May 13, 2025 • 59 mins
CAPT Jim “Guido” DiMatteo has been a Club Member for 20 years, a decorated U.S. Navy veteran, and a globally recognized figure in aviation. With a career spanning nearly three decades as a Naval Aviator, Jim has flown elite fighter jets, led top squadrons, and served as Director of the Navy’s High-Performance Aircraft Division. But what sets him apart isn’t just his service record — it’s his unshakable commitment to excellence, legacy, and purpose.
The conversation takes us from Jim’s early influences — particularly the inspiration of his late father, a fellow Naval Aviator — to the values that have guided his career and personal life. He reflects on what it means to lead with integrity, perform under pressure, and push limits with humility and grit. Whether commanding a squadron, directing the Red Bull Air Races, or spending time with family, Jim approaches each chapter of life with the same bold energy and deep sense of gratitude.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
We land on aircraft carriers, and that sets us apart
from that F sixteen or F fifteen guy from the
Air Force. It is. It's what we have to do
every single time we come back.
Speaker 2 (00:22):
Welcome to a life well lived, where we pull back
the curtain on the extraordinary lives of our remarkable members.
I'm James Henderson, CEO of Exclusive Resorts. For me, travel
has never been about the destination. It's always been about
the company you keep. Over the years, I've crossed paths
with some of the world's most fascinating, well traveled individuals,
(00:45):
each bound by a singular pursuit to live not just
well but exceptionally. Their stories aren't just worth telling, they're
worth learning from them, because in the end, it's not
about where we go, but how we choose to live.
(01:09):
In this episode, Jimmy Di Matteo, a highly decorated naval
aviator and entrepreneur, shares his incredible journey from flying fighter
jets to building successful businesses. As a former commanding officer
of the Adversary program at Top Gun, Jimmy is more
hours training at top Gun than any other pilot, and
he still instructs a top Gun today. In this episode,
(01:30):
Jimmy reflects on his twenty five year career in the Navy,
where he amassed over five thousand flight hours in aircraft
like the F fourteen and F eighteen and earned accolades
for his precision and leadership. Jimmy discusses the grit, teamwork,
and humility that defined the world of naval aviation and
how these lessons have translated into his civilian life. From
(01:50):
directing events like Oshkosh and managing the Red Bull Air
Racers to opening award winning restaurants and launching his upcoming
vodka brand, Jimmy exemplifies the ethos of fly hard, play
hard with reflections on family, mentorship and the legacy of
his late one hundred and two year old father, who
was also a navel aviation legend. This conversation offers compelling
(02:10):
blend of inspiration, adventure, and the pursuit of excellence. I'm
really excited this week to have jim Di Matteo with
this one of our exclusive Resorts members. I'll ask jim
to introduce himself a little bit.
Speaker 1 (02:22):
Well, thank you, James. Yeah, I'm excited to be here
be part of this podcast. My name is jim Di Matteo.
I'm a proud Exclusive Resorts member but also a proud
naval aviator, so lots of talk about naval aviation.
Speaker 2 (02:37):
It's great to have you on. So I let's start
off with a quote that I read from you, and
you said, my father is my hero and the man
I had my most on the planet. Tell me about
your father and tell me about how he inspired you.
Speaker 1 (02:50):
So yeah, that quote, I've probably said that many times
because he really is my hero, my idol as a
human being, but also as a as a father, as
a nave aviator, as an officer, as a grandfather. He's
really been a big part of my life. He is
(03:12):
still with us at one hundred, just about to turn
one hundred and two years old, so it's a testimony
to his old Italian grit that keeps him going, and
I feel extremely fortunate to still have him in my life.
But the way he and his and my mom raised
us was you know, classic Italian, big Italian family, and
(03:36):
he's just one of those solid guys that never does
just always doing the right thing for the right reason.
And both he and my mom, but especially my father,
I'd say to myself, it's my kind of reality check. Yeah,
is would my dad do this? And if the answer
was no, then I probably shouldn't do it either.
Speaker 2 (03:57):
That's a very cool way to live.
Speaker 1 (03:58):
In not saying that I've always done that, but he's
a good inspiration so and he's made a big impact
on my life.
Speaker 2 (04:08):
So was your father supportive of you being a pilot?
Speaker 1 (04:11):
He was. He was incredibly supportive, but he was also
very cautious. My older brother is also a naval aviator,
and he did not want to dictate or put pressure
on me or my older brother to become naval aviators.
If we chose that path, so be it. He would
(04:32):
be very supportive, but he was no way in this
in the sense of like him pushing us to go
do that. And now that I'm a father, I'm very
very appreciative of that. Because now my son he's got
a grandpa, an uncle, and a dad, all naval aviators.
(04:53):
There could be a lot of pressure. And I'm doing
exactly what my father did to me, which is like, hey,
you you chase your dreams, You do what you want.
If you want to go down this path at some
point in your life, I'll be there to support you,
but don't feel any pressure. So that's an example of
his support for me and that I'm carrying on to
(05:14):
my son.
Speaker 2 (05:15):
I want to come back to your father a bit
later as as we go into this book. So you
spent twenty five years in the Navy, five thousand hours
you've amassed in five different fighter aircraft faighteen, F sixteen,
F fourteen, five, and A four. You were the US
Navy F fourteen Fighter Pilot of the Year, you were
the US Navy Adversary Pilot of the Year, Top Hook
(05:36):
for the best landing grades in aircraft carry, which is
incredibly impressive, Top Training Command Jet Pilot of the Year,
and the prestigious pretann Your award is top Strike Jet Pilot.
What are the skills that help you excel and get
to that level as a fighter pilot.
Speaker 1 (05:51):
Well, first, I think when you list them like that,
I reflect back on it, and there's a lot of
luck and timing and just being in the right place
at the right time. I'm fortunate in aw aviation in
large part, ninety eight percent of the guys and gals
(06:13):
are rock solid aviators and people, so any one of
them could have had that same attribute cast on them.
But I think from a general perspective, what is a
common denominator of somebody who's doing well in aviation. Part
(06:35):
of it, I think is DNA. It's the right stuff.
If you remember that old movie. It's genetic. I don't
know exactly what it is, but spatial awareness, your muscle reflexes,
your attentiveness, your attention to detail those types of DNA
(06:56):
characteristics if you will tend to align with guys and
gals that are doing well in tactical aviation. I think
three D spatial awareness, maybe four D, so it's X,
Y and Z access. But then also you have to
put time and movement in there as well. You can't
(07:16):
really teach those things. People just either have them or
they don't. So part of it is DNA. The other part,
I think is your persistence, your grit, your commitment to
keep going and you know, overcoming adversity and pushing yourself
(07:37):
to continually improve. In aviation, we brief, we fly, and
then we debrief, and in a debrief scenario, it's you
want to call it constructive criticism, I guess, but it's
very very directive to try to improve because the only
thing we're trying to do is be better tomorrow. Than
(07:57):
we were today. So you need that grit, that determination,
that commitment to excellence to keep pushing yourself. So you
get a little bit of DNA, you get a lot
of commitment and you know, grit and persistence and that
user hopefully will result in doing well.
Speaker 2 (08:19):
You and I've known each other for I think just
every year now and developed a very nice friendship. And
one of the things that really struck me when we
first met was your humility. And I had a chance
that you've very kindly arranged about on the Carl Vincent
six eight weeks go. I spent twenty four hours on
the carrier, which was one of the most amazing things
I think I've ever done in my life. It was
absolutely incredible, and here we are in a ready room.
(08:42):
But the cool thing about that was I got to
meet a number of the aviators who were out there,
and I met the XO obviously as an accomplished aviator,
the CEO, And the thing that really struck me about
that was just the fact that these are really authentic, humble,
very thoughtful, very collaborative individuals and nothing like you've seen
(09:03):
the movies, right sort of you think was this level
of arrogance that fight upilots have, but it was nothing
like that. Can you sort of explain a bit more
about that, because I think that also plays into the whole,
you know, the debriefing and the fact that you have this,
you know, this very candid, sort of radical candor when
you you debrief in these environments.
Speaker 1 (09:22):
Sure, so, first, what is our mission? What is our
real goal as NABU aviators? It's for the United States.
It's we're out on an aircraft carrier like this and
we're projecting power. We're doing what our country's asking us
to do, whether it's offensively or defensively. So it's not
about us as an individual. There has to be in
the fighter pilot world and landing on aircraft carriers, you
(09:45):
do have to have a bit of self confidence. You
have to, but that's a balancing act. You don't want
to be overconfident, you don't want to be arrogant. You
need to be a team player. This is a squadron.
This is a squadron ready room, and a squadron is
exactly like a team, a football team, a rugby team,
(10:06):
a baseball team, where it's not about your individual performance,
it's about your collective performance as a squadron so very quickly.
If you are a person that is more concerned about
your own personal objectives and goals, the naval aviation world
(10:30):
will squash you. We won't let people like that get
through because it's not about their individual accomplishments. It's about
collective accomplishments, and so being humble is important. We've seen
too many times this is a very dangerous, risky kind
(10:53):
of occupation, and you can think that you're the greatest
pilot in the world and the ship's going to jump
up and grab you, or something's going to happen. So
we get continually reminded, sadly through misapps and accidents that
nobody's above, nobody's better than than the chance of having something,
(11:17):
you know, bad happening. So it creates a culture of
being a team player and not being an individual. I
got to do my best. That being said, much like
a baseball player you want to have the best batting
average and you know, the zero errors type of approach.
You want to do your best individually, but it's about
(11:39):
the collective team and I think that exudes being humble
and not having a big arrogance, not in the in
here in a bar, maybe you see a little bit
of that, but once you get in here, if you're
if you're arrogant, we'll squash you.
Speaker 2 (11:56):
So so up on the wall behind us here is
a is a chart. Is a little about lendings, and
the greens are good, I think in the yellows is
the middle, and the blacks are or mis landings. Tell
us what it's like to land on a carry. I mean,
you're the I was amazed by this. Some of the
carriers traveling what fifty knots or something like that, The
runways angled at nine degrees. You could have a pitching deck.
We went up. We saw night operations, which is incredible
(12:19):
when that must be a little terrifying to do that.
Speaker 1 (12:21):
It is. It's what as naval aviators. It's what we're
the most proud of. Because there's our Air Force brethren
are fantastic fighter pilots. There's other pilots fighter pilots in
the rest of the world, and I'm sure they have
wonderful skill sets. That being said, we land on aircraft
carriers and that sets us apart from that F sixteen
(12:42):
or F fifteen guy from the Air Force. It is
it's what we have to do every single time we
come back. And so it was interesting. I remember there
was a study in Vietnam and it had they did
some you know, some senses on the bodies and on
the mind, and the fighter pilots were more they had
(13:05):
more anxiety in landing on the ship at night than
they did in combat.
Speaker 2 (13:11):
That's crazy.
Speaker 1 (13:12):
And because the stress levels, et cetera, you're actually closer
to something bad happening, and so you have to be
able to handle that stress and that environment to continually
do well. So landing on the so this is called
a Greenie board, and we put it up there so
that there is peer pressure. So you walk in the door.
(13:36):
Everybody walks in the door, they look over, they see
the name and they can go it's all My call
sends Guido. It's like, how's Guido doing. Yeah, he's doing.
