U-2 Pilot Chris Duckett: From F-16 Poster to 737 Captain

Kenny T interviews Chris Duckett, a pilot from Louisiana who trained at Louisiana Tech, joined the Air Force, and flew C-130s, the M-28 Skytruck, PC-12s, Cessna 208s, and ultimately the U-2 Dragon Lady before retiring and becoming a United Airlines 737 captain. Duckett explains how seeing an F-16 poster led him to join ROTC, credits mentor CMSgt Edward Fowler for instilling discipline, and shares why he loves general aviation, including owning a Piper Comanche 250 and building an RV-8. He confirms the earth is round, describes why the U-2 is the toughest airplane to land and the space-suit/oxygen process, and recounts an emergency where a failed bleed-air/environmental system caused severe cockpit cold, memory loss, and near hypothermia before a safe landing. He closes with advice: “maintain aircraft control,” and a mantra about turning dreams into goals and achievements.

00:00 Meet Kenny T and OC
00:48 From Cessnas to U2
02:53 Is the Earth Round
03:41 F16 Poster Spark
07:27 ROTC Mentor Lessons
08:41 Why General Aviation
10:16 Cross Country GA Trip
11:38 U2 Interview and Landing
15:33 Why Choose the U2
17:09 Suiting Up Process
21:12 12 Hour Solo Missions
21:51 U-2 Suit Risks
22:31 Cold Mission Launch
23:58 Systems Fail and Freeze
28:08 Emergency Descent Chaos
29:07 Memory Loss in Clouds
30:42 Landing While Hypothermic
32:59 Hypothermia Debrief Lessons
34:11 Pilot Takeaways and Root Cause
36:47 From U-2 to Airlines
38:47 Representation and Mentoring
42:42 Dreams to Goals Mantra
43:25 Wrap Up and Farewell

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Hey, watch this. And he did a spin and scared the crap out of me. But uh it didn't drive me away. Uh, and I said, you know what? From this point on, I'm gonna figure out what he did and I'm gonna learn how to fly. So imagine, I talked about the wind. So imagine riding your bicycle, jumping a ramp, and landing sideways. That's a problem. Because once the helmet comes on and it snaps tight, I begin feeding 100% pure oxygen from that point on. From that point on, my head and neck is sealed and I'm I'm breathing 100% pure oxygen. And that's basically to purge uh a lot of the nitrogen that's going through your blood pressure. Because you can get into what's called the bins. You you on the edge of hypothermia. It's I'm starting to freeze to death. And it's to the point where I'm punching my legs, I'm punching my arms, I'm I'm I'm I'm freezing. It's really, really cold. 15,000 foot worth of altitude, I have no recollection of to this very day. And instantly, I'm talking, instantly, I stop shivering altogether. So I've been shivering the entire time, but now stop. That's like absolutely no more shivering.

SPEAKER_02 1:09

Which later I find out means that you're yeah, if you stop shivering, that means that you like have art things, you are hypothermic. I think that's what Yeah, like you no longer shiver. That's bad.

SPEAKER_00 1:22

That's bad, right?

SPEAKER_02 1:24

Right. You're like, do I take my chances uh trying to land this thing, or do I eject into a freezing lake while I'm already hypothermic already?

SPEAKER_00 1:31

And so once that happens, the doc told me he's like, Yeah, dude, you you probably had like maybe 15-20 minutes.

SPEAKER_01 1:38

You were done. You were gonna shut down.

SPEAKER_02 1:46

What's going on, everybody? It's Kitty T and I got something for y'all today. I got my friend, my man, AFSOC Flying, 737 hand flying, YouTube Dragon Lady Slam from Louisiana, your boy Chris Duckett. Let's go. What's going on, Chris? How you doing today, man?

SPEAKER_00 2:11

AT, what's happening, man? Living the dream, trying to. Man flying to 7-3, you know. Oh, we do.

SPEAKER_02 2:18

What's going on, man? Man, nothing much, man. I'm glad you uh was able to take time out of your day to come really share your story with everybody. Hopefully, uh, you know, people can learn from you, uh, be entertained by some of these stories you have, and uh, you know, be inspired to go do amazing things like yourself. So uh you have flown planes that fly from low to the ground to the to the highest heights. Give me a real quick overview of like your experience flying.

SPEAKER_00 2:47

Okay, uh real quick overview of my experience flying. Well, I started off just like everybody else flying Ceskams, you know, once 152s, did all my training uh at Louisiana Tech. I was an aviation major, uh, so that was my major, graduated in 2001, went straight to the Air Force from there. Uh so while in college, 152, 172, um, 172 RGs, whatnot. I finished with commercial instrument, didn't get my CFI in college because my instrument or my uh I was in RLTC, so I didn't have to get CFI and I didn't have to uh get multi. Well, we were supposed to get multi, but my instrument instructor, they geared up the airplane and we didn't do it. So we were waiting for our multi. But then I was going to the Air Force, so it was no B. Uh went to the Air Force, uh, was a navigator for a little bit on C 130s, loved it so much, decided to uh, which is what I ultimately wanted to do, apply for pilot training. Applied for pilot training, got picked up, went and flew C-130s. Uh so flew C-130s for three years, and then from there, uh I jumped back into AFSAC, which is Air Force Special Operations, where I flew what's called an M28 Sky Truck, it's a little light twin turboprop. That's the low part that you talked about. Uh I flew PC-12s, I flew Cessna 208s, teaching foreign students in those two airplanes. And from there, I applied to uh to fly the U2 Dragon Lady where I was uh I did the interview and was hired to fly the U2. So I flew U2s and T38s while doing that. Retired from there, and then I'm flying what I am now, which is the 737 for United Airlines, where I'm a captain right now. That's what's up, man. That's the brief.

