Is it all intel? Are you getting calls? I mean so if you're not, if you don't have a large amount of troops on the ground in jtac that you're doing, how are you? Are you getting briefed before you're even taken off, are you?

Speaker 2: 1:45:24

a lot, yes, a lot of times you, yeah, you'd show up in the morning and or night, whatever time you know your vole is again. We're still flying like 24 hours a day. Um, and they would have. Sometimes they're like, hey, dude, this is like your target set. You here's, you're going out the door, you're going to go strike these targets. Okay, known isis positions. Okay, okay, cool. Um, sometimes you would take off and we were like we were so loaded down with weapons that we would have to do. We, we couldn't even take off with full fuel, really.

Speaker 1: 1:45:56

So we would take off and could you just too heavy yeah, too heavy, we just were loaded down so you're taking off half a half a tank go and then you go immediately to a tanker. Really before you even start, I mean as soon as you get the elevation.

Speaker 2: 1:46:09

Yeah, you take off, you cruise in, fly by 30 minutes or whatever, get up to the tanker and he's right at the edge of the fight, and then you roll in and um, and and you'd show up, so so in those scenarios you'd show up and it would say and you and you'd show up, so so in those scenarios you'd show up and it would say, and you'd, and you'd you'd be, you'd we'd still had JTACs, and they would be U US JTACs. But they were not. For the most part they were not like co-located with anybody on the ground, had minimal amounts of US troops on the ground.

Speaker 2: 1:46:41

And so you know they could be in a building. You know wherever the hell. You don't even know where these guys are at half the time, but they're watching lots of drone footage.

Speaker 2: 1:46:51

They are in communication with, like our you know whoever our friends are at the time, which, for the most part was the Kurds, the SDF the time, which, for the most part, was the Kurds, the SDF and um, and you know, those guys are out there. Just you know the, the Kurds are out there just finding targets. They're they're actually engaging against ISIS. So we'd have a lot of, but we could never talk to them. They don't have, they didn't have a radio, okay and so, but they would, they would be able to communicate with our JTACs, and so there'd always be a huge lag in what's going on. Okay, because you know how, whatever means that they were using to contact our JTAC and he could be in another country.

Speaker 2: 1:47:32

And then we'd and then he would need to verify what's going on, because he's not just going to let munitions be slinging for no reason. So most of the time you're going to have one of the drones, one of the robots overhead and the JTAC is able to watch that. There's also lots of other different, just national assets stuff that are looking for targets, and so we would get targeting information like hey here, we need you to go over here now.

Speaker 1: 1:48:00

Did you like those missions where you're just going in and dropping and then you're out, or would you rather work with troops?

Speaker 2: 1:48:05

It's definitely more rewarding, you know, when you know like, oh, I just helped these guys out on the ground and it's personal, and we talk to these guys face-to-face in Afghanistan a lot of times, like when they got back or before a mission. So you definitely had a really good, you know. I also, though, I remember a lot of frustration in afghanistan because you know you again, you had that relationship and you knew these guys. You know, and um, and when you can't, you know you can't just like dude, the cuffs are off. You just didn't have that to where you could just dude. I know these guys are all hostile, I just want to go take them out, whereas Syria, you know, I would say the cuffs were off. I mean, it was pretty much like dude, we can't have ISIS take over this country, yeah, and we need them gone and the country's in just—.

Speaker 1: 1:48:57

The ruins.

Speaker 2: 1:48:58

Oh, it was terrible. And I mean you know you'd see all these refugee camps like littered all over in bordering countries.

Speaker 2: 1:49:07

Really, you know because everyone just had to get out of Syria. I mean it was just terrible. I mean the Russians are dropping on, you know. I mean we'd literally we'd be flying in like the same area but in we you look over and there's, there's like russian su-34s just bombing the shit out of something and we're like two miles away bombing isis, you know. So you know we're all like sharing the same, the same ao, and fighting, but we're fighting different people.

Speaker 1: 1:49:41

That's fascinating.

Speaker 2: 1:49:42

Yeah, and it was I mean.

Speaker 1: 1:49:44

So you're watching Russian planes bomb, technically, who we're defending and they're watching you bomb ISIS, who they're technically fighting for and supporting.

Speaker 2: 1:49:54

Well, it was always kind of like you know the enemy of my enemy is my friend type deal. Like Assad and Russians, they don't like us, but they don't like ISIS more than they don't like us.