Oh he might not have done you know, there could
have been Uh. There's this external pressure, an environment, a culture,
a climate that says we're not gonna let up on
(13:56):
each other, putting pressure on each other to continually do
our best, because is it only takes one second not
to be doing your best that something catastrophic can happen.
So it is the most challenging the daytime landings. Ultimately,
eventually you get good at and they get very competitive.
That's very competitive. You want to be the top of that.
(14:19):
That's the top hook, top ten.
Speaker 2 (14:21):
So that's where you got your top hook.
Speaker 1 (14:24):
I was just lucky. But the thing I don't think
it's well the nighttime. If people start saying they feel
comfortable at night, then you gotta worry because that the
nighttime is a whole nother world, and it's getting better
and better. It's more automated now with the new advanced jets.
But if you mentioned my father earlier, you know he
(14:47):
landed on a carrier like this, just with nothing and
still at night. In fact, he did one tour. Is
that what they call the night fighters. So the whole
six months you just flew at night, which is crazy,
But we do that from a strategic perspective because a
lot of the world is not as sophisticated from a
(15:09):
military capability, and so that gives us an advantage. If
we can fight at night and they can't as well,
then that gives us an advantage. So we push hard
to do that. And a typical day on this aircraft
carrier will really start around noon and go to midnight.
It's not as you know, it's not a zero eight
(15:29):
hundred zero seven hundred.
Speaker 2 (15:31):
Being because we were on one of the top levels
and like at twelvel at night there was still landing
on the deck. You could hear the why it is going.
It was incredible.
Speaker 1 (15:37):
Yeah, every night.
Speaker 2 (15:38):
So you saw combat during desert storm and we're sitting
here in the ready room, which is exactly the environment
that you were in before those missions. I'm curious how
did you deal with sort of the fear and the
stress of that, remain focused on the mission and what
were the things that we're going through your mind before
something like that, because that's a very intense environment to peen, isn't.
Speaker 1 (15:59):
It It is? I would give credit to just the
environment of naiv aviation, and I'm sure the Air Force
is like this as well. They have a lot of
experience of doing this, and the way the training environment
works is to prepare you for that situation. And I
make an analogy often about creating muscle memory, and I
(16:24):
think of like baseball, where you're going up there and
you're taking hacks and hacks and hacks and hacks and
hacks all the time as a batter in batting practice
and then during games, so that when you get to
the World Series and it's the bottom of the ninth
and everything's on the line, you have already established yourselves.
(16:47):
You've created that muscle memory, you've created that environment, and
you have a bit of self confidence with you saying
you know, I'm going to be able to go through
this mostly off of muscle memory and repetition, and that
helps you get through the combat stress and landing on
carriers at night, et cetera. Other situations that maybe are challenging,
(17:09):
but that's definitely I felt very prepared. The first time
I was in combat. It was kind of like it
was almost when I came back and landed that I
was like, holy cow, that was my first time I've
been shot at. Versus being shot at and freaking out.
At the time, it was like, nope, I did exactly
(17:30):
what I was supposed to do and was trained to do,
so credit to the training environment for naval aviation. And
then it was after the fact, sitting in the ready
room or on your bunk and going like wow, okay,
that was I can't believe that just happened.
Speaker 2 (17:46):
And do you do you credit that the mental resilience
that you have and sort of the toughness that you have,
do you credit Is that really a result of the training?
Is that will gets you to that DNA? Is that?
Where does that come from?
Speaker 1 (17:59):
Is the heart or the horse? I'm not sure. Do
guys with that capability make it through the program or
does the program help you develop that capability. I think
it's probably a little bit of both. It's probably you
have to have that genetic disposition coupled with the training
(18:21):
environment is going to hone those skills so that you
are ready when you need to be ready.
Speaker 2 (18:28):
So when you prepare for these missions and you're sort
of in your bunk, think you might be fullhand? We
are you preparing to go out and do all of
these exercises? How do you prepare mentally be fullhand? And
do you visualized you specualization techniques? What do you use
to make sure you're going to be successful? You go
through things in your mind? How do you do that?
Speaker 1 (18:48):
Very much so, again, the training environment, it creates this
muscle memory. I keep saying it, but it creates this
comfort level of like how I'm going to prepare for
a flight? We do visualize because we're fighting, we're dogfighting,
we're flying in a ready room like this, there's not
(19:12):
one here, maybe in the back there. We use models
on sticks a lot, and it's too in the briefing
and debriefing. It's to help visualize what it might look
like at a certain aspect, whether you're talking specifically about
dogfighting or even just how you want to fly formation
(19:33):
on somebody else in different scenarios. It helps you look
at something so that when you get up in the
sky you're like, yep, that's what I want it to
look like. And so we do visualize a lot of
in preparation to try to be ready when time comes.
Speaker 2 (19:51):
And this is also that all the debriefs that you do,
so it's just doing it again and again and again.
Speaker 1 (19:57):
Absolutely. Yeah. Debrief is we called the debrief culture. And
I think you know, I speak a lot with companies.
Speaker 2 (20:05):
It's just like continents improvement exactly. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (20:08):
And and the debrief is a is a big, a big,
big part of it. A typical like in the top
gun world. We always make fun of it. We always
get teased about it. Is you'll brief for an hour,
you'll fly for an hour, and then your debrief might
be five hours long.
Speaker 2 (20:25):
That's amazing.
Speaker 1 (20:25):
So imagine that in a culture where I think normally
in business you maybe brief a little, you do something,
you probably don't debrief too much. And it's kind of
hard because you have to have thick skin and you
have to not think it. You can't be personalized. So
(20:48):
a lot of times in the debrief will say, you know,
the blue fighter did a low right hand turn, when
probably it would have been better for the blue fighter
to go knows hi instead of saying, James, you idiot,
why did you go nose low? You got yourself shot.
You should have gone nose high. So there is a
manner in which we debrie that's to try to take
(21:10):
the person out of it. We say, take the who
out of it and make it more about just a
generic concept so that people don't get defensive. Now, owning
the bars and restaurants and other things I've done in
my life, I have realized that we not everybody in
life appreciates constructive criticism. My wife, my kids, my other
(21:37):
employees that work for me. You know, you have to
temper that a little bit because in an environment like this,
we're very much hey, you need to improve this, this,
and this, to try to be better tomorrow, and we
take it that way. You don't take it as a
personal assault.
Speaker 2 (21:55):
This is clearly, if not the most dangerous show and
the one of the most dangerous jobs in the world.
And you've obviously cope with adversity in your life. You
mentioned last night were having diner last night, we were
talking about you know, when you experience a losses on
around you, it sort of inverts your priorities, I think,
is what you said. And how has that impacted your
(22:16):
outlook on life?
Speaker 1 (22:20):
There's a couple of ways. First, I think it it's
very sad because I have lost lots of friends, lots
of friends, over fifty people I know, And so for
an individual, I think, like, if I asked how many
friends of yours have you lost, you probably not that many.
So when it happens, how do you deal with it?
(22:41):
First of all, we go back to being humble. Yeah,
First of all, it makes you humble because that guy
that just crashed and died was a great pilot, and
you put yourself in that position, and you're like, would
I have done any different? Was he just unlucky or
was I lucky? How did that happen? So you evaluate
the mishap if you will to try to improve yourself.
(23:05):
It's also a credit to your friend, you know, so
he doesn't die in vain as they say that. You know,
I'm going to learn something from him, whether it's aviation
wise or just in life. And when you I think
we all get in this situation where the minutia of life, Oh,
(23:28):
I got to fix the doors is I got to
fix the door jam, or I gotta get my car
in to get that happen, or I need this to
write this paper on this one thing. And you prioritize
these things, and then that stuff at the bottom about
seeing your family and going to take that special trip,
and that type of stuff tends to get pushed down,
(23:50):
and the minutia tends to prioritize your life. And then
you lose a close friend. And to me that that's
where inverts that. Right afterwards, you think, hey, life is short.
Got four thousand weeks on this planet. Maybe I don't
want to waste and chase these little things and not
(24:14):
make sure that I concentrate on the bigger, more important things.
As a human being, I only have a certain amount
of time. We don't know how ma long that is,
and so that's where that it inverts. It comes from.
So unfortunately, if it happens over and over and over again,
(24:35):
it is stressful and you have to manage that stress.
I will say when I was young and single, it
was a little bit less. I'm not a daredevil. Most
fighter pilots aren't the movies. And maybe people ask me
all the time, they're like, oh, you must drive motorcycles
(24:55):
like crazy and drive fast cars. I'm like, axe, though
we get enough three in the day to day work
that we're not out there doing this is just a
thrill seeker, and so maybe you're a little bit more
conservative in your personal life. But then I got married
and I felt a little bit more on like close
(25:15):
calls or whatever, like oh, this is now a little
bit different. And then when you have children, it's a
game changer. And then you sit in the bunk on
a ship like this. You'll sit in the bunk after
a close call or after a challenging flight and you
(25:38):
can't help. You should if you're a good human being,
if you're a good father, kind of think about Okay,
that was close. And I remember a friend of my
mom's saying one time to me is like, once I
had our children, we had a baby, and she said,
I hope, Jimmy, I hope you're taking care of Isabella's dad.
(26:01):
That's my daughter. And I'm like, I thought she was
teasing me, like it was like some other day. And
then what you really was meaning is like, once you're
a parent.
Speaker 2 (26:10):
You got to take care of the family.
Speaker 1 (26:12):
Your your job is being a parent, and I don't
want to my kid to not have a dad. And
so you tend to get a little bit more, a
little bit better perspective on handling risk in associated risk.
Speaker 2 (26:29):
But you still have that. I mean, in the time
we know each other, those amazing to me. You always
you're traveling a lot, You're doing fascinating things. You're going
to fund places. I think you said to me yesterday
you had when you were a top guns cea, you
had a propeller on the wall that said fly hard,
play hard or something. Is that right?
Speaker 1 (26:46):
Yeah, it's a kind of a motto. You know, you
hear all the time, work hard, play hard. So I
had one and I made it up and just said,
fly hard, play hard. A course, we're gonna fly hard
because that's our culture. That's we're fighter pilots. We're gonna
we're going to give it all all. But then the
play hard part comes from just my personality is I
(27:08):
like to enjoy life and go out and have fun.
Now that could be playing hard, like doing something crazy,
like not crazy, but like some exotic trip or something
like that, which Excusive Resorts has helped me with, but
it also could be just like relaxing, and playing hard
(27:28):
could be really relaxing in a really nice environment as well.
So we tend to like sprint and then relax and
sprint and relax and sprint and relax. And that's just
the way that I am and my family is, and
(27:49):
I appreciate that lifestyle because it kind of regenerates the battery,
if you will, recharges it. And that's the approach that
we've had, like fly hard and then play hard, fly hard,
play hard, and enjoy life, because again, we don't know
how long we're here.
Speaker 2 (28:09):
It's very true, we don't. So you retired from the
Navy in two thousand and seven, transitioned to civilian life,
stayed in aviation. You're the US race director of for
the Red bull In National Air Races, Coording ninety air races,
which is pretty incredible flight operations and attractions and features Oshkosh,
the biggest aviation event in the world, which is an
(28:29):
amazing feat to coordinate something like that. And then you're
the director of the Brightland Jet team for the American Tour,
and you also directed the most successful North American Tour
of the Red Arrow. So the theme there that I'd
sort of see from that is precision, meticulous preparation, attention
to detail. Talk a bit more about that part of
(28:50):
your life and your career.