SPEAKER_02 4:23

There it is.

SPEAKER_00 4:24

Right, exactly. An airplane owner as well.

SPEAKER_02 4:26

I fly a Piper Comanche uh 250, which I always and in your basement, you're building an airplane too.

SPEAKER_00 4:32

And I don't forget about the R V8. So airplanes all over the all over the place. That's what I do. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 4:39

So a very important question. You know, you flown from low 50 feet all the way up to an undisclosed altitude uh that you flown to.

SPEAKER_00 4:52

Fair.

SPEAKER_02 4:53

Question that people want to know is the earth round?

SPEAKER_00 5:02

The earth is in fact round. If you are a flat earther, I'm sorry to tell you that you are incorrect. It is in fact round. I have seen it with my own eyes. Yes, the earth is round.

SPEAKER_02 5:13

There it is, right? Million dollar question, right? It's as funny as it is, is it's a cursing that people ask you, like, what are you talking about? Of course the earth is round.

SPEAKER_00 5:21

Yeah, it happens. You know, people being people, people doing people things, right?

SPEAKER_02 5:27

So, you know, we've seen all the things that you've done from uh from the beginning to the end. Well, all almost from the beginning. We know where you got started, like with your flight training at Louisiana Tech, but how did you actually get started in flying? Like what drew you in?

SPEAKER_00 5:45

What drew me in? Um, well, super, super long story short, I saw an F-16 fighter jet on the poster. But I would imagine you want to know a little bit more than that.

SPEAKER_01 5:56

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 5:56

Um, so uh it's a funny story. My grandfather was a truck driver in California, and uh I go with my grandfather uh to work every now and then, not a long haul, but he moved like construction equipment, dirt, rocks, and things like that whenever they're they were building buildings or digging holes. And going to work with my grandfather, he drove trucks, we got dirty, wore boots and jeans and hung out with the boys and everything. That that was a blast. I figured I was gonna be a truck driver. That was in California. Yeah. However, I'm from New Orleans, Louisiana. So when I went back home, uh going from junior high to high school, the thing to do was to play in the band, play football, uh, figure out what you're gonna do with the rest of your life. So I was choosing classes in an orientation. I was going again from junior high to high school, and I was choosing classes. And I said, you know what? I will uh learn to play trombone, I'll play in the band, march in parades, Mardi Gras do what we do, and then I figure out what I'm gonna do with the rest of my life. Maybe go cook or something like that. And I'm walking across the gym floor, straight to the band table. I can see Mr. Brimmer sitting right there, who was the band teacher at the time. Uh rest of peace, Mr. Brimmer. Anyways, um, I look left, I saw an F-16 on a phone on a poster, an F-16 fighter jet on the poster. I turned left, joined RLTC, and I never looked back. I said I was a flying airplane. I didn't know why that airplane called me. I it it just called me. And I turned left, I joined RLTC, not knowing anything about airplanes, and that's what led me down that path. So nice. Um throughout my first year in RLTC, we had this really quirky uh instructor in RLTC. The the officer, we so we had one officer and one enlisted guy. The officer was a pilot. He flew KC-135's weirdest dude ever. Quirky sense of humor, hilarious because of the quirky sense of humor. He started talking about his pilot stories. I got interested. Uh eventually I learned that I could go down to the airport and uh get an orientation flight. Wasn't called a discovery flight, then it was an orientation flight. Uh went out and did my orientation flight. The uh young kid who was building time took me out and we did some turns and some stalls, and he said, Hey, watch this. And he did a spin and scared the crap out of me. But uh it didn't drive me away. Uh, and I said, you know what? From this point on, I'm gonna figure out what he did and I'm gonna learn how to fly. And that's what I did. Man, that's what took me through high school and uh went to Louisiana Tech, and that's what I majored in. Fly to one college, one major, stuck through it the whole time.

SPEAKER_02 8:30

Man, it's crazy. A poster, right? A poster me, you made a left turn instead of a right turn, and you know that that's forever was your future at that point, man. It's it was it's crazy how something I say so small, such as a poster or someone being there, can be and have such an impact on just trying to help you figure things out. Cause I know, like when I talk to some of these high school kids, they have, I mean, I remember like you know what you think you want to do, but you really have no idea. And you're just making left and right turns, and you can make the correct turn that you know puts you in the path that uh that's set you up for something you're like, this is this is it. Never look back, never look back, man.

SPEAKER_00 9:13

I I will say, and I'd be remiss if I didn't mention my mentor, uh CMS Sergeant Edward Fowler, uh rest in peace, Sarge. Uh, he steered my group of five straight. Uh, he was one of those old school Air Force uh first sergeants way back in the day. And I'm talking about the you know 70s, 80s first sergeant, not the you know, modern day first sergeants that are you know nice and kindler and gentler. No, no, no. Uh he was that that mean old cuss that was fair. Uh and he he he taught us fairness, he taught us responsibility, he taught us discipline, um, and he stayed on us. Uh, and had it not been for Sergeant Fowler, I don't know if I would have gone to where I am.

