Justin "Hasard" Lee: @JustinFighterPilot

Our guest this week is an aviation Youtube star and F35 Pilot that not only has explored how fast, but how high he can fly! In this episode, Justin "Hasard" Lee takes us through his journey of becoming an F35 fighter pilot for the Air Force, going supersonic, the centrifuge, and G-lock. Justin is an avid educator, and he gives us his pointers on better decision making, the importance of a good debrief, and Jose and I just cant help but to teach Justin a little something about helicopters! School will be in session at the end of the episode, where we will talk about how to perform a good debrief, and how doing one can benefit you as a pilot. Thanks for listening! 

Episode Transcript

Unknown (00:02):
You're listening to the forever on the fly podcast
What's up AV nerds. Welcome toepisode number nine of the
forever on the fly podcastnoumenon noumenal. Do you
remember that Beatle song? Yeah,it's absolutely it's kind of a

(00:23):
weird song. But welcome everyoneto your bi weekly dose of
aviation inspiration, educationand of course, entertainment.
I'm one of your hosts Dianedollar.
And my name is Jose.
We're here to get you guyshooked on aviation. So really
exciting thing happened theother day. I got my first pop up

(00:46):
IFR clearance to land inPalomar. Oh, yeah, I did. I did
dope where I've been flying alittle bit more fixed wing out
of Long Beach and I was with myfriend. He and I were trying to
land on Palomar and it was IFRat the airport, all the sudden
little marine layer move rightin, which was really exciting. I
mean, they made they made ushold it felt like a million

(01:07):
years. You know, when you'regoing towards the final approach
path, and they just haven'tvectored you to intercept it
yet, and you'regonna publish gold or one that
they made up? No, I wasn't evena
whole they just kept back duringus in different headings. And we
were literally just doingcircles. And but yeah, every
single pass, it was like we weregetting closer and closer to the

(01:29):
final approach path. Man, theystill haven't vectored us to
intercept that yet. We're gonnabe holding your forever. And
yeah, lo and behold, everysingle time just straight
through the dude, one of thoseguy gonna let us in. But I mean,
because everybody was gettingpop up clearances because all of
a sudden it was IFR. But it wasreally, really cool, you know,

(01:50):
experiencing actually flyingthrough the clouds to land where
I'm like, wow, I actually haveto remember, I need my
visibility. I need the airportenvironment in sight and normal
approach to landing your minimumnever actually had to almost fly
down to the minimums to landsomewhere. So that was like,
That was so cool.
That's pretty cool.
That was pretty cool. Yeah, andtaking off and like punching

(02:13):
through the cloud layer andgetting on top. I have this
video on my Instagram. Gettingon top of the clouds there at
the beach. Oh my gosh, it wasjust, it was gorgeous. Yeah, it
looks like you're just playingin the heavens. I know. It's
kind of like don't go towardsthe light. No, it was it was
really, really beautiful. Butanyways, guys, that was my

(02:36):
recent experience. So that waspretty exciting,
and just wanted to share nowthat's pretty cool. Yeah, I
think that's pretty badass.
Our next guest is a YouTubestar, an F 35 fighter pilot that
probably has had a lot moreexperiences punching through the
clouds than I have. And not onlyhas this guy explored how fast
but how high he can fly. In thisepisode, Justin hazard li takes

(03:00):
us through his journey ofbecoming a fighter pilot in the
Air Force, what it's like to gosupersonic his experience with
the centrifuge, and G lock.
We also go into his tips forbetter decision making the
importance of good debriefs andwe also get to teach him a thing
or two about helicopters.
School will be in session at theend of the episode, we're going
to go over very briefly how toperform a good debrief and its

(03:22):
benefits.
If you enjoy the show, we alwaysappreciate your love your
subscriptions, your downloadsyour comments and reviews. Love
you guys and thanks forlistening in. Let's get started.
Justin hazard bleep.
Went through Mach 1.6. The wholething was rattling. It was like

(03:43):
hazard Li and I'm forever on thefly hazard welcome. So love your
YouTube channel. I spent all daywatching every single video on
your YouTube channel. And let metell you, I learned so much
was awesome to hear. Thanks,Diane for having me. It's a real

(04:05):
pleasure. And yeah, I've beenhaving a great time making those
YouTube videos. Hopefullythey've been improving a little
bit.
For sure. I like the mock techone that you had.
Oh, yeah, just released that onetoday. So like what's it like to
go supersonic in a fighter andspoiler alert? It's nothing you
can tell at all when you'regoing supersonic. I mean the

(04:25):
people on the ground? Definitelycan but you can't.
Yeah, gotta hold your eardrums.
Crazy. Yeah, we've done a coupleof interviews so far. Like we
were talking about before westarted rain waters super cool
to talk to pilots like you guysas being helicopter pilots. Like
we fly airplanes sometimes, butnot a lot. And it's just opening
our eyes to this whole otherworld of aviation that you know,

(04:48):
we've never been a part of. Soit's really cool to learn about
that and we're excited to bringthat knowledge to our listeners.
Yeah, if anybody hasn't checkedout his YouTube channel has
Certainly, just in fighterpilot, he's got a lot of really
good information there. Ifyou're out there and you want to
fly for the Air Force, and kindof want to weed through a lot of

(05:08):
the BS that's out there online,that's kind of hard to navigate
people like you who are puttinga really simple, very good
information videos out there isvery, very useful to great
resource. So check him out thereon YouTube. Can you tell us a
little bit about the route thatyou took your career? Where were
you stationed? Have you beendeployed a lot in your career?

(05:29):
What is it like being a fighterpilot for the Air Force?
Yeah, sure. So I went to the AirForce Academy in Colorado
Springs, and graduated fromtheir 2009 and went to pilot
training in pilot training, youfirst fly the T six, which is a
it's like 1100 horsepower, highperformance prop plane aircraft.

