July 19, 2021 • 50 mins
Jared and Emily Barkemeyer are a serious power couple. Living in Hawaii, they both fly the C-17 for the US Air Force; instructing, evaluating and demonstrating the capabilities of the aircraft to air show spectators.
We talk about their journey to getting to the positions they're in, life of a C-17 pilot, and how they juggle family life with such wonderful military careers. They are also doing an amazing job encouraging, mentoring and influencing the younger generations through their social media accounts. If you want to follow their exploits, you can check them out here:
Emily: https://www.instagram.com/flyywithemily/
Jared: https://www.instagram.com/hepilots/
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Episode Transcript
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Dave Rogers (00:04):
Okay, shall we?
Shall we make a podcast?
Emily Barkemayer (00:07):
Let's do it.
Dave Rogers (00:09):
Thanks for your time, guys. Let's do it. Jared.
Emily, welcome to pilot base. Iam currently in very, very
rainy. Well, I was gonna sayLondon but it's not London. It's
Bristol, but I don't expect youBritish geography to be too
well. Emily, where in the worlddo you
Emily Barkemayer (00:27):
how we are in Lanai Hawaii. So one of the
smaller islands out here inHawaii on vacation actually. So
happy to be here.
Dave Rogers (00:37):
Ben, How good does that sound a vacation in Hawaii?
We're not allowed to leave thecountry at the moment. So one
day Have you been been toHawaii?
Ben Hall (00:48):
I've never been right, the top of my bucket list.
Dave Rogers (00:52):
One day one day, Jared. So you're on vacation in
Hawaii? Where do you guysnormally reside?
Jared Barkemayer (00:59):
We normally reside on Oahu, so it's just
another island over. But thingsare opening up a little more. So
it's just easy to hop over a 30minute flight took a PC 12
yesterday, it was a prettyawesome experience just to hop
over the island. And now we gota couple days here. My mom flew
in town to watch our oldest oronly son right now and we're on
(01:22):
a baby moon because we'reexpecting our second baby boy in
a couple months. So that's ourlast vacation.
Dave Rogers (01:29):
I've never heard of a babymoon before but I'm fully
on board with it. excuse to getaway together. So Emily, are you
currently flying even thoughyou're pregnant? What are the
implications there?
Unknown (01:44):
I am not flying right now. So I could I flew all the
way up to my 28 week mark. Andthen in the airforce, they might
get stopped. So I flew from 12to 28 weeks and now I'm on the
ground until I give birth andthen come back from maternity
leave. Amazing and Jared Are youwell obviously you're on the
baby moon at the moment. But
Dave Rogers (02:03):
are you currently in the air?
Unknown (02:05):
Yeah, definitely. still flying. I just got back from a
trip last week doing sometraining in in the continental
United States for Nevada,Washington State and then we
went up to Alaska to do sometraining with some of our army
units. They're amazing.
Dave Rogers (02:22):
Right so most of the people who listen to this
podcast are going to be familiarwith you guys because of your
unreal social media followingsVishal get on to in a bit. But
for those who are a pilot basedpodcast fans who are meeting new
guys for the first time, um, canyou give us a bit of background
in your and your sort ofpiloting stories and journeys,
(02:42):
ladies first family? Let's gowith you.
Emily Barkemayer (02:44):
Sure, sure. So Jared, and I have very similar
journey. But we both went to theAir Force Academy, class of
2012, in Colorado Springs,Colorado. From there, we went to
pilot training. Jared was in aclass a month ahead of me. So he
was unfortunately seven and Iwas 1408. We, we both dropped t
(03:04):
ones, which is what we wanted.
And from there, we knew wewanted to fly c seven teams. And
so and let me see April 2014.
No, yeah, April 2014 is when wegraduated pilot training. And
our C 17. journey began. Andwe've been flying those ever
since.
Dave Rogers (03:22):
So so you literally kind of came through at the same
time. Jared, you you were alittle bit ahead. But since
then, the journey has been sideby side.
Jared Barkemayer (03:31):
Yeah, we've every pilot, I guess. beginnings
are different. But ours werepretty tied at the hip from the
from the beginning we've beenwe've known each other since
we're just talking about it lastnight at dinner. Since 2009.
dated most of that time, I thinkonly like a year or two we were
not. And then ever since we'vebeen kind of paired at the hip
(03:52):
for training and flying. we'vedeployed together like it's been
a it's been a pretty fortunateexperience. We've worked hard
for it so and say lucky. Butwe're fortunate that the stars
have aligned we've been doingthe same thing together this
whole time
Dave Rogers (04:06):
sitting I believe in luck, but you've got to be in
the position to take advantageof it when it comes to I mean
you are lucky because as yousaid the stars had aligned how
difficult would it have been ifone of you hadn't have qualified
that would have been awful?
Emily Barkemayer (04:19):
Oh, yeah, I can't we've we've seen it
happen. Couples drop differentairframes or like in completely
different types of aircraft. Andit's it's an uphill battle from
the very beginning. So we thinkour lucky stars that that we
didn't have to face that forsure.
Jared Barkemayer (04:35):
This is no good. We are sorry. We made a
conscious decision to pick aairframe that had a more crew
aircraft. It wasn't a fightertrack or anything, let's single
seaters that had lessavailability. So we made a
conscious decision that was apriority obviously to stay
together. And as well as I meanit was our number one choice
even without that we're likethis. This seems like it fits
(04:57):
everything that we want to doand in our careers and it has in
spades, so.
Dave Rogers (05:01):
So what was it about this the c 17? You said
you fly, right? What is it aboutthat plane that sort of made it
so special that you guys wantedto commit to it?
Jared Barkemayer (05:10):
I'll take this one I said, I think in I'm
hoping not speaking for toomuch. But we do enjoy
travelling. I mean, we're onvacation right now. And when I
so that the mobility aircraftthat the the airframe nc 17 is
we travel around the world, Imean, we've been over 40
countries. We haven't travelledtoo many recently, obviously, to
(05:33):
the current state of things. Butin our first you know, three or
four years, we've done 30countries, some of those are
just airports, but we do enjoytravelling, and then the whole
aspect of it being such a multicapable airframe, it does aerial
feeling we do we have theairdrop mission that's talking
about so it's not and then wecan do you know, short field
(05:53):
takeoff and landings into dirt.
Pardon me. So there's just a lotof things about it. And then the
base is where your base I know,I've been talking about but even
this, it's very similar. Youwant to you want to live in
locations where that plane isand not have to commute or live
in a undesirable location. Soare the basis for the C 17.
We're all pretty good for as faras continental United States, we
(06:16):
ended up in Hawaii, obviously.