Speaker 2: 1:50:07

We're not a direct threat to the Assad regime and I don't think, or we weren't they're gone now, as of last month, but they were. You know Assad sees like ISIS is a no shit threat. I mean Absolutely. You know Assad sees like ISIS is a no-shit threat. I mean, you know, whatever that organization is now that just rebranded from ISIS to the rebel group that took over Assad's regime last month. So yeah, he was very correct. Obviously they ended up taking him out.

Speaker 2: 1:50:36

And so for the US to be there to take out ISIS was a help to him. Of course, he didn't like us in general. So, yeah, very, very strange, though for sure. I mean you're seeing Russian aircraft flying and they want to come by say hi to you. You know which is unnerving for sure.

Speaker 1: 1:50:57

I mean, did you ever like have any of these?

Speaker 2: 1:51:00

moments For sure. I mean, did you ever like have any of these moments? There were like near World War III, I would say incidents going on out there. No, shit. You're like. I mean, if you think about it, if, let's say, because you know the Russian fighters, they're bored maybe or they just want to do something, and you know there were some times where they got too close to American aircraft, they would american aircraft would start turning with them a little bit and if you only think about it, I mean that could.

Speaker 2: 1:51:25

If they start shooting each other down a us and russian aircraft, it could be pretty bad oh yeah um, and I don't know if you remember, you know, a navy f-18 actually shot down a syrian, uh, su-24. No, when we were over there and it was like actually it happened right when we got back, and you know again, and there was like holy shit, what do we do here? You know, they were like and they get the call? And some of the few Americans that were on the ground were actually getting bombed by an aircraft and they were like dude, we're being, we're no shit, something's shooting at us. And they're like dude, we're being, we're no shit, we're something's shooting at us.

Speaker 2: 1:52:04

And they're like so this f-18 shows up and just shoots him down no shit and and you know you talk about a hairy situation because the the syrians, you know they have surface-to-air missiles all over the place, and so it could have escalated like really, really quickly so, oh shit, is there a mission that sticks out to you that you got to run through?

Speaker 1: 1:52:22

I mean, you did what? Three deployments.

Speaker 2: 1:52:26

Well, combat deployments is just two. Okay, yeah, so Afghanistan, and the other one was the Syria slash Iraq.

Speaker 1: 1:52:32

Is there a mission that stands out to you, that was you know either that made an impact in some sort of way?

Speaker 2: 1:52:39

Definitely. You know, oneghanistan stood out was a um, there was a convoy that was uh, they were, you know, just moving from a fob to wherever another fob or some shit, I don't remember the details of it. Well, they, they get ambushed and and they are no kidding they were out there for like three days.

Speaker 1: 1:53:02

Really.

Speaker 2: 1:53:03

And we gave them 24-7 coverage with A-10s and we were rolling in like, I mean, they were just a constant onslaught and they had KIA a lot of injuries and we could not. It was like too hot of an LZ to bring in a helicopter to get them.

Speaker 1: 1:53:22

Really.

Speaker 2: 1:53:22

And so I mean, they were just under constant bombardment and so we were just ripping, you know, a-10s, ripping out other A-10s, you know, like two ship on station, okay, they're done, they got to go back, two more show up and giving them, you know, just being there for them, yeah, and then when the Taliban would strike, strike the convoy again, we'd roll in. We actually escorted a C-130 for them to do an airdrop of supplies just to get them. They needed meds and food and water.

Speaker 2: 1:53:56

You know they're out there for days. Finally they get out, they get heloed into Bagram and we were able to meet those guys. You know we all went to the hospital where they were all at and just bullshitted with them no kidding so that was.

Speaker 1: 1:54:09

That was really incredible, for sure so you guys were on station for 24 hours a day for three days and the taliban was still oh just still hitting them.

Speaker 2: 1:54:16

yeah, finally, I mean it was before, it was finally like. It was like like dude, it's okay, get, get them out of here, get helos in here. Really, just get them taken out.

Speaker 1: 1:54:27

No kidding, that's what the such? There's such a difference between the Mujahideen, or whatever you want to call them now in Iraq versus the Taliban. You know people would ask and I've never. You know, when I was in Africa and I was contracted so I wasn't on the military side, but you know from buddies and talking to vets and just people, I mean I feel like fighting in that They've been fighting on the motherland over there for centuries For sure, and you know they got those mountains dialed in the way that they can move through them and but the fact that you have 24, seven air support with eight tens and it's still not even phasing them, that's that's what's scary For sure.

Speaker 2: 1:55:17

Yeah, and and and. You know it is a good point. You know there are different. You know, like the Iraqi military versus a Taliban, versus ISIS, they're all. They have different ideologies. They all have different. You know how they want to fight, how far do they want to take it, like you know just an Iraqi guy in the military he's probably not like that much into Saddam Hussein at the time.