(05:50):
And it's, it's a blast, it's alot of fun to fly. From there, I
went to fly the P 38. supersonicjet trainer built back in the
50s. It's, it's, I have a modelof it, but I guess this is just
audio only. So it's built backin the 50s. Really aerodynamic
small engines. So it's highspeed handling capabilities,

(06:11):
pretty good, but terrible lowspeed handling capabilities. So
unfortunately, a lot of peoplehave died trying to learn how to
land that aircraft, flew out forsix months when and flew the F
16. Learn how to fly that outhere in Phoenix, went on to
Korea. So flew the F 16. Block40 out in Korea, for about a

(06:32):
year and a half, went to ShawAir Force Base in South
Carolina, and learn to fly the F16. Block 50 doing the Wild
Weasel missions. So thesuppression of enemy air
defense, where you're taken outsurface to air missile sites,
deployed to Afghanistan and2016. And then got slapped him
to fly the F 35. came out hereto Luke again to learn how to

(06:55):
fly the F 35. And now, I'm aninstructor and I'm in the
reserves. So I'll be stayinghere for quite some time.
Oh, wow. So tell me about the F35 transition, when you went
into it? Was it something thatyou always wanted to do? Like
good, you always want to flythat 35? Or was it just
something that you just kind offell into, and I was like

(07:16):
available for you in the AirForce.
So I would say I went to a redflag in 2015. And so red flags
are these big exercises that theAir Force does. And we invite
everybody from all over theworld there. And it's pretty
cool to see like, we'll fly upinitial, and you'll look down
and it's almost like an aircraftcarrier just packed with

(07:38):
aircraft. So it's awesome. And Ilanded, and that was taxing to
my parking spot. And they werelike to f 35. And they just
looked weird. The pilots hadcarbon fiber black helmets. And
I was like, that's, that'spretty cool. And they got a
chance to fly in a couple ofthose exercises. And I realized

(08:00):
that the F 35 is the future. Andso from then on, I was like, I
definitely want to fly the F 35.
And put that down as my numberone pick to Luke Air Force Base
in Phoenix and fortunately gotit. Awesome. And when you did
the training for it. I know yousaid it was a single seat
aircraft. Essentially, you werejust in the simulator at
imagine, like for the most partand then your first flight was

(08:22):
actually in the aircraft byyourself.
Yeah, your first flight is anaircraft by yourself.
You got the instructor out thereon the wing.
Talk to you all nottoo bad, especially for
experienced fighter pilots. Butin 2018, we started having brand
new pilots from you know, up atundergraduate pilot training

(08:47):
showing up and you can see, youknow, they were a little bit
nervous about transitioning fromthe T 38. Which is just, you
know, maybe like a, I don'tknow, a couple million dollar
aircraft with like 4000 poundsof thrust. I think those numbers
are probably off to the F 35 topremier fighter $100 million
aircraft, and they're learninghow to fly it, you know, by

(09:09):
themselves the first time now wedo a lot of simulators. Park
simulators are great. We startoff with like a month or two of
academics, and a month or twosimulators. And, you know,
simulator technologies good nowwhere it really prepares them
for that first flight,where there are a lot of
performance differences betweenthe F 16 and the F 35. Is it

(09:30):
really superior to the F 16. Andyour and your experience so that
35You know, it gets a bad rap in
the media, but that's because wewere doing prototypes. So
normally when you have a new jetaircraft, you'll build like 10
of them and just fly the wingsoff of them. Figure out all the
bugs start production. Butwithout 35 we did something

(09:53):
called concurrency where wecollapse the timeline. And so we
knew those Initial aircraftwould have some bugs. And we're
gonna have to go back and fixthose. But what it gained us was
a few years on the timeline. Andso those initial jets, they had
some issues. And when I came outhere, I've learned how to fly on
some of those some of those jetsand they had some issues. But

(10:15):
since 20, oh, man, this jet hasskyrocketed. It's kind of like
your phone, like, we got asoftware update to our jet. And
overnight, you know, everythingwas better unlocked the gun, we
could pull nine G's, all kindsof different things like that.
So it's really softwaredependent, and that 35 has just

(10:35):
grown by leaps and bounds injust the last few years. But
it's a lot more capable aircraftin the F 16. In terms of
learning how to fly it, youknow, in large part that 35 was
derived from the F 16. So a lotof the controls are the same, it
really feels pretty comfortableto a f 16 pilot. Now the buttons

(10:55):
do a lot more things. So it'slike you know, the Hotez hands
on throttle and stick onsteroids. And I can remember, it
would take me about five secondsfor me to translate my brain
because I was experienced, I wasan experienced fighter pilot, so
I knew what I wanted to do. Butit would take me about five
seconds to go from speaking, F16 in my brain to actually, you

(11:17):
know, flying F 35. And it tookme about a year to, to really
develop that muscle memorybecause at the speeds we fly,
we're averaging closure rates ofa mile every three seconds. And
so five seconds is a long time.
Wow. Man, Iwas fast. Yeah, that's an
understatement.

(11:38):
Yeah, 150 knots the other day,it was like point zero remark?
Oh, my bad guy. No,no, no, it's okay. I was just
out his plan. Go ahead.
So when you were talking about,like some of the problems that
it had initially, I rememberreading about it, when it first

(12:00):
came out. And some of thepilots, I don't know if it's
true or not, we're blacking out.
Or there was a, I think, a leakin their oxygen system. Yeah, no
bogs. Yeah. That stuff. And theywere talking about it being over
budget, and all that. But like,in your experience, like
blinding the aircraft, you saidit's like night and day from

(12:22):
like, the first prototypes tonow. So clearly, they got that
all fixed.
Yeah, I mean, that 35 is a newtechnology. So like any new
technology, it takes time todevelop, it's called the
technological S curve. And, Imean, we're probably all similar
age. So thinking back to theWalkman, remember, when the CD

(12:44):
player came out, like, it wasgarbage, it had zero second, and
I skipped protection, I rememberbeing on the bus having to hold
that thing perfectly still, andskipping $100. But over time,
they were able to, you know,work out bugs. Yeah, that was
just in time for what was nextthe iPod, and iPod, same thing

(13:05):
it could, it was reallyexpensive, the battery died, all
kinds of different things andstreaming music came about. So
that's like that 35. It's a newtechnology, it takes some time
to work out all the bugs. Andalso, we're kind of shifting in
how we fight it. So this happensevery 2030 years. So if you go
back to the jets in the 50s, and60s, it was all how high and how

(13:28):
fast you could go. So they allwanted to go like 60,000 feet,
Mach 2.0. And then there was aguy named John Boyd, who I would
encourage people to read hisbook about him. And he was like,
No, it's not how high and howfast you can go. It's how
tightly you can turn sustainthat term, excuse all the F 16

(13:48):
be developed from that. Andsince 2005, it's really been
another shift to fifthgeneration platforms, where it's
about stealth, it's about havinggreat sensors, sensor, fusion,
all kinds of different thingslike that, which, you know, it's
tough at like an airshow toshowcase how well an aircraft
can network. But it's it isimportant.