Speaker 1 (28:52):
What I like events, I like people. My passions are
aviation and having fun, and so related events is a
natural segue to that as far as leadership and how
to pull those off in a safe manner Because there's risk,
(29:13):
and so when you do an aviation event that's for
the public, there's hundreds of thousands of people watching it
and cameras and everything, you have to be especially cognizant
of the safety aspects, not only from an event management perspective,
but also from a flying perspective. There's extra pressure. You
do something one hundred thousand times no problem, all of
(29:34):
a sudden, the TV is on you in the ads,
extra pressure or there's people watching you. It adds extra
pressure so that we learn in the airshow environment a lot.
The but hands down the way that any of those
things succeeded Red Bull, Brightling, Osh Cosh, any of that
(29:57):
stuff is the team. I was just very, very fortunate
to have rock stars around me, and I was I
was like, maybe, you know, I felt like I was
been her where, you know, on a chariot where all
the horses are running full speed and I'm just kind
(30:17):
of like maybe steering it a little bit. But the
real workhorses, the real studs, were all the people around me,
and I was just fortunate to be, you know, part
of their leadership team.
Speaker 2 (30:29):
So now you're back top gun again. So now you're
back training again at top gun tactless sport. What does
a typical day look like for you? So these are
a typical days and such a thing as a typical day,
I don't.
Speaker 1 (30:40):
Know, it's typical to be a typical okay, right. So
what we've transitioned to in the military, and we we
tried this a lot. I was part of this effort
from the active duty side for a long time is
if you're if you're a fighter pilot and we have
to train you to be a better fighter pilot. You
(31:02):
can do some stuff in the simulator, but some stuff
you have to do airborne. And when you go airborne,
you have to do your tactics, you know, your techniques,
your procedures against a perceived threat, a perceived adversary. So
this adversary is going to act like emulate, simulate, replicate
(31:24):
what a potential threat aircraft in the world might do.
So that gives you better training, and that has to
be airborne. Now, internally to the Navy and the air Force,
we've done that. That's where the whole top gun world
is and top gun adversary a lot internally. Now, when
you do that internally, you you task the military to
(31:49):
provide the pilot, the airplane, the maintenance. You know, there's
a there's a draw on the military, the Navy, or
air Force to supply their own adversary. So ultimately we
created this concept of commercial air services, so industry providing
and there's a couple of companies in the United in
the United States that provide top gun adversary type support
(32:12):
or red air. We say red air Blue is the
the NATO countries. If you will on red as the adversaries.
So we'll go up there and we'll brief in a
ready room just like this, and we'll go up and
we'll fly, and I pretend I'm the bad guy, and
(32:33):
that would be very specific. We talk about three things.
I fly my aircraft, like the simulated aircraft meaning turn, arrate,
turn radius, speeds, et cetera. Whatever weapons system capabilities would
be flown with that. And then what we call threat
pilot mindset, which is I act like the bad guy
(32:56):
the adversary pilot, and so in there technic and their
tactics and stuff like that. So that's a professional adversary
And again kind of a baseball analogy is in batting practice.
I want to show you a curveball. I want to
show you a fastball, a force of four seam, of
(33:16):
two seam. I want to show you a changeup. I
want to show you a knuckleball. So that you see something,
you identify it, you react to it, and then you
hit it. Yep. And so in the adversary world, we'll
go up and we'll show you these different scenarios and
(33:37):
then you see it, you see what it looks like,
you react to it, you hit it, and that's the
kind of the approach so that if in when something
happens in real life, you can say I've been there,
done that, I've seen this before. I'm prepared and I'm
ready to take on this challenge.
Speaker 2 (34:00):
And these pilots you're training the best of the Navy,
these a young servicemen in their twenties thirties, I guess right, yeah,
and they're flying F eighteen's and F thirty five is
the latest and greatest, and you're up there in F
five which was last build in nineteen ninety or something
like that. That seems like a bit of an imbalance
to it. You have forty years of experience on your
(34:21):
side of Yeah, no, it's something like that.
Speaker 1 (34:23):
It's a great it's a great question. And if it
was dog fighting like what we call, you know, in
within the visual range, like turning like that kind of
dog fighting, there would be a significant advantage for the
F thirty five or the F eighteen, or the F
fifteen or the F sixteen. A lot of what we
(34:47):
do now is what we call BBR beyond visual range,
So it's way out here, and there are certain strategies
and tactics and different things, and there's certain things that
are like emanating from airplanes. And so even though we
have an older air frame in the F five, we
have really cool stuff on it that replicates and emulates
(35:12):
and makes us seem more like a potential adversary you
would see.
Speaker 2 (35:19):
And so this is so Lord, it's out of sight?
Speaker 1 (35:21):
Do you get with VR beyond visual range? So do
you get many miles away? Yeah? Yesterday? Oh you did
F thirty five right down the wing? So yesterday two
days ago?
Speaker 2 (35:33):
Okay? Interesting?
Speaker 1 (35:34):
And so that that's because we will.
Speaker 2 (35:37):
Right down the wing? What does that mean? Right there?
Speaker 1 (35:39):
We we merged.
Speaker 2 (35:41):
How close is that?
Speaker 1 (35:42):
Oh? He was pretty far? I mean, but within visual range?
He was, you know, I was telling him, he was
telling me. And so we will do our our training syllabus.
We want to give them all different types of scenarios
against curveball, fastball, et cetera. And we'll say, okay, here
(36:03):
this works, and uh, you know what, I know you
said you shot me, but something different didn't work right.
The missile didn't go off right, the little warhea didn't
go off. Something you got to keep coming, you know,
those types of scenarios. So we give them all the
different scenarios that they could potentially see. So they they
train and they become better fighter pilots the next day
(36:26):
and are better prepared should anything happen.
Speaker 2 (36:28):
And how long are you up for typically doing that?
Speaker 1 (36:30):
It's typically around an hour or so, is.
Speaker 2 (36:35):
Our typical intents I guess.
Speaker 1 (36:38):
Yeah, I'd say it's like taking a final exam and
playing in a rugby match at the same time, because
you when you come back, you are mentally and physically
exhausted after fighting, because you're both mentally because of you're
at one hundred percent focus. You know, you're each finger
does a different action, multiple radios, you're doing your tactics,
(37:04):
you're evaluating their tactics, you know. I mean, there's it's
a lot of stuff that your brain is processing and
so but there's the much like if you go work out,
what is it endorphins or whatever, you have this kind
of feeling afterwards of elation, and flying a fighter jet
(37:25):
is like that. So even though you come back you're sweaty,
you're hot, you're you're exhausted mentally and physically, you're smiling
and you're just like that was cool. Yeah, you know,
then you go to the bar and have a beer
and then I shot, you shot me.
Speaker 2 (37:40):
And so when you train the tech compounds, how many
how many weeks does that last? Is it several weeks
or a few months?
Speaker 1 (37:46):
Well, we do now in this commercial services role, we
do whatever the Navy the Air Force asked us to do.
So we will do the most advanced things to the
most basic training. So when guys first come in and
learn how to fly the F eighteen or the F
thirty five, we will be their adversaries a little bit
(38:08):
more mundane all the way to when an aircraft carrier
like this gets ready to deploy, they have to So
an individual has to get trained, and then a squadron
has to get trained, and then the air wing, the
whole group has to be trained, and then the air
wing with the carrier has to be trained. So we'll
(38:31):
go all the way to any one of those scenarios
where we're playing the adversary role in whatever they're asking
us to do.
Speaker 2 (38:39):
So spatytically, what is that span of time through those
different phases.
Speaker 1 (38:45):
Well, when you're I think the fighter syllabus is like
two or three weeks for an individual just going through
his fighter side. A top gun course could be a
couple months to turn around cycle between an aircraft carrier
coming back from cruise and going on the next cruise
could be a year, year and a half type of
(39:07):
turnaround training evolution, And so we play in all these
different roles and we just do whatever is required of us.
And it's not just taking one guy one squadron from
A to Z. There's many squadrons and many carriers and
many guys and gals all over And we do this
for a week, and then next week we do that.
(39:28):
The following week we'll do that. So kind of back
to your question, what do you do every day? It's you.
It's kind of the same in the sense I go
up and dogfight, but who it's against and what I'm
replicating changes every day.
Speaker 2 (39:42):
Amazing the real Maverick Boys own stuff, isn't he. Yeah,
So I want to go about your father a little bit.
So we were talking about a little bit earlier on,
and so he saw combat in three wars. So he
was in he was in the Second World War, he
was in Vietnam, he was in Korea. And I think
you said you recently found some of his diaries from
nineteen forty to nineteen forty five, and I'm curious what
(40:05):
sort of what was in those diaries? What didn't that
tell you about him? You didn't know?
Speaker 1 (40:12):
It was its fantastic discovery, I would say, And it's
by happenstance in luck, my sister happened to send it
to me. I was fortunate to be able to start
up a squadron down in Key West, Florida, this squadron
right here, Sunday, and my dad was part of the
(40:32):
original Sundowners way back in the early forties during World
War Two, and I was able to start up this
new squadron. I just happened to be in that timing period,
and we were able to convince Navy leadership that we
should resurrect this squadron because this squadron had the Sundowners
(40:54):
had kind of nineteen ninety four kind of gone gone
away with the reduction of force at that time, and
so now it was bringing it back up. And so
they called, and I was their first commanding officer down
in Key West, and they called. The current commanding officer
called and said, hey, Guido, can you come down. A
(41:15):
lot of these guys are new, they don't really know
the history of the heritage, the legacy. Can you come
tell them about how this all started up again, and
I said sure. So I called my sister and I said, hey,
can you go into dad's old stuff and just grab
some of this other, you know, some of this paraphernalia
from his past. And she sent me down this book.
(41:39):
She goes, yeah, some maybe I thought it was like
his flight log book, and so she mailed it to me,
which I give her hard time now because it just
showed up in the mail in a Manila envelope. But
it was his diary from nineteen forty to nineteen fifty.
And a guy's back then, everybody wrote a lot, right,
He wrote letters every day, and he wrote his every
(42:00):
night before he put his head on his pillow, he
would write a paragraph, handwritten cursive, just in his diary.
And it's spectacular. I mean not because it's my father,
but to just look at a twenty two year old
kid who's in a world war and he's writing down
(42:24):
what he sees every day. Oh my gosh, I can't
even believe that. And it's just spectacular. It's things like
even from human things like you know, I got a
haircut by a woman for the first time, you know,
type of thing to Hey, we Bookrie and I were
(42:49):
out on the town and we met two swell gals,
Gloria and Susie. Well, Gloria is missus Booker. I mean
that's like I know her as Missus Booker fifty years later.
And here's this this thing. They to the nable aviation side,
where some things are exactly the same, like this ready
(43:12):
room probably looks exactly the same, these same chairs as
they probably are the chairs that they use back then.
Two massively different things now. And he would like a
classic day for example, as he goes, got up, went
to church. So uh went to church every day, had
(43:35):
three hops, a gun hop, a rocket hop, and a
bombing hop. Played football on the beach. They were forward
deploy in Kahalui uh in Maui and watched the movie
every night. They have a movie. We call it a
roll them because we would do reel to reel. So
(43:55):
in a squadron like this, this is this is the screen.