So
Dave Rogers (06:22):
any job that takes you to Hawaii, I'm trying to
think what the what, what wouldthe British comparison be been
like Anglesey? Or something likethat? Oakland islands? Oh,
goodness. So neither of you arefrom Hawaii? indigenously, are
you?
Emily Barkemayer (06:38):
No, no, no, I'm from a landlocked state. So
as Jared, so we're happy to behere.
Dave Rogers (06:44):
I can imagine unreal. So they've been to 40
countries. Ben, how manycountries is worth taking you to
do you know, off the top yourhead?
Ben Hall (06:52):
I'm probably a similar amount. But actually, probably
for me, I've just visited moreairports because especially when
i when i was short all I wasjust diving in and out of dodgy
airports in the Middle East. Soyeah, I didn't get a slaver. Let
Dave Rogers (07:10):
me get out as quickly as you can any. Any
particularly obscure countriesthat any of you have been to,
that you'd like to share storiesfrom?
Jared Barkemayer (07:23):
I haven't been to actually, I'm gonna sound
bad. I don't actually know whoowns Ascension Island, I think
the British do I want to say
Dave Rogers (07:31):
so I want to say France, France, okay,
Jared Barkemayer (07:34):
so. But between South America and
Africa, and in a lot of pilottraining, I don't know if you
can speak to this, but they showyou know, some optical illusions
of airfields and how they looklike. So essentially, this
runway is on like a very largedrop off of a cliff and the
first 3000 feet of the runwayare like a straight uphill. And
(07:57):
then the back half, it lookslike a ski lodge jump, you know,
like, so a lot of trainingmanuals have the approach into
there. But that was kind of veryobscure place that a lot of
people can kind of put the thepin on the map. I don't know, if
you have one of those maps beenwhere you like put try to keep
track of it all, or an app. Butthat was one of the coolest
places I've been personally,
Emily Barkemayer (08:19):
I got I got to do go to Pisco, Peru a couple
times for a summit that washappening down there. And it was
very cool. And we don't get togo to South America too often.
So that was that was a lot offun.
Ben Hall (08:33):
When you have little deployments in sort of nicer
places. what's what's yourschedule, like? Do you actually
get to explore the place much?
Or are you kind of stuck on abase somewhere?
Emily Barkemayer (08:43):
It just depends. Like for that one,
there was no base. And so we gotto go out in town. And we ended
up being there for like four orfive days at a resort and so we
got to go travel around and andit was the it was really fun.
Now sometimes there's placeslike you know, we'll land in
Greece, and we'll only get tostay there for 24 hours, and
then we're out. So it just andof course those times you push
(09:04):
it up and try to make the mostof it. But it all just depends
on the mission and what else isgoing on down the line.
Dave Rogers (09:11):
I've just You were right. I don't know why a
question to charge. You wereright. It's got a bunion flag on
the on the essential. I think Igot it confused with Reunion
Island, which is in a completelydifferent part of planet Earth.
So never ever question theglobal geography of 71 actually
(09:31):
flies around the world. I toldyou I'd ask some silly
questions. So So Jared, yoururine demo team pilot, is that
correct? Yes, that means forsomebody to see 70
Jared Barkemayer (09:44):
for that pack, f c 17 demonstration team,
there's a few c 17 demo teams inthe United States Air Force. It
just means that we do a lot ofoutreach events and specifically
since we're, I want to say packAfro Pacific Air Forces are in
the US indo Pay comm Peter, it'sa lot of acronyms but our fancy
words, but all that means is wetry to fly around the Pacific
(10:07):
and do outreach events and inour partner allied countries, so
some of the big ones are SouthKorea, Japan, or Australia or
New Zealand. And we do air showsthere for recruitment as well as
to these are the first time somepeople have met Americans, and
obviously just put a good footforward. And I let them know,
we're all you know, good alliesand partners. And then they ask
(10:30):
some, so you say you ask themthe questions. I've heard many
silly questions that these didair air events in South Korea,
they're very happy to talk tous, but they just asked some off
the wall things you'd neverexpect.
Dave Rogers (10:41):
But I need to know more.
Jared Barkemayer (10:44):
Oh, yeah, I got to think of something I knew
there was a lead on question onlike, what have they been
saying. But to finish thequestion out, we do several,
either addition to conventionalorders called trade shows. So
the big one we're doing thisfall is the sole 8x, which is a
trade show. I don't know ifyou've seen Iron Man, but kind
(11:05):
of think of like the beginningwhere they're either they're
selling weapons or they'rebuying weapons, or they're just
buying planes or selling planes.
It's like that. And then weobviously do an air show on the
back half so and then we havelike three or four of those
shows. And then some of them arejust traditional air shows where
it's more of a recruitment toolas well as just an outreach
event. So like I said, firsttime people are meeting
(11:26):
Americans
Ben Hall (11:29):
you guys kind of doing aerobatics and formation flying
and stuff like that? Or is itmore what you checking out the
back of the aircraft?
Jared Barkemayer (11:36):
Both so the main profile is a 12 minute
profile, kind of almost like acapabilities demonstration to
show we do some high speedflight. With some manoeuvring
nothing substantial like bank,we only do 45 degree bank turns
but we do, you know, slowflight. So we'll be fully
configured at probably about 115knots fully configure doing a
(11:57):
slow flight over the airfield at45 degree bank turns just to
show them the manoeuvrability.
And then the biggest thing thatwe do is we do a landing a short
field landing essentially. Andwe go straight into an immediate
backing on the runway. So it'scalled the rubberband manoeuvre,
because we have, we haveloadmasters in a part of the
demonstration team, and they'llopen the back door up and then
(12:17):
they'll guide us back. So landsyou know, stop within 2000 feet,
and then immediately startbacking, you know, to around 10
knots, and that's the big crowdfavourite, it is tough to go
out, we usually follow an F 16demo team or the black angels
out of South Korea, we followthem or sometimes Thunderbirds
are the I know you've talked toBlue Angels pilot and after we
(12:39):
fly after them or an eye 16 demoteam, it's kind of tough to wow
the crowd with a big plane. Itdoes capture your eye just
because it's such a largeaircraft. But once we land and
start backing that is probablythe crowd favourite when we're
waving and backings and
Ben Hall (12:56):
flies a large aircraft, I cannot imagine a
stopping in that amount ofdistance and then be reversing
down the runway. work so it'spretty cool to popper in reverse
and just get off back lakemasterthat's just kind of telling you
a bit more left a bit moreright.
Jared Barkemayer (13:13):
Yeah, coordinated dance, essentially,
they're like they're guidingtheir speed to make sure. And
then using the correct terms,and then if we stop hearing them
count where and stop talkingbecause we just assume that we
hopefully they didn't fall out.