SPEAKER_02 9:56

So man, that's that's big too, because we we always uh skip over the fact of how important character discipline and those other like values and stuff are when it comes to being a professional aviator and doing these really amazing things. It's just gotta have flying skills. Like, nah, you gotta have some of that character with it too. You gotta have discipline, you know, courage, you know, all those things that they teach you in in JROTC, those values are gonna help you win uh when it comes to, right? So um you got a Comanche 250.

SPEAKER_00 10:30

I have a Comanche 250.

SPEAKER_02 10:32

General Aviation. So so tell me, tell me a little bit like um why you like general aviation or like the things that like some things that you've experienced flying general aviation and why you like it.

SPEAKER_00 10:44

Well, general aviation. Why do I love general aviation? Well, uh the freedom. Well, first of all, well, no, let me back up. It allows me to continue flying, it feeds my flying habit. Uh you know, that that that's my my guilty pleasure is flying. I I try to fly every chance I get, whether it's with work or whether it's with, you know, general aviation. But general aviation, uh the freedom to fly, uh, just to to be able to head out to the airport. Obviously, do your planning first. Head out to the airport, uh, just either go around, tool around in the pattern, take it for a trip, um, just to the the freedom to just explore uh and be up there and manage their airplane. I love it.

SPEAKER_02 11:31

Yeah, I I think a lot of people don't realize like there's a lot of pilots who become professional pilots, whether the military or uh commercial airline pilots, who who don't fly much general aviation or haven't done any general aviation flying, you know, outside of their training. And there are those of us who still do, and for those that may not know, like general aviation is non-professional aviation in generally smaller aircraft for personal use. Um, and I've me and Flip Chris have flown a lot together. Um, General Aviation. He actually helped me build up my time when I was working on my commercial pilot certificate. So uh I still think that's that's one of my favorite trips that I've been on in general aviation. We flew all the way from Florida, where we Crestview? I forgot we flew out of. Uh from Crestview.

SPEAKER_00 12:19

Well, I took off at Crestview to come and pick you up in Pensacola.

SPEAKER_02 12:22

That's right.

SPEAKER_00 12:23

So you picked it, and then we we got going.

SPEAKER_02 12:25

So then we flew all the way across the country to California. Um what was the airport we landed at? What was the airport out in uh Cali that we landed at?

SPEAKER_00 12:35

Uh Lincoln.

SPEAKER_02 12:36

At Lincoln, yep. So we flew all the way across, and I think I gained so much from that trip as you know, as a uh as an early pilot, because we encountered so much on that trip. I mean, it was a lot of fun. We flew about two legs a day. We stopped in random place in Texas, got to uh Albuquerque, and then there was freezing levels. So we got stuck in. So that was that was one of those times where building time was real cool. We got to hang out with your friend, fly across the country. Things that you those stories that you can't really can't really have without you know that experience in general aviation, man.

SPEAKER_00 13:16

So it was a heck of a road trip. Yeah, yeah, that's a trip. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 13:24

Um, yeah, so that's general aviation, and then uh, you know, your military career, you know, C-130 is a sky truck, and the U2 Dragon Lady.

SPEAKER_00 13:34

U2 Dragon Lady.

SPEAKER_02 13:35

Now, I remember when you were you were like, hey, I got an interview to go fly to U2. Tell me about what it what the process is for interviewing to go fly to U2 and kind of tell everybody like what makes the U2 so difficult to fly?

SPEAKER_00 13:53

Um, well, I would say that it's not necessarily difficult to fly, it is the toughest airplane in the world to land. Um, and the reason that it's the toughest airplane in the world to land, in my opinion, first of all, she's very heavy. It's all cable and pulley, there's no hydraulic assists or anything like that. And it's 105 foot of wingspan. So it's very, very, very heavy. Uh, number two, you actually have to stall the airplane to land it. And for those who are not familiar with the stall, it's literally running an airplane out of energy and it literally just drops. So once you're committed, you're committed. Um, and then it's very susceptible to winds because of the large wingspan and the large tail. So uh we can't handle a lot of winds. So it makes it a prize fight when you're actually landing that airplane. Our missions are eight to eleven hours. So imagine going out. Uh, you come back 11 hours later, uh, your your gas tanks are are saying, hey, let's get this thing on the ground. Um, you're tired. Uh, it could be nighttime, poor weather, very windy, and you are in a prize fight. Um, so it's it's very, very tough to actually land it. And throughout the years of the U-2, we've had some some pretty good mishaps just landing the airplane. Um, and and even in the interview process, there are those that um sometimes land and bend a wing or depart the prepared surface, or and generally speaking, those don't make it. Uh, but uh it happens. Um, and it's one of those things that that makes flying that airplane one of the toughest uh or landing that airplane one of the toughest in the world.

SPEAKER_02 15:26

So I've landed a lot of airplanes in my life, and you have to, but I think you missed a big key point of landing that plane, and I might have just missed it, but is it three wheels you land on, or is it just two? So so technically technically it's three tires.