(14:10):
What does that mean? How well anaircraft networks just for
people who are listening whomight not know what that is,
including me, like how wellthey all talk together? So, I
mean, I think the smartphoneanalogy is really good because
somebody might say, Oh, myscreen size is bigger than, you
know, your cell phone screensize, but it's about like, you
know, how it connects to theother phones. You know, if you

(14:32):
have an iPhone, it's about likethe ecosystem where you can just
like AirPlay things and do allkinds of different things like
that. So the Jets talking toeach other and being able to
talk to other types of aircraftas well. And that's awesome.
Yeah, absolutely. Being able tocommunicate, that's one of the
most important things becausethat's a misconception that a
lot of the keyboard warriorshave is that flying fighters is

(14:56):
like A cage match or somethinglike MMA fight where you're
sending out an F 35. One F 35versus, you know, another enemy
aircraft. But it's not, it'smore like a football team. So
you have different players fordifferent roles. And it's about
how well you integrate togetherand communicating is a big part

(15:17):
of that.
The F 22 and the F 35. I know,they're both stealth fighters.
But what is the biggestdifference? I guess, between the
two? Because they're both when Ithink came out, like in what
2006 2010? Because around thetime you came out,
yeah, when IOC in like, 2005,right? initial operating

(15:41):
capability.
Yeah. And then, like, I knowthat they opened up to being
able to sell the F 35 to some ofour allies, but they haven't
done it with the F 22. As justis that just because of like,
certain technology that we'rekind of keeping to ourselves,
or, but what's like, the mainpurpose for that.
So back when the F 22 came out,it was like a piece of alien

(16:02):
technology, like it just bleweverybody away. It was amazing.
And the F 35. Now, I think hasyou know, they have point to
what it's designed to do is togo in and be an air air fighter
and to dominate out there. Sothey had actually come up with a
new term air dominance, insteadof air superiority. You know, as

(16:24):
an F 35 pilot were the newpitchin platform. So we like to,
you know, make fun of the theRaptor pilots and legacy. The
real thing is, we're more air toground based. We are they're,
they're they're highly biasedtowards air air. So we really
need when we're going in.
Yeah, okay, that makes sense.
You guys are just moremultifaceted, I guess, in that

(16:46):
sense. Yeah. Sweet, man.
So yeah, you mentioned thedevelopment of F 16. F 35. Is
really was revolving around likehow high how fast. Now we're
going into how tight it can turnand how long you can sustain
those G forces. Have you everread the book? Jonathan
Livingston, seagull?

(17:07):
No. I mean, that soundsfamiliar, though.
Yeah, by a guy named RichardBach. And he was an F 84. Pilot,
I believe. Yeah, he wrote this.
Like, it's like a children'sbook. About a seagull who is
tired of you know, the normalday to day life of a seagull is
just to fly just to get food,but he wanted to see how high
and how fast he could fly. Andhe reached different heights and

(17:30):
different universes. And it'sactually it's a really cool
book.
What's it called again? I'mgonna write it down.
Jonathan Livingston Seagull.
Yeah, it's freaking great.
Definitely, I can introduce thatto your kid. When they when he
gets older. So cute, by the way,adorable. Congratulations. On

(17:51):
yourbaby. It's it's been it's been
amazing to be able to see himgrow. And you know, it's it's
cool to see how kids learn a newthing every day. So it's, it's
been really life changinglittle sponges. Yeah. So how
high and how fast Have you flownspeaking of that,
so that's 16 is service ceilingis 50,000 feet. Big can go

(18:16):
higher. But as a as a pilot,they don't want us to go higher.
Because if we have a rapiddecompression, we can black out.
You can also get the bends. Sosomething scuba divers are
familiar with. So generally50,000 feet is a service ceiling
unless you're wearing like apressure suit or spacesuit. So

(18:38):
I've been up to 50,000 feet. F16. I can remember the fastest
I've ever gone was in Korea,over the Yellow Sea going Mach
1.9, which was pretty fast,especially because those jets
that were flying, were built inthe late 80s. So going through
Mach 1.6. The whole thing wasrattling. It was like a movie.

(19:01):
And you know if anything happensat one point, you know, six
o'clock. That's because velocitysquares, it's like 300 times the
force of sticking your hand outat 80 miles an hour. So you
stick your hand out of the car.
Great Britain do quite a bit.
This is 300 times that so youreally can't eject buddy out 1.9

(19:24):
Mach, which is I don't knowmaybe 1500 miles an hour. Man,
you got to really trust yourequipment. Yeah. Wow.
maintainers Big shout out tothem. They have amazing job
there. They're really thehardest workers out there and
they're, you know, it takes like10 hours of maintenance for
every one hour we fly so they doa lot of work on them.