But that never happened. That issomething we briefed you
contingency wise. So it is areally cool point.
Dave Rogers (13:33):
So whenever we speak to guys like you who do
amazing things in planes, myimmediate question to Ben is,
how does that make you feelbetter? And the answer is
invariably nervous. Does thatmake you feel better?
Ben Hall (13:51):
in commercial in the commercial world, we're just
like, surrounded by this bubbleof safety and then like extra
buffers just to make sure. Solike, I mean, just taxing a 380
around an airfield is is hardenough, let alone doing it
backwards.
Emily Barkemayer (14:08):
Yeah, exactly.
Yeah, we've drawn some 90 degreeturns or some star turns on a 50
foot taxiway and it gets realsporty. So
Dave Rogers (14:17):
sporty. And amateur you you don't demo fly, do but
am I correct in thinking you'rean instructor?
Emily Barkemayer (14:25):
That's correct. Yep. I'm not on the
demo team. We had to make adecision on who was going to
take that one and Jared tookthat for us. So but yeah, I'm an
instructor and so as Jared Okay,
Dave Rogers (14:37):
so how do you take like a package you
Ben Hall (14:39):
basically offer your services together to the
airforce?
two options for everything.
Emily Barkemayer (14:45):
Yeah, well, our our qualifications are so
similar that on paper we look welook very similar. Jared just
upgraded to evaluator so he'sgot me on that one. But on paper
when you see us to like okay,well which Mark Meyer wants it.
Dave Rogers (15:01):
Did you decide you said you sent out a tech that
one? How did you decide? Was itlike rock paper scissors? Or did
you have to toss a coin?
Jared Barkemayer (15:10):
I think it was a little more civil the despite
we usually do have somearguments or I guess that we
settle things with Walker chancein that regard. But yeah, I
think it was like, Hey, I kindof want to take this one. And
she gladly stepped aside. Andthen with obviously, having
babies and stuff, Emily, the onereason I'm a little farther in
(15:31):
the progression of flying in themilitary is just due to Emily's
time off having our children arefirst and then our second son on
the way. But that's the onlyreason and she's obviously it's
a unique experience to fly whileshe's doing that. And I'm very
fortunate and blessed that she,she's taking that for us,
because obviously I wanted afamily. But it's ultimately her
(15:51):
time out of the aircraft whileshe's pregnant. And out of that,
you know, after giving birthwith a maternity leave and stuff
like that. So with that beingsaid, I was very fortunate that
she let me do it because wecan't be on the team together.
The current roles is like wecan't fly, operate in the same
aircraft at the same time we canbe on the same aircraft was
(16:13):
passengers, that's fine, but wecan't be operating the aircraft
at the same time. Okay.
Dave Rogers (16:19):
So do you. Is it your plan to go back into
piloting Emily? Who you? Oh,100% can't wait to get back.
This is the thing, Ben likedoing this. So I think I said to
you before, before we startedthe episode, this is, since
we've been doing this podcast,this has really been my first
(16:43):
experience of getting to knowpilots. And I love how much you
will love being pilots and howmuch you will love aviation and
just just everything that goeswith it. And one thing I didn't
ask right at the beginning, yougave us your journey into
becoming pilots. But what was itabout aviation? In the
(17:05):
beginning? like the idea ofbecoming a pilot? What
originally sparked yourinterest? Emily, are you from a,
from an aviation family from amilitary family? How did you
originally get the spark?
Emily Barkemayer (17:17):
I'm really not my dad was a marine. But that
was way before I was born. Buthonestly, he would I grew up in
a really small town of Colorado,and every year there's an air
show in Grand Junction. And hewould take me to the air show
and the Blue Angels always came.
This is like so corny, but Ialways came and, and there was
some big jets there too. Butlike that really sparked my
(17:38):
interest and, and then I endedup at the Academy. And it seemed
like a pretty, I don't want tosay easy option. But the the
opportunity was definitelythere. And there's actually a
time where I chose not to be apilot, because at the time, like
the washout rates were reallyhigh. And as a 20 year old kid,
they were telling me that, youknow, if you wash out, you have
(18:00):
to pay back your education,which is to the tune of like 350
grand. And
Dave Rogers (18:07):
so when you say wash out, does that mean not
pass or leave?
Emily Barkemayer (18:11):
Right? Yeah, exactly. So feel out a pilot
training, which is, I don't wantto say it's common, but it's not
unheard of. And so when theygave us our jobs list, I didn't
put pilot and, and of coursedeer has never been intimidated
by anything. And that didn'tfaze him whatsoever. But me.
Jared Barkemayer (18:30):
But one thing that's my wife. There's many
things that is the primary oneswho shouldn't say that.
Emily Barkemayer (18:40):
Anyway, so I put that and I immediately
regretted it. But there wasnothing I could do. Because I
had submitted my I've made mychoice. And now I have to you
know, I made my bed now I haveto sleep in it. And like a month
later, they came back and theywere like, hey, this system had
a malfunction. Like you have toresubmit your jobs. And that was
like, for me, I felt like it wasfate. Like I was meant to be a
(19:00):
pilot. This was God give me asecond chance. And I did it and
I never looked back. So that'sthat.
Dave Rogers (19:06):
I love that. What about you, Jared? That's a heck
of a romantic story to follow.
Jared Barkemayer (19:11):
I'm less romantic. My I grew up in New
Mexico. So in southern UnitedStates, and my elementary school
was sorry, its primary. Sorry.
Yeah, yeah. So I was kind of ina very rural area. And looking
back at it, I realised it wasnear kind of a military base
(19:31):
that operated some c 130aircraft. And I guess we were
like, underneath one of thetraining routes a low level
flight and they would fly butthe past our playground and I
was a kid and I would just lookup but that seems pretty neat.
Like I think I want to do that.
So it's literally just seeingthe planes, you know, fly around
our playground or at recess, youknow, playing dodgeball or
(19:53):
whatever seeing them and thatwas like a recruiting tool for
me and then the first time I Iwrote on a passenger aircraft on
Southwest airlines 737 Iremember that feeling in your
stomach on takeoff I wasprobably eight or nine. Usually
that feeling comes from likewhen the pilot does a more of a
negative manoeuvre which airlinepilots are not supposed to be
doing a lot of negative G's,looking back at it. Think thanks
(20:16):
for that pilot. I don't if yougot to turbulence or something
that I felt that I was like,Man, this is an interesting
feeling looking out the windowand seeing the mountain go by.
And I was like, this seems likea good idea. I want to do that.
