David Fravor: UFOs, Aliens, Fighter Jets, and Aerospace Engineering | Lex Fridman Podcast #122

The following is a conversation with Commander David Fravor, who was a Navy pilot for 18 years and commander of the Strike Fighter Squadron 41, also known as the Black Aces, a squadron of 12 airplanes consisting of several hundred people. He's also famously one of the people who with his own eyes saw and chased a UFO, an identified flying object in 2004 that is referred to as the Tic Tac and the incident more formally referred to as the USS Nimitz UFO incident. His story, corroborated by several other pilots, from my perspective as a curious scientist and an open minded human being, is the most credible sighting of a UFO in history. @ least that I'm aware of. He's a humble, fascinating and fun human being to talk to. I put out a call for questions on Reddit and many other places and tried to ask as many of the questions that people posted as I could and overall I really enjoyed this conversation and I'm sure if the world wants us to, and if there's more questions to be had, we'll talk on this podcast again. Quick summary of the sponsors Athletic Greens, ExpressVPN and BetterHelp. Please check out the sponsors in the description to get a discount and to support this podcast. As a side note, let me say that the world of UFOs and UAPs, unidentified aerial phenomena, and aliens in general is foreign to me because of the high ratio of outlandish conspiracy theorists to actual hard evidence. I'm a scientist first and foremost, but an open minded one, often looking and thinking outside the box. I'm often disheartened by the close mindedness of the scientific community, and in equal part I'm disheartened by the lack of rigor and basic scientific inquiry and study on the part of the conspiracy theorists. I believe there's a line somewhere between the two extremes that more inquisitive minds should walk. I think we humans know very little about our world, what's up there among the stars and the nature of reality and the nature of our very own minds. The path to understanding can only be walked humbly. The very idea that there is a possibility that David witnessed a piece of technology, whether human made or alien made, that moved in the way it did should be inspiring to every scientist and engineer on this earth. There may be propulsion and energy systems yet to be discovered that once understood and mastered, will put distant galaxies within reach of us human beings. Paradigm shifts in science and leaps in understanding can only happen, I think, if we open our eyes and allow ourselves to dream, to think from first principles and remove the constraints on innovation placed on us by the scientific conventions and assumptions of prior generations. If you enjoy this thing, subscribe on YouTube, review it with five stars on Apple Podcast, follow on Spotify, support on Patreon, or connect with me on Twitter lexfriedman. As usual, I'll do a few minutes of ads now and no ads in the middle. More and more I'm trying to make these ad reads unique and interesting and less adsy, more personal. But I give you time stamps so you can skip. But still, please do check out the sponsors by clicking the links in the description. It is honestly the best way to support this podcast. This show is brought to you by Athletic Greens, the all in one daily drink to support health and performance. I drink it every day to make sure I'm not missing any of the nutrition I need. Now let me take a hard left turn and talk about fasting. I fast often. Sometimes intermittent fasting of 16 hours and then an eight hour eating period of two meals. Sometimes 24 hours. That's one dinner to the next. I've been even considering doing a 48 or 72 hour fast that some people I look up to have done. People who have done it tell me that outside of weight loss and the different health benefits, it's a chance to meditate on the finiteness of life. Not eating somehow is a reminder that we're immortal, that every day is precious. I certainly experienced this with a 24 hour fast and I think it goes even deeper for the 48, 72 and even week long fasts. Anyway, I always break my fast with Athletic Greens. It's delicious, refreshing, just makes me feel good. So go to athleticgreens.com lex to claim a special offer of free vitamin D for a year. Again go to athleticgreens.com lex to get free stuff and to support this podcast. This show is also sponsored by ExpressVPN. Get it at expressvpn.com lexpod to get a discount. You probably know there's a show called the Office that I fell in love with. First with the British version with Ricky Gervais and then the American version with Steve Carell. ExpressVPN lets you pretend your location is somewhere else, choosing from nearly 100 different countries and then watch one of the nine totally different other versions of the Office in other countries. Also, it protects you when you do shady things on the Internet that you shouldn't be doing. Like checking the website of this very podcast that for some reason was not available in Russia for a long time. Not sure if it still is. But if it isn't, you can use ExpressVPN to access it. I think of ExpressVPN like a pirate ship and regular VPN free. Life as a boring cruise from one place to another with no excitement in between. Choose wisely, my friends. Again, get it on any device@expressvpn.com Flexblad to get an extra 3 months free and to support this podcast. This show is sponsored by BetterHelp, spelled H E L P help like you would try to spell. If you are on a deserted island and trying to get an airplane to notice you, check it out@betterhelp.com lex they figure out what you need and match you with a licensed professional therapist in under 48 hours. You can communicate by text anytime and schedule weekly audio and video sessions. Now, hard left turn. Let me talk about desert islands. Whatever you think of it, I love the movie Castaway with Tom Hanks and the idea of spending time on an island alone with potentially no hope. The natural question is, if I could, what would I bring to this island? The answer is complicated. But let me pick one thing. The first thing that popped into my crazy mind, which is the Introduction to Algorithms book, also called CLRS for the first letters of the last name of its four authors. I find algorithms beautiful, like a little toolbox for a simple world inside computers, when the real world outside is an impossible, chaotic mess. I would love pondering the puzzles in that book for months, far away from human civilization. Anyway, check out betterhelp@betterhelp.com Lex to get a discount and to support this podcast. And now, finally, here's my conversation with David.

Fravor. You're a graduate of the Navy Navy Fighter Weapons School. Yeah, I am better known as Top Gun. Let me ask the most ridiculous question. How realistic is the movie Top.