(19:48):
I would have been tapping onyour shoulder to slow down on
the same thing, I'd be like bro,bro, slow down.
Wait, what? So what was thepurpose? You're just out there
testing it? Or what would be thereason to fly that fast? I mean,

(20:08):
other thanYeah, so typically, we don't fly
that fast at all. This was alike, FCF jet. So a functional
check flight. So they hadswapped out the engines, and
they need a pilot to do a bunchof stuff. And the last step is a
max speed run. And I was like,You got it.
Wow. So what a sick, that issuper crazy. But what's the

(20:29):
limiting factor for how fast youcan go out there structural
damage that can be done? If youpush it to a certain point?
What's the VAT on that thing?
Yeah, so it's Mach 2.05. So Iwas trying to get there, I
couldn't. So I took it up to50,000 feet, Max afterburner,
got up to about 1.4 Mach, andthen bunted over 1015 degrees

(20:50):
nose low, and the speed wastaken up, I went through that
often at 1.6, Mach 1.9,everything smoothed out, was
pretty, pretty cool. You know,usually, you're just really busy
on these missions. But this wasone of those cases where like,
kind of time felt like it sloweddown. And notice like heat
coming, you know, from thecanopy. And so I took my hand

(21:12):
off the throttle, it had like aNomex glove on it. And I could
feel heat coming from the canopyfrom the air resistance. So I
was I was going to bout I thinkaround 780 knots, because it
changes from Mach 2.05 to an 800not limit. And that generally

(21:33):
happens around 35,000 feet so ifI had kept on going I would have
over over speeded it from aknock perspective.
Dang. Man, I couldn't evenimagine just like your the
aircraft like shaking violentlylike that you feel like it's
gonna fall apart. But you pushedher and you said that it's it
started smoothing out once yougot to a certain point, huh?

(21:54):
Yeah, 1.9 everything smoothedout. And I think 1.6 is kind of
like a known resonance node.
Also these aircraft are old. Sothey've been overjoyed,
especially like asymmetric overG's can cause you know, some
variants like that. So yeah, at1.9 Everything smoothed out.
And that sounds like a magicalmoment. Like you're going really

(22:18):
fast. But everything slowlynotice is your fuel is rapidly
decreasing. Like I looked over,and it was showing 50,000 pounds
an hour was my fuel flow becauseI was in Max afterburner. And
you know, the jet, you know,there's a clean jet, it only has
7000 pounds of gas. So and Istill had to go back home and
have a, you know, buffer there.

(22:41):
So, yeah, we only have a fewminutes and afterburner. And so
I took it out of afterburner tomiddle power, which is maximum
non afterburner setting. And Iremember the air resistance from
before it and locked my shoulderstraps. And it actually took me
like 50 miles to slow down belowthe Mach. Wow.

(23:01):
Did you ever do the nine G's onthat aircraft on the F 35? Have
you pushed it that hard?
All the time? Yeah, more so thanF 16. But yeah, that 35 is rated
to nine G's. And yeah, that's,that's a crazy experience to
pull nine G's no matter whatplatform you're in. Because
right now I weigh about 210pounds 240 With my gear on at

(23:25):
nine G's, nine times the forceof gravity that's over 2000
pounds of force just crushingyou into your seats. You can't
even lift your arms, you're juststuck. And but that's, that's
why we have the Hotez hands onthrottle and stick, we can do
everything, just, you know, youknow, glued to our seat. But the
real issue is you can have a Glock G induced loss of

(23:46):
consciousness, that's where theblood has been pulled out of
your brain, into yourextremities, and if you lose
enough of it, it can make youpass out. So if you pass out,
it's gonna take about 2530seconds for you to wake back up.
And at the speeds we fly, we aregoing to impact the ground in
about 10 to 15 seconds. Sounfortunately, we've lost quite

(24:06):
a few pilots toG locks. Have you ever almost
passed out beforeI have. So when you are pulling
G You're the first thing youlose is your peripheral vision
so it kind of shrinks down to bythe time you're at nine G's it's
like looking through a toiletpaper roll and most of the time
I'm fine so we have to we were Gsuits so you got to make sure

(24:27):
your G suit is fitted properly.
You got to make sure you'rehydrated so just being 3%
dehydrated can reduce your Gtolerance time by 50%. So
staying hydrated so yeah, therehave been a couple sorties where
I just have not been feelingnine G's and so you know just
eased up and the thing you don'twant to do is fight through it

(24:49):
and end up you know, killingyourself through a G lock. And
that's scary.
That's because I get so sorryyou guys do that a whatsapp
machine where you guys are intesting and you're in Yeah,
yeah,that if that isn't fun, we have
to do that generally twice inour careers once the fly the T
38. And that's the that I thinkit's like seven G's and then
wants to fly the F 16, or F 35,nine G's. And you know that that

(25:13):
sucks. Because you're in thislike, little pod, you have no
control over it, and they'rejust spinning you to death. And
you get the liens in there. Whenit slows down, you feel like
you're tumbling. And becauseeverybody is going through this,
the thing smells like vomit,because people throw it. So
you're trying to do all this.

(25:36):
And you know, while you're feellike you're tumbling. Oh, you
know, you're smelling vomit?
Oh, heck no.
Oh, you got on that? See? Andwhat about like now?
Because if you fail, I thinkthey give you one more chance.
And if you fail that, thenyou're out and fly.

(25:57):
If you throw up in there, do youfail? 35? If you throw up in
there do did they fail? You?
Know,you just you if you push if you
throw up and you push through itand get on you be the next
person?
How do you how do you tell themto stop? You're probably like
glued to your seat. You're justlike to just be like, no safe

(26:18):
word, this littlemonkey in there. And they're
just spinning. So it's, I mean,they're talking to you. Yeah,
they'll do it for like 30seconds and then ease down. And
then they'll they'll talk youthrough what you're doing good,
what you're doing bad. They'redifferent profiles, one where
you're looking over yourshoulder, all kinds of different
things like that. Butfortunately, I haven't had to do

(26:38):
that. Since 2011.
Wow. Do your classmates see aswell? Is there like a big
window? Everybody gets Oh, yeah.
Oh,yeah, Buddy is looking at you
making fun of the way you look.
I can remember our class wentthere. And there was a colonel
so in Oh, six. I think if you'reout of the jet for more than

(27:00):
five years, you have to go backfor a recall. And there's this
experience, badass fighterpilot. And he looked like he was
about an inch away from justpassing out. And so we were
like, oh, geez, you know,hopefully that's that's not us.
Oh, geez, no, nobody Iclean that jugs of beer.