But my family didn't have muchaviation. My father was in the
Navy. My brother was in the USArmy. And then so they kind of
steered me. But I think a lot ofour why we're fortunate to the
(20:36):
air forces, we both wanted to goto the Air Force Academy for
sports. And I know that kind oflends itself to your background,
Dave. So that's where we met ison the the athletics team are
used track and field team. Okay.
So that kind of was a recruitingtool. And that's how they kind
of got us there. And weobviously stayed for different
reasons, but to do sports, therewas a huge benefit to all that
and then we knew the benefits ofaviation and the career fields
(21:00):
afterwards. So that was a nobrainer. Awesome. I
Dave Rogers (21:04):
love that. What What were your events in track
and field?
Emily Barkemayer (21:07):
I was afforded hurdler and Jared was the
thrower.
Dave Rogers (21:11):
Yeah, right. We'll come to thrown in a bit. But 400
hurdles is the most difficultevent in track and field.
Discuss. I'm not going to arguewith you I think is pretty damn
hard. So here's why a
Jared Barkemayer (21:29):
sprint maximum effort but we're gonna throw
things for you to jump over alittle bit and then she's on the
Air Force Academy record for along time to store three. But
she was very good I was throwingis obviously totally different.
And when I was not anywhere nearthe top 10 lists, I just liked
lifting weights and seeing thepretty girls run box. Yeah,
Dave Rogers (21:50):
good man. Good man, man, you get on very well. So my
my point with the 400 hurdles isme as a human with full
functioning limbs. I couldcomplete a 10,000 metres or 5000
metres or 100 metres and it'd bevery slow. But I don't think I
(22:11):
could complete a 400 and you'relaughing there is no way you
could complete 400 hurdles. Theother the other one is
Ben Hall (22:20):
I'm 65 I can get over those hurdles. Dude.
Dave Rogers (22:23):
Come on. I know your knees. Yeah. The other one
is pole vault. I don't think Icould do a pole vault. So I
would say 400 hurdles followedby pole vault are the two
hardest in track and field. Imean, I I wouldn't trust me with
a hammer or a javelin either. Tobe honest. You can still move it
(22:45):
forward. But yeah, yeah, yeah.
So some people so what point didyou what point did the track and
field disappear to the side andit was full steam ahead with the
with the flying the planes?
Emily Barkemayer (22:59):
graduation So okay, we I was the four years
for track and then atgraduation, they you know, we're
like, Okay, well, that was fine.
Go pilot training. So what Idid,
Dave Rogers (23:12):
do you know what, Ben, that it's, I mean, I know
we're cycling into sports here,but you know, what hasn't? What
Ben hasn't told you is that bothhim and his wife are
Paralympians, but we'll get tothat. In American sports, it
seems as though the system isalways sort of set up to end at
one point, like you'll do ituntil the end of high school.
(23:33):
And if you're not good enough,you'll never do it again, or
you'll do it to the end ofcollege. And if you're not good
enough, you'll never do itagain, or you'll maybe get the
chance to do it professionally.
And then you'll come to the endof your career and that's it.
Whereas whereas in the UK wedon't have the same elite high
school and college setup, butthere are systems in place that
allow you to continue with yoursports afterwards. I mean,
(23:54):
everybody is terrible at it, butat least it's easy to do it a
little bit more like into intoadulthood and stuff like that.
Emily Barkemayer (24:06):
Yeah, yeah, that's we definitely like we
talked about often that we misscompetition now in pilot
training, it's a whole differentform of competition and so that
kind of fed into that wellenough I would say plus you're
too busy to do anything else butyeah, we we definitely still
(24:26):
like miss that form. And we seekit out in other avenues. Yeah,
Jared Barkemayer (24:29):
I tried to hold on to the athletic stream a
little longer than she did aftergraduation. I tried out for
never done this, like I said,New Mexico, you know us
geography but it's a desertclimate. After graduation. The
Air Force has a programme calledthe world class athlete
programme where if you're goodin a significant or an Olympic
event, you can compete wearingthe US Air Force emblem as a
(24:52):
recruiting tool as well. I wasnowhere good enough for tracker
athletic or throwing I wasterrible. So however, I am Just
kind of naturally athletic. So Ithere's tried out for the US
bobsled team yesterday skeleton,because they're recruit me
they're recruiting is just is acombine event. So you're running
(25:14):
short distances and get scoredon and then you throw shotput,
which actually was linked to mythrowing career and then some
Olympic lifting weights, as wellas like a standing broad jump.
And those are all things thatI'm just I trained towards, and
I'm really good at that don'tnecessarily apply to like
skipping well at a sport, but Ican do them stagnant. So I
(25:35):
scored really well got invitedto do skeleton, bobsled trials
in Lake Placid, New York. Andthen I got, I did fairly well to
camp, I got invited back tostart that journey. However, I
was really, it was kind of liketo, you know, the roads
diverged, I either had a fullhead of steam with trying to be
(25:57):
an Olympic athlete, and it'sonly like a two year programme
outside the Olympics. And Iprobably wouldn't have got on
even if everything went perfect.
Until like the 2016 Olympics. Sothis was 2012 at the time, and I
was, I was okay, the real dreamspilot, that was fun. I need to
kind of hang up the cleats orthe spikes and all that stuff
and go full steam ahead. It'sbeen a pilot. But I still want
to twist you saying I have thatthat hunger to competed
(26:20):
athletically and I still workout and try to find new new
hurdles to jump over,figuratively, literally.
Dave Rogers (26:29):
Opportunity, though, just to just to have the
chance to train at those wintersports must've been so cool. One
experience. It was terrifying.
But it was really
Jared Barkemayer (26:38):
it was no one really tells you there's no like
very easy way you just kind ofgot to go down the track.
Essentially. They put you theygive you a few tips, but they
can't be there with you yourfirst time going, you know what,
I was a little lighter than Ishould have been for bobsled. So
they asked me to chop skeleton,which is for those who can't
home his face first on the ice.
Yep. It's actually one of thesafer ones, but then pops that
(27:00):
are loose. So, you know, theytake you about halfway up the
mountain and there's like goodluck and you start getting up to
speed and they give you somepointers and they just want to
see naturally. Like still withyour steer with your shoulders.
I was like, I don't know whatthat means. And then the whole
way, you're just pinballingacross the ice and you're
(27:21):
hitting ice at 40 miles to 50miles per hour on your first
runs. And I was black and blueall week. But I it was very fun.
And then towards the end of theweek, you start really picking
it up and but the experiencealone just going doing skeleton
like class, it was just there'sso many things in the airforce
like that where you can trythese opportunities that are
(27:41):
there. So worth its weight. Andjust doing it
Ben Hall (27:49):
seems like the military over in the US is so
much more than like a career orit's just like an all
encompassing lifestyle, rightwhere they give you tonnes of
opportunities all over theplace.