Speaker 2: 1:55:43

Whatever, like they, just they're there because they were told to be there. You know versus you know an isis fighter. They're. They have a lot, you know, they, they see, they see it as like a lot greater calling for sure.

Speaker 1: 1:55:51

They're going to take a fight and they're willing to do a lot more for a lot more. Yeah, and I think too.

Speaker 2: 1:55:57

That's why you know you're going to see a different ROE of when you're in Syria. Like dude, things have to happen here a lot quicker.

Speaker 1: 1:56:07

It's so frustrating though. You know you hear these stories of guys who are like I had to shoot a pen flare. Then, dude, wave a flag. And I mean we had checkpoints that we were running and they wanted us to wave a flag. Wave a flag was the first line line flag, I think it was a pen flare star cluster. Then you were able to do like three rounds into the dirt, then three rounds into the hood and three rounds into there before you can shoot the windshield. And you're supposed to do all of that within like a 50 yard snake barrier to get to your checkpoint.

Speaker 1: 1:56:42

And even as, like a young Marine, I was like this there's no fucking way this is happening. Somebody wants to run this or they're on you in a vehicle and I'm supposed to pen. You know you had it all laid. I'm like this is the dumbest shit ever, you know, versus when they were over, there was like, oh, military age male with a shovel on a motorcycle, shoot on sight. And then it went to oh, we need, you know, got to call it in. And I was talking to my buddy the other day. He's a tanker and he's like dude, it would take us sometimes six hours to get cleared to go live with the neighbors. All the phone calls and going up the chain of command before we got back to them. He's like it was a nightmare.

Speaker 2: 1:57:18

Yeah, yeah, it's nightmare. Yeah, yeah, it's. It's a crazy thing, though you know the different, the way the you know just who's running the show and who who's developing are we at the time.

Speaker 1: 1:57:29

For sure, I got some more questions from some of our listeners. I'm asking this question because it was actually asked several times. The first one I read I was like there's no way, but there was multiple people that asked us questions how do you go to the bathroom and have you ever had to shit yourself? That was a multi-question.

Speaker 2: 1:57:51

Yeah, it's funny. My kids ask me that too. They think that's hilarious yeah of course, because they're in that young age, I think like that, but um, no, yeah it's actually. I mean, you talk about some of these sorties. You know you're up there for a really really long ass time and um, and they have these things called called piddle packs. It's like kind of a weird shaped um ziploc bag almost that has some powder in it that that turns pee into gel okay and so you just sit there and fill up piddle packs, and then you know the nightmare scenario would be if you had to.

Speaker 2: 1:58:26

You know, show yourself. Yeah, just be terrible. So luckily, knock on wood, that's's not happened, but there are some stories for sure of guys, I mean you're deployed and the food is jacked up, not the best.

Speaker 1: 1:58:40

You know this right, yes.

Speaker 2: 1:58:42

You're going to eat rotten food, so you're always eating like you find in the first week. Okay, if I just survive on this chicken and power cliff bars. Do this guy hula bars yeah, guys would just be like okay I'll eat chicken and cliff bars for the next, you know, a few months, and stay away from the saddle salad bar yeah, you're good to go yeah, I I had to ask because I when I I got the first one that came, I was like I'm that.

Speaker 1: 1:59:09

And then multiple people are like how do these guys use the restroom up there if you're running missions? So I had to ask that one. Does it take a shorter amount of time flying east to west or west to east, and is that a thing?

Speaker 2: 1:59:22

Yeah, no it's. I mean, realistically it's going to take a lot longer. I mean, if you're like flying like super long distances, it takes longer to go west, just because that's how the winds are, predominantly in the northern hemisphere. But when you're just flying like you know sorties in a fighter, it's negligible for sure. It's all really you care about. You know, if you're going to go somewhere, you know, quote unquote far in a fighter which would would be like from Idaho to Arizona on a single without a tanker, then you're just looking at what are the winds doing.

Speaker 2: 2:00:00

Got it yeah, if you're going to go like, if you're going really far distance, if you're going to go like from the East Coast of the US over to Europe or something like that, you're going to get there a hell of a lot faster when you're traveling East versus west because of the winds.

Speaker 1: 2:00:16

Got it. I don't know if you're a religious man.

Speaker 2: 2:00:19

I am yeah.

Speaker 1: 2:00:21

Do you believe in a firmament? In a firmament, yes, the dome over the earth.

Speaker 2: 2:00:32

I don't think there's like a protective dome over the.