(27:23):
Oh, yeah. Fortunately, none ofus passed out. But yeah,
everybody is just watching you.
And if you go on YouTube, rightnow, you can type in like ci g
locks, G loc. And you can see abunch of people that are passing
out and you do the funkychicken. So you pass out they
stop the centrifuge, and thenyou're just like twitching as
you wake up. So you don't wantto wind up on a highlight reel

(27:45):
like that?
Did I get when? If somebody doesfail? Do they get the
opportunity to supply somethingelse? Are they entirely out of
the flight program?
No, they get a chance to flysomething else. So they a lot of
money and time have gone intodeveloping them and they're good
pilots, they just can't handlethe G's. So they'll go and buy

(28:06):
something else.
Like a like a tanker C 17.
Something like that. Yeah, somesomething like that. And what
about the rotor pilots that youguys have? Are those just washed
out? jet pilots?
I don't know. We never see them.
So we wanted to go through pilottraining. We just split off
paths. And we never talk again.

(28:28):
So I don't know what happened tothe it's it's pretty
prestigious. A lot of peoplewant to fly helicopters. So they
go and do their what you guysdo. So I have no idea. You know
how you fly helicopters, butthey go and learn how to do
that. And then we never hearfrom them again.
Now I hear Yeah, it's just like,I know that compared to

(28:51):
essentially the Air Force as awhole branch. I know you guys
have few of you does not meanlike your forte. Like well, we
don't havetoo many, too many helicopters.
It's not compared to you know,the army or
you keep saying the wordafterburner. And a lot of our
listeners might not know whatthat is. I got to learn what

(29:12):
that was today through one ofyour YouTube videos. During our
interview with rain waters, hementioned that a couple times
and I just nodded along like Oh,after Britain that sounds crazy,
you know, but I didn't actually,you know, ask the question. What
is afterburner and what whenwould you use that?
Yeah, so the engines on ouraircraft are low bypass turbofan

(29:33):
engines. They work similar tothe way airliners do. They're
just skinnier because when we'regoing supersonic, that's a ton
of drag. So we want to make surethat they're skinny. The real
difference is on the back sidesof the backside. We have an
afterburner, or reheat if you'reBritish. And so what we do is,
so when the exhaust comes out,it's still has 50% of the

(29:55):
oxygen. That is a normal air sowe can do something with that.
So what we do is We spray you onthere and we light it off and it
creates like a 30 foot flame outof the back of the jet. And it
produces a lot of thrust. But italso rapidly decreases your
fuel. So it's an efficient, butit's, it's it's like boost

(30:16):
got so that you want you'd wantto use that when you have
limited, you know space to takeoff or when you just need that
extra, get away from your enemy.
Get someone behind your nicehaircut. Get whoever's behind
you a nice haircutor the dust. So yeah, we'll use
afterburner for those takeoffs.

(30:42):
Sometimes, so it depends, youknow, we'll load up these jets
even though they're highperformance aircraft, we'll load
them up with all kinds ofdifferent things. And sometimes
we need afterburner to be ableto take it off. Or if it's a
short runway, or sometimes likebeing, you know, in the desert,
whether it's the Middle East, orhere in Phoenix, we have really

(31:02):
high density altitudes, whichI'm sure you guys are really
familiar with. And so we'll useafterburner to take off and then
anytime we want to max performthe jet will will use
afterburner.
And for all of our listeners outthere who are non pilots, I know
we have a couple of them, I wantto make sure that not everything
sounds like gibberish in thispodcast. So really quick

(31:23):
definition of density altitude,so that you know what Hazzard
was talking about here. densityaltitude, very simply put is our
pressure altitude, which is ouraltitude adjusted for non
standard pressures, adjusted fornon standard temperatures and
humidity. So as pilots, we needto know where our aircraft is

(31:44):
performing. And the hotter theday is like if we're flying in
the desert, like Hazzard wastalking about, we're going to
get high density altitude, ourair, our aircraft is going to be
performing as if it's at ahigher altitude because the
temperatures are hotter and theair is less dense. And on a
colder day, we're going to getbetter performance, those air

(32:06):
molecules are really closetightly together, and we're
going to get better performanceout of our aircraft. So on the
higher density altitude days,that afterburner is going to be
really useful when you need thatextra kick of power in order to
get airborne.
Feel like you guys are the onesthat need afterburner when
you're at high altitude tryingto land, I wish some of that

(32:26):
boost, right,it'd be so nice. Yeah, we both
flew in the Grand Canyon. Sowe'd get temperatures up to 120.
Yeah, plus, sometimes, and I wasvery power limiting. I did all
my flight training in Prescott,Arizona, so that 8000 feet, da
all the time and a little 180horsepower. helicopter that was

(32:47):
really, really challenging tolearn to fly up there. But it
was definitely, it was a greatplace to learn because of that,
it really helped teach powermanagement, and how to work that
yeah, low power is more scarythan having too much power. So I
did a little bit of flying, Iwanted to teach my wife how to
fly like small civilianaircraft. And so we took a

(33:10):
Cessna to Sedona, and, you know,that was one of the scariest
things up there with those highmountains, like no power, you
know, that 16 F 35, you get intotrouble, just like the
afterburner, you're fine. Butthose those smaller aircraft,
you know, you can put yourselfin a square corner.
Yep, I'm sure it's really easyto do that, especially if you're

(33:32):
used to flying really highpowered aircraft, and then you
go into something that's lesspowerful, you have to be really
careful when you're going tothose high density altitude
airports for sure. And like theAugusta that we fly, we have a
limiter on it, that will limitthe amount of torque that we're
allowed to pull. But if you findyourself in, like a hairy
situation where you need todemand more power, or more

(33:55):
torque, in order to not hit theground, there's a limit override
button that you can push thatwill allow you to go over that
go past that limit that it's setat, in order to hopefully
prevent a hard landing. Andhopefully it won't completely,
you know, ruin your transmissionor cook the engine. And anyway,

(34:16):
but at least we have that if,you know, we need it as an added
safety feature, which is nice,you know, the F 16 was similar
to that. So that 16 We had a maxpower switch, and we got that
from that 15 and the F 15. Backin the 70s was kind of, you
know, we were fighting theSoviet Union. And so we wanted