Gun? So it's funny. We used to joke and a friend of mine who was a Top Gun instructor said this. There's two things in the original Top Gun that are true, that are very realistic. One, there is a place called Top Gun. And number two is they do fly airplanes there. Other than that, you know, I went through in 97 class 497. And there's actually a log of every single person that's went through kind of like SEAL training. You know, there's a list. So people. Because there's a lot of posers out there. I was a Navy seal. No, you weren't. Well, I went to Top Gun. You can actually go to Top Gun. And matter of fact, just to Get a Top Gun patch, the real patch, you have to have gone there. So a lot of the patches you see running around are not real. There's. The real ones are controlled. The people that make them honor that. And when you go in, they look up your name. If you want to get one, they look up your name. You just tell them they go, okay, here, and they'll sell them to you. If you are not on the list, you ain't getting no patch because it is. It's a pretty big deal to go through. But it's, for me, probably one of the best experiences of flying because everyone there is extremely competent. It's very, very challenging, but it's what we all signed up to do. So it's, it's just the entire group that is when you want to be that, you know, that level, you know, where you go, everyone really cares and everyone really wants to be.

Good. Is it competitive? Like, what was it in the movie.

Or. No, it's. When you go through, it's, you know, it's. If anything, it's more of the students, you know, and then there's the instructor side. Then the instructor sides are really, you know, they're guys that, you know, they just chose to stay up in Fallon. And it's extremely difficult job because they have, they have a very small tolerance for not being good. So they're briefs, the guys, when they give a lecture. So let's just say there's a fighter employment lecture, which is one of the hardest ones. It takes about two days to give the fighter employment lecture. The guy who gives the lecture goes through multiple, what they call them, murder boards, where he's scrutinized by his peers and he practices. By the time they actually stand in front of a class, they pretty much have their 250 PowerPoint slides memorized and they don't even turn around. They just click. And they know them in order and they repeat the same thing over. And it's standardized. So they are extremely, extremely standardized. When you go through the school, and there's a reason for that, because what they're doing is they're training. So when you come out of Top Gun, you're called a strike fighter weapons and tactics instructor. Okay, so your sfti, when you come out of that, your job is to go usually to one of the weapons schools on the east or west coast and train the fleet squadrons. And then you visit the squadrons and train and do upgrade rides and all that. So there's a. There's a reason that they are extremely particular when you go through the course, it's, it is literally one of the best things. And it's not, it's not a rank based thing because think, oh, Navy, you can come in as a, you know, like a, an 04 lieutenant commander. The lieutenants, the hierarchy. Well, it used to be, I don't know how it is exactly today, but I imagine it's the same. The hierarchy is actually based on seniority at the school, not necessarily rank. So when the tactical decisions are made, which are based on fact and trying things out in the Fallon Ranges, they set the top X number of folks that have been there, seniority wise, and I mean time wise are the ones that actually make the decision. And when the door, you may not agree, but when the door opens and everyone comes out from the staff, they all speak the same language. And it has to be that way, which is why the school has been so effective since it was founded. So it's just, it's an incredible group of.

Individuals. So there's a bar of excellence that the instructors.

Demand? Oh, very much so. And they're held to it. So it's not a, hey, I'm now an instructor, so I can do what I want. There is a standard in. They have to live up to that standard. They have to, and I mean every moment of every day. So if they go someplace, if they go from Fallon and they come down and do, they're called site visits where they come down and they'll come to Lamour, California, which is where the West Coast Fighter Wing is at for the Navy. And they go around and start flying sorties with the fleet squadrons to kind of pass on some of that knowledge. That's that same high level of standard. It's, they can't just drop your guard because you wear the Top Gun patch and people know that and they wear light blue shirts. So it's pretty easy to identify them when they're out there. And you know, and then everyone else who's been through the school, including them, have the patch on their sleeve. So there's a standard that's expected when you come out of.

There. So you were a Navy pilot for 18.

Years?

Yes. Can you briefly tell the story of your career as a.

Pilot? Yeah. So, you know, first I was, I was enlisted, I was a Marine, and then the Marines actually sent me, recommended me to go to the Naval Academy. So it's always better to be lucky than good. But I got to go to the Naval Academy and I finished and I had that dream to fly. So when I got.

Selected. They've always dreamed of.

Flying. Yeah, since 1969, when I watched Neil Armstrong walk on the moon. I was at that point, I asked my mom, I remember watching it, I was just prior to being five, and I said, yeah, it's so cool, Mom. And she said, well, you know, they were all pilots. And at that point, it was like, I'm going to be a pilot. And if you knew me growing up, because I was a little bit of a delinquent, people are just like, yeah, right. I used to joke, I'm going to fly jets, and I'm going to drop bombs then. And if people that knew me when I was a kid, they'd be like, yeah. And they'd be like, not a chance. And then when I did, I actually had a. This is a funny story, and I'll get to it. I'll finish my career. But I was at my cousin's wedding, and we all grew up in the same neighborhood. We kind of that Italian side of the family. That's how we grew up. So it was my house, right down the street was my cousin Chad, and then right around the corner is my cousin Ray and my aunts and uncles and stuff. The guy two doors down from my end, I was a paper boy in the neighborhood, so they all knew me. And I went to my Cousin's wedding, and Mr. Rice looks at me and he says, david fravor. I go, Mr. Race, how you doing? He goes, you fly jets, Top Gun and all that? I go, yes, sir. He goes, I figured you'd be in jail by now. And it was kind of a. To me, it was a little bit of a badge of honor going on. You know, I kind of overcame.

That. But what do you attribute that to? So you. I've heard you before and just now say that it's better be. It's better to be lucky than good. And you talk modestly about. About just being lucky, but if you were to describe your trajectory, maybe in a way of advice, like retrospectively, how'd you pull it off to be like. To be truly a special.

Person? The easiest way is one never, never take. No. Don't let anyone put you down and say, you can't do it, or those. I mean, I knew what I was capable of inside, you know, and if I really believe, if you want something and you want to do something, then you. You can achieve it. Not in all cases. Like, if I loved basketball and I really wanted to BE in the NBA, there's a realism that says I'm 5 foot 8 and I got like a really short vertical leap and I'm really not that good at basketball. It's probably not ever going to happen. No matter how hard I try and practice. It's just the way it is. Or for me to be in the NFL. I'm not fast, you know, I'm not that big. It's just physically I'm incapable of doing that. But there's things that don't really tie to a true physical ability as far as size and strength, but it's mental. And I'm not saying you have to be a genius and super smart to be a fighter pilot. Matter of fact, you don't. It really comes down to the ability to think very quickly. 80% solution is typically good enough because if you overthink it, you're, you're behind. And then in an air to air fight, that's what happens. People try and overthink it and before you know it, because it's happening so fast you can't get to the nth degree, six decimal places. 80% solution is good.