It will come down so all the pilots. It's kind
of a defragging, kind of relaxing moment. You'll come in here,
you'll watch the movie. Although you'll hear your buddies landing
at night. Who have to land at night that night,
and then he ends with he goes, you know, went
(44:16):
went to church, had these flights, played football, saw a movie,
It's a Wonderful Life with Jimmy Stewart, really good movie.
Lost five planes today, two S B, two c's, two
bear cats. It's literally flip the page next stage. You know,
Smith and Jones, you know, we lost Smith and Jones
(44:39):
or whatever, and you flip the page and then it's
another stuff, and that the amount of crashes and death
is just staggering. If we and today, if we lost
five planes this year, we would stop and say, hey,
we got to reevaluate what's going on? And this was
(44:59):
a day. And then you flip the page and you
see it again and again, and you know, when you
when I talk to him, if if we called him
right now, I say, hey, pop's how you doing? And
He's like, I'm just lucky to be here. And I
always thought that was a shtick that he that he
always said, but then I read his diary and I'm like,
(45:21):
he really is lucky to be here. And if you
ask him, you know, who's the best fighter pilot, he'll
tell you somebody else He won't because he doesn't. He
just really feels fortunate that he survived and that he
was the luckiest person to come back from that. And
you can see that and you can feel it in
(45:44):
this diary. So it's really really a powerful thing and
we feel so fortunate to have seen it. Maybe write
a book or a movie or something someday, because it
was it's not just it's not about him, it's about
every other person during that that era, all our fathers
and grandfathers and mother you know. And then the other
(46:06):
side is they I could see you would write home ah,
and they had to. You had your family and I
don't want to make this sound bad. You had your
family that was very supportive, your mom and dad, your
brothers and sisters, aunts and uncles. But there was always
like the girl, there was a woman right that I
(46:26):
want to come home to them. And I think the
women they were writing because it was their way to
support Yeah, because the effort and in the way that
they best could support it. So it was it's fun
to see that play out in a in a diary
(46:47):
as well. So he's a he's super humble and again
feels incredibly fortunate to be around and uh and reading
this diary makes it all just so.
Speaker 2 (47:01):
He's one hundred and two now, is all right, yeah,
just about, and he's the last surviving sundowner.
Speaker 1 (47:05):
Of Yes, yeah, he's the oldest sundowner on the planet.
So when I brought the squadron back, his was VF
eleven where VFC for compositis and he's the adversary. We're
down in Key West, so it actually has a nice
little logo with the Sundowners because Key West has a
nice sunset. But yeah, so this was the logo my
(47:27):
dad wore on a ship like this in nineteen forty.
Speaker 2 (47:30):
Incredible, incredible story. So in twenty eighteen youre inducted into
the International Aviation Hall Fame for Lifetime Achievements, and your
father was inducted a couple of years later. So he
must have been very proud of you to be inducted,
which is incredible, but you must also been very proud
(47:51):
of him, and you got the challenge to make the
phone call tell me that story. That's incredible.
Speaker 1 (47:55):
It was again I kind of was in the right
place at the right time and feel fortunate, but it
was really special to be able to share that with
my dad, not only from him seeing yeah, he was
proud of me, and I like to make him proud
of me because that makes me feel good. But when
(48:17):
so I got called, they said, hey, this committee says, hey,
we're going to we've elected your father to be inducted
as well, and you're the only father son that we've
ever had. And I thought, and they said, do you
want to call or do you want us to call?
And I said, for sure, let me call if I can.
(48:38):
And so I called my dad and I said, hey,
I got great news. You know, got you You're going
to get inducted in this Aviation Hall of Fame. And
you know, he's like, why me? And I said, why you?
What are you talking about? You have multiple Distinguished Lying crosses,
a ton of air medals, three wars. I mean, come on, pops,
(49:00):
what do you mean? Why you? And and he goes, no, really,
why me? He goes, I'm the luckiest one out of
the bunch. I came home to your mom, had all
you guys as children and grandchildren. You know, don't you
think it'd be better to give this award to one
of my wingmen that didn't make it home?
Speaker 2 (49:19):
Incredible?
Speaker 1 (49:20):
Okay, Now I feel like a gut punch because you know,
when I made it, I wanted billboards and like, hey,
look at me and and h and here he is
just and again, if you go back to that diary,
you're like, I think it's like a survivor's guilt issue.
They're like, he doesn't want to be acknowledged or awarded
(49:42):
something for being lucky because he already feels like he's
got his award. And those guys in that era, that
World War two era, we say, you know, we stand
on the giants that came before us. That is it's
that culture, that mindset that we really really really respect
(50:03):
those individuals, whether it's my father or your father, anybody
else because of that kind of mindset. So anyways, it's
it's great. I have great pictures with him and I
both in uniform that it was just a very spectacular,
very special moment. So it's fun to share that.
Speaker 2 (50:21):
I think it's a It's all credits your humility though
as well, in the sense that you seem more proud
of him being inducted than you being inducted, which.
Speaker 1 (50:28):
Is yeah, which it's fun. We're both fortunate.
Speaker 2 (50:31):
Yeah, So let me switch gas a little bit. So
in parallel with all this. You're an entrepreneur and you
have owned and operated several order winning restaurants, bars and
nightclubs in San Diego. And there's the mayor of San
Diego declared March the sixteenth to meet Jimmy di Matteo
day in San Diego. So tell me about that did duality.
Speaker 1 (50:49):
The day before Saint Patrick's Day.
Speaker 2 (50:50):
So it's a good So, so how do you balance
the duality of fight apartot by day sort of entrepreneur
by we can or what?
Speaker 1 (50:59):
However?
Speaker 2 (50:59):
That was something.
Speaker 1 (51:00):
Well the yin and yang. I think it's the balance
of life again, work hard, fight, you know, fly hard,
play hard. H I actually enjoyed some of the rules
and regulations of the military and is great and some
of them, you know, are a little bit more challenging.
And so when entrepreneurialism there's it's it's all on you, right,
(51:25):
And so balancing the two actually, in my mind, helped
my life a bit. It wasn't just you know, unidirectional
always I could, I could. It's like changing a muscle group.
It's like running and then lifting weights. It's even though
they're both working out, you're you're you're you're doing something
(51:45):
completely different, and so I thought it actually was therapeutic
for me. It was fun and it was therapeutic to
be able to balance both things and they were completely different,
very different. Flying a top gun SORTI versus handling some
night at the bar is a total different world, very different,
but fun.
Speaker 2 (52:06):
So You've accomplished a ton of things in your life.
It's it's a pretty extraordinary career. We have a lot
of young families exact resorts and who I think will
we'll hopefully listen to this. And what can you tell
them about following their dreams and not letting fierce dond
in the way of pursuing their dreams. What would you
(52:26):
tell people?
Speaker 1 (52:27):
I probably what I tell my own kids too, which
is first, you know, I think I think it was
Mark Twain said, find something you love to do and
never work a day in your life. So chase your dream,
(52:47):
whatever it is, and maybe the dream might change. It's
like what you had as a teenager, you know. I
just I'm kind of like I use that analogy of
like when you when you bowl and you have the
bumper guards and the ball just kind of the young
kids will throw it down. It'll just kind of like
that's how my life is. It's just all go in
a direction and it's over here, and you just as
(53:11):
long as you're going down a course, then just keep
following a dream and that dream might change, but just
keep just keep pressing. The other thing I would say, though,
is to make sure you periodically stop and enjoy life.
(53:31):
I think even Bill Gates just said, if I had
to do it over again, I would have throttled back.
Speaker 2 (53:37):
And enjoyed life.
Speaker 1 (53:40):
So I was forced to appreciate that because I lost
a lot of friends and that reset my gyro, if
you will, in my compass. But if I was trying
to advise somebody, I'd say, work hard, but then stop
and relax and play hard. That could be in every week,
(54:02):
you know, five days or four days or six days, whatever,
you know. Our lives go like this. But so you
work hard, but then stop, relax, recharge. That's healthy. It's
healthy for you physically, emotionally, mentally, it's healthy for your
relationships with other people. My family and my friends are
everything to me, so that takes nurturing and that those
(54:27):
down times are when you can you can do that. So,
if I was to advise a younger person, who's like, man,
go for it, absolutely, go for whatever your dream is,
work harder than you ever have in your life, and
then relax, and then go for it and then relax.
Speaker 2 (54:46):
So after all this, what is next with Jim, you mean,
tell you what's coming next? What's done them the whole?
Speaker 1 (54:51):
Well, I mean, I hope. So we're empty nesters a
little bit. Our daughter graduated from college and she's in
the investment bank world, and our sons in college right now.
So for my wife and I will be able to
enjoy some more traveling. We love love traveling, and excuse
resorts offers wonderful options for us. I still am flying,
(55:16):
so that's fun. But then I also have an entrepreneurial bug.
I love. My passions are aviation and enjoying life and
celebrating life. And so I did I'm plugging this now though,
but I'm starting a new vodka brand, a line. So
it's called check six.
Speaker 2 (55:38):
Story behind check six.
Speaker 1 (55:39):
So check six is our saying. We use it all
the time up in the sky to check your six
o'clock check six. So this is twelve, three, nine and six,
and we say that as wingman. We say that as
for fun when we're teasing each other. You say it
in a social setting, you know, check six, look at
(56:01):
the person behind you, et cetera. So it's a it's
a fun aviation fighter pilot kind of slang that we use.
And so check six. You can see the F thirty
five and F eighteen behind me there, so that scenario.
But also you can then check six of the bottle
(56:21):
and I'll have special collections so that if you check
the six of the bottle, there'll be different special collections
of it. So I'll make one for Exclusive resorts.
Speaker 2 (56:30):
It's fantastic. Yeah, check six is the back of the bottle.
In the eighteen on the back of.
Speaker 1 (56:34):
The yeah, and that one. So so it will be fun. Again,
just trying to combine my passions and enjoy life.
Speaker 2 (56:43):
So when can we expect to find this?
Speaker 1 (56:46):
Hopefully soon. I'm it's launching this this summer.
Speaker 2 (56:50):
That's fantastic. Well, I look forward to having a glass
of it when.
Speaker 1 (56:53):
I look forward to cheering with you.
Speaker 2 (56:57):
Yeah. Absolutely, it's been such a play than Thank you
for joining us, thank you for your service, thank you
for being such inspiration, and thank you being such great
Exclusive Results member, and work forward celebrating and traveling with
you in the future.
Speaker 1 (57:11):
Well, I would say thank first, thank you. I would
say that Exclusive Resorts for my wife and I and
our family have been one of the most positive things
that we have done. So I'm really really happy. And
if you're going back to your question about, you know,
with the younger people, like what should you do, one
(57:31):
of the things that I think Exclusive Resorts forced us
to do is take those take those vacations quality vacations
periodically because once you pay for something, you're more inclined
to do it. So it forced us, forced us to
do it one and then the second thing was it
was quality, So do it and do it right. And
(57:54):
that's what Exclusive Resorts has for the last almost twenty years.
So thank you and thank you so much to Excess
for Resorts. It's been it's been a good rideing were
and we're just getting like, what do I ask a thousand.
Speaker 2 (58:11):
Weeks, how do you have more with your DNA with
your father in two hundred You've been like two thousand
weeks there?
Speaker 1 (58:17):
All right, Well, well that's good, we'll work with that.
Thank you very much.
Speaker 2 (58:29):
Since recording this podcast, Jim's father has sadly passed away.