(34:37):
our technology to be better thantheirs. And so we wanted a MK
2.5 fighter and so the F 15 Theyput a max power switching so it
could just barely get to Mach2.5. But, you know, afterwards
they would have to completelytake apart the engine and fix it
because it would be you know,basically, you know overspeeding

(34:57):
And so we took that in F 16. Wecopied that 15 panels and so we
had that max power switch and Iwas always it was wired shut,
but I was always tempted to tosee what that's
like turning the camera off inthe aircraft feel like bubble

(35:21):
gum up thereto maintenance guy like, safety
water on it back now know whathappened I was pre planning it
just wasn't thereOh, that's right, that's right
pays to you know, have a man onthe maintenance team that that's

(35:42):
got your back. So one subjectthat always seems to come up on
our interviews is ADM oraeronautical decision making.
And one video I particularlyliked particularly like that was
very simple that you put outthat was tips for better
decision making. And somethingthat really stood out to me,
which I think on the civilianside, we really lack on is the

(36:04):
debrief is one of thesuggestions that you made. So
you said that in the military,you spend anywhere from two to
what six hours,we spent a lot of time
debriefing, so we'll just flyfor generally about an hour and
a half is, is how much fuel wehave unless we're refueling in

(36:24):
the air. And we come back andyeah, we we debrief for a long,
long time. And that's becausewe're doing tactics, so we're
trying to do something againstan adversary. And so we'll we'll
assess, like, did we doeverything correctly, and
usually it comes down to thethree errors, it comes down to
an assessment error. So youknow, that could be not

(36:46):
listening to the radio. Soprioritizing something else, and
then I missed a radio call, orcould be I wasn't looking at my
radar when I should havebecause, you know, the bad guy
was on there. So it can be anassessment error, it can be a
decision error. So we have a lotof tactics. So they're kind of
like plays in a NFL playbook. Sowhen we see something, usually,

(37:08):
there's a tactic that'sassociated with that. And so
we'll choose the correct tactic.
And sometimes there's some smallmodifications, audibles that
you'll make. And then the lastthing is executing, so making
sure that you are doing thattactic correctly. And so we try
to isolate the issues into thosethree buckets. And yeah, we
spend a lot of time debriefing,but I think anybody can apply a

(37:32):
little bit of debriefing, Ithink, the vast majority of
people don't do any debrief. Andfor me, all I need are three
good things, three bad things.
That's that's kind of what I dowith students, because that's,
that's what I do on the F 35. Iinstruct students. And so at the
end of the debrief, I come upwith three things that they did
well, and three things that theyneed to work on. And I think

(37:54):
that applies to flying fighters,that applies to helicopters,
probably, it applies to me withmy YouTube videos. So after each
video, I'll just write downthree things I do, well, three
things I need to work on. Andfor
the most part, I mean, so far inmy career have mostly flown
small to medium helicopters,that that only require a single

(38:17):
pilot, and I haven't really hada job where I require a crew to
be on board. So the debrieffalls solely on me to not be
lazy at the end of the flightand to do the debrief with
myself. And there's no realformal procedure of me doing
that. It's basically just makingmental notes in my head about
the things that maybe could havebeen done better. If I fly with
another pilot, I think, youknow, Jose and I flew together

(38:40):
the other night. And, you know,we had a situation where we
were, it was nighttime, we werecoming into land at a helicopter
pad at nighttime, and wecouldn't see where the wind was
coming from. But notice that wehad 30, not groundspeed coming
in, I'm like, Whoa, we got totell and bro. So you know, we
boarded the landing and wentaround and change the direction
that we were coming in. And, youknow, when we landed, we're

(39:02):
like, okay, you know, maybe nexttime, it wouldn't be a bad idea,
especially at nighttime to do aloop around, maybe try to find
the wind sock with a searchlight, if we can. It's one of
those things were you know, wefind that pad almost every
single time we fly and thewinds, I would say 99% of the
time come from one direction,because we're by the beach. So

(39:23):
you know, it does they usuallyare when they're usually pretty,
pretty steady. And then once ina blue moon, they'll be coming
from the north, and it's a very,very rare occasion. So we get
used to coming in the same way,the same way, the same way. And
that redundancy is what's gonnabite you in the butt some day if
you don't stay vigilant duringyour flight. And helicopters

(39:45):
come with their own set ofhazards for coming in with a
tailwind that you don't reallyhave an airplane I mean, you
definitely do have hazards in anairplane coming with the
tailwind but for a helicopteryou can get in what they call
settling with power So that'sinterchangeable with vortex ring
state unless you actually getinto the nitty gritty of it. And

(40:05):
without getting into too muchdetail because we're not going
to spend a ton of time on this.
But vortex ring state isbasically when the helicopters
main rotor desk gets engulfed inits own board to seize and start
settling into its downwash,which has definitely been the
cause of many helicopter hardlandings slash accidents. So
that's something definitely tobe aware of, of knowing where

(40:27):
the winds are coming from.
Is that what happened with thebin Laden raid the helicopter
that crashed?
Yeah, very similar. Yeah. So atleast from what I read, you
know, the aircraft came into thecompound, the border, Cesar
bouncing off the wall, kind ofgot into its own wash, and kind
of settled inside its ownborders. He's in there. Yeah.