Emily Barkemayer (27:59):
It really is.
I mean, there's so many doorsopen for you when you first
start out as you go, and as youage up, and you get older, more
experienced and more valuable,you know, some of those doors
closed. But overall, there'sjust so many opportunities.
Ben Hall (28:16):
Point you guys gonna be knocking on the door of desk
work.
Emily Barkemayer (28:20):
Oh, well, I'm currently there. But that's
because I'm pregnant. Sowe we already are to be honest,
we're, we're senior captainsabout to be majors, which is the
next rank up. And we'redefinitely getting ageing out of
being line pilots and cominginto more desk centric
leadership roles.
(28:43):
Coincidentally, our pilotcommitment also ends in 2024. So
just a few years from now. Sothat's when a lot of people make
a decision of whether they wantto pursue a 20 year or more
military career or they loveflying more, and they want to
jump out and see what otheropportunities there are
Dave Rogers (29:02):
20 years sounds a long time, a long time.
Jared Barkemayer (29:07):
And then that's it. That's another one.
Emily was alluding to failing ata pod training. When we
initially signed up thecommitment. It was a 10 year
commitment after trainscompleted. So I was you know, 21
years old at the time, they'relike, Hey, this is the next 12
years of your life. And you'relike what, like, I'm, I haven't
even have cognitive thoughts for12 years. Yeah. And I have to
promise the way the next 12years like, so that was kind of
(29:30):
alarming. However, there's no Imean, I have zero regret saying
that I would do it again andagain. But at the time, that is
a long time. And then as yousaid another eight years after
you've given you know, 12 yourbest years doing this, and it
does take a toll on you and weenjoy it and we're passionate
and that's I think why we dorelatively well. But it is a
(29:52):
long time. Yeah. Yeah.
Ben Hall (29:54):
It's a bit of a young person's game, isn't it? Because
you're, I mean, you're all overthe place flying. It's elf is
pretty physically and sort ofemotionally demanding, and how
to actually work with yourrelationship. Can you, like,
organise flights at the sametime? Or like, how does your
roster pattern work? Because Iknow
Emily Barkemayer (30:17):
in terms of pre kids and post kids, so pre
kids dirt, and I would chaseeach other around the world, we
would be on different missions,but we would find each other in
different countries. And like hesaid earlier, we've been
deployed together three times.
So yeah, we would take trips.
And sometimes we'd be like shipspassing in the night, or
sometimes I'd come home and highfive him and he would leave. So
(30:40):
it's quite busy. Now with kidsthrown in. It's obviously a
little more complicated thanthat. So we have to plan our
schedules more, which isprovides a lot more
predictability to our life,which is is a welcome change.
But yeah, it does get it can getdifficult. I mean, I don't know
if you guys have kids, butsingle parent ops is not fun for
(31:00):
prolonged periods of time. So wemake it work. But it's, it's
because we have such a solidrelationship that we're able to
do that.
Dave Rogers (31:09):
Yeah, you're incredibly lucky. And it's
important to acknowledge that aswell, isn't it the sort of roles
that you you have to play tomake life good for everybody?
But no, Ben and I are childlesslads about town. That's not true
at all. So Jared, you weretalking about that competitive
(31:30):
nature, and you find ways to tryand be competitive. And right at
the top of the podcast, Imentioned, both of your social
media followings. And thenumbers are quite similar. But
there is a differential is thatcompetitive between the two of
you?
Jared Barkemayer (31:47):
No, I swear, it's not it really wasn't. To
begin with you it she actuallydelved into it earlier on as
more of a recruiting tool, andshe's done amazing things in the
space, I think, not speak foragain, and I'll let her take
this. But we both have thesocial media as a way to let
people know about this careerfield that we kind of, I like to
(32:09):
think like backed into, we justdidn't know how many amazing
opportunities are out there,especially when you're younger.
And that's how you kind of reachto the source of that
generation. And I'm not doing iton behalf of the Air Force or
anything, it's just, I this isan amazing opportunity, I want
people to know about how amazingit is. And if you work hard, you
can do these things or not.
They're not that hard to do,honestly, if you if you put you
(32:29):
know, the work and you can dothese things. And and that's
kind of and then they morphedinto like adding more followers
and more people askingquestions. And, and it's kind of
this positive feedback loop.
Because you get these stories ofpeople saying, like, hey, how do
you become a pilot, and then I,you know, I try to write as many
people as I can, like, this iswhat I recommend in the US. And
(32:52):
then, you know, I've done thatstarted that three or four years
ago, and I've already got like,those people saying, you know, I
just graduated pilot training, Ijust dropped the seven teens,
and you're just like, oh, itreally warms your heart and
like, gives me goosebumps whenyou hear those stories. And then
mine and Emily has just been aninspiration. Because obviously,
in the female aviation, youknow, there's not there's, they
make like 4% of aviators andmost commercial airlines, I
(33:14):
think statistics, I'm not, don'tquote me on those, but she's
recruited so many young women toknow that they can do whatever
they want to do. And I'm justgonna, like, segue into that,
because she's done so manyamazing things for us. But she
has way more stories about youngwomen like reaching out to her
on social media than I do,obviously.
Dave Rogers (33:31):
Yeah. Can you can you give us a bit of an idea
that Emily, because Ben and I,as to, for want of a better
term, straight white middleclass men, we always have the
conversation about diversity inaviation, whether it's women,
whether it's people of differentethnic backgrounds, and we
always kind of ask the question,why isn't there as much
(33:53):
diversity is there could be orshould be, or we'd like there to
be. But ultimately, as I said,we are just two people from the
demographic that are overrepresented in not just
aviation, but plenty of otherindustries. So you're an example
of an incredibly successfulwoman in aviation, who was had a
family has a great job is abrilliant pilot. And you're
(34:16):
obviously working hard to tryand show people that this is a
plausible pathway where you canliterally have everything. So
yeah, just tell us about whatyou're doing, who you're doing
it for, and any kind of storiesyou've got. I mean, Jared
mentioned the people that he'sspoken to who've, who've now
passed through, are there anyexamples that that you've had of
(34:38):
success on that front as well?
Emily Barkemayer (34:40):
Absolutely.