Speaker 1: 2:00:35

Earth. Okay, Next is the Earth flat.

Speaker 2: 2:00:39

Is the Earth flat? I will say no to that one no. Yeah.

Speaker 1: 2:00:43

I haven't found a pilot that has rogered up to that one yet. But people know. They know my conspiracies and I'm in it. So I had someone like you've got to ask me if the. Earth if he thinks it's flat Because you do commercial too correct? I had someone like you got to ask him if he thinks it's flat Because you do commercial too correct? Yeah, okay, so you're doing long flights, is this?

Speaker 2: 2:00:58

something that you just can't admit to? No, I would definitely admit. I like conspiracy theories. I love bullshitting with my buddy.

Speaker 1: 2:01:06

We talk about this stuff all the time around the campfire.

Speaker 2: 2:01:09

And you're not a flat earther? Huh, not a flat earther? Damn and. And you can. Yeah, you'll know pretty easily when you start flying long distances that it just can't be.

Speaker 1: 2:01:16

Doesn't make sense.

Speaker 2: 2:01:18

No, it's impossible. All right, so sorry.

Speaker 1: 2:01:20

All right, a little let down on that one. A10s. Where do you see them being used in the future? Do you think they're going to become obsolete? Because they tried for a while right to decommommission it and it's just such an incredible machine. Do you see them being phased out at all anytime soon?

Speaker 2: 2:01:40

it's actually in the works right now okay to be phased out, really, and I mean, um, of course that's been happening since the gulf war, been continuously trying to phase them out, and um, and then something kicks off. Much is the way it's worked to save it. There's some type of fight, to where they're just like, ah, we've got to have the hog. I mean, it's the perfect airplane for so many of these fights. So, moving though, into the future, the Air Force wants to get out of the business of close air support.

Speaker 1: 2:02:14

Really, that's not what they want to do. Really.

Speaker 2: 2:02:17

They love. You know, it's almost like they're going back to, you know, the SAC days, strategic Air Command, where they were really big on huge bombers and big fast things to strike against big terrible countries. And then obviously Vietnam changed all that.

Speaker 1: 2:02:39

Yeah.

Speaker 2: 2:02:39

And then, of course, the last 20 years. But now that the war in Afghanistan is over with, and the Air Force, their main focus, it's no secret, is China. Their main focus, it's no secret, is china, and so they're, and so everything that they talk about is is how to fight that. That fight or, in any future, fight against like a larger state how do you think we would fight china?

Speaker 1: 2:03:06

do you think it would be mainly air to air for a portion of it? Or the reason I ask is because I mean you. You look at our military. We've never had a break. We've been in war for, I mean, we were rolled from one war to the next and the next and the next. And then you take someone like China, which was the last time they were at war with us, you know, when we were doing island hopping campaigns. So how do you, how do you think the U? S would take on China If, in your experience, your experience.

Speaker 2: 2:03:33

You know, honestly, it's a good question and nobody really knows that. I'm sure people have some very good plans for that and um, and there's probably a lot of different scenarios that could take place. You know the one, the biggest, the big threat, you know that you always see on the news that they always talk about, is China wants to take Taiwan. So there's, you know so. So there's there's obviously a huge like war plan about how could we, how could we prevent that? How could we, how could that fight take place? What assets would be involved? Would a10s be involved? Would, after you know what, what would it be? And um, and I think there's so many.

Speaker 2: 2:04:09

It depends yeah into that to where?

Speaker 1: 2:04:11

it's a lot of variables yeah, and look how much the battlefield has changed with this ukraine russian shit? Oh for sure, I mean that's been such an eye-opener.

Speaker 2: 2:04:20

I think to to just, you know, to the world militaries, where they're seeing like, oh my gosh, drone warfare has changed things so much and um, and you know how much is it gonna, how much is that going to affect it? I mean, are we going to see a giant force on force where you're seeing like carriers flowing in and fighting? You know these giant naval battles, yeah, and the only time we'll tell for sure.

Speaker 1: 2:04:45

And it's such an interesting way because we almost went back in time and fast forward in time for this war, because I never in a million years would ever think we'd be in trench warfare again, where you're turning corners and dudes are hand-to-handing it and then they're hiding from drones that are flying into a bunker while they're sitting there eating chow for the day.

Speaker 2: 2:05:03

Oh, I know it's.

Speaker 1: 2:05:04

It's really crazy I mean it's, it's and there's so many there's so many domains, now too of warfare.