(40:49):
Yeah. Yeah. His father, NavySeal and room one. I'm like,
damn, there goes our ride. Oh,no, what happened was,
so I saw a couple donkeys backthere.
Sorry, it was it was a USaircraft. I didn't even know

(41:12):
about this. It wasduring the bin Laden raid, they
had a few helicopters that youknow, dropped off two seals. And
in the compound they have like,could be wrong on the number,
but it was like a 15 foot wall.
Something like that. Like,pretty, pretty big, like, pretty
big wall compound. Yeah. And theaircraft came in in the middle

(41:35):
of the compound to drop off likethe seals. But like I said, from
what I read, it sounded like thevertices kind of like we're
getting pushed off to the walland coming back up.
So yeah, you learned something alittle bit about helicopters.
You guys kind of know what wedo. You guys fly. You know,
planes. At least part time. Ihave no idea really how

(41:57):
helicopters work.
That's just PFM man. Fuckingmagic. They don't want to fly.
You're kind of forcing.
HopefullyI'm staying away from them.
Because it probably means Iobjected. And I am being
rescued.
Right, exactly. Oh, my gosh. Youprobably don't want to see what

(42:20):
you're right.
I feel like in any pilotscareer, we've all had really
embarrassing moments that havestood out that we've looked back
on and we're like, oh, man, thatwas embarrassing. Do you have
any of those moments?
super embarrassing moments?
Couple over G's, especially whenthe F 35 wasn't up to nine G's.
Couple over jeez. But that wasthat was pretty common. So that

(42:45):
wasn't, that wasn't too big. Iwould say one funny story that I
have this. So I was, you know,deployed to Afghanistan. And we
have something called a D fac. Idon't know what it stands for,
but it's our crappy area. And soI was fine in the middle of the
night. And so I would havedinner Dinner would essentially
be my breakfast. So I haddinner. And it was like footlong

(43:08):
hotdogs, but it was like gross.
But you know, you gotta eat,you're gonna be in there for six
hours. So you know, eight,eight, at the D fac. Then went
and flew my sortie. And that washundreds of miles away. I was in
the Helmand Province, executingmission. And I just started
feeling terrible. And I waslike, Man, I feel kind of sick.

(43:31):
I think I'm gonna throw up. And,you know, once I had that
thought I was like, Oh, I'mgonna throw up and you're, I'm
in a single seat F 16. And mywingman who's doing stuff, but
we're on a mission. And so I waslike, oh, no, and I was
carrying, we carry flags forpeople in plastic bags. And so
that was in my helmet bag. Andso I took out the flag put in my

(43:51):
helmet bag, and then I justthrew up into this plastic bag.
And it wasn't designed. It's youknow, I don't carry vomit bags
because I never throw up youknow, I'm fine. You know, after
flying. However many times I'veflown in F 16. And so I threw up
into this and like filled it upwith just gross. And this bag

(44:14):
isn't designed as a vomit bag.
So it doesn't have like the topI can't I can't tie it. So I
just leave it in my lap. Youknow kind of scooped and you
know finish finish out the restof the mission. Oh, my God, that
was not fun. And you know, Iguess I guess the guys probably
gave me a little bit of hardtime.

(44:38):
I can't tell you how many hazardI got named sorry. No, I just
said I was I got the callsignhazard in 20 2011 this was this
was 2016 by Definitely not agood feeling and to have to

(45:01):
finish the mission and you're300 miles away from from any
help. Oh,that's awful. Yeah, that sucks.
Now,they said, I used to tell my
passengers when I was fine inthe Grand Canyon, that there was
$1,000 cleanup fee for peoplethat puked in the helicopter,

(45:21):
there, there wasn't 1000 I wouldI was like those in the $1,000.
You know, I don't know if youguys read the fine print. But
there's $1,000 cleanup fee. Soif you have to puke puke in like
the bags that we have like that.
And if you can't you can that godown a shirt? A shirt? That, uh,

(45:43):
yeah, I just remember. I didfeel bad that they did do it in
their shirt. But at the sametime, I'm like, I don't want to
clean that up.
No, we don't have people forthat. That's the pilots job,
you're going in there, likego up because it's gonna sound
terrible. I mean, that's whatthe eighth guys say aircrew
flight equipment due to theincentive fliers. So, an F 16.
We replied, some people in theback seat. So usually those who

(46:04):
are like maintainers, they weredoing really well. Or sometimes
they be local leaders. And sowe'd find them the back seat.
And every single one of themfelt terrible afterwards,
because it just something thatthe body's not used to. And like
I would say, almost all most ofthem threw up, but all of them
felt awful after half an hour,hour and a half flight in the

(46:26):
back of an F 16.
Get thatand my safety briefing in the
canyon. I would always be likeso who had fun on this trip last
night. Like, like, Okay, you'regonna hold this bag? Is a bag
free? Yeah, what a bag for youand a bag for you. Yeah, I
didn't take any chances. I thinkthere was only maybe two times

(46:48):
that someone didn't make thebag. And it was literally we had
a helicopter down at the HooverDam. And we offered three minute
tours. Three minutes, literallythree minutes, six minute and 10
minute tours, or we literallyjust kept the thing running. And
people would come in, you'd findthem literally to take off. You
do like a little loopy, comeback and you'd land it was like

(47:09):
40 bucks. That's for like, justfamilies who are driving, you
know, back to I don't know,wherever they're going.
Where this this was in. Where'sVegas?
Yeah, Hoover Dam,right. You find it. You're not
getting on the carnival rideside as well. It's like we're

(47:30):
not doing this.
Dude, when we got put at the damfor the day, it was just like,
No, we I'm gonna I'm gonna tellmy wife. I know, too.
But, uh, but you're right, man.
I'm glad you didn't do it.

(47:53):
For people who have never beenin a helicopter and can't
afford, you know, 200 $300ticket to go to the Grand
Canyon, and they can afford a$40 ticket for their kid to go
up. Like it was. I mean, it wascool. It really was it was it
was cool for that. You know,families that just couldn't
afford to, you know, they hadsix kids or whatever, you know,

(48:15):
and everyone gets to go, youknow. So that was cool for that.
But yeah, I had a woman throw upall over herself on a three
minute tour. We I like landed,set it down. And she just was
like, right, just right on theseatbelt all over herself. And I
was like, really? I believe. Iwent down, set it down. And she

(48:39):
does, right. Didn't think onagreement at territory that that
would be possible. But yeah, wehad
a fan player who was like, I amnot going to feel good on this
ride. And so I kept it underthree G's the whole time. So
like, really, you know, docileflight. And yeah, she was just
like puking in the back. So Ifelt bad for actually the worst.

