So There I Was

This is what happens when you put a Navy Tomcat legend behind a camera and let him tell the story his way. Heater takes us from KC-135 tanker ops with that infamous hard hose, to the kind of “how’d-you-do-that?” plug where he’s steady on the basket and still managing to grab photos mid-refuel. Then we pivot into Top Gun lore from someone who was actually there: the “Star Wars on Earth” in more ways than one;...

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Episode 190 is what happens when you hand the mic to Captain CJ “Heater” Healy and then just try to keep up. Heater takes us from a childhood obsession with WWII airplanes to roller-coaster “G-training,” to flying—then teaching—at the highest levels of naval aviation. Along the way, we hit the $10 “Mexican Justice of th...

In this week’s episode of So There I Was, Ike joins us with stories so wild they make the Quigley, Beirut, and Cherry Point weather sound like minor inconveniences. We open with Ike casually mentioning that he once found himself upside-down over the North Atlantic at night — because of course he did. From growing up under the Nashville approach path to being choked in boot camp for laughing, to nearly “smoki...

B-2 stealth bomber test pilot Sparky joins So There I Was to explain why the world’s sneakiest bomber still can’t go direct to Liberal, Kansas without a paperwork migraine. From “switches up, auto missile, eat a sandwich” bomb runs to 24-hour missions fueled by go-pills, honey buckets, and a hacked-together cot, he walks us through life in a jet built for nuclear armageddon but terrible at simple IFR. Then w...

Strap in, because Sparky’s ride from the C-17 to the B-2 is basically the aviation version of “What could possibly go wrong?” — except when everything did go wrong, and somehow nobody died. We open with Sparky nearly spearing aPassenger Airliner 737 at FL280 when the T-38’s pitot-static system decided to take the day off. That set the tone. Next, he walks us through dropping flares directly onto a detainee c...

So There I Was dives into the UPS MD-11 crash, compressor stalls, and why some jets are “varsity airplanes.” Fig kicks things off with a flaming T-45 compressor stall story, then we walk through what we know so far about the UPS MD-11 crash, V1 decision speed, startle factor, and why “no fast hands” can literally save your life. From tail tanks and induced drag to cargo-pilot zombie sleep schedules, yo...

Six Marines. One table. Zero chill. This round-robin mayhem starts with a Harrier pilot fishtailing toward a hover pad in Iwakuni, Japan when a yaw reaction-control literally comes loose and starts “helping” at random. From there, we spiral into why conventional landings in a Harrier are a last resort, how “taking the jog” at Cherry Point doesn’t mean going for a run! Then we chat about what happens when you...

Jedi’s back—and the brake-check lesson starts before the beers do. An F-4 slides into rainy Pensacola, our hero reports “good braking,” and a brick-built Marine promptly edits his vocabulary: “It’s poor.” Decades later, that same Marine reappears—through Jedi’s son. Aviation is a small world with a loud voice. From there, we ricochet through cockpit lore: a British captain freeing stuck throttles by axe-murd...

Allyn Hinton, Marine and Army aviator, joins So There I Was for a wild, first-person tour from low-level Huey recons over Da Nang to Blackhawks in Desert Storm. In this Allyn Hinton interview, he relives a smoke-grenade surprise that flushed eight guys from a bunker, a foot chase through a dry rice paddy, and a med-evac detour that out-prioritized a Korean officers’ trip to LZ-3! Then we leap to carrier qual...

Nose pointed at a rock wall, rescue specialist on the skid, rotor wash bouncing off granite, and then—power loss. Abort! Welcome to the world of helicopter rescue with Double D, Arizona Department of Public Safety pilot and systems operator. He’s pulled climbers out of box canyons, rescued the stranded, recovered the fallen, and somehow lived to tell the story with gallows humor intact. Pete and Sticks dive ...

Helicopter search and rescue takes center stage as DPS pilot Darrell Detty walks us through hair-raising missions, near-misses and small-town chases that feel like action movies with rotor wash. From a 50-foot hovering autorotation, governor failures and a frantic stolen-car pursuit that ends in a live carjacking rescue, to talcum-dust LZs and a barbed-wire fence that almost kissed the skid, this episode ble...

When a 21-year-old warrant officer thinks he’s bulletproof, fate (and a very determined round of enemy fire) impolitely disagrees. In this episode we ride shotgun with Cobra 3-1 — from Duluth misadventures and Playboy Clubs to flight school horrors, hovering triumphs, and the day a bullet turned a routine racetrack into a near-fatal last stand. He survives being shredded through his legs, gets stitched up by...

Two Marines-turned-airline-pilots go full hangar-talk: first solo flight stories (equal parts terror and triumph), Harrier hover witchcraft, and why unstable approaches demand the magic words “unable” and “go-around.” We compare squadron life to airline ops, decode FOQA, MD-11 bounce-landings, porpoising, and laugh through “death-by-go-around” sim rides. We hit auto-lands, HUD/AOA, guarding the controls, and...

Welcome to Hangout #2 of So There I Was—a gloriously unfiltered romp of Harrier stories and V-22 tales. Expect FAA side-eye and concussion-grade comedy. RePete and a very lightly concussed Fig corral Sticks, Bago, Lawman, Deuce, Mike Evans, and Col. Jim Schaefer for pure airshow mayhem. We relive Gallo’s rain-soaked Harrier demo that made the FAA clutch pearls. We bust a few Blue Angels myths. We even ask if...

NOTICE***There is going to be a Zoom ‘Hangout’ With the “Numbskulls” on 24 September. If you are a Patreon member or Direct Donor you should get an invitation. If not – check back here on the 24th. I will keep the link from being public until the 24th to prevent trolls from trying to ruin it.***NOTICE

So there I was… strapping into a seven-ton “dirt bike with wings.” The Marine ...

Student pilot judgment takes center stage in this absurdly true tale of near-misses, smart calls, and the mysterious power of the “E-word.” We welcome Chock as he fights through weather, maintenance gremlins, and schedule chaos on the winding road to his private pilot check ride. From an RV-12 with opinions to a Cirrus with a parachute and sparrows doing formation work on the runway, he keeps choosing discre...

Booz, a freshly-minted CFI, New Hampshirite, and RePete’s daughter—whose glider-to-airline path includes a first solo at 15, a daddy-daughter cross-country in a Grumman Tiger, and a commercial check ride where a simulated engine roughness forced a wrong-side pattern call (good judgment > dogma). We talk density altitude (rude), VMC demos (also leg fatigue), and why hypoxia makes yo...

Tito brought stories that will make you laugh, wince, and wonder why anyone gives gunners ANY spare time! Kool-Aid boots and hot-sauce toilets are savage reminders that no one is safe in a combat zone! Tito’s journey took him from slinging bombs as a “Load Toad,” to fighting fires in baked-potato suits, to strapping into the legendary AC-130 Spectre gunship—where 105mm recoil could literally make the airplan...

This special mid week episode of So There I Was takes a slight detour from our usual lineup of aviators and aircrew—but it’s still all about aviation at heart. Our guest, Mark, from Long Island Watch Co., joined us to share the story behind a limited-run Harrier commemorative watch designed in collaboration with the folks at Patuxent River Naval Air Station (PAX River). PAX, the Navy’s legendary flight test ...