We dedicate this episode the memory of Commander Dominic d Dimiteo,
an extraordinary individual whose life was a powerful testament the resilience, positivity,
and the lasting impact one person can have on other's.
His legacy continues to inspire all who knew him. Stories
(58:51):
like this are a window into what makes the Exclusive
Resorts community unlike any other, filled with members who live
with intention and travel without compromise. With more than four
hundred private residences and curated experiences around the world, the
club continues to redefine the arts of living well. Learn
more at Exclusive Resorts dot com.
We land on aircraft carriers, and that sets us apart
from that F sixteen or F fifteen guy from the
Air Force. It is. It's what we have to do
every single time we come back.
Speaker 2 (00:22):
Welcome to a life well lived, where we pull back
the curtain on the extraordinary lives of our remarkable members.
I'm James Henderson, CEO of Exclusive Resorts. For me, travel
has never been about the destination. It's always been about
the company you keep. Over the years, I've crossed paths
with some of the world's most fascinating, well traveled individuals,
(00:45):
each bound by a singular pursuit to live not just
well but exceptionally. Their stories aren't just worth telling, they're
worth learning from them, because in the end, it's not
about where we go, but how we choose to live.
(01:09):
In this episode, Jimmy Di Matteo, a highly decorated naval
aviator and entrepreneur, shares his incredible journey from flying fighter
jets to building successful businesses. As a former commanding officer
of the Adversary program at Top Gun, Jimmy is more
hours training at top Gun than any other pilot, and
he still instructs a top Gun today. In this episode,
(01:30):
Jimmy reflects on his twenty five year career in the Navy,
where he amassed over five thousand flight hours in aircraft
like the F fourteen and F eighteen and earned accolades
for his precision and leadership. Jimmy discusses the grit, teamwork,
and humility that defined the world of naval aviation and
how these lessons have translated into his civilian life. From
(01:50):
directing events like Oshkosh and managing the Red Bull Air
Racers to opening award winning restaurants and launching his upcoming
vodka brand, Jimmy exemplifies the ethos of fly hard, play
hard with reflections on family, mentorship and the legacy of
his late one hundred and two year old father, who
was also a navel aviation legend. This conversation offers compelling
(02:10):
blend of inspiration, adventure, and the pursuit of excellence. I'm
really excited this week to have jim Di Matteo with
this one of our exclusive Resorts members. I'll ask jim
to introduce himself a little bit.
Speaker 1 (02:22):
Well, thank you, James. Yeah, I'm excited to be here
be part of this podcast. My name is jim Di Matteo.
I'm a proud Exclusive Resorts member but also a proud
naval aviator, so lots of talk about naval aviation.
Speaker 2 (02:37):
It's great to have you on. So I let's start
off with a quote that I read from you, and
you said, my father is my hero and the man
I had my most on the planet. Tell me about
your father and tell me about how he inspired you.
Speaker 1 (02:50):
So yeah, that quote, I've probably said that many times
because he really is my hero, my idol as a
human being, but also as a as a father, as
a nave aviator, as an officer, as a grandfather. He's
really been a big part of my life. He is
(03:12):
still with us at one hundred, just about to turn
one hundred and two years old, so it's a testimony
to his old Italian grit that keeps him going, and
I feel extremely fortunate to still have him in my life.
But the way he and his and my mom raised
us was you know, classic Italian, big Italian family, and
(03:36):
he's just one of those solid guys that never does
just always doing the right thing for the right reason.
And both he and my mom, but especially my father,
I'd say to myself, it's my kind of reality check. Yeah,
is would my dad do this? And if the answer
was no, then I probably shouldn't do it either.
Speaker 2 (03:57):
That's a very cool way to live.
Speaker 1 (03:58):
In not saying that I've always done that, but he's
a good inspiration so and he's made a big impact
on my life.
Speaker 2 (04:08):
So was your father supportive of you being a pilot?
Speaker 1 (04:11):
He was. He was incredibly supportive, but he was also
very cautious. My older brother is also a naval aviator,
and he did not want to dictate or put pressure
on me or my older brother to become naval aviators.
If we chose that path, so be it. He would
(04:32):
be very supportive, but he was no way in this
in the sense of like him pushing us to go
do that. And now that I'm a father, I'm very
very appreciative of that. Because now my son he's got
a grandpa, an uncle, and a dad, all naval aviators.
(04:53):
There could be a lot of pressure. And I'm doing
exactly what my father did to me, which is like, hey,
you you chase your dreams, You do what you want.
If you want to go down this path at some
point in your life, I'll be there to support you,
but don't feel any pressure. So that's an example of
his support for me and that I'm carrying on to
(05:14):
my son.
Speaker 2 (05:15):
I want to come back to your father a bit
later as as we go into this book. So you
spent twenty five years in the Navy, five thousand hours
you've amassed in five different fighter aircraft faighteen, F sixteen,
F fourteen, five, and A four. You were the US
Navy F fourteen Fighter Pilot of the Year, you were
the US Navy Adversary Pilot of the Year, Top Hook
(05:36):
for the best landing grades in aircraft carry, which is
incredibly impressive, Top Training Command Jet Pilot of the Year,
and the prestigious pretann Your award is top Strike Jet Pilot.
What are the skills that help you excel and get
to that level as a fighter pilot.
Speaker 1 (05:51):
Well, first, I think when you list them like that,
I reflect back on it, and there's a lot of
luck and timing and just being in the right place
at the right time. I'm fortunate in aw aviation in
large part, ninety eight percent of the guys and gals
(06:13):
are rock solid aviators and people, so any one of
them could have had that same attribute cast on them.
But I think from a general perspective, what is a
common denominator of somebody who's doing well in aviation. Part
(06:35):
of it, I think is DNA. It's the right stuff.
If you remember that old movie. It's genetic. I don't
know exactly what it is, but spatial awareness, your muscle reflexes,
your attentiveness, your attention to detail those types of DNA
(06:56):
characteristics if you will tend to align with guys and
gals that are doing well in tactical aviation. I think
three D spatial awareness, maybe four D, so it's X,
Y and Z access. But then also you have to
put time and movement in there as well. You can't
(07:16):
really teach those things. People just either have them or
they don't. So part of it is DNA. The other part,
I think is your persistence, your grit, your commitment to
keep going and you know, overcoming adversity and pushing yourself
(07:37):
to continually improve. In aviation, we brief, we fly, and
then we debrief, and in a debrief scenario, it's you
want to call it constructive criticism, I guess, but it's
very very directive to try to improve because the only
thing we're trying to do is be better tomorrow. Than
(07:57):
we were today. So you need that grit, that determination,
that commitment to excellence to keep pushing yourself. So you
get a little bit of DNA, you get a lot
of commitment and you know, grit and persistence and that
user hopefully will result in doing well.
Speaker 2 (08:19):
You and I've known each other for I think just
every year now and developed a very nice friendship. And
one of the things that really struck me when we
first met was your humility. And I had a chance
that you've very kindly arranged about on the Carl Vincent
six eight weeks go. I spent twenty four hours on
the carrier, which was one of the most amazing things
I think I've ever done in my life. It was
absolutely incredible, and here we are in a ready room.
(08:42):
But the cool thing about that was I got to
meet a number of the aviators who were out there,
and I met the XO obviously as an accomplished aviator,
the CEO, And the thing that really struck me about
that was just the fact that these are really authentic, humble,
very thoughtful, very collaborative individuals and nothing like you've seen
(09:03):
the movies, right sort of you think was this level
of arrogance that fight upilots have, but it was nothing
like that. Can you sort of explain a bit more
about that, because I think that also plays into the whole,
you know, the debriefing and the fact that you have this,
you know, this very candid, sort of radical candor when
you you debrief in these environments.
Speaker 1 (09:22):
Sure, so, first, what is our mission? What is our
real goal as NABU aviators? It's for the United States.
It's we're out on an aircraft carrier like this and
we're projecting power. We're doing what our country's asking us
to do, whether it's offensively or defensively. So it's not
about us as an individual. There has to be in
the fighter pilot world and landing on aircraft carriers, you
(09:45):
do have to have a bit of self confidence. You
have to, but that's a balancing act. You don't want
to be overconfident, you don't want to be arrogant. You
need to be a team player. This is a squadron.
This is a squadron ready room, and a squadron is
exactly like a team, a football team, a rugby team,
(10:06):
a baseball team, where it's not about your individual performance,
it's about your collective performance as a squadron so very quickly.
If you are a person that is more concerned about
your own personal objectives and goals, the naval aviation world
(10:30):
will squash you. We won't let people like that get
through because it's not about their individual accomplishments. It's about
collective accomplishments, and so being humble is important. We've seen
too many times this is a very dangerous, risky kind
(10:53):
of occupation, and you can think that you're the greatest
pilot in the world and the ship's going to jump
up and grab you, or something's going to happen. So
we get continually reminded, sadly through misapps and accidents that
nobody's above, nobody's better than than the chance of having something,
(11:17):
you know, bad happening. So it creates a culture of
being a team player and not being an individual. I
got to do my best. That being said, much like
a baseball player you want to have the best batting
average and you know, the zero errors type of approach.
You want to do your best individually, but it's about
(11:39):
the collective team and I think that exudes being humble
and not having a big arrogance, not in the in
here in a bar, maybe you see a little bit
of that, but once you get in here, if you're
if you're arrogant, we'll squash you.
Speaker 2 (11:56):
So so up on the wall behind us here is
a is a chart. Is a little about lendings, and
the greens are good, I think in the yellows is
the middle, and the blacks are or mis landings. Tell
us what it's like to land on a carry. I mean,
you're the I was amazed by this. Some of the
carriers traveling what fifty knots or something like that, The
runways angled at nine degrees. You could have a pitching deck.
We went up. We saw night operations, which is incredible
(12:19):
when that must be a little terrifying to do that.
Speaker 1 (12:21):
It is. It's what as naval aviators. It's what we're
the most proud of. Because there's our Air Force brethren
are fantastic fighter pilots. There's other pilots fighter pilots in
the rest of the world, and I'm sure they have
wonderful skill sets. That being said, we land on aircraft
carriers and that sets us apart from that F sixteen
(12:42):
or F fifteen guy from the Air Force. It is
it's what we have to do every single time we
come back. And so it was interesting. I remember there
was a study in Vietnam and it had they did
some you know, some senses on the bodies and on
the mind, and the fighter pilots were more they had
(13:05):
more anxiety in landing on the ship at night than
they did in combat.
Speaker 2 (13:11):
That's crazy.
Speaker 1 (13:12):
And because the stress levels, et cetera, you're actually closer
to something bad happening, and so you have to be
able to handle that stress and that environment to continually
do well. So landing on the so this is called
a Greenie board, and we put it up there so
that there is peer pressure. So you walk in the door.
(13:36):
Everybody walks in the door, they look over, they see
the name and they can go it's all My call
sends Guido. It's like, how's Guido doing. Yeah, he's doing.
Oh he might not have done you know, there could
have been Uh. There's this external pressure, an environment, a culture,
a climate that says we're not gonna let up on
(13:56):
each other, putting pressure on each other to continually do
our best, because is it only takes one second not
to be doing your best that something catastrophic can happen.
So it is the most challenging the daytime landings. Ultimately,
eventually you get good at and they get very competitive.
That's very competitive. You want to be the top of that.
(14:19):
That's the top hook, top ten.
Speaker 2 (14:21):
So that's where you got your top hook.