And honestly, it's a privilegeto to be able to demonstrate
this life that we have becauselike we said, we're very
fortunate and, and we absolutelylove what we do. And I just try
to do my best to demonstrate ourlife so that people can see
like, hey, they're relatablepeople like they're totally
normal. There's nothing I mean,we have our old, our, you know,
our oddities and stuff, but likewe're pretty normal people and,
(35:03):
and we're doing this and we'rehaving the time of our lives
and, and I and diversity isreally important to me. Mostly
because I have never personallyfelt like I was treated
necessarily differently. BecauseI was a woman or because I was
in the military or because youknow what I mean? Like I work
with professionals, purely trulyprofessionals, however, you
(35:26):
would not believe how many womenor young girls reach out to me
to be like, Hey, is it really asbad to be a woman in the
military as they make it soundor what's it like to be, you
know, one of one woman in a seaof 20 dudes, like in a in a
squadron or something like that.
And it's like, Burgess, Burgessprofessionals. And I love that I
(35:49):
have this platform, to sharethat from to be like, it's okay
to be the only woman in theroom. In fact, like it you
should want to be because thesooner you're there, the sooner
other women will know that theycan be there too. And as long as
you are strong and competent,there's nothing that's going to
stand in your way. At leastthat's been that's been the
(36:10):
situation for me. And so I'mjust so grateful that I can
share that and that I've had,you know, I can literally say
hundreds of women that havereached out to me and asked me
questions all the way from, youknow, the military to pilot
training to upgrade. And I'vehad the full circle feeling that
Jared was talking about to wherethey were like, I didn't think I
could do this. And here I am. Ijust dropped my dream plane from
(36:33):
pilot training. So thank you forinspiring me, which is, which is
so like, heartwarming, and just,you know, awesome. Yeah.
Dave Rogers (36:41):
Yeah, absolutely.
incredible stuff. Like, it's allwell and good. living the life
that you live and live in thedream that you've, you've
created for yourselves, but thefact that you are creating a
pathway and not pulling theladder up after you, if
anything, you're pushing it backdown for other people to climb
up. That's, that's prettyamazing. In terms of pilot base,
then then to sort of bring itback to, to your business, what
(37:06):
kind of uptake Are you gettingfrom women at the moment in
terms of applications for pilotjobs and things like that.
Ben Hall (37:15):
So it's actually really interesting what Jared
and Emily have just been saying,because when I first started
pilot base, it was kind of itwas to help pilots out. But I've
started with a kind ofcommercial mindset. So I started
building the platform. Andactually, I started the podcast
as a marketing tool effectively.
But as I go along, and the moreand more people we speak to, and
(37:36):
the wider the network grows, themore you realise it's that sort
of personal interaction. And,you know, just being able to
help people out on a regularbasis is a really, really
important thing. It's not, youknow, spreading stuff far and
wide for 50,000 people to seeit's, you know, just helping one
person every week, just tryingto find their way in the
(37:57):
aviation world. That's the thingthat's been really special. From
my point of view. We were mainlyEuropean based at the moment
we're trying to branch intoAmerica. And having guys like
you on board is is justfantastic to, you know, have
that bedrock of reallyinspirational pilots where
people can look up to you andyeah, and see it's it's a
(38:21):
realistic path for anybodyreally.
Jared Barkemayer (38:25):
Yeah, I agree with what Ben saying,
wholeheartedly. We're kind ofobviously in a generational
shift right now, where we'reprobably at the tail end, I
don't know, you're kind of likestuffing, email white pilots you
guys are talking about. Andthere's just this path, and you
can read about it. And there'sbooks and there's always
information, but it's not aseasily digestible, I would say.
(38:46):
And that's kind of where yourplatform comes in, the more
easily digestible, like dailyinteractions you can have,
showing people what you do, andthen be authentic about it and
not, you know, to be overlylike, serious about it. Aviation
is a serious, I don't want tomake light of that aviation is a
serious business with safetymeasures, and crew resource
management, all that thing andall that, obviously. But the
(39:09):
easier you can relate to thisnext generation, who is very
more visual learners, they wantto see things they don't want to
go read them. They want to knowthe person that is in that job
before they have that job to seeif they could see themselves
doing it, as opposed to justmore traditional, you know,
university structure or justroll right into that job and
(39:30):
study and there is a gap that Ithink we've started to bridge
and that's kind of what we enjoydoing is giving the next
generation involved. That's whywe do it.
Dave Rogers (39:40):
I think the most important word that you said
there was authentic, you've gotto be authentic Avenue and and
accessed and that's the that'sthe beauty of it. If you if you
post something and it's got apicture and it's got a story
people can be like, Oh yeah, Ican be like that guy or I can be
like that woman and I can I canfly the plane and Do the bob
scatter turn or I can be theinstructor and the moment. They
Ben Hall (40:05):
say what helps your Instagram channels out there,
especially you Jared, yoursoundtrack is unbelievable. The
biggest compliment
Jared Barkemayer (40:16):
about a curator, it's like a modern day
sad curator where I really doenjoy the music fitting with the
short clips. And like I said,it's easily digestible. It's
like 15 seconds to 30 secondsof, wow, this is really cool.
And for whatever reason, themusic behind it matches so well,
but I do spend time trying tofind the perfect soundtrack. So
(40:36):
thank you, Ben, I reallyappreciate that.
Dave Rogers (40:39):
So can you share your process your music
selection process? Oh my gosh.
That's, that's a tough thing tonail down, honestly. But talk
you through it 100 times over.
And like, over simplifying.
Never with headphones in.
Jared Barkemayer (41:07):
Some dinners have been interfered, or I'm
like, my brain works in themoment where I have that idea.
And I immediately must do it, Ican't write it down and say I'll
do this later. So like I said, Ijust try to find the short clips
that will capture your eye. Andthen usually, the music just
kind of adds to that. And thenthe story is always behind it
where people can address it. Ijust tried to keep it quick and
(41:32):
authentic. And then if peoplereally do want those deeper
conversations, they directmessage me and then I am happy
to have them. But I try not todo you know, every post is like,
you can be a pilot and beinspiration and all these things
like every time because in thatI think that it goes too far the
other way where you almost seemunauthentic when you're trying
to be overly authentic, if thatmakes sense. So I just try to be
myself. And then if people wantto talk to me, I'll always talk
(41:55):
to them and give them as muchtime as I can obviously not to
the detriment of my family or myinteractions with my peers, but
I will help as much as I can.
Dave Rogers (42:03):
So if people are listening to this podcast, and
they want to reach out to eitherof you, they can get in touch on
socials and you'll give themsome time.
Ben Hall (42:11):
percent of your handles just for the listeners
point of view.
Emily Barkemayer (42:16):
I'm flying with Emily two y's one was taken
so I fly with Emily
Jared Barkemayer (42:23):
and then I met he pilots on Instagram as well
as Tick Tock. I got into thetick tock world and that's been
a whole beast of itself.
Dave Rogers (42:33):
I am I am in the north side of my 30s I'm not
going anywhere near Tick Tock
Emily Barkemayer (42:42):
I tease Jared that I think at one time he was
probably the oldest. I don'tthink she's wrong.