Enough. You've built up a really strong gut for the 80%.

Solution. Yeah, I'm a big believer in the 80% solution. I love that if you get 80% and then you can always adjust, which is exactly what if you're fighting in BFM, the 80% solution is, it's like a chess game, but it's a really, really fast chess game where you go, I'm doing this and then I know that if I do a maneuver, if he's going to counter it correctly, he should do A. If he doesn't do A, he does some degree less like B, C, D. And then I know how bad his, his error is and then I capitalize. So my, I don't have to be perfect, you know, I don't have to go, I need to go to 47 degrees, nose high. If I just kind of get above 40, then I'm good and I can watch how he reacts and then I can adjust for that. And you, and you continually work that problem and you chip away because if you start neutral, you're just basically chipping away and gaining advantage, advantage, advantage till eventually, you know, and if you're really, you know, fighting, you know, just guns only, rear quarter, where you got to get behind the guy, kind of World War II dog fighting type stuff, then it's, it's literally, it's a, it's a very, very fast chess game that happens at, you know, 400 knots, 300 knots.

Depends. So to get to be One of the rare individuals that are able to do that. He just had the dream and didn't take no for an.

Answer. Well, you know, part of it is family. You know, my dad was. I used to call him a fire ready, aim guy. You know, he'd smack me and then ask me what I did wrong. Yeah, good parenting back then. You know, I joke and people look, because, you know, at times it was kind of tough, you know, because he could be pretty demanding. But on the other side, you know, know, I probably needed to be reined in a little bit at times. But then everyone else in my family, you know, my mom was really awesome when I was a kid. My. My grandfather, who is a big, big part of it, my mom's dad, who, he taught me a lot. And you have a question there that we'll talk about about him. But huge, huge influence, Very, very positive. And a lot of the stuff that I do today and decisions are based on things that he taught me. And, you know, I figured it was the first funeral ever went to, and it was about three miles long, and church was overfilling and people were out. He was a beer delivery guy, dead serious. And you go, someone asked who died? The.

Pope. So a lot of people loved.

Him. So back to my career. Your first question. Because I'm getting down a rabbit hole. No. When I was at the. I was going to stay in the Marines, I really wanted to go, man, I love the Corps. I think it's of all services. It's that one. Everything is in a ball. And they're very, very professional, and it was a great, great organization to join. But I went out to the Nimitz on my freshman cruise. After your freshman year at the Naval Academy, you go out on a ship and you're an enlisted person. You get to experience that half. But I already was enlisted, so.

It was fine with me because it comes up a lot, you might say, saying, what the Nimitz is, what a ship.

Is. Yeah. So Nimitz is an aircraft carrier. So it's four and a half acres of sovereign US Territory that floats around the US.

Oceans. It's a giant thing. Does it have weapons on.

It? The air wing is really the weapons. It does have defensive weapons, but for the most part, it's a giant moving airport is what it is. So I was out there watching the airplanes land and take off, and I'm like, oh, and the squadrons that were out there. One of the squadrons was VF41 and F14 squadron, VF84, an F14 squadron and then a couple of A6 squadrons and we actually ended up part pairing up and hanging out with some of the A6 pilots and BNs. So it was really a neat experience and I said I want to do that. And the way to do it was to not to. To go in the Navy because there are Marine squadrons that go out to the aircraft carriers, but most of them are land based, you know, to support the Marines because they're that, that unit, that whole unit, you know, the Marine Corps is that one service has it all. And so when I graduated and I got to, you know, I worked hard through primary and that's where you know, I knew Missy. We were in actually went through together. Missy Cummings, we went through primary together and then I went to Kingsville. We all selected the same time I went to Kingsville there was another guy, Scott Wiedemeyer, the three of us. So I went to Kingsville, Scott went to Beeville and Missy went to Meridian. So the three of us that we had all went through, we got, we selected out of primary together. We all ended up going jets. And that's how besides from school, I knew her at school too. Long story. I got done, got winged. It took me two years to the day from the time I graduated the Naval Academy until I got my wings. And through some luck I ended up getting a 6s on the west coast, which is a side by side bomber. So it's a pilot on the left seat and the bombardier navigators on the right seat. It was built in the 60s, it is all weather and it flies low at night and it's got a terrain mapping.

Radar. How many? I guess is that a good term to use fighter jets as a broad category for the.

Public? Yeah, that's.

Fine. How many fighter jets are side by side like.

That? That was in the Navy, that was the only one. The air Force, the F111 was a side by side, but the Navy it was the A6. And then there's the EA6B which is a derivative of that. And now that those are all gone, the EA6Bs just went away a few years ago. And now the E18G Growler is the replacement for the EA6B. There was never a replacement for the A6 that I flew. It really became the F18 which the A6 could go quite a bit further distance wise by fuel than the.

Hornet. And the hornet is the F18. Is there usually two people in the plane but they're usually like in.

Front and behind in the modern two seaters. Yes, but most of the tactical airplanes in the world today are single.

Seats. Signal seat is just one.

Person. One person with the exception of. I'll probably someone will yell at me. But really with the exception of the F15E Strike Eagle and the F18F Super Hornet which is the F is a two seater and the G is also a two seater but it's more of an electronic attack by say full up fighter.

Bomber. So most of the time that you've flown in your, like I said, 18 year career, was it two seater.

Was about half and half. So I started off in a six was a two seater. Then I went to single seat F18s and I flew those all the way up until 2000 and let me think 2001 to the end of 2001 and then I shifted over and started flying the Super Hornets. And I've flown both of those, the E's and the S. But I deployed. When I had command of VFA41, I had the two seat, they were F.

Squadron. So you eventually ended up commanding the strike fighter squadron 41. I love the name the Black Aces. Is there some parts of that journey that are amazing, parts of it that are tough that kind of stand out to.