Speaker 2: 2:05:10

You know you look at space cyber is things that are, things that are like, like beyond the scope of, of just warfare that you know, that we've seen for for so many years, to where and and they're seeing what you know how those can be can be used in in wars like in ukraine and and then you also see the way the israelis are just really wild shit that is just outside the realm of conventional warfare For sure.

Speaker 2: 2:05:41

And so I think that definitely makes it to where you're like. Well, how would the next giant war, whether it's the US and another major nation state you're talking like Russia, china type thing, or you know is the next big fight going to be something you know that breaks out again in the Middle East or something Fuck that place. And really that's why, with the A-10, you know, the divestment of the A-10 is in the works for sure.

Speaker 2: 2:06:13

And they want to get rid of it and um, and they're slowly closing down squadrons, as of right now. That's such a bummer man well, it is for sure.

Speaker 2: 2:06:22

I mean especially. I mean I I love the airplane and I've seen how effective it is and um, but I also see how effective an f-35 is when you're talking about when it's going to be fighting. You know, you know a nation state, you know having a, a, an F-35, would be a lot more survivable in that like Ukraine type scenario than an A-10 would be. That's just the nature of the beast. Okay and um, and if that's the way the future warfare goes, where you know where you're going to see a lot of F-35s flying stealth, flying high, you know that could be the case, but um, but what substance, sorry?

Speaker 2: 2:07:00

Well, I just always see that there would still be a place for hog.

Speaker 1: 2:07:03

That's why I'm saying we're what would replace the hog at the end of the day that is on the battlefield, that that's as close as an angel that you can get.

Speaker 2: 2:07:24

Yeah, I mean, if you're ever I would say this if there's ever a time where you're going to see, you know, troops fighting troops, which seems inevitable in any type of war.

Speaker 2: 2:07:30

You know, no matter how crazy things get with, like cyber and space, they're still at the end of the day, I think you're going to see armies fighting against each other 100% and you're going to need close air support. Yeah, and Lockheed had said the F-35 will replace the A-10. They said they can do that. That's one of their things. Oh yeah, well, they checked that container and they should prove that to Congress, but everyone knows it really cannot. It can drop a bomb on a grid if they're told to do that, but it's not going to do it to the full effect of the hog so no, nothing can Right Nothing.

Speaker 1: 2:08:04

Another question that was asked was have you ever had to make a split-second decision in combat to change the outcome of the mission?

Speaker 2: 2:08:22

mission. Um, yeah, I think a lot of you know times. That comes to mind would be you know, missions in missions in syria. You know where you're because there's. You know they always talk about like the fog of war. You know it's just things that you just don't wait, like what's happening here, why? Why is this? What's going on here and most of it is is, you know, let's say, you're being targeted, targeted to something like okay, we know this area it's got to be. You know these buildings have to be destroyed and you're like rolling in and then all of a sudden, like a random car pulls up and you know civilians are coming out.

Speaker 2: 2:08:54

You know like you're like down the chute right and you're like really dude, something's not right here, I'm off, you know I mean, so there'd there'd be scenarios like that, for sure, and it's always you know where, um, you know you're like, you're okay, you got. Something's not right here. There's not. This isn't just like a full-up enemy compound. There's like, and so situations like that would happen a lot because it would be it would be.

Speaker 2: 2:09:21

Um, you know you mean again, there are so many lines of communication to get all the get the targeting to us that you know you'd see that breakdown. I mean, luckily for us we didn't have, you know, civcast incidents over there, but damn yeah, that's wild, I couldn't even imagine.

Speaker 1: 2:09:36

And then you I mean it's up to you to make that decision, decision at the end of the day, to pull or oh for sure, you own it absolutely.

Speaker 2: 2:09:42

You pull the trigger or you pick, you pickle off a bomb. It's, you know it's, it's on you for sure damn, how often does that happen?

Speaker 1: 2:09:50

I mean, I don't know, you don't have to say if you've ever made that wrong decision or not but I mean, when it goes away, I mean, okay, so as a pilot, you make that decision, you have a target that you've been briefed on and you go out and you bombs away and then it comes back. I mean, are you held responsible for everything that happens once you release, even though you've been given the green light on.

Speaker 2: 2:10:11

That's a hard target yeah, I mean yes and no. I'll put it that way if it's, let's say, um, because there's different types of targeting yeah, it's out there also, you know you can. There's sometimes where you um, you know, like the command cell they would, they're directing you um, hey, here's some grids. Go go over there and you need to drop a GBU-31, like a 2,000-pound GPS-guided bomb on this target.