Dave Rogers (42:49):
Somebody has to be it's not gonna be it's gonna be
someone else. How's the ticktock going? It all seriousness
people inside?
Emily Barkemayer (43:00):
Oh, he's blown up. Yeah, we have what do you
have 1.7 million followers orsomething? Yeah. See,
Dave Rogers (43:08):
I only knew about the Instagram. I did. That is my
bad research. I didn't knowabout that. One point.
Wow. Yeah.
See? That is where goodsoundtracking comes in Ben.
Jared Barkemayer (43:24):
Oh, yeah.
Honestly, that's where that'swhere I kind of I was pretty you
know, just the casual partake inInstagram and Emily had the more
of a traditional Instagrampictures and content and then I
found Tick Tock when I wasstudying. I was actually in one
of our captain's career courseslike a polishing school Air
Force officers, if you will.
(43:45):
We're no flying is involved. Sonaturally, I was bored, but
still trying to pay attention.
But that's when I found TickTock when I had some more time
on my hands. And I posted avideo not thinking anything. It
just had a cool sound to it. AndI was flying in Hawaii, which
obviously lends itself to somegood views. And that video blew
up and I just kind of kept doingit. And then I was like, Oh, why
(44:05):
social Instagram kind of copiedtik tok in a way with their
Instagram reels. And so Istarted posting reels and the
same the same kind of outlinewith a short video and a good
soundtrack that I could find andthat's why my Instagram started
progressing as I got a lot offollowers from tik tok coming
(44:27):
over. Is
Ben Hall (44:30):
that when you over took Emily Yep.
Dave Rogers (44:34):
Just turn the grenade in there, Ben. Yeah, and
also well, and you're just like,Oh, there goes the pin. Unreal,
Emily Barkemayer (44:42):
he earned it.
I mean, he posts nearly everyday, which is what you have to
do and he's doing a great job.
Dave Rogers (44:49):
I'm on like, a post every seven months at the
moment. It's fine. It's fine.
Right then guys, this has beenan absolute joy. A couple of
quick ones to finish them. Anyplanes you haven't flown that
you'd love to fly?
Emily Barkemayer (45:07):
I've always wanted to fly so I'm 47 maybe I
still can. We'll see.
Dave Rogers (45:11):
What is it about the 747 that you like?
Emily Barkemayer (45:15):
I I just like how big it is. Honestly, it's so
pretty. It's so Amish She's thequeen. I want to fly the queen,
Ben Hall (45:23):
right? Yeah. And she's getting it she's going extinct.
So my time is limited.
Dave Rogers (45:31):
Jared,
Jared Barkemayer (45:32):
I'm much more like newschool so like the
newest stuff on the block. 787Dreamliner seems awesome. We I
think we were passengers on one.
And I mean, the air even smellsnicer. So I was just like, man,
that'd be pretty nice to fly. Soanything that's the newest? I'm
kind of those guys. You know,this phone guy. I know. Some of
those people are the worst, butI like the new stuff.
Dave Rogers (45:52):
Something smells like rich people.
Ben Hall (45:56):
Not gonna get Americans like near bosses. Oh,
we
Jared Barkemayer (46:00):
were I'm coming around. Honestly, I
didn't. I was the stubborn, youknow, Boeing products, but we
fly an Airbus 320. I've been ona couple times with Alaska
Airlines zones. And I wasimpressed. Honestly.
Dave Rogers (46:14):
I love the 320.
Last time I was on a 320 I had anap woke up and forgot I was on
a plane. Yeah, what a joy. Whata joy. Any countries that you
haven't had the chance to fly toyet that you'd love to visit.
Emily Barkemayer (46:30):
I have not had the opportunity to hit New
Zealand or Australia yet, whichis rare for being stationed out
here. Blaming the COVID. So soonas I'm back from maternity
leave, I'm hopping on the firsttrip down here I can see Jared.
Jared Barkemayer (46:46):
The same actually i want to i would like
to go to New Zealand andAustralia. And c 17 actually
does go to Antarctica, we needto do some. There's one unit and
in Washington state that goes toAntarctica. And that's kind of a
bit of bucket lists. That's howit usually most of us get the
seven continents as you shoulddo that mission and land out in
the ice down there. It's in thecards but good. You got skis on
(47:11):
for that. Now we don't we justhave the C 130s. Do the skis. I
think it's the New York unit andyour garden unit. But now the C
17 has the braking capabilitiesin there Phil does have to have
to be in the right conditionsthe right weather a little more
so than the 130s. But yeah, itlashes out of Christchurch in
New Zealand. So it's a good gooddeal to be down there operating.
Dave Rogers (47:34):
I was about to wrap the podcast up but we need to
put more meat on this bone. skis
Emily Barkemayer (47:43):
would like to see a C 17 on ski. Now they just
put skis on the on the 130
Jared Barkemayer (47:50):
there's still wheels like on them. It's just
kind of think of about thinkabout I've seen a water plane
that lands on the water. So verysimilar the buoys, they're
shaped the same way. They'rejust skis to spread the
dispersion on the runway, butthere's still tires on there.
Dave Rogers (48:09):
But how? How does it stop?
Jared Barkemayer (48:13):
Well, that's still the braking on the tire.
Okay. that'll cause the stoppingon until a shout out the bottom
of the skis
Dave Rogers (48:21):
told you that he said he questions told you guys,
this has been such a joyousconversation. It's been so nice
to get to know you. And I reallyhope that some listeners do
reach out because it sounds likeyou've got some wonderful things
to say and examples to give. Andhopefully, you continue to have
(48:41):
a great life together with yourfamily as aviators and helping
more people get into into theindustry to lead that great life
as well. Thank you so much.
Emily Barkemayer (48:51):
Thanks for joining us. Truly. Thank you.
Jared Barkemayer (48:54):
Thank you guys, obviously, for having us
and reaching out and I mean,we're honoured obviously, Ben,
we love what you're doing. Dave,it was great to meet you. You're
such a pleasure. Honestly, ifyou ever want us back down the
road, just shoot us a message.
We'd be happy to continue thisand hopefully, this helps you
guys get reach out to morepeople as well. Many say
Okay, shall we?
Shall we make a podcast?
Emily Barkemayer (00:07):
Let's do it.
Dave Rogers (00:09):
Thanks for your time, guys. Let's do it. Jared.
Emily, welcome to pilot base. Iam currently in very, very
rainy. Well, I was gonna sayLondon but it's not London. It's
Bristol, but I don't expect youBritish geography to be too
well. Emily, where in the worlddo you
Emily Barkemayer (00:27):
how we are in Lanai Hawaii. So one of the
smaller islands out here inHawaii on vacation actually. So
happy to be here.