SPEAKER_00 15:50

So two tires make up the main wheel, and then you have a tail wheel, so you're basically landing a bicycle. That's another thing that makes it one of the toughest things. So it's not two wheels and one wheel, no, it's two wheels and one wheel, and you're landing a bicycle. So imagine uh I talked about the wind. So imagine riding your bicycle, jumping a ramp, and landing sideways. That's a problem. Yeah, so you have to land the U2 straight like you would land a bicycle if you jumped a ramp. So yeah.

SPEAKER_02 16:20

Do you know what the uh what the attrition rate is for uh for the interview or like how many people get selected out of a said number?

SPEAKER_00 16:28

When I got hired, um, and and I retired in 2021, so it's been several years. But when I got hired, just prior to me being hired, it was about 67% made it. And it's gone up. Um, you know, needs of the Air Force and uh needs for pilots. Uh so I won't say the um I won't say the tolerances weakened, but you just had more candidates coming through. Um, and the community was able to pick from a a larger pool of pilots.

SPEAKER_01 17:02

Right.

SPEAKER_00 17:03

And and what I will say is from that larger pool of pilots, we picked from certain communities where um some of the swimmers were were stronger than other other communities. So that's why the rates actually went up a good bit.

SPEAKER_02 17:18

So what made you want like why did you want to go fly to YouTube? Why even put your app in to go fly to YouTube?

SPEAKER_00 17:25

What made that hey, I want to go fly Can I be 100% honest? Yep. So it was either go to uh possibly teach in Laughlin, which is Del Rio, Texas, uh Columbus, which is in Mississippi, or uh Enid, Oklahoma. Uh what's out there? Uh what's the base? Uh I can't remember the base.

SPEAKER_01 17:49

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 17:49

But it was either go teach there or go drive race cars, put on a spacesuit and fly jets.

SPEAKER_02 17:57

Man, well, that seems like an easy choice to me.

SPEAKER_00 18:02

Me, it was an easy choice. Um, but I was I was looking for something else to do in in my flying career. Uh, I and and I ran across the U2. Uh I was an executive officer at the time. In other words, I was an assistant to a commander uh at the time. And and I was just surfing on the internet one day, and I happened to pass Beale Air Force Base. U2. Man, we still flying that thing? Wait a minute. I know a guy that's at Beale. Let me call up, you know, Nova and talk with Nova. And like, oh, that's cool. Let me let me got more interested and decided to put in put in my application. And thankfully, I I possess the the luck and skills to get me into the YouTube.

SPEAKER_02 18:40

Man, so flying the flying to you two, racing cars, flying to YouTube, and get the fly to T38. Like, it's like you got to do all these different things all in one assignment. Um the spacesuit. The spacesuit. So I I got the the cool chance to go out there uh when you were gonna fly uh one time, and I remember there was so much that it took to get the spacesuit. How many people does it take? And what's the process of like actually getting that whole uniform on? It's not just zipping up a suit and jumping out and going to the plane.

SPEAKER_00 19:13

Not at all, not at all. So uh you you feel almost like an astronaut. Um so we have a group called uh PSD of the physiological support division. Those are the guys and gals that take care of the suits. Uh they take care of us, they they get us dressed um and and desuited. Um, they take care of all of our life-preserving uh things that we need to go up and fly. Not to be confused with life support or aircrew flight equipment. It's just kind of a different branch of that that deals specifically with the physiology of high-altitude uh reconnaissance flying. Um, so it normally takes a team of about three to four uh to get you dressed. Now it can be three when we deployed, it'd usually be three. There'd be two technicians that are assisting me dressing, and then there'd be a supervisor that supervised them and did the final checks once I am dressed. Uh the process, you you walk out, you're in your basically your long jaunts. Uh, you walk out um and the suits are already laid out. They take care of all the suits, they test the suits multiple times before you even get into it. But the suit is already laid out, and the two technicians assist me in getting into the suit because the suit is fairly bulky. Um, and then once I put the gloves on, I don't really have the dexterity for things like zippers and and buttons and things like that. So I will basically dive into the suit and stand up and it kind of falls down around you. They zip you up in the suit. Um, I uh get on my harness, uh, get into my boots, and then I get in in into a seat. And what they'll do is in that seat, as they're connecting everything else, they'll give me my my gloves, or actually they'll give me my helmet first, because once the helmet comes on and it snaps tight, I begin feeding 100% pure oxygen uh from that point on. From that point on, my head and neck is sealed, and I'm I'm breathing 100% pure oxygen, and that's basically to purge uh a lot of the nitrogen that's going through your bloodstream because you can get into what's called the bends, uh, not unlike uh or decompression sickness, but not unlike a diver that goes down. If you come up too fast, you can get bubbles in the bloodstream. Well, it kind of works the same way going up and then coming down as well. So uh those bubbles as you come down, the pressure increases could could really expand in the bloodstream and get into the joints, get into the heart, get into the into the brain, and that can be very, very dangerous. Uh, so decompression sickness is something that the oxygen helps uh to prevent decompression sickness. Once the helmet is on, the gloves are on, they'll lay me back and they'll basically secure everything to include my boots. I didn't even have to tie my own shoes. That's the crazy thing about me. I didn't do any of that. Uh so they secure my boots once the suit is fully uh Geared up and secured, the supervisor will come in and do the final checks, give me that last fist bump, and then I'm I'm just there waiting to uh head on out to the airplane. Um, and then that starts a whole nother process.