Me? 1 It was a huge honor and I got to serve with, I got pulled up because the guy who the people that are XOs because we fleet up, you go from the number two guy to the number one guy. So the XO becomes the CO so the executive officer becomes the commanding officer. So I had worked with now soon to be Vice Admiral Weitzel. He was commander Weitzel at the time was the XO and he really wanted because he knew there was a little bit of a problem when the Super Hornets came into l'. Amour. Lamour had been a single seat fighter community since the forever. And now all of a sudden you've got the F18F coming in which has the weapon systems operators in the back that are not pilots, they're weapon systems operators. And there's a difference. And Kenny is a weapon systems operator and Kenny knew because of my A6 background that I have a switch that I can go one seat, two seat, one seat, two seat. Because when you fly two seat there's a lot of stuff that the pilot will offload and take the advantage of the weapon systems operator. And it's not that one plus one equals two in that environment because it really. There's a huge amount of capabilities that the single seat has and the autonomy that comes for the ability to make decisions quickly and how well the Airplane flies, but it does equal more than one. And I would say that one plus one with two people as well is a minimum of 1.5. Because you've got an extra head, you've got extra eyes, you've got someone that can monitor systems. The airplanes can do two things at once. I mean, there's an incredible amount of capability that we add when we do.

That. Can we just pause on that? Just for me from like a human factors perspective and also an AI perspective. How difficult? So there's like when there's two people, there's also a third person. That's the AI part. There's some level of automation, like autopilot, maybe.

Even. That's.

Correct. Maybe you can kind of talk about the psychology of, like you said, making decisions really quick, 80%. How do you deal with another brain working with you? And then also the automation is there an interesting interplay that you get to learn. And also as that changed throughout your career, I imagine it got you gotten better in terms of the automation or perhaps.

Not. Well, I can tell.

You. Sorry, there's a bunch of.

Questions. No, this is good, this is good and I'm enjoying this because now we actually get to talk about something other than a Tic Tac. So let's start with the A6. The A6 was really an analog airplane that was built in the 60s, all right. And there's been studies done on the crew coordination, which is the interaction between the pilot and the Bombardier navigator. So we would fly low at night in the mountains. So I was stationed up in Whidbey Island, Washington, so you've got the Cascades and incredible amount of time. And we would get in the simulators because unlike normally people think terrain following. And there's the radars, the 111, the B1 has a system like this, but it'll. The radar can see and it'll fly. It basically flies a straight line. So it goes up and over mountains and back down and up and over mountains where the A6 was really manual. So you do this low level routes where you're going to fly in the mountains at night. You're going to be at 500 to 1,000ft above the ground, ripping through fog layers because you don't need to see outside. You're literally flying a little TV screen and a.

Radar. What are you looking at most of the time? So just a.

Screen. It's this really primitive. If you look at it now, what we did, you'd think, wow, that was crazy. But it was really.

Fun. Is it similar to the flare.

Stuff. No, this thing is totally radar based. Now the airplane had a FLIR ball, it was a target recognition and multi sensor, it was called a.

Tram. You're looking at basically dots of hard.

Objects. No, actually what it is is the Bombardier navigator had a radar and he was getting raw feet off of a pulse radar in front. Okay. So it's just basically mapping the mountain. So if you look at a mountain on a radar and you're coming up on it, the front side is going to be, it's going to give you a really bright return and on the backside it's just going to be a giant shadow because you can't see on the other side. So the Bombardier navigators would do that and they would have charts and they could shade their charts knowing that, hey, if we turn a little bit left here, we can get in this valley, we can sneak up this valley and then go around the backside of the mountain, which is what the airplane would.

Do. And. Sorry to interrupt, I'm going to just keep asking dumb questions. I apologize. But the pilot, can you at a high level say what the pilot does versus the.

Bombardier?

Yes. So you're, you're actually just.

Control. I'm, I'm flying the jet. I have the throttles, the stick and I have a, it's about a, probably a 4 inch or 6 inch wide by maybe 4 inches, 5 inches high. It looks like it's literally a CRT, that's how old it is, a CRT screen. And what it would do, what the radar would do is the, the, the bombardier navigator is looking at his radar. He's looking out about 12 and a half miles in front of the airplane. So he has the range really scoped down because the radar can see a lot further. He's looking at about 12 and a half miles. When we're in the terrain mode where we're dodging mountains and stuff and what the pilot has is there's, they're called range bins and there's eight of them. So the very far range bin is the 12 and a half mile, you know, and the closest range bin, it's a thing and it'll be like between like a half a mile and, or a quarter mile to 3/4 of a mile. The next one might be 3/4 of a mile to 2 miles and then it just keeps going out like that. So if there's a mountain in front, let's say we're on a flat plane and there's a mountain out in the distance at 15 miles and we we're just driving right at it. So when we get to the point where it hits 12 and a half miles, where the radar is going to see it on his scope, my 12, my range bin for that would pop up and it would show like a big bump like a mountain. And then as I got closer to it, the next range bin would pop up and show it. And I could see that that bump was moving towards me. And then if I turned a little bit to go over here, I'd see the mountain go over to the right hand side and I could do that. But it wasn't like a video game. It's literally like if you think of the original.

Ataris. Yeah. But you build up, I imagine that you start to get a really deep sense of the actual 3D environment based on that little Atari style.