Speaker 1 (14:24):
I was just lucky. But the thing I don't think
it's well the nighttime. If people start saying they feel
comfortable at night, then you gotta worry because that the
nighttime is a whole nother world, and it's getting better
and better. It's more automated now with the new advanced jets.
But if you mentioned my father earlier, you know he
(14:47):
landed on a carrier like this, just with nothing and
still at night. In fact, he did one tour. Is
that what they call the night fighters. So the whole
six months you just flew at night, which is crazy,
But we do that from a strategic perspective because a
lot of the world is not as sophisticated from a
(15:09):
military capability, and so that gives us an advantage. If
we can fight at night and they can't as well,
then that gives us an advantage. So we push hard
to do that. And a typical day on this aircraft
carrier will really start around noon and go to midnight.
It's not as you know, it's not a zero eight
(15:29):
hundred zero seven hundred.
Speaker 2 (15:31):
Being because we were on one of the top levels
and like at twelvel at night there was still landing
on the deck. You could hear the why it is going.
It was incredible.
Speaker 1 (15:37):
Yeah, every night.
Speaker 2 (15:38):
So you saw combat during desert storm and we're sitting
here in the ready room, which is exactly the environment
that you were in before those missions. I'm curious how
did you deal with sort of the fear and the
stress of that, remain focused on the mission and what
were the things that we're going through your mind before
something like that, because that's a very intense environment to peen, isn't.
Speaker 1 (15:59):
It It is? I would give credit to just the
environment of naiv aviation, and I'm sure the Air Force
is like this as well. They have a lot of
experience of doing this, and the way the training environment
works is to prepare you for that situation. And I
make an analogy often about creating muscle memory, and I
(16:24):
think of like baseball, where you're going up there and
you're taking hacks and hacks and hacks and hacks and
hacks all the time as a batter in batting practice
and then during games, so that when you get to
the World Series and it's the bottom of the ninth
and everything's on the line, you have already established yourselves.
(16:47):
You've created that muscle memory, you've created that environment, and
you have a bit of self confidence with you saying
you know, I'm going to be able to go through
this mostly off of muscle memory and repetition, and that
helps you get through the combat stress and landing on
carriers at night, et cetera. Other situations that maybe are challenging,
(17:09):
but that's definitely I felt very prepared. The first time
I was in combat. It was kind of like it
was almost when I came back and landed that I
was like, holy cow, that was my first time I've
been shot at. Versus being shot at and freaking out.
At the time, it was like, nope, I did exactly
(17:30):
what I was supposed to do and was trained to do,
so credit to the training environment for naval aviation. And
then it was after the fact, sitting in the ready
room or on your bunk and going like wow, okay,
that was I can't believe that just happened.
Speaker 2 (17:46):
And do you do you credit that the mental resilience
that you have and sort of the toughness that you have,
do you credit Is that really a result of the training?
Is that will gets you to that DNA? Is that?
Where does that come from?
Speaker 1 (17:59):
Is the heart or the horse? I'm not sure. Do
guys with that capability make it through the program or
does the program help you develop that capability. I think
it's probably a little bit of both. It's probably you
have to have that genetic disposition coupled with the training
(18:21):
environment is going to hone those skills so that you
are ready when you need to be ready.
Speaker 2 (18:28):
So when you prepare for these missions and you're sort
of in your bunk, think you might be fullhand? We
are you preparing to go out and do all of
these exercises? How do you prepare mentally be fullhand? And
do you visualized you specualization techniques? What do you use
to make sure you're going to be successful? You go
through things in your mind? How do you do that?
Speaker 1 (18:48):
Very much so, again, the training environment, it creates this
muscle memory. I keep saying it, but it creates this
comfort level of like how I'm going to prepare for
a flight? We do visualize because we're fighting, we're dogfighting,
we're flying in a ready room like this, there's not
(19:12):
one here, maybe in the back there. We use models
on sticks a lot, and it's too in the briefing
and debriefing. It's to help visualize what it might look
like at a certain aspect, whether you're talking specifically about
dogfighting or even just how you want to fly formation
(19:33):
on somebody else in different scenarios. It helps you look
at something so that when you get up in the
sky you're like, yep, that's what I want it to
look like. And so we do visualize a lot of
in preparation to try to be ready when time comes.
Speaker 2 (19:51):
And this is also that all the debriefs that you do,
so it's just doing it again and again and again.
Speaker 1 (19:57):
Absolutely. Yeah. Debrief is we called the debrief culture. And
I think you know, I speak a lot with companies.
Speaker 2 (20:05):
It's just like continents improvement exactly. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (20:08):
And and the debrief is a is a big, a big,
big part of it. A typical like in the top
gun world. We always make fun of it. We always
get teased about it. Is you'll brief for an hour,
you'll fly for an hour, and then your debrief might
be five hours long.
Speaker 2 (20:25):
That's amazing.
Speaker 1 (20:25):
So imagine that in a culture where I think normally
in business you maybe brief a little, you do something,
you probably don't debrief too much. And it's kind of
hard because you have to have thick skin and you
have to not think it. You can't be personalized. So
(20:48):
a lot of times in the debrief will say, you know,
the blue fighter did a low right hand turn, when
probably it would have been better for the blue fighter
to go knows hi instead of saying, James, you idiot,
why did you go nose low? You got yourself shot.
You should have gone nose high. So there is a
manner in which we debrie that's to try to take
(21:10):
the person out of it. We say, take the who
out of it and make it more about just a
generic concept so that people don't get defensive. Now, owning
the bars and restaurants and other things I've done in
my life, I have realized that we not everybody in
life appreciates constructive criticism. My wife, my kids, my other
(21:37):
employees that work for me. You know, you have to
temper that a little bit because in an environment like this,
we're very much hey, you need to improve this, this,
and this, to try to be better tomorrow, and we
take it that way. You don't take it as a
personal assault.
Speaker 2 (21:55):
This is clearly, if not the most dangerous show and
the one of the most dangerous jobs in the world.
And you've obviously cope with adversity in your life. You
mentioned last night were having diner last night, we were
talking about you know, when you experience a losses on
around you, it sort of inverts your priorities, I think,
is what you said. And how has that impacted your
(22:16):
outlook on life?
Speaker 1 (22:20):
There's a couple of ways. First, I think it it's
very sad because I have lost lots of friends, lots
of friends, over fifty people I know, And so for
an individual, I think, like, if I asked how many
friends of yours have you lost, you probably not that many.
So when it happens, how do you deal with it?
(22:41):
First of all, we go back to being humble. Yeah,
First of all, it makes you humble because that guy
that just crashed and died was a great pilot, and
you put yourself in that position, and you're like, would
I have done any different? Was he just unlucky or
was I lucky? How did that happen? So you evaluate
the mishap if you will to try to improve yourself.
(23:05):
It's also a credit to your friend, you know, so
he doesn't die in vain as they say that. You know,
I'm going to learn something from him, whether it's aviation
wise or just in life. And when you I think
we all get in this situation where the minutia of life, Oh,
(23:28):
I got to fix the doors is I got to
fix the door jam, or I gotta get my car
in to get that happen, or I need this to
write this paper on this one thing. And you prioritize
these things, and then that stuff at the bottom about
seeing your family and going to take that special trip,
and that type of stuff tends to get pushed down,
(23:50):
and the minutia tends to prioritize your life. And then
you lose a close friend. And to me that that's
where inverts that. Right afterwards, you think, hey, life is short.
Got four thousand weeks on this planet. Maybe I don't
want to waste and chase these little things and not
(24:14):
make sure that I concentrate on the bigger, more important things.
As a human being, I only have a certain amount
of time. We don't know how ma long that is,
and so that's where that it inverts. It comes from.
So unfortunately, if it happens over and over and over again,
(24:35):
it is stressful and you have to manage that stress.
I will say when I was young and single, it
was a little bit less. I'm not a daredevil. Most
fighter pilots aren't the movies. And maybe people ask me
all the time, they're like, oh, you must drive motorcycles
(24:55):
like crazy and drive fast cars. I'm like, axe, though
we get enough three in the day to day work
that we're not out there doing this is just a
thrill seeker, and so maybe you're a little bit more
conservative in your personal life. But then I got married
and I felt a little bit more on like close
(25:15):
calls or whatever, like oh, this is now a little
bit different. And then when you have children, it's a
game changer. And then you sit in the bunk on
a ship like this. You'll sit in the bunk after
a close call or after a challenging flight and you
(25:38):
can't help. You should if you're a good human being,
if you're a good father, kind of think about Okay,
that was close. And I remember a friend of my
mom's saying one time to me is like, once I
had our children, we had a baby, and she said,
I hope, Jimmy, I hope you're taking care of Isabella's dad.
(26:01):
That's my daughter. And I'm like, I thought she was
teasing me, like it was like some other day. And
then what you really was meaning is like, once you're
a parent.
Speaker 2 (26:10):
You got to take care of the family.
Speaker 1 (26:12):
Your your job is being a parent, and I don't
want to my kid to not have a dad. And
so you tend to get a little bit more, a
little bit better perspective on handling risk in associated risk.
Speaker 2 (26:29):
But you still have that. I mean, in the time
we know each other, those amazing to me. You always
you're traveling a lot, You're doing fascinating things. You're going
to fund places. I think you said to me yesterday
you had when you were a top guns cea, you
had a propeller on the wall that said fly hard,
play hard or something. Is that right?
Speaker 1 (26:46):
Yeah, it's a kind of a motto. You know, you
hear all the time, work hard, play hard. So I
had one and I made it up and just said,
fly hard, play hard. A course, we're gonna fly hard
because that's our culture. That's we're fighter pilots. We're gonna
we're going to give it all all. But then the
play hard part comes from just my personality is I
(27:08):
like to enjoy life and go out and have fun.
Now that could be playing hard, like doing something crazy,
like not crazy, but like some exotic trip or something
like that, which Excusive Resorts has helped me with, but
it also could be just like relaxing, and playing hard
(27:28):
could be really relaxing in a really nice environment as well.
So we tend to like sprint and then relax and
sprint and relax and sprint and relax. And that's just
the way that I am and my family is, and
(27:49):
I appreciate that lifestyle because it kind of regenerates the battery,
if you will, recharges it. And that's the approach that
we've had, like fly hard and then play hard, fly hard,
play hard, and enjoy life, because again, we don't know
how long we're here.
Speaker 2 (28:09):
It's very true, we don't. So you retired from the
Navy in two thousand and seven, transitioned to civilian life,
stayed in aviation. You're the US race director of for
the Red bull In National Air Races, Coording ninety air races,
which is pretty incredible flight operations and attractions and features Oshkosh,
the biggest aviation event in the world, which is an
(28:29):
amazing feat to coordinate something like that. And then you're
the director of the Brightland Jet team for the American Tour,
and you also directed the most successful North American Tour
of the Red Arrow. So the theme there that I'd
sort of see from that is precision, meticulous preparation, attention
to detail. Talk a bit more about that part of
(28:50):
your life and your career.
Speaker 1 (28:52):
What I like events, I like people. My passions are
aviation and having fun, and so related events is a
natural segue to that as far as leadership and how
to pull those off in a safe manner Because there's risk,
(29:13):
and so when you do an aviation event that's for
the public, there's hundreds of thousands of people watching it
and cameras and everything, you have to be especially cognizant
of the safety aspects, not only from an event management perspective,
but also from a flying perspective. There's extra pressure. You
do something one hundred thousand times no problem, all of
(29:34):
a sudden, the TV is on you in the ads,
extra pressure or there's people watching you. It adds extra
pressure so that we learn in the airshow environment a lot.