SPEAKER_02 22:12

So, how long how long does that that process take to get you from uh when you show up to getting fully dressed and in your uh spacesuit?

SPEAKER_00 22:20

Um about it can take about 20 minutes okay uh to to to show up to dress, and then from there you'll step out. So normally from start to finish, that is showing up, getting in the van, showing up to the airplane, it's about a 30-minute period. You can shorten it, but you generally don't. Yeah, it only takes and then once you get deployed, the PSD team gets a lot faster.

SPEAKER_02 22:42

Yeah, because they're like knocking it out, they're just doing that's cool. So that's man, yeah. So someone getting you dressed each day, but I mean that's a lot of equipment to wear, and then you're in that for you know 12 to XX number of hours.

SPEAKER_00 22:57

Um my longest was a 12.2.

SPEAKER_02 22:59

12.2. So who do you talk to when you're up there flying, uh flying for 12 hours?

SPEAKER_00 23:06

Well, um, we have ways that we can listen to a little bit of music.

SPEAKER_01 23:10

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 23:10

Uh you listen to a podcast, read book, talk to yourself, answer yourself. You know, it happens. Um, there are some missions where I am talking to someone via uh satellite communications, but then there are other missions where you're off alone and and Sydney afraid, not unafraid, yeah. You're Sydney afraid uh sometimes because you you can you can be a long way from home. A long way from home, you're you're alone.

SPEAKER_02 23:36

Gotcha sometimes, man. So, you know, flying up that long, um, you know, we talked about kind of the dangers of why you wear a uh the whole space suit um to protect you from the environment, because up at 70,000 plus feet, you know, we weren't made to just be up there.

SPEAKER_00 23:53

Uh no, we weren't.

SPEAKER_02 23:54

Have you had any abnormal situations while flying the U2? And uh if so, you know, tell me tell me what happened and like you know how you how you made it because you're here.

SPEAKER_00 24:06

So so we pilots, you know, you get out to the hangar and we do what's called hangar flying, and the story always starts off the same way. There I was. Where were you? Uh so uh I was gonna go fly a mission. Um, and in the area that we were flying missions, it was particularly cold. Uh I mean it was just cold on the ground that day. I I I had I had uh the jet that I was flying was down for a couple months. It had a flap issue, it had a mechanical issue, and so they fixed it, fixed the jet, and so now I get to pick the jet or I get to fly the jet. And you know, a lot of a lot with with airplanes, you know, airplanes they have their own lives, and you know, like I know, if they sit too long, they get tired, right? You want to keep them flying, but this one's been sitting for almost almost two and a half, three months, and I pull the straw and I get this jet. So I take off. Um, prior to taking off, you could see everyone was just freezing on the ground. So, you know, I did what I could to kind of hurry up that process to get on out of there so I can get everybody inside, right? Take off, go right into the weather, um, start climbing up. Uh, I was under instrument conditions, so I was doing a lot of hand flying. Um, and one of the unique things about the U2 and the suit itself, the more moving you do in the suit, the warmer it gets. So we're constantly being fed air, and typically you'll keep the cockpit a little bit cooler than normal uh because you'll just start getting real, real hot in the suit if you do a lot of moving. So we typically don't want to do a lot of moving, but uh I took off and I was doing a lot of maneuvering uh to get up to altitude. I broke out of the weather and and I'm going somewhere with it, but I broke out of the weather and uh I start powering up all of my systems, and one or two of the systems wasn't powering up properly. What that meant is now I'm having to do a lot of things to troubleshoot, reaching back for my checklists, reaching back for circuit breakers and and doing all this jazz. Um, and as I'm doing all of this, I'm doing a lot of moving. Get pressing on mission. I get up to about 50,000 feet and I'm I'm still climbing and I'm heading out, and uh, we we get to a point where it's either go-no-go for the mission. And I was approaching that, or I was about maybe 10 minutes from approaching that point, and my systems still weren't powering up properly. One system I could go without, the other system I couldn't, and I'm troubleshooting this. All in the meantime, um, I'm sitting there, and as I'm running a couple of tests, you run a couple of tests, and the computer is doing its thing, and you're just kind of sitting there, you know, looking out the window, watching the world go by slowly. And for me, I keep my cockpit anywhere from 38 to 43 degrees. That's where I used to keep mine because you know it just felt comfortable. At about 50 degrees, you start sweating. I'm sitting there, and normally what tells me I'm cold in the airplane is my feet get cold first. I'm just sitting there kind of chilling, watching this countdown happen. Like, man, my legs are really, really cold. Not my feet. My legs are really, really cold. I'm like, what is going on? And I look down, and it's now negative, or excuse me, it's 10 degrees in the airplane. What is going on? So I crank up the heat and skip this thing going, crank up the heat. Um, run a couple more tests. It's not working. As I'm running these tests, I'm looking down and my temperature is just dropping lower and lower. Eventually, I see zero degrees. Uh oh. All right, this is a problem. And now my feet are hurting, my legs are real cold, and that cold is just starting to work its way up my body, like it's getting really, really cold in here. Um I get to the point where I'm almost at my go-no go point, and by this point, it's like negative five degrees. And of course, at this point, I've tried everything, I've tried to go manual on the heat. It's an old airplane. Maybe the valves got stuck. Uh, you know, just do something, shake the airplane, so you get this heat going. Yeah, heat is not happening, so I'm I'm basically starting to freeze. I'm going through about 55,000 feet. Um, and I'm just about at the go-no go point, and uh my one of my systems that I needed to go was not working, so I'm like, okay, I've got to turn around and go back. I radio back in is like, hey, this system is not working, I'm gonna be coming home. However, I have a new problem now. I can't heat the cockpit and it's negative five degrees, uh, and it's getting colder.