Design. You're exactly right. And you have to, you have to train. So there's been studies, as a matter of fact, a lot of the basis. And people probably argue with me, but it's true. There were studies done watching A6 crews in our simulators. We called it the Wist, the weapon systems trainer. And it was not even a motion. It just kind of sat there and you could fly these things and they had terrain that they would inject into the system. But the crew coordination. So you get. So my first fleet bombardier navigator, who I'll name him, his name's Chris Sato, he works at Apple, pretty high up, MIT grad, I think computer engineering. He's scary smart. So Chris could really work. And matter of fact, all the guys I flew with, so there's another guy, Matt, who also worked at Apple, who's now at SAP, we did our first night traps together. The bond between us, I mean, it's one of those things that you just, you're never going to forget. But Chris and I, when we started flying together, we were actually the most junior crew in the squadron. We'd spent a lot of time training and Chris was amazing at how he could work the system one because he was extremely brilliant and he had that inquisitive mind of, oh, we could do all these different things and there's all these degradation modes. But we spent a lot of time to see how good we could actually get because. And you almost talk in partial. So as the BN is looking at his radar scope, Chris would say, I've got rising terrain. That's just what they say, showing rising terrain at 12 miles. And I'd see the little bump and I'd say, got it. This is going to go to your question on the autonomy and how you work with two heads. So when you first get together the interaction, it's almost like you have to rehearse it. You have to know and you talk in full sentences. The more and more we fly together, Chris could go showing and he'd get like rising out and before he finished, I'd say, I've got it. So you end up starting to talk in partials. Because I have to trust him. Like, I mean there can be no. I can have no doubt that he knows how to do his job. Because I'm literally looking at this little scope that's not giving me this continuous picture of that mountain moving. Remember, the mountain's here and then it's going to pop up here and then it's going to pop up here because there's gaps in the coverage on how the system was set up. Remember, it's an analog system to where he is telling me like I can't see all the way to the left. And he, he's got a wider scope on the radar, but my screen doesn't show that. So he's telling me start a left turn. How do I avoid a hard turn? You know? And we would do.

That. So my truck is all happening quick, very.

Quick. Well, you're doing. We would typically fly between 420 and 480 knots of ground speed miles an hour. Well, 427 miles a.

Minute.

Okay. Or between seven and eight miles a minute is what you're flying as fast at night. I mean, I broke out of clouds. I mean, I remember him and I flying. We were on its ir. It's called an IR route, an instrument route that's low. They're all around the country. There's IR344 that we used to fly, which would coast in off of Oregon, fly from the land you got over the ocean, turn around and then you could practice actually coming in on a coastline. And we were flying and we ended up in the clouds. Keep in mind we're between 500 and 1000ft in the mountains and we're in the clouds, you can't see anything. Then I had to turn off our red lights that flash. You know, they're called anti collision lights because it was reflecting off the clouds and it starts to bother you, just gets annoying. So I turned it off and we were flying. We're flying, we're flying. We break out of that coastal marine layer and we break out and it's a decent night. And this is right by Mount St. Helens. This is kind of we're coming in. So we're coming in from the east and we're just north of Mount St. Helens is where the route goes. And you look up, you know, because you can kind of see the silhouette of this mountain that's right next to you. But you're flying along, you're just like, you got to trust. And you can see houses, you can see the lights, they're above you. We're literally below people's houses flying down these valleys and stuff. So just incredible experience. So when you take that and then you move into an F18F. So now we're into modern technology that was actually built in this century and you're flying. So now the Wizzo is behind us and we're not doing those night low levels. But that same type of crew coordination that has to happen because what you're doing is you're sharing the load. So most of the communications that go out of the airplane, the Wizzo does all the talking. He's got actually he uses his feet. That's the weapon systems operator in the back of an F18F. So he's going to run. Well, the radar kind of runs itself now, but we have a situational awareness display and it's linked to all the other.

Airplanes. Just out of curiosity, what's the situational awareness display? Because that term comes up a lot in the.

Airplane. Think of it as a God's eye view. So if you have the back of the Super Hornet has. Well, the block Twos has about an 8 by 10 display for the Wizzos that they can look at the pilots is smaller, it's down between us. It's a six by six between his legs. And they're getting ready to redesign that. Boeing is. But when you looked, it'd be like if you put your airplane and you're looking down. So all the stuff like if your radar seeing bad guys out in front of you be like looking down going, oh, I'm right here and now there's bad guys out here and my wingman is over here. And it shows everything. It's just like it gives you. You can look at that display and go, oh, I can see where everything's at. I can see if one guy's trying to target another guy. It shows you all this. It's an incredible amount of knowledge that comes up for the crews to maintain the overall picture of what's going.

On, big picture sense of what's going.

On because it's happening so fast. And this is with that autonomy piece. This is the third brain. So we're all looking at it and the third brain is doing fusion. It's pulling stuff together, going, oh, this is all this guy, this is this guy, this is this guy. It's sending it out through the link. So all the airplanes are talking to each other through this digital network, you know, that we don't even see. It just says, that airplane says, hey, I'm over here. And it tells us. And we go, oh, he's right there. And then we can go, his airplane says, oh, I'm looking at this airplane, this bad guy, and it shows us, oh, he's, he's over there and he's looking at this guy. I mean, it's an incredible amount of visual intake because your eye, you can hear a lot, but when you look down at stuff, it's, you know, you can sell the picture really.

Quick. The third brain is doing the sensor fusion, the integration of the different sensors and gives you a big picture view. What about the control? Like is there. And I apologize, as if this is a dumb question, but you know, people use a high level term of autopilot. How much is there? Let's use a loose term of AI. How much automation is there? How much AI is there in helping you control?

There's. The AI piece would be more of a control loop because the digital flight controls. So the airplane, actually they had to make the airplane easier to fly. And when I say easy, it's relative because people go, I could do it because I did it on flight sim. Real life is a lot different. In flight sim, you have no apparent fear of death. You'll do things on a simulator that you would never do in real life. But the autonomy in the airplane to allow you to manage. I mean, because you think about it, you've got a radar that's feeding you data, you've got a targeting pod that's feeding you data. All that stuff is hooked to your head because you've got a joint helmet mounted cueing system on that basically maps the magnetic field in the cockpit so it can tell where your head's at looking. So if I turn my head to the right, the radar will actually look to the right, the targeting FLIR will look to the right. And oh, by the way, the back seater has a helmet on too. So he can look to the left and he can do things. So depending on what sensor he's controlling. So if he's got control of the targeting pod and he looks left, the targeting pod looks left. But if I have something where I want to Lock a guy up that I don't see that maybe the radar didn't see, but I can get over and now point the radar, you know, get the. Because it's a phase array radar now, it doesn't really scan. There's all kinds of cool stuff that that technology brings. Because if you just. If you'd have went back 30 years and said, hey, or 40 years ago and said, hey, we're going to have this helmet and you're going to be able to slew everything to your head. And I don't mean a mechanical setup, but I mean literally you're just going to map magnetic resonance and go, oh, look. And I can literally slew my sensors this fast and then mash a button and transfer high quality coordinates from a system into a joint jdam, which is a joint direct attack munition. That is the GPS bombs that you see all the time. And then let that thing fly. And I'm solving this problem in seconds, vice versa, minutes or hey, I got it. We're going to have to menstruate coordinates and you know, you bring back the data and then they do all the targeting for it and then they send another group out to get it instead of all that. Now it's that.