The but hands down the way that any of those
things succeeded Red Bull, Brightling, Osh Cosh, any of that
(29:57):
stuff is the team. I was just very, very fortunate
to have rock stars around me, and I was I
was like, maybe, you know, I felt like I was
been her where, you know, on a chariot where all
the horses are running full speed and I'm just kind
(30:17):
of like maybe steering it a little bit. But the
real workhorses, the real studs, were all the people around me,
and I was just fortunate to be, you know, part
of their leadership team.
Speaker 2 (30:29):
So now you're back top gun again. So now you're
back training again at top gun tactless sport. What does
a typical day look like for you? So these are
a typical days and such a thing as a typical day,
I don't.
Speaker 1 (30:40):
Know, it's typical to be a typical okay, right. So
what we've transitioned to in the military, and we we
tried this a lot. I was part of this effort
from the active duty side for a long time is
if you're if you're a fighter pilot and we have
to train you to be a better fighter pilot. You
(31:02):
can do some stuff in the simulator, but some stuff
you have to do airborne. And when you go airborne,
you have to do your tactics, you know, your techniques,
your procedures against a perceived threat, a perceived adversary. So
this adversary is going to act like emulate, simulate, replicate
(31:24):
what a potential threat aircraft in the world might do.
So that gives you better training, and that has to
be airborne. Now, internally to the Navy and the air Force,
we've done that. That's where the whole top gun world
is and top gun adversary a lot internally. Now, when
you do that internally, you you task the military to
(31:49):
provide the pilot, the airplane, the maintenance. You know, there's
a there's a draw on the military, the Navy, or
air Force to supply their own adversary. So ultimately we
created this concept of commercial air services, so industry providing
and there's a couple of companies in the United in
the United States that provide top gun adversary type support
(32:12):
or red air. We say red air Blue is the
the NATO countries. If you will on red as the adversaries.
So we'll go up there and we'll brief in a
ready room just like this, and we'll go up and
we'll fly, and I pretend I'm the bad guy, and
(32:33):
that would be very specific. We talk about three things.
I fly my aircraft, like the simulated aircraft meaning turn, arrate,
turn radius, speeds, et cetera. Whatever weapons system capabilities would
be flown with that. And then what we call threat
pilot mindset, which is I act like the bad guy
(32:56):
the adversary pilot, and so in there technic and their
tactics and stuff like that. So that's a professional adversary
And again kind of a baseball analogy is in batting practice.
I want to show you a curveball. I want to
show you a fastball, a force of four seam, of
(33:16):
two seam. I want to show you a changeup. I
want to show you a knuckleball. So that you see something,
you identify it, you react to it, and then you
hit it. Yep. And so in the adversary world, we'll
go up and we'll show you these different scenarios and
(33:37):
then you see it, you see what it looks like,
you react to it, you hit it, and that's the
kind of the approach so that if in when something
happens in real life, you can say I've been there,
done that, I've seen this before. I'm prepared and I'm
ready to take on this challenge.
Speaker 2 (34:00):
And these pilots you're training the best of the Navy,
these a young servicemen in their twenties thirties, I guess right, yeah,
and they're flying F eighteen's and F thirty five is
the latest and greatest, and you're up there in F
five which was last build in nineteen ninety or something
like that. That seems like a bit of an imbalance
to it. You have forty years of experience on your
(34:21):
side of Yeah, no, it's something like that.
Speaker 1 (34:23):
It's a great it's a great question. And if it
was dog fighting like what we call, you know, in
within the visual range, like turning like that kind of
dog fighting, there would be a significant advantage for the
F thirty five or the F eighteen, or the F
fifteen or the F sixteen. A lot of what we
(34:47):
do now is what we call BBR beyond visual range,
So it's way out here, and there are certain strategies
and tactics and different things, and there's certain things that
are like emanating from airplanes. And so even though we
have an older air frame in the F five, we
have really cool stuff on it that replicates and emulates
(35:12):
and makes us seem more like a potential adversary you
would see.
Speaker 2 (35:19):
And so this is so Lord, it's out of sight?
Speaker 1 (35:21):
Do you get with VR beyond visual range? So do
you get many miles away? Yeah? Yesterday? Oh you did
F thirty five right down the wing? So yesterday two
days ago?
Speaker 2 (35:33):
Okay? Interesting?
Speaker 1 (35:34):
And so that that's because we will.
Speaker 2 (35:37):
Right down the wing? What does that mean? Right there?
Speaker 1 (35:39):
We we merged.
Speaker 2 (35:41):
How close is that?
Speaker 1 (35:42):
Oh? He was pretty far? I mean, but within visual range?
He was, you know, I was telling him, he was
telling me. And so we will do our our training syllabus.
We want to give them all different types of scenarios
against curveball, fastball, et cetera. And we'll say, okay, here
(36:03):
this works, and uh, you know what, I know you
said you shot me, but something different didn't work right.
The missile didn't go off right, the little warhea didn't
go off. Something you got to keep coming, you know,
those types of scenarios. So we give them all the
different scenarios that they could potentially see. So they they
train and they become better fighter pilots the next day
(36:26):
and are better prepared should anything happen.
Speaker 2 (36:28):
And how long are you up for typically doing that?
Speaker 1 (36:30):
It's typically around an hour or so, is.
Speaker 2 (36:35):
Our typical intents I guess.
Speaker 1 (36:38):
Yeah, I'd say it's like taking a final exam and
playing in a rugby match at the same time, because
you when you come back, you are mentally and physically
exhausted after fighting, because you're both mentally because of you're
at one hundred percent focus. You know, you're each finger
does a different action, multiple radios, you're doing your tactics,
(37:04):
you're evaluating their tactics, you know. I mean, there's it's
a lot of stuff that your brain is processing and
so but there's the much like if you go work out,
what is it endorphins or whatever, you have this kind
of feeling afterwards of elation, and flying a fighter jet
(37:25):
is like that. So even though you come back you're sweaty,
you're hot, you're you're exhausted mentally and physically, you're smiling
and you're just like that was cool. Yeah, you know,
then you go to the bar and have a beer
and then I shot, you shot me.
Speaker 2 (37:40):
And so when you train the tech compounds, how many
how many weeks does that last? Is it several weeks
or a few months?
Speaker 1 (37:46):
Well, we do now in this commercial services role, we
do whatever the Navy the Air Force asked us to do.
So we will do the most advanced things to the
most basic training. So when guys first come in and
learn how to fly the F eighteen or the F
thirty five, we will be their adversaries a little bit
(38:08):
more mundane all the way to when an aircraft carrier
like this gets ready to deploy, they have to So
an individual has to get trained, and then a squadron
has to get trained, and then the air wing, the
whole group has to be trained, and then the air
wing with the carrier has to be trained. So we'll
(38:31):
go all the way to any one of those scenarios
where we're playing the adversary role in whatever they're asking
us to do.
Speaker 2 (38:39):
So spatytically, what is that span of time through those
different phases.
Speaker 1 (38:45):
Well, when you're I think the fighter syllabus is like
two or three weeks for an individual just going through
his fighter side. A top gun course could be a
couple months to turn around cycle between an aircraft carrier
coming back from cruise and going on the next cruise
could be a year, year and a half type of
(39:07):
turnaround training evolution, And so we play in all these
different roles and we just do whatever is required of us.
And it's not just taking one guy one squadron from
A to Z. There's many squadrons and many carriers and
many guys and gals all over And we do this
for a week, and then next week we do that.
(39:28):
The following week we'll do that. So kind of back
to your question, what do you do every day? It's you.
It's kind of the same in the sense I go
up and dogfight, but who it's against and what I'm
replicating changes every day.
Speaker 2 (39:42):
Amazing the real Maverick Boys own stuff, isn't he. Yeah,
So I want to go about your father a little bit.
So we were talking about a little bit earlier on,
and so he saw combat in three wars. So he
was in he was in the Second World War, he
was in Vietnam, he was in Korea. And I think
you said you recently found some of his diaries from
nineteen forty to nineteen forty five, and I'm curious what
(40:05):
sort of what was in those diaries? What didn't that
tell you about him? You didn't know?
Speaker 1 (40:12):
It was its fantastic discovery, I would say, And it's
by happenstance in luck, my sister happened to send it
to me. I was fortunate to be able to start
up a squadron down in Key West, Florida, this squadron
right here, Sunday, and my dad was part of the
(40:32):
original Sundowners way back in the early forties during World
War Two, and I was able to start up this
new squadron. I just happened to be in that timing period,
and we were able to convince Navy leadership that we
should resurrect this squadron because this squadron had the Sundowners
(40:54):
had kind of nineteen ninety four kind of gone gone
away with the reduction of force at that time, and
so now it was bringing it back up. And so
they called, and I was their first commanding officer down
in Key West, and they called. The current commanding officer
called and said, hey, Guido, can you come down. A
(41:15):
lot of these guys are new, they don't really know
the history of the heritage, the legacy. Can you come
tell them about how this all started up again, and
I said sure. So I called my sister and I said, hey,
can you go into dad's old stuff and just grab
some of this other, you know, some of this paraphernalia
from his past. And she sent me down this book.
(41:39):
She goes, yeah, some maybe I thought it was like
his flight log book, and so she mailed it to me,
which I give her hard time now because it just
showed up in the mail in a Manila envelope. But
it was his diary from nineteen forty to nineteen fifty.
And a guy's back then, everybody wrote a lot, right,
He wrote letters every day, and he wrote his every
(42:00):
night before he put his head on his pillow, he
would write a paragraph, handwritten cursive, just in his diary.
And it's spectacular. I mean not because it's my father,
but to just look at a twenty two year old
kid who's in a world war and he's writing down
(42:24):
what he sees every day. Oh my gosh, I can't
even believe that. And it's just spectacular. It's things like
even from human things like you know, I got a
haircut by a woman for the first time, you know,
type of thing to Hey, we Bookrie and I were
(42:49):
out on the town and we met two swell gals,
Gloria and Susie. Well, Gloria is missus Booker. I mean
that's like I know her as Missus Booker fifty years later.
And here's this this thing. They to the nable aviation side,
where some things are exactly the same, like this ready
(43:12):
room probably looks exactly the same, these same chairs as
they probably are the chairs that they use back then.
Two massively different things now. And he would like a
classic day for example, as he goes, got up, went
to church. So uh went to church every day, had
(43:35):
three hops, a gun hop, a rocket hop, and a
bombing hop. Played football on the beach. They were forward
deploy in Kahalui uh in Maui and watched the movie
every night. They have a movie. We call it a
roll them because we would do reel to reel. So
(43:55):
in a squadron like this, this is this is the screen.
It will come down so all the pilots. It's kind
of a defragging, kind of relaxing moment. You'll come in here,
you'll watch the movie. Although you'll hear your buddies landing
at night. Who have to land at night that night,
and then he ends with he goes, you know, went
(44:16):
went to church, had these flights, played football, saw a movie,
It's a Wonderful Life with Jimmy Stewart, really good movie.