SPEAKER_02 28:28

So you you on the on the edge of hypothermia.

SPEAKER_00 28:31

Well about to be essentially I'm starting to freeze to death, and and it's to the point where I'm punching my legs, I'm punching my arms, I'm I'm I'm I'm freezing. It's it's really, really cold. Oh man. I make the turnaround um and I start heading back. By the time I make the turnaround, it's now negative 10 degrees.

SPEAKER_02 28:48

So, real quick, before we you're at 50,000 feet.

SPEAKER_00 28:52

55,000.

SPEAKER_02 28:53

How long does it normally take to get from 55,000 feet to land?

SPEAKER_00 28:59

Um, that depends.

SPEAKER_02 29:01

Okay. All right, keep keep going.

SPEAKER_00 29:03

I was just thinking, I was like, I was like, man, but what I will say is I'm about an hour away because of the routing I had to take. I'm about an hour away.

SPEAKER_02 29:11

So you're still an hour away, even if you get down fast enough.

unknown 29:15

Yes.

SPEAKER_02 29:15

All right, keep going. My bad.

SPEAKER_00 29:17

Yeah, I'm about an hour away because of the routing I have to take to come back home. Yeah. Um, and it's really, really cold up there, and it's not a good time. It's it's negative 10 degrees. Um, and I'm pressing back. I say, you know what? It's only been an hour. Um, at this point, I can barely feel my feet. I can barely move my legs. Like I'm I'm freaking freezing, and I'm almost a passenger. I'm just kind of kind of along and I'll move a knob for the autopilot, right? Um, but at this point, it's like, okay, it's only been an hour. I can make it, I can make it, I can make it. I press back, about three minutes go by, and I'm like, yeah, no, no, I'm declaring an emergency. I need to get down immediately. I'm having an uh environmental issue. Unfortunately, the area that I was flying over was some of the densest airspace at this time of day. I mean, it's it's like it's like playing the old Atari game Frogger, and I'm the frog trying to cross the highway, right? So it's just it's just airplanes all over the place if I descend it down. So um they gave me a descent down to 45 initially, and I can hear them on the radio trying to clear traffic so I can get down lower. Um by the time I got down to 45, it's now negative 16 degrees. And at this point, I'm a passenger, like I'm I'm negative 16 degrees. Yes, negative 16. So uh I press back and uh they they eventually clear me direct home to home station. So it cuts some of my time. I get clear to descend down to 15,000. And uh as I'm descending, uh, scary part, uh, I go into the clouds right around 30,000 feet, and to this very day, the next thing I remember is popping out around 15,000. I I remember nothing going through those clouds.

SPEAKER_02 31:04

Oh my goodness.

SPEAKER_00 31:06

15,000 foot worth of altitude, I have no recollection of to this very day. So so that kind of sucked.

SPEAKER_02 31:12

That that's that's scary. Because we know, like you're like, who knows what happened? Did you pass out and then wake back up because it because it warmed up a little bit? Like nobody knows.

SPEAKER_00 31:23

Like, so as I descended, it did start to warm up a little bit, but I'm cold soaked at this point. Like I'm just I'm just freezing, you know. Um, I get down and they clear me again direct to home station. I can see the airfield, they clear me down to 2,000 feet. I descend down to 2,000 feet. Um, and as I get down to 2,000 feet, there's a little bit of fog that's starting to build up. Uh, because you you two sometimes are notorious for fog inside the cockpit. So fog is starting to build up. And so I do the emergency procedure to clear the fog, which causes a lot of wind to rush through the airplane. And instantly, I'm talking, instantly, I stop shivering altogether. So I've been shivering the entire time, but now stop.

SPEAKER_02 32:10

That's like absolutely no more shivering, which later I find out that means that you have yeah, if you stop shivering, that means that you like have alright, you are hypothermic. Or I think that's what it is. Yeah, like you no longer shiver. That's bad.

SPEAKER_00 32:26

That's bad, right? And so uh thankfully, um, I I recover over the field. Um, and as I'm one of the first uh persons you talk to when you're approaching the field is your mobile officer or the guy that's in the chase car. And so I reach out to my mobile and it's like, hey dude, um, I'm not sure I can stop the airplane right now, I can barely move my legs. Uh, you know, and so we we kind of talk, and you know, he he's like, Hey, so do you want to start talking about that ejection decision? It's like, mmm, about that, because our ejection area, first of all, is over a lake.

SPEAKER_02 33:02

Oh, you're already hypothermic.