(49:03):
And this wasn't something that Igave. But in Korea, we used to
do something called Hot pits. Sowe would take off we go do a
mission, come back, still leavethe jet running, stay in the
cockpit. They would hook up,fuel to it, refuel, go fly
again. And so we do somethingcalled fam flight. So there's a
difference. Incentive flightsare just for you. So it's like

(49:27):
you're coming in and I'm like,hey, what do you want to do you
want to go see this that, but wedo a lot of fam flights where
they're long for the ride. Andso you know, they feel sick.
They're stuck back there. And soI remember being the wingman for
one of these rides. And so we goand do a mission we come back
and we're waiting in the pits.
And I look over and there's themy flight leads fam writer and

(49:48):
like she's just like lookingterrible, just like sleeping in
the backseat just from beingsick. And she had to go through
the whole thing again, so I feltterrible. Bad for
oh, no, man. Yeah, girl. Yeah.
Well, speaking of family, howhave you found being a fighter
pilot in the Air Force and howyou've been able to balance that

(50:11):
with your family life? I know.
Now you have a baby and abeautiful wife and and you now
are doing your reserve? Or you,you fly for the reserve. So I'm
sure that lets you be home alittle bit more, obviously. How
have you been managed to balancethat up until now?

(50:33):
Yeah, well, speaking of family,I'm going to have to go check on
my son pretty soon. Bye. Noworries. Yeah, it's, it has been
a challenge. And it's been toughto be able to prioritize, doing
watching him, you know, flying,doing all these other things
that I'm doing as well. So Ithink it's been challenging. And

(50:55):
I'm still learning, the best wayto do that. And for me, joining
the reserves was was the bigone. So joining the reserves, I
get to stay here at Luke. AndLuke is in the calf bass combat
airport space, combat air forcebases, those are the ones on the
frontlines. That's like Korea.
That's like Shah, those are thebases I was at before, you're
working 12 hours every singleday. Here, it's a little bit

(51:18):
less, it's like, you know, eightto 10 hour days, still still
pretty busy. But being areservists I fly last summer
only part time. So I can kind ofadjust my schedule to to be able
to take care of take care of myfamily, especially since my wife
works full time. So she's aproject manager. She's really

(51:39):
busy. She's actually helpingwith the warp speed. COVID COVID
Roll up. So Oh, yeah, she'sdoing important stuff. And so
yeah, I think joining thereserves really suits us and
will be able to allow me toreally, you know, spend time
being a father.

(52:00):
Man, yeah, I have a few friendsthat are pilots, or Air Force
pilots in the reserves, and theythink they love
it. They would say it's the bestdeal. I feel like this is
literally the best deal in theAir Force. There's only like, I
would say 10 of us total in theAir Force. So 10 reservists at
35 pilots. I'm guessing on that,but not many. And it's awesome.

(52:24):
I fly a couple times a week andthen can spend time with family.
Wow. Sounds like a sweet deal.
Well, I'll let you go. Check onyour kid. And thank you so much
for joining us. It's been such apleasure meeting you and hearing
about all of your experiencesand your expertise. And so thank
you so much for coming on theshow and keep doing what you're
doing. If everybody again, checkout his YouTube channel. Check

(52:47):
him out on Instagram just infighter pilot. Yeah, so thank
you so much, man.
Well, thanks, Diane, this was athis was a lot of fun. And I
actually learned stuff as well.
So I really think you guys areputting out a good product. And
thanks for having me on. And itwas nice. Meeting you as well.
Jose,you too, brother. Thank you,

(53:08):
Anna. Yeah, congrats oneverything in your family
brother. I was so pumped that Igot to hear a lot of your stuff.
Because, yeah, I like that. 35.
All right, brother. Well, youtake care yourself. Yeah,
I say. And what a wealth ofinformation that guy is. I
seriously, I learned so muchfrom him on his YouTube videos.

(53:31):
Lots of I just really didn'tknow about. I mean, being a
firefighter, not being a fighterpilot myself. I wish I was one
maybe in another life.
If I were to fly any type ofairplane, there would be like
the word hawk. Talking about810. No, though. Yeah, we've
talked about that before. Yeah.
Stand by that. I stand by that.

(53:55):
Pretty intense. And but yeah,well, let's, let's talk about
the interview here. We talkedabout a good debrief.
Yeah. You know, I think having agood debrief is critical as far
as you just doing it on your ownas a pilot, or you as an
instructor, talking to yourstudents. Whatever the case is,

(54:18):
having a good debrief,essentially, is a good way to
communicate things that werepositive things that were
negative along your flightmission. Totally. So just
building on that and pointingout the certain things that you
can improve on, I think can go along way.
All right. All right. All right.
What more can we learn about thedebrief? I know it seems like
we're beating a dead horse here.

(54:41):
But there are a couple thingsthat we can still talk about. So
what does a good debrief do forus? Of course, it's going to
help us minimize future mistakesand become the ultimate
qualified pilot that we allstrive to be. We're all human,
we make mistakes. So first ofall, you To commit to being 100%

(55:01):
honest with yourself in thedebrief. And this can be for
your eyes only no one else hasto see this. This can be for
your own performance and yourown improvement. So how can you
perform when it can be in yourhead, which is usually what I
do. But a more effectiveapproach would be to write it
down and keep a flight journal,which actually I think I'm going

(55:23):
to strive to do and it's goingto be one of my goals is here,
I'm going to start a journal.
Start by simply asking yourselfquestions about how you felt the
flight went, you're doing andhow'd you think the flight went?
Oh, you know what, I think itwas pretty well, a couple things
that could have done better.
Let's try to do that better nexttime, etc, etc. You can also
structure it a little bit more,you could pre write yourself a
debrief form, be objective,don't get emotional about it and

(55:46):
give yourself a fair assessment.
So one thing that Hazzard didthat was a really good idea was
to just write three things downthat you think went well, and
the three things that you thinkcould have been improved on
during your flight, or don't youknow, do it makes you feel like
a free woman or man, but do whatyou can to fly safe out there.
Love you guys. Thanks forlistening. Thanks, again to

(56:08):
hazard for being there for ustoday. And have a great rest of
your week. We'll catch you in afew weeks. Bye