Speaker 2: 2:10:39

And now you could be at night above the weather and you don't even know, you don't have the ability to go down and see. Now, they're not going to give you a target like that unless they are pretty damn, I mean like 100% sure that that is a target. They're not going to hang you out to dry with a hey here, go drop on this grid, and we don't really know what's there. So if you get one of those type of targeting, you're going to know that you're striking an enemy target. You're going to know what that you're striking enemy target. Now, if it's a, you know, in the chaos of like a, a troops in contact situation during and you know I've, I've a hundred percent happened, like in Afghanistan, JTAC, he's under stress, he's being shot at and he mistakenly will give you the grid.

Speaker 2: 2:11:33

You know he wants you to drop a bomb or target and it's like a friendly position really and you're like and um, and unfortunately you know there have been cases, yeah, of friendlies being dropped on, you know, but from you know mistakes being made, either on, you know, from the pilot side or jtac side, and you know, I mean that would be obviously the worst worst thing you could ever do, for sure and um, you know, luckily, you know, whenever, whenever I was flying, it happened, you, you would catch it.

Speaker 2: 2:12:05

And we go through so many checks and balances within a two ship or a four ship in an a10s. I mean we're all trying to confirm, yeah, and does everybody have the right picture? Okay, I friendlies are on the west side of the hill. Does everybody agree? No, no, I don't see that. Okay, hold on, nobody. Every. Save them up. Save them up, like we got to get this figured out because there's no reason to rush into something, and then I mean all I mean that would obviously compound the issue if you're dropping on the wrong area and in in that situation I feel that everything is so rushed because you're hearing the radio Every time that JTAC is giving you a grid or communicating with you.

Speaker 1: 2:12:44

You're hearing screaming shots. Is that hard to control your tempo in a plane? As far as we've got to get in, we got to do this. Or are you sitting there like, okay, give it to me again?

Speaker 2: 2:13:01

Well, you hear, calm is contagious.

Speaker 2: 2:13:03

Okay, and if you can. When you check in on the radio and the J-Tuck's screaming, he's going a mile a minute. And if you jump in and you're like wait, what's going on? Where is everybody? Well, now everyone's freaking out. And now, versus you check in and he's we're taking fire from the north. And you're like, okay, I hear you're taking fire from the north. What is your position? Like the slow, smooth, smooth is fast type deal and it really does pay dividends in the end, because you, you know, you don't want to be a help, you don't want to be a hindrance. If you're adding, you know, more variables and chaos to the situation, you're not helping at all.

Speaker 1: 2:13:44

Does that come with, I guess, time overseas, you know, on missions, or is that something that you learn pretty heavily in training by just communicating back and forth? Because I feel like a young pilot would want to get amped up pretty quick because he's there to save the day, and then more of a senior pilot okay, give me the nine line again.

Speaker 2: 2:14:00

Well, it is but there's also I.

Speaker 2: 2:14:02

I really I mean, I've seen like brand new guys who just go out and just totally crush it with you know with with that mentality and um, and you know when we're, when we're flying day in and day out out on the the range and we're working with JTACs, and you can get some really incredible situations just in training, where you have a real op four, the opposing force, out there and the guys on the ground are taking it very serious, and so you get some scenarios where you finish some of these training missions even, or you just have to get like poured out of the cockpit because you're like, oh my gosh, you're just, your mind is mush and you're just, and so so they really. You know, the more you're put through the ringer on those training stories, you get out there, it really carries over that's awesome.

Speaker 1: 2:14:50

Well, good, yeah, glad that. So once you get back I mean your, your, your transition are you technically out or are you still in? I'm still in, okay. So what are you doing now? I know you're helping out some veterans in the community. Um, since you've kind of done deploying and things have slowed down a little bit, how have you transitioned into?

Speaker 2: 2:15:07

Yeah, so doing the um, um uh airline gig, you know enjoying that, and then also seeing veterans in general, but mostly financial issues. I think you see that a lot.

Speaker 1: 2:15:25

Absolutely.

Speaker 2: 2:15:27

I work with a company called Turbine Capital. It's given a financial education, um, not I mean it's. It's more focused, you know, turbine, like a turbine engine, so it's focused more for for pilots, but it's also I'm a, you know, military member, so it's like want to help military members as well. So we do a lot of education and um, and then it's also a way for people to invest passively in predominantly real estate deals what type of education I mean?

Speaker 1: 2:15:59

let's say I just speak from the troop side of things. Your everyday guy that did four years or eight years got out, he can.