Fast. So there's a. Okay. I mean, we probably don't have enough time to talk about the beautiful fusion of minds that happens when two people are flying, controlling the plane. But at a high level, this is a really interesting question for people who don't know what they're talking about, like me, which is what is the difference between a human being and an AI system? Like what can. What is the ceiling of a current AI technology for controlling the planet? Like, how much does the human contribute? Is it possible to have automated flight? For example, what is the hardest part about flying that a human does expertly that an AI system cannot in warfare situations, in flying fighter.

Jetline. So I would say AI systems are usually black and white. When you write the algorithm for an AI system, basically you're taking thought and turning it into a giant math problem is really what you're doing. So you've got this logical math problem. Math problems are there's a line, it says I can or I can't. And it's a very finite line. But you can go up to the line where a human. We all have gray areas where we go, eh, maybe I'll try.

It. So humans can operate within that.

Gray. So if you take an airplane and say, and I'll just take a Hornet for a While a Super Hornet doesn't matter any airplane. And you go, here is the flight performance model of the airplane. So if you know what an EM diagram is, the energy. So it basically says the airplane can fly as slow as this, it can go as fast as this, it can pull this many GS force of gravity. So 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7. And then based on the airfoil design and everything else and how it can pull, here's how it's going to fly. Because it's really physics based. Well, depending on how you write the AI but typically AI, you don't want the airplane to leave controlled flight, you want to maintain it so that it is flying in a controlled envelope where there are times and you can go back to World War I 1, where people intentionally departed the airplane from controlled flight in order to obtain an advantage, which is, that's where the human goes, can I do this? I know it's outside of where I would normally go, but I can do that. So you can do some crazy things now, especially since the flight control logic in modern airplanes with digital flight controls, they're extremely forgiving. So you can literally. I've done things in Super Hornets that literally even as a pilot inside the airplane, you're just like, wow, I cannot believe it just did that. Like it'll flop ends, which defies most logic. And I guess in a way you could probably program it. But I still think when you get to the edges, that may or may not give you an advantage. There are things that a human will do that AI won't. And I don't think we've got to the point because how do you, how do you map illogical solutions? You know, most AI is logical. It's, it's based on some type of premise. When you write the algorithm to control it. There's.

Bounds. Yeah. There's this giant mess. Like you said, the difference between the simulator and real life also gets at that somehow, that there is somehow the, the fear of death, all of that beautiful mass comes into play. Is there a comment you can make on commercial flight, like with Sully landing that plane famously versus the simulator, all of those discussions, is there.

Some. Well, it's very similar to what I was talking about earlier with the A6. So one is when you're flying with a crew, there's standardization. So you got to remember when Sully flew, when his first officer, that's the co pilot, showed up, you know, first time they'd met. And this happens all the time in the commercial world. You know, there's 6,7000 pilots at United Airlines. You know, your chance of flying with the same guy all the time is slim and none. We're in the Navy, we were crewed. So I had a primary and a secondary wizzo that flew with me for how, for months? Oh yeah, for like all of the deployment. So because you want, you have.

To trust all of those.

Things. It increases the capability airplane. It's not to say we can't swap out, but for true effectiveness, especially in very complex missions like a forward air controller war in the air, actually controlling ground assets and supporting ground troops. If you're in a high threat area, which is crazy busy, you have to, you have to be melded when you do that. You have to have trained to do that job. Otherwise you're going to be ineffective. So when you get to the commercial world, and I've got tons of friends that fly commercial, there is a standardization like we know that at this point, I'm going to put this switch. You're going to do that. And everyone, they know their rules. Captain's going to do this. First officer is going to do this. And they know that when the emergency breaks out. So in Sully's case, when they take the birds and they know they've got a problem. And if you've listened to the cockpit recordings of him, the two of them talking, you got to remember they're talking to each other when you hear the full tapes. But they're also talking to the air traffic controllers in the New York area. And it's like we got a bird strike. And the first officer already knows, hey, silence the alarm. They silence the alarm. The first officer is pulling out the book. He's going through the procedures while Sully's actually flying the airplane, knowing that they've lost their motors. And you got to think his decision process like they're trying to get him to go into an airport, into New Jersey and he realizes not happening. We're going to put this thing. And he made a decision soon enough so that he could prepare everyone on the airplane that he was going to put this thing in the Hudson River. And he did it flawlessly. I mean, every single person walked away from that wreck. The only thing that didn't survive was the airplane and it got fished out of the.

Hudson. But what is it about those human decisions he had to make? Is that something you could put into words or is that just deep down some instinct that you develop as a pilot over.

Time? When you train, aviation is a self cleaning oven. So if you make Bad decisions. And the list is long and distinguished of those who have died by making bad.

Decisions. Oh.

Man. So when you look at what he did or the way we train, because the commercial industry and the Navy and the Air Force, for all that, we have what's called, we have emergency procedures that we have to know. Like the engines on fire. The first three steps, you just have to know what they are, right? So they know the airline, same type, you know, they go, hey, I know. This is. They pull the book out because the airplanes are designed, they're built to have some time. But there's a point where you have to make a decision and you can't second guess it. So when he decided, I'm putting this in the Hudson river, he couldn't all of a sudden, halfway through it, go, well, maybe I can get over to that airport. He, he looked, he made a quick assessment. This is that 80% solution where you go, these are not. I'm, you know, it's. It's like a multiple choice test. When you go, oh, my God. I don't really know the answer, but I know A and D are wrong. Yeah, gone. So the Jersey airport and going back to LaGuardia.