SPEAKER_00 33:04

Yeah, I'm already freezing, and plus, I don't know if I want to be punching out of an airplane, right? You know, just right.

SPEAKER_02 33:10

You're like, do I take my chances uh trying to land this thing or do I eject into a freezing lake while I'm already hypothermic already?

SPEAKER_00 33:17

Right. So I'm like, yeah, let me try and put it down on the ground. I'm fine, I'm a pilot, I'm gonna fight fight to the end, right? So uh thankfully I landed it uneventfully. Uh the airfield kind of set on an incline, kind of, so um I didn't have to use much braking to get the airplane stopped. Um my mobile is like, hey dude, just just shut down right there. We'll get you out of the airplane. Uh fire trucks and everything are all around. Like, dude, just get everybody out of the way. I'm on the ground. Let me just taxi it in the park and and and we'll just go go from there. So I taxi in, I shut down. Uh the mobile comes running up the ladder, handing my equipment and everything. And it physically takes me probably about two and a half, three minutes to climb out of the cockpit because I'm so cold. Uh, hop out of the cockpit, and if if you look at the suit itself, some of the things we wear, uh, we wear what's called spurs on our feet. And it's this little contraption that has a little metal, uh, metal connection in it. And what it does is you hook it to the straps on the ejection seat so it pulls your legs back. Yeah, well, those are metal. There's ice on my spurs, there's ice on the yoke pole in the airplane, there's ice on the sidewall in the airplane. Canopy is kind of frosted up. The doc looks at me, comes running up the stairs like you're coming with me now. Get in the shower. Don't get out of the shower until you start feeling normal, right? So he throws me in the shower, um, and I stay there. When I go debrief with him, uh, as I'm telling him the story, so with hypothermia, uh, one of the first few things that starts to have obviously you start shivering, you get cold. Um, eventually, what happens is your body tries to preserve the vital organs, um, and and and it'll start shutting down functions of your body so that it can protect everything else. One of the first things that leaves you is short-term memory. Hmm. And that happened, right? About 30 to 15,000 feet. Um, and then uh as the body goes through the process of trying to protect other things, uh, one of the the things that will eventually happen is it'll say, Hey, this shivering that I'm doing to try and generate heat, it's not working. Stop. And so once that happens, the doc told me, he's like, Yeah, dude, you you probably had like maybe 15, 20 minutes, and you were done.

SPEAKER_01 35:34

You were gonna shut down.

SPEAKER_00 35:36

Yeah. Uh so yeah, that was fun. So almost that you didn't so that is insane.

SPEAKER_02 35:44

It it's glad you made it. There's a lot of good decision making, uh some luck in there, too. It was definitely we'll take some luck, some blessings, some some divine intervention, all the things you want to call it. Um, what are quickly like three takeaways that uh from that that scenario that you would give to pilots of any you know any level? Like, what are three things you could you could pass to some people from that?

SPEAKER_00 36:10

One of the first few things they punch you in the face with at pilot training, maintain aircraft control, analyze the situation, take proper action, land as soon as conditions permit. There it is. However, um, I would be remiss if I didn't mention the support that I had. So uh I was still within radio range, so I could reach back to home station. I had my mobile officer on the radio, I had all the support of the other pilots on the radio, I had maintenance contractors uh on the radio. Uh air traffic control was watching out for me the best they could. Um, so there was a lot of support. Um, but um fly the airplane first, maintain aircraft control. Um, did I think about diverting? Yeah. Um, but where I was, and also you have to consider with the U2, the U 2 is not like a normal airplane, you can't just divert it anywhere. Yeah, um, so my options were very limited. Um, also, um the role of the U-2 is to gather information. So some of the things on the airplane I can't just take anywhere either. So uh the options are limited. So um could I have diverted? There may have been one place that I could have diverted. Um, so that wasn't necessarily you know an option that I had. Um, but yeah, maintain aircraft control, try to figure out what happened. Eventually, we determined that the bleed air system or that we what you do is you tap heat off of the engine to run some of the other systems, right? Right. Uh specifically the heater. Um, but the the the bleed air system had failed, and it was you tap that air to feed your environmental system, and from your environmental system you can get heat or cold. And what we also determined was it was feeding the environmental system, but the environmental systems was stuck on the cold side. And because it was already so cold, when I got into the airplane and when I took off, I was doing a lot of moving. You I didn't realize that it was a problem cold the entire time, and so that's why my legs, not just my feet, but that's why my legs got got so cold. So, first, because all that cold air was just down there and I was just sitting and soaking in it.

SPEAKER_02 38:20

So man, yeah, man, crazy, crazy, crazy. Yeah, fly the airplane. That's it, that's the number one thing. Keep flying the airplane, and that's exactly what you did, and then yeah, that's that's it, ran through it. So now transitioning from from that, you know, from flying to U2 and the fun stuff there, you retire from U2, and then you are now an airline pilot, an airline captain on the 737.

SPEAKER_00 38:46

That's correct.

SPEAKER_02 38:48

So, did you had you thought about being an airline pilot post-military? Or what like how did that come about? Because I don't remember if you if you were like, I do want to go to airlines, don't know who to airlines, like what was next, like you know, you know, honestly, like most of we uh military pilots.