Speaker 2: 2:16:07

You guys will help him set up, like his finances and show so I would, honestly for a guy I I love to one, I love to just talk with a guy about that stuff, because there's so many things that that I think a, um, you know, like the, you know the e1, e2, e3, they're just, they're not. No one tells you shit, nothing and you're being paid below poverty wages. You're being paid like two grand a month and you know so and um, so I love, I love talking and helping those guys out and I and I and so for somebody in that, in that level there's there's really good groups that I can.

Speaker 2: 2:16:44

Um, you know there's um military millionaires, you know there's um active duty, passive income, and I'm, you know, good friends with both of those guys that run that and, and that's that. Those are really good resources, for that Turbine is is going to be from somebody who's who's more set up already, you know already and. But with that being said, I like to work. You know you can't get to an area where you're set up unless you set yourself up For sure, and so what that means is, when you're at that lower level, you've got to start preparing early, and you know you see so many guys just making like little. You know. You know you see the e3 who goes out and leases like a bmw 5 series.

Speaker 2: 2:17:27

Oh, my god 19 interest yeah, and you know, you and you know there's those those ridiculous, uh, you know cash stores outside of basis and stuff like just feeding off of active duty.

Speaker 1: 2:17:38

I think that's bullshit.

Speaker 2: 2:17:39

And you know there's, there's and again the military does not do, doesn't help you at all with that, and they're going to pay you terrible wages and then they don't really tell you how to, how to get by.

Speaker 1: 2:17:50

so shit pay with zero education on how to actually save or make your money.

Speaker 2: 2:17:54

Make money, yeah, in the military, and there's so many ways to, to just to get ahead as a military member to where you know, because a lot of times I get the the you know into these conversations and guys will be like, well, what am I supposed to do? I'm only making you know two, three grand a month, I can't do shit. It's like, yeah, that, okay, I get that. But um, like, here's one super easy thing to do go buy a house and when you pcs get a v, do it with a va loan 100 down. There's a really neat trend going on in the country, now called house hacking. It's where you buy a three-bedroom home, you rent out two of the rooms to your buddies, you live in one of the rooms and those other two guys are going to pay your mortgage and now you're going to wash, rinse and repeat at every place you PCS.

Speaker 2: 2:18:44

And next, thing, you know, now you're getting out of the military and you have like three or four homes and you didn't have to come out with any money out of pocket, and there's a lot of little tricks like that and there's so many of these communities that can help people and help these young individuals to where they're not. They don't just get out of the military and just think, oh well, I served, so I'll be taken care of.

Speaker 1: 2:19:10

Wrong.

Speaker 2: 2:19:10

That doesn't happen.

Speaker 1: 2:19:12

Especially the farther we're getting away from war times. You know, obviously, the withdrawal in Afghan Nobody I got out there was. So I mean the hype behind. We've got to help our veterans, we've got to help these guys that are coming back. I feel that with the way that this country and world operates is we forget very quick and move on to the next shiny thing, and so these guys that are getting out. Now obviously there's a lot more programs, but the passion I feel for helping our veterans is definitely fading out and kind of dwindling away. And so the military the whole world's evolving except for our military. When it comes to helping our active duty service members, it's scary when you break it down.

Speaker 2: 2:20:00

It is for sure.

Speaker 1: 2:20:01

You go to get out and you did let's say you did four or 20 years. You go to get out and you're like cool, I get to sit through a two-week class and teach me how to write some bullshit resume and fill out some paperwork, and then it's like have a nice life.

Speaker 1: 2:20:12

Oh yeah some bullshit, resume and fill out some paperwork and then there's like have a nice life, oh yeah, and that's that's where I think a huge fear and how a lot of people are trapped is because of that unknown. They weren't set up, they don't have a savings. Now they have a wife and a couple of kids and their first enlistment or two and then you're like then you're stuck and they own you and it's hard to be able to do that. Or these guys that stay in and they're pcs and they're moving all over the place when they could just be buying a house. Everywhere they go with the va, yeah, rent it out and then now zero percent down, cool, you got that one and then what? You live there two out of five years and you don't have to get capital gains hit on you or whatever it is exactly, and you know, but nobody's showing you that.

Speaker 1: 2:20:51

Or you, you're a Lance Corporal. You live in the barracks. All you have is a cell phone payment, maybe a car. If you're smart, you don't get one. Let's put X amount away in a savings account. By the time you either get out of four, eight, 20 years. This is what you can potentially have compounded over the years that you do. I guess there's probably some really good leaders out there and some, maybe some admin positions that have the time to do that. But in you know, deployable unit, that's the. You're never going to ever have anybody sit you down and educate you.