Lost five planes today, two S B, two c's, two
bear cats. It's literally flip the page next stage. You know,
Smith and Jones, you know, we lost Smith and Jones
(44:39):
or whatever, and you flip the page and then it's
another stuff, and that the amount of crashes and death
is just staggering. If we and today, if we lost
five planes this year, we would stop and say, hey,
we got to reevaluate what's going on? And this was
(44:59):
a day. And then you flip the page and you
see it again and again, and you know, when you
when I talk to him, if if we called him
right now, I say, hey, pop's how you doing? And
He's like, I'm just lucky to be here. And I
always thought that was a shtick that he that he
always said, but then I read his diary and I'm like,
(45:21):
he really is lucky to be here. And if you
ask him, you know, who's the best fighter pilot, he'll
tell you somebody else He won't because he doesn't. He
just really feels fortunate that he survived and that he
was the luckiest person to come back from that. And
you can see that and you can feel it in
(45:44):
this diary. So it's really really a powerful thing and
we feel so fortunate to have seen it. Maybe write
a book or a movie or something someday, because it
was it's not just it's not about him, it's about
every other person during that that era, all our fathers
and grandfathers and mother you know. And then the other
(46:06):
side is they I could see you would write home ah,
and they had to. You had your family and I
don't want to make this sound bad. You had your
family that was very supportive, your mom and dad, your
brothers and sisters, aunts and uncles. But there was always
like the girl, there was a woman right that I
(46:26):
want to come home to them. And I think the
women they were writing because it was their way to
support Yeah, because the effort and in the way that
they best could support it. So it was it's fun
to see that play out in a in a diary
(46:47):
as well. So he's a he's super humble and again
feels incredibly fortunate to be around and uh and reading
this diary makes it all just so.
Speaker 2 (47:01):
He's one hundred and two now, is all right, yeah,
just about, and he's the last surviving sundowner.
Speaker 1 (47:05):
Of Yes, yeah, he's the oldest sundowner on the planet.
So when I brought the squadron back, his was VF
eleven where VFC for compositis and he's the adversary. We're
down in Key West, so it actually has a nice
little logo with the Sundowners because Key West has a
nice sunset. But yeah, so this was the logo my
(47:27):
dad wore on a ship like this in nineteen forty.
Speaker 2 (47:30):
Incredible, incredible story. So in twenty eighteen youre inducted into
the International Aviation Hall Fame for Lifetime Achievements, and your
father was inducted a couple of years later. So he
must have been very proud of you to be inducted,
which is incredible, but you must also been very proud
(47:51):
of him, and you got the challenge to make the
phone call tell me that story. That's incredible.
Speaker 1 (47:55):
It was again I kind of was in the right
place at the right time and feel fortunate, but it
was really special to be able to share that with
my dad, not only from him seeing yeah, he was
proud of me, and I like to make him proud
of me because that makes me feel good. But when
(48:17):
so I got called, they said, hey, this committee says, hey,
we're going to we've elected your father to be inducted
as well, and you're the only father son that we've
ever had. And I thought, and they said, do you
want to call or do you want us to call?
And I said, for sure, let me call if I can.
(48:38):
And so I called my dad and I said, hey,
I got great news. You know, got you You're going
to get inducted in this Aviation Hall of Fame. And
you know, he's like, why me? And I said, why you?
What are you talking about? You have multiple Distinguished Lying crosses,
a ton of air medals, three wars. I mean, come on, pops,
(49:00):
what do you mean? Why you? And and he goes, no, really,
why me? He goes, I'm the luckiest one out of
the bunch. I came home to your mom, had all
you guys as children and grandchildren. You know, don't you
think it'd be better to give this award to one
of my wingmen that didn't make it home?
Speaker 2 (49:19):
Incredible?
Speaker 1 (49:20):
Okay, Now I feel like a gut punch because you know,
when I made it, I wanted billboards and like, hey,
look at me and and h and here he is
just and again, if you go back to that diary,
you're like, I think it's like a survivor's guilt issue.
They're like, he doesn't want to be acknowledged or awarded
(49:42):
something for being lucky because he already feels like he's
got his award. And those guys in that era, that
World War two era, we say, you know, we stand
on the giants that came before us. That is it's
that culture, that mindset that we really really really respect
(50:03):
those individuals, whether it's my father or your father, anybody
else because of that kind of mindset. So anyways, it's
it's great. I have great pictures with him and I
both in uniform that it was just a very spectacular,
very special moment. So it's fun to share that.
Speaker 2 (50:21):
I think it's a It's all credits your humility though
as well, in the sense that you seem more proud
of him being inducted than you being inducted, which.
Speaker 1 (50:28):
Is yeah, which it's fun. We're both fortunate.
Speaker 2 (50:31):
Yeah, So let me switch gas a little bit. So
in parallel with all this. You're an entrepreneur and you
have owned and operated several order winning restaurants, bars and
nightclubs in San Diego. And there's the mayor of San
Diego declared March the sixteenth to meet Jimmy di Matteo
day in San Diego. So tell me about that did duality.
Speaker 1 (50:49):
The day before Saint Patrick's Day.
Speaker 2 (50:50):
So it's a good So, so how do you balance
the duality of fight apartot by day sort of entrepreneur
by we can or what?
Speaker 1 (50:59):
However?
Speaker 2 (50:59):
That was something.
Speaker 1 (51:00):
Well the yin and yang. I think it's the balance
of life again, work hard, fight, you know, fly hard,
play hard. H I actually enjoyed some of the rules
and regulations of the military and is great and some
of them, you know, are a little bit more challenging.
And so when entrepreneurialism there's it's it's all on you, right,
(51:25):
And so balancing the two actually, in my mind, helped
my life a bit. It wasn't just you know, unidirectional
always I could, I could. It's like changing a muscle group.
It's like running and then lifting weights. It's even though
they're both working out, you're you're you're you're doing something
(51:45):
completely different, and so I thought it actually was therapeutic
for me. It was fun and it was therapeutic to
be able to balance both things and they were completely different,
very different. Flying a top gun SORTI versus handling some
night at the bar is a total different world, very different,
but fun.
Speaker 2 (52:06):
So You've accomplished a ton of things in your life.
It's it's a pretty extraordinary career. We have a lot
of young families exact resorts and who I think will
we'll hopefully listen to this. And what can you tell
them about following their dreams and not letting fierce dond
in the way of pursuing their dreams. What would you
(52:26):
tell people?
Speaker 1 (52:27):
I probably what I tell my own kids too, which
is first, you know, I think I think it was
Mark Twain said, find something you love to do and
never work a day in your life. So chase your dream,
(52:47):
whatever it is, and maybe the dream might change. It's
like what you had as a teenager, you know. I
just I'm kind of like I use that analogy of
like when you when you bowl and you have the
bumper guards and the ball just kind of the young
kids will throw it down. It'll just kind of like
that's how my life is. It's just all go in
a direction and it's over here, and you just as
(53:11):
long as you're going down a course, then just keep
following a dream and that dream might change, but just
keep just keep pressing. The other thing I would say, though,
is to make sure you periodically stop and enjoy life.
(53:31):
I think even Bill Gates just said, if I had
to do it over again, I would have throttled back.
Speaker 2 (53:37):
And enjoyed life.
Speaker 1 (53:40):
So I was forced to appreciate that because I lost
a lot of friends and that reset my gyro, if
you will, in my compass. But if I was trying
to advise somebody, I'd say, work hard, but then stop
and relax and play hard. That could be in every week,
(54:02):
you know, five days or four days or six days, whatever,
you know. Our lives go like this. But so you
work hard, but then stop, relax, recharge. That's healthy. It's
healthy for you physically, emotionally, mentally, it's healthy for your
relationships with other people. My family and my friends are
everything to me, so that takes nurturing and that those
(54:27):
down times are when you can you can do that. So,
if I was to advise a younger person, who's like, man,
go for it, absolutely, go for whatever your dream is,
work harder than you ever have in your life, and
then relax, and then go for it and then relax.
Speaker 2 (54:46):
So after all this, what is next with Jim, you mean,
tell you what's coming next? What's done them the whole?
Speaker 1 (54:51):
Well, I mean, I hope. So we're empty nesters a
little bit. Our daughter graduated from college and she's in
the investment bank world, and our sons in college right now.
So for my wife and I will be able to
enjoy some more traveling. We love love traveling, and excuse
resorts offers wonderful options for us. I still am flying,
(55:16):
so that's fun. But then I also have an entrepreneurial bug.
I love. My passions are aviation and enjoying life and
celebrating life. And so I did I'm plugging this now though,
but I'm starting a new vodka brand, a line. So
it's called check six.
Speaker 2 (55:38):
Story behind check six.
Speaker 1 (55:39):
So check six is our saying. We use it all
the time up in the sky to check your six
o'clock check six. So this is twelve, three, nine and six,
and we say that as wingman. We say that as
for fun when we're teasing each other. You say it
in a social setting, you know, check six, look at
(56:01):
the person behind you, et cetera. So it's a it's
a fun aviation fighter pilot kind of slang that we use.
And so check six. You can see the F thirty
five and F eighteen behind me there, so that scenario.
But also you can then check six of the bottle
(56:21):
and I'll have special collections so that if you check
the six of the bottle, there'll be different special collections
of it. So I'll make one for Exclusive resorts.
Speaker 2 (56:30):
It's fantastic. Yeah, check six is the back of the bottle.
In the eighteen on the back of.
Speaker 1 (56:34):
The yeah, and that one. So so it will be fun. Again,
just trying to combine my passions and enjoy life.
Speaker 2 (56:43):
So when can we expect to find this?
Speaker 1 (56:46):
Hopefully soon. I'm it's launching this this summer.
Speaker 2 (56:50):
That's fantastic. Well, I look forward to having a glass
of it when.
Speaker 1 (56:53):
I look forward to cheering with you.
Speaker 2 (56:57):
Yeah. Absolutely, it's been such a play than Thank you
for joining us, thank you for your service, thank you
for being such inspiration, and thank you being such great
Exclusive Results member, and work forward celebrating and traveling with
you in the future.
Speaker 1 (57:11):
Well, I would say thank first, thank you. I would
say that Exclusive Resorts for my wife and I and
our family have been one of the most positive things
that we have done. So I'm really really happy. And
if you're going back to your question about, you know,
with the younger people, like what should you do, one
(57:31):
of the things that I think Exclusive Resorts forced us
to do is take those take those vacations quality vacations
periodically because once you pay for something, you're more inclined
to do it. So it forced us, forced us to
do it one and then the second thing was it
was quality, So do it and do it right. And
(57:54):
that's what Exclusive Resorts has for the last almost twenty years.
So thank you and thank you so much to Excess
for Resorts. It's been it's been a good rideing were
and we're just getting like, what do I ask a thousand.
Speaker 2 (58:11):
Weeks, how do you have more with your DNA with
your father in two hundred You've been like two thousand
weeks there?
Speaker 1 (58:17):
All right, Well, well that's good, we'll work with that.
Thank you very much.
Speaker 2 (58:29):
Since recording this podcast, Jim's father has sadly passed away.
We dedicate this episode the memory of Commander Dominic d Dimiteo,
an extraordinary individual whose life was a powerful testament the resilience, positivity,
and the lasting impact one person can have on other's.
His legacy continues to inspire all who knew him. Stories
(58:51):
like this are a window into what makes the Exclusive
Resorts community unlike any other, filled with members who live
with intention and travel without compromise. With more than four
hundred private residences and curated experiences around the world, the
club continues to redefine the arts of living well. Learn
more at Exclusive Resorts dot com.
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