Gone.

Yeah. So what's my next option? Well, the Hudson River's there. That's probably looking pretty good. Or what is my other one? Can I get a restart on the motors? And then if I can get a restart now, can I take it someplace else? He had to make really, really fast decisions. And then once as they go that 80% solution, you realize, all right, I'm going into the Hudson. There's the 80%. Get the book out. Let's see if we can get an air start. Because if you listen to tapes are trying to get it air started. The closer he gets to the water, the more he's going, I'm ditching the airplane. So the original decision to this is my best option right now. This is where I'm going. And you start eliminating anything that could possibly change the events which they tried to do. And then he gets to that last minute, says, we're going in the water. They change the plan, they secure the airplane, they do exactly what they're doing. And he does that basically flawless landing on the Hudson. But you got to remember, it's every six months for commercial. They go back and they do research in the airplane. In the simulator, were they trained to the airplane being broken? You just lost a motor. You just lost another motor. So they go through this extensive training and all these, and it's we used to refer to it in the Navy as the pain cave, where you're going to get in because you know that when you get in for your check ride in a simulator that the airplane is going to break, you're going to lose hydraulic. And it's. Sometimes they're a problem, like, oh, I just lost this hydraulic system, but I'm having an issue on the other motor. Well, if I shut down this motor and I've got a hydraulic, you know, because there's two hydraulic systems, one on each motor. Well, if I've got an issue with the left motor hydraulic system, and my right motor is starting to give me indications, do I want to shut the right motor down, because that's going to kill my hydraulic system. That's good. And now I'm flying on a good motor with a bad hydraulic system. And without hydraulics, the airplane won't fly. So they're challenging problems that you have to think through in real time. And of course, the weather's never good. It's always dark, it's always crappy. You're going to break out at. I mean, it's just all this stuff gets compiled on top of you, and it's intended to increase the level of stress. Because when things happen, like in Sully's case, we like to joke, it's going to stem power, where the functional part of your brain shuts down and you are literally on instinct like an animal. Well, if you've trained so much that that is the instinctive reaction that you're going to have when the main part of your cognitive abilities start to shut down, that instinct is ingrained so much into you that you know exactly what to do. And that's literally how it.

Happens. So there's no. How do I put it? Fear of death. Like in Sully's case. Do you think he was at all ever thinking about the fact if his decision is wrong, a lot of people are going to.

Die? You know, I can't speak for him, but I would say there was so much going on at the cockpit in that time. His mindset was probably, I can do this. I'm trained. I'm going to do the procedures. I've practiced this before. I've done these things. And I'm assuming that in his mindset, because I never thought about when things were really bad. You know, if you're having problems with the airplane that, you know, that I was going to mort and plant it into the ground, it was always, you know, maybe it's an ego thing where you think I can do.

This. So you never. Have you experienced fear during flight? Like, I mean, one way we just offline mentioned Mike Tyson, he talked about, like, as he's walking up to the ring, he's like, he starts out basically in fear and, yeah. Worried about how things are going to go. I mean, it's purely to put into words his fear. But as he gets closer and closer to the ring, the confidence grows and grows until the ego basically takes over to where you think, there's no way anybody could defeat me. So that's his experience of overcoming fear. But did you experience any kind of thing like that, or do you just go to the part of the brain that goes to the training and then you just go to the instinctual 80%.

Solution? I wouldn't say I was never afraid. I think that would be. I couldn't tell you that anyone I know that wasn't afraid at one time. And for most of us, especially Navy carrier pilots, it's just, it's. It's usually. Especially when you're new and you got to go out and it's nighttime and there's no moon and the weather sucks and the deck's moving, you know, the, the ship's going up and down because it will scare every living shit out of you. Can I say.

That? You can definitely say that. So it's about landing or takeoff.

That. That is if you even. They used to wire people up. They did it during Vietnam. You know, guys would go flying missions, you know, when they were flying low and crazy stuff was going on and people were getting shot down a lot. The highest anxiety and heart rates were coming back to land on board an aircraft.

Carrier. How hard is it to land on that? It seems impossible, like for civilian, I guess, like me, it just seems crazy that a human can do.

That. The problem with night is. And there's different degrees of night. Just like day, I mean, there's the clear full moon night where it's like, ooh, you know, this is not that bad. But you got to remember at night, I think everyone can associate with. You're driving in your car and it's just a. It's. It's an overcast, dark night and you're on a country road with no sidelights. Most people have a tendency to slow down just by nature of, oh, my God. Because what you'll do is you'll out drive your headlights because it is so dark, you know, and you can get outside. You get outside the city and get up into New Hampshire, especially when the roads are curving and the lines probably aren't that good. Now take that and multiply it by like a million because you have no depth perception what you think is fixed. The Runway is actually moving up.

And down, left to.