SPEAKER_00 39:05

I mean, you start off you know as a second lieutenant and you're gonna fly, fight, and win. And then you're just gonna ride out into the sunset once your career is over. You know, airlines, who's gonna do that, right? You know, reading the newspaper and drinking coffee. I don't want to do that stuff. But then, you know, as as time presses on, you're like, you know, think I'm gonna do it. That's kind of sounding real nice, you know. Um, but as as as I was looking to see what I was gonna do with the rest of my life, you know, uh when I grow up, as we like to say, you know, what am I gonna do when I grow up um and get out of the military? Uh the airlines at the time weren't hiring because of COVID. Um, I thought about flying cargo with uh I was gonna try and apply for UPS or FedEx, and I had a uh a pretty good lead-in uh towards FedEx. Um, but honestly, when I made the decision to fly airlines, uh to say that I wanted to fly airlines, um, I wanted to fly passengers. Um, and the reason why I wanted to fly passengers, quite honestly, um the first time I mentioned my grandfather earlier and he drove trucks, he lived in California. Um, the first trip that I took to California solo um as a little kid, I flew out unaccompanied. I was seven years old, and I flew out on an airliner. Uh, it was it was it was another company, it wasn't United. You know, but um I I flew out, and one of the things that I remember growing up, um, and even from that flight is I never saw me as in the captain or the first officer up front, an airline pilot, always seemed to look a certain way. And and I I'll just I'll just leave it at that. But I never saw me. Um, and so I also remember, and it's one of the reasons why I decided to do a lot of mentoring with kids and and talking with kids, especially the kids where I come from, um I wanted them to see me up front because when I grew up, there was no avenue to fly airplanes. I I passed Lakefront Airport almost every day going to school on the bus, and the airport never even registered. It just wasn't a thing, you know, growing up where I grew up. It just wasn't a thing. So I I I never knew that was an avenue until high school and RLTC and the F-16, but never knew it was an avenue. And I think we'd all be surprised at how many kids don't even know aviation itself, whether it be pilot, flight attendant, mechanic, dispatcher, air traffic control, those avenues are there. And I think it I think most people would be surprised at how many kids don't even like it's not even a thing. It's not even a thing. And so I wanted I wanted a version of me to see me where I am now.

SPEAKER_01 42:16

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 42:16

To say I might be able to do that. Because I might be able to do that. As simple as it may seem, there's people like, I didn't know I could do that. And absolutely that and you peel back the onion on that, and we know that goes deep. When someone's like, I didn't know I could do that. And you being there, tell people, you know, you go on the airplane, look to the left. If you see me there, you know, uh that if I'm here, you could be here.

SPEAKER_00 42:46

You know, and and it and it takes it takes a lot of skill, it takes a lot of knowledge, takes a lot of discipline, it takes a lot to get to that point. And whether it's um, whether you're on charter, whether you're on a regional, or whether you're on legacy or or major airlines. I mean, it for for the guys and the guys and gals, not because I'm not excluding gals uh at all, but for for the pilots that make it to that level, we put in a lot of work. And and what I'd like kids to know and kids to see that, you know, yes, it is achievable. It takes a lot of work to get there, but it's achievable. But via that work, you gain so many other skills, just self-discipline, self-confidence, self-character, just to get to there and to like you say, to look left, whether it's the first officer seat or the captain seat for me and for you now. Congrats, by the way. To get to that seat, um, it it takes a lot, but I think it's important uh that uh a version of me sees me, and and that's one of the reasons that I went towards the airlines, uh, quite honestly.

SPEAKER_02 43:57

That's what's up, man. That's great, Chris. Um that was that's good, man. That's that right there was right there what I was what I was looking for. You gave me right there what I was looking for. So um, man, I appreciate you coming on here and us sharing your story and everything. You got anything you want to add before we go?

SPEAKER_00 44:19

Besides the dog marking and and the missus uh getting home.

SPEAKER_02 44:24

I guess I guess that was good timer, right?

SPEAKER_00 44:27

Here's what what I'll add. Uh, when I used to do a lot more talking with kids, I'd I'd I'd give this little mantra. Um, so uh dreams to goals, goals to achievements. Starts off with a dream, dream of doing something, turn that dream into a goal, and then achieve that goal. Once you've done that, start again with something else. Dreams to goals, goals to achievements, repeat. Um, stay focused, know that you can, because you can, um, and just just go for it, especially when it comes to flying. Come on up there, join me. Sit in that seat. I'm not giving up my seat for anybody else, but you can sit next to me.

SPEAKER_02 45:02

You can sit next to me, right? Yeah, man. Uh man. This was great, man. Well, till next time, and I'll see you soon. Um, I don't know, you you coming out to out to uh San Antonio March 28th.

SPEAKER_00 45:20

I don't know.

SPEAKER_02 45:22

We haven't we have an event on well, I mean, we're probably gonna cut this part out because it because it doesn't this might air after the March 28th, who knows? I more just asked you this because I got you on the well, I got you now, but we're gonna be doing an event here on the uh on the 20th. So if you hear if you can make it cool, if not I'll see you next time.

SPEAKER_00 45:44

Captain.

SPEAKER_02 45:45

Captain?

SPEAKER_00 45:46

All right, out.