Speaker 2: 2:21:28

You know, and the military it's. You know it's not their, it's not their job to make a bunch of you know, make you financially stable when you leave, and it's even I mean, it's not their job to make you financially stable when you leave. That's our school system. It's the same way. They're not going to For sure. They're there to build Worker bees, worker bees, and the military is fighters. That's what they want to build. They want people to go fight the wars. They don't. I mean, yeah, they care or whatever, but at the but when you're out of the military, like you're on your own and same with school, you know a kid could go through school and now you're on your own. You weren't really taught anything about financial literacy and you know right, wrong or indifferent, which obviously I think it's wrong.

Speaker 1: 2:22:09

You know, I feel like people should have more of a financial education, and so um so it.

Speaker 2: 2:22:14

it does take outside sources, and but nowadays there's so many things that are available to people and and um and you know, and, like you said, if you don't want to buy a house, you don't want to be a landlord, you know that there. There's so many other things you can do as well and and I love to just bullshit with guys and help guys steer them in the right direction and it's really neat to see how people can get from just making small changes to where the next thing they know they're like oh hey, look, I'm really ready to make a pretty large financial move with turbine capital and ready to see things exponentially grow.

Speaker 1: 2:22:53

Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's got to be fun to see too, for sure, where somebody's starting and the interest in it and seeing okay, we've got to get to here before we're ready. Then they come back and taking all the steps and doing all that.

Speaker 2: 2:23:05

Yeah, definitely.

Speaker 1: 2:23:06

Well cool. Well, man, I appreciate your time. Is there any words of encouragement or any message that you'd like to leave to any of the young next generation of warfighters, especially some guys that are motivated and want to be some pilots? Is there anything you would like to leave for them?

Speaker 2: 2:23:24

Yeah, you know, I would say. I think right now it's an interesting time during the military and there's a lot of people very hesitant. I don't want to do this because of you know, whatever reasons they have.

Speaker 2: 2:23:36

I think at the end of the day, if you want to fly the greatest aircraft in the world, you've got to fly in the military, and if you want to just be in the military, do it. It's an awesome opportunity. I don't regret anything, you know. You look back and it's just it was. You get to meet some of my greatest friends. We're all in the military, had some the best times I've ever had. You don't have to agree with everything that's going on in the military or in politics. It's still. I still think it's a great deal and I also don't want to discourage people with.

Speaker 2: 2:24:08

I know it took me a while to going through that Air National Guard route to fly and but to going through that Air National Guard route to fly, but it's 100% doable. And if somebody says I really want to fly and I want to fly in the Air National Guard, well, do it. You can totally do it. Listen for my. You know it took me a lot longer because I didn't really know what I was doing. But if someone has a question and they really want to do it, reach out to me. Again, I love helping younger guys get hired on with the guard unit. Nothing would make me happier than to see somebody pin on some wings.

Speaker 1: 2:24:39

Yeah, no I mean I'm sure it's, especially if you could mentor them and and we'll get all your contact, we'll make sure it's all put everywhere. Um, I didn't tell you in the beginning, but normally when we start these episodes I do something different here. I give veteran businesses, small businesses, an opportunity to send us products and you know guys that are trying to make it, you know and start a new chapter. So we got a, really we got these are actually two companies from two marines. I got platoon cigars I don't know if you're into cigars, oh yeah, figured as a pilot, you are and so this was he's in a combat marine, got out and became a cop in chicago and got shot in the line of duty.

Speaker 1: 2:25:17

I'm trying to get him out here on an episode to be able to tell his story. So he started the war machine or platoon cigars, and then c state coffee. He's a recon marine and he's actually a local guy and so he started his coffee business and I kind of just be able to help promote brands, peril, peril. You know law enforcement that send stuff. That way, if somebody sees an episode and they want to support a veteran-owned company or a law enforcement, you know first responder, so we give them a little thanks. I'll make sure you get to go home with some coffee and some cigars as a thank you.

Speaker 1: 2:25:45

Normally we have some bread but our starter did not rise in time to get a fresh loaf made for you. But we'll have to get one for you. But I really appreciate your time and coming on and sharing some of your stories. I was super excited to sit down with a pilot, finally, and just hear some of the behind the scenes, because you know, we always on the ground it's a lot different, and you know, you don't. It's just two different worlds and to be able to get your you know point of view on it it's. It was pretty cool. So I appreciate your time, man yep, thanks, a lot thanks all right, see you, man.

Speaker 1: 2:26:18

Thanks, appreciate it.

Speaker 2: 2:26:19

All right, that was fun, cool man yeah, I'm excited to go smoke one of my cigars yes, do please.

Speaker 1: 2:26:26

And I don't know. These are cold brews. They got a million um grams of caffeine in them.