Right. Yeah. Oh, and when it's really bad, you can actually see it move. And we have two systems. You know, there was a, there's an automatic system that's actually, it stabilizes with the inertials on the ship. And then there's the ils. Now civilian pilots will tell you that ILS is a precision approach which gives you azimuth and glide slope. You know, you come down, it's like a plus on the carrier. It's not, it's really just a beam that goes out and it's considered a non precision approach. It's not stabilized at all that. And I've been where you can actually watch the needle and the tack hand needle will move. There's all kinds of stuff moving because the base that it's all sitting on is doing this. And ships don't just go up and down. They, they, they do this. So the bow goes up and down and the tail like you normally see a ship. And then there's. So that's pitch and then it has roll. So it's doing this and then it has heave. So the whole boat is going up and down while it's pitching and rolling. And you're going to land on that. So. And it's, I mean I remember landing this. I was with Chris Sato and Chris and I, we were off the USS Ranger, which is now decommissioned. It's sitting, getting turned into razor blades. We're flying the old A6 and we come in and it was off of San Diego and it was just ugly night because San Diego always has a marine layer that is about 1200ft was lower than that that night. And it was pouring down rain. It was an El Nino year and there's thunderstorms all around. It was just the craziest night I've ever seen out of San Diego. And I remember landing and your adrenaline is so high that you're shaking. I mean you literally can't stop. And we had spun around out of the landing area and we parked. We call it the six pack. So it's right in front of the island. So if you see an aircraft carrier of the island and the number of the ship on that, we're sitting right in front of that and we're looking at the landing area. So it's like you get front row seats to the concert and this EA6B comes in, ugly pass. He ends up catching a one wire, which is the first one. You never want to catch the first one, which means you were not really high above the back of the ship when you landed. And it comes in and the exhaust on an EA6 or an A6 actually points kind of down and it blows. And it's blowing all the standing water on the aircraft. That's how hard it's raining. And you literally could not see across. I mean, I could see the front of my airplane, his airplane, and then it was just white because of the water being blown off the deck. And I'm shaking. And I'll never forget, I looked over at Chris and I said, oh, my God. I go, hey, dude, man, 10,000 foot Runway looks really good right now. And I go, and I'm shaking my hands like this, and I said, I'm not even. This is. I'm not faking this, dude. I know. That's literally I cannot stop shaking. I said, that scared the Evelyn out of me. Yeah, but you. But it scares you afterwards, during it, you don't have time to think about that. You're doing it. You got to do, as we know, kind of the quote from Tom Hanks in. What's that? The girls baseball movie where he goes, there's no crying in baseball. Well, that's our joke. There's no crying in naval aviation. I said, you can fly around and cry all you want at night, but there's only one pilot in those airplanes and you got to land it. So you can cry all you want. Wipe the tears away, put on your big kid pants and it's time to man up and land that. Land a.

Jet. Sorry for the romantic question, but going back to the. The kid that dreamed to fly. What's it like to fly an airplane? What? It looks incredible. As a human, like a descendant of ape, I sit here on land and look up at you guys. It seems incredible that a human being can do.

That. You know, people ask, you know, I'll be sitting around with my friends and they're like, how was. I said, the greatest job on the planet? I said, you know, it's an office with a view because you're sitting in a glass. You can do. You know, it's like roller coasters. You go, oh, it does all these cool stuff. So we take people flying every once in a while and it's like, yeah, I like roller coasters. I go, no, take any roller coaster. The coolest roller coaster you've ever been on and multiply it by a thousand. I said, it's an experience, you know, to put your body under. You know. You know, the jets rated at 7 and a half, but it'll pull up to 8.1 before it overstresses. Depends on fuel weight. So, I mean, you routinely get up there towards eight GS to be able to do that to your body. I mean, it takes a toll. Like, I can't really turn my head real good anymore and stuff like that. But would I trade it? I mean, it was a childhood dream. And how many people get to do that, you know, professional. I want to be an NFL, you know, and you end up to the NFL, which is a very small percentage. But. Well, I want to fly jets and, and to fly. You know, at the time when I was flying, the Super Hornets that we had in our squadron were brand new. Like, literally right out of the factory. I'd come off our first Super Hornet cruise. We had went to the Boeing factory in St. Louis where they were building my new jets that I was going to get and actually signed the inside of one of the wings while they were putting it together. So I'm meeting the people that are putting the jet together that's going to get delivered to me in a couple of months that I'm going to fly. So just, I mean, the whole of it is incredible. I'll tell you what, when I left, when I decided to walk.

Away. Yeah. Do you miss.

It? I told myself I wouldn't. I promised myself that, you know, once you get through your O5 command, your flying really starts to tag, to come down. You know, even if you. When you're an air wing commander, which is. We call them CAG Carrier Group Commander, you're not flying as much as, like, the normal pilots, nor should you be. I mean, there's young people that are coming up, and it's training your relief because that's the next generation. So, like, currently I have friends of mine that we serve together. Their kids are flying Super Hornets, right? So to me, that's really neat because I watched them when they were little. And now, you know, one of them who is good friends, I won't get his last name, but Joey, who lived down the street from us, was a Top Gun instructor. And I'm like, hey, Joey's. Joey's a Top Gun, you know, And I'm like, that's cool. Because, you know, I went there and I knew him. He would come down to my house. And now to see these kids that are. Because typically military breeds. Military, you know, because the kids grew up in it. I mean, and I. The only reason that my son is not doing it is he's colorblind. So it disqualifies you for being a pilot, being a seal, because he had talked about doing that, because he's an incredible swimmer and he likes doing that stuff and water polo player. But he's. You know, both of my kids are. Well, my daughter is a doctor and my son's in his third year.

So. But there's a. I suppose, I mean, from my perspective, a bittersweet handover of this incredible experience of flying to the younger generation. So you don't. You told yourself you're not going to miss it. You miss.

It. There are days I do when I hear jets, like if I'm around a base or a jet flies over, but I have all the memories, so I can look at it and go, it can't go on forever. Tom Brady can't play football. There's going to come a time where he has to.

Stop. He seems to have done it.

For a long time, but typically when you look at it, you go, I had the opportunity. And I think as automation moves on, especially with AI, that when will the last man fighter be built? And that's that big question. We just did F35. It's over budget. It's seven years late. There's all kinds of issues when we try and do it. And then you look at some of the new stuff that's coming out that the Air Force is working on with smaller, cheaper, attritable platforms that you can go, oh, we can. Because if you don't put a man in the box or a person, because there's a lot of incredibly talented women that do this, too. So I'll just say that as.

Person. Yeah. So we say man and he. We mean both men and women, because offline, you've told me about a lot of incredible women that.

Flown. I had three female, actually four. One of them didn't fly anymore. She actually lives right around here. She ended up going into aircraft maintenance when she couldn't fly anymore. One of the girls who everyone knows is incredibly. She's one of the most gifted people I've ever met in my life. She is the vice president of Amazon Air. You can see her on tv. Her name's Sarah. Incredible. And then I had Paige, who ended up taking command. She got out of fighters and went into other platforms, and she was a commanding officer. And then the other one teaches leadership. And she is all three of them, actually, all four of the women that were direct. I hope I'm not forgetting. I don't think I'm forgetting. Someone incredibly, incredibly talented and a great addition to the ready room. So anyone who gets into the, oh, you know, women can't do it. That's all.