Dave Rogers (00:37):
Ben, How good does that sound a vacation in Hawaii?
We're not allowed to leave thecountry at the moment. So one
day Have you been been toHawaii?
Ben Hall (00:48):
I've never been right, the top of my bucket list.
Dave Rogers (00:52):
One day one day, Jared. So you're on vacation in
Hawaii? Where do you guysnormally reside?
Jared Barkemayer (00:59):
We normally reside on Oahu, so it's just
another island over. But thingsare opening up a little more. So
it's just easy to hop over a 30minute flight took a PC 12
yesterday, it was a prettyawesome experience just to hop
over the island. And now we gota couple days here. My mom flew
in town to watch our oldest oronly son right now and we're on
(01:22):
a baby moon because we'reexpecting our second baby boy in
a couple months. So that's ourlast vacation.
Dave Rogers (01:29):
I've never heard of a babymoon before but I'm fully
on board with it. excuse to getaway together. So Emily, are you
currently flying even thoughyou're pregnant? What are the
implications there?
Unknown (01:44):
I am not flying right now. So I could I flew all the
way up to my 28 week mark. Andthen in the airforce, they might
get stopped. So I flew from 12to 28 weeks and now I'm on the
ground until I give birth andthen come back from maternity
leave. Amazing and Jared Are youwell obviously you're on the
baby moon at the moment. But
Dave Rogers (02:03):
are you currently in the air?
Unknown (02:05):
Yeah, definitely. still flying. I just got back from a
trip last week doing sometraining in in the continental
United States for Nevada,Washington State and then we
went up to Alaska to do sometraining with some of our army
units. They're amazing.
Dave Rogers (02:22):
Right so most of the people who listen to this
podcast are going to be familiarwith you guys because of your
unreal social media followingsVishal get on to in a bit. But
for those who are a pilot basedpodcast fans who are meeting new
guys for the first time, um, canyou give us a bit of background
in your and your sort ofpiloting stories and journeys,
(02:42):
ladies first family? Let's gowith you.
Emily Barkemayer (02:44):
Sure, sure. So Jared, and I have very similar
journey. But we both went to theAir Force Academy, class of
2012, in Colorado Springs,Colorado. From there, we went to
pilot training. Jared was in aclass a month ahead of me. So he
was unfortunately seven and Iwas 1408. We, we both dropped t
(03:04):
ones, which is what we wanted.
And from there, we knew wewanted to fly c seven teams. And
so and let me see April 2014.
No, yeah, April 2014 is when wegraduated pilot training. And
our C 17. journey began. Andwe've been flying those ever
since.
Dave Rogers (03:22):
So so you literally kind of came through at the same
time. Jared, you you were alittle bit ahead. But since
then, the journey has been sideby side.
Jared Barkemayer (03:31):
Yeah, we've every pilot, I guess. beginnings
are different. But ours werepretty tied at the hip from the
from the beginning we've beenwe've known each other since
we're just talking about it lastnight at dinner. Since 2009.
dated most of that time, I thinkonly like a year or two we were
not. And then ever since we'vebeen kind of paired at the hip
(03:52):
for training and flying. we'vedeployed together like it's been
a it's been a pretty fortunateexperience. We've worked hard
for it so and say lucky. Butwe're fortunate that the stars
have aligned we've been doingthe same thing together this
whole time
Dave Rogers (04:06):
sitting I believe in luck, but you've got to be in
the position to take advantageof it when it comes to I mean
you are lucky because as yousaid the stars had aligned how
difficult would it have been ifone of you hadn't have qualified
that would have been awful?
Emily Barkemayer (04:19):
Oh, yeah, I can't we've we've seen it
happen. Couples drop differentairframes or like in completely
different types of aircraft. Andit's it's an uphill battle from
the very beginning. So we thinkour lucky stars that that we
didn't have to face that forsure.
Jared Barkemayer (04:35):
This is no good. We are sorry. We made a
conscious decision to pick aairframe that had a more crew
aircraft. It wasn't a fightertrack or anything, let's single
seaters that had lessavailability. So we made a
conscious decision that was apriority obviously to stay
together. And as well as I meanit was our number one choice
even without that we're likethis. This seems like it fits
(04:57):
everything that we want to doand in our careers and it has in
spades, so.
Dave Rogers (05:01):
So what was it about this the c 17? You said
you fly, right? What is it aboutthat plane that sort of made it
so special that you guys wantedto commit to it?
Jared Barkemayer (05:10):
I'll take this one I said, I think in I'm
hoping not speaking for toomuch. But we do enjoy
travelling. I mean, we're onvacation right now. And when I
so that the mobility aircraftthat the the airframe nc 17 is
we travel around the world, Imean, we've been over 40
countries. We haven't travelledtoo many recently, obviously, to
(05:33):
the current state of things. Butin our first you know, three or
four years, we've done 30countries, some of those are
just airports, but we do enjoytravelling, and then the whole
aspect of it being such a multicapable airframe, it does aerial
feeling we do we have theairdrop mission that's talking
about so it's not and then wecan do you know, short field
(05:53):
takeoff and landings into dirt.
Pardon me. So there's just a lotof things about it. And then the
base is where your base I know,I've been talking about but even
this, it's very similar. Youwant to you want to live in
locations where that plane isand not have to commute or live
in a undesirable location. Soare the basis for the C 17.
We're all pretty good for as faras continental United States, we
(06:16):
ended up in Hawaii, obviously.
So
Dave Rogers (06:22):
any job that takes you to Hawaii, I'm trying to
think what the what, what wouldthe British comparison be been
like Anglesey? Or something likethat? Oakland islands? Oh,
goodness. So neither of you arefrom Hawaii? indigenously, are
you?
Emily Barkemayer (06:38):
No, no, no, I'm from a landlocked state. So
as Jared, so we're happy to behere.
Dave Rogers (06:44):
I can imagine unreal. So they've been to 40
countries. Ben, how manycountries is worth taking you to
do you know, off the top yourhead?
Ben Hall (06:52):
I'm probably a similar amount. But actually, probably
for me, I've just visited moreairports because especially when
i when i was short all I wasjust diving in and out of dodgy
airports in the Middle East. Soyeah, I didn't get a slaver. Let
Dave Rogers (07:10):
me get out as quickly as you can any. Any
particularly obscure countriesthat any of you have been to,
that you'd like to share storiesfrom?
Jared Barkemayer (07:23):
I haven't been to actually, I'm gonna sound
bad. I don't actually know whoowns Ascension Island, I think
the British do I want to say
Dave Rogers (07:31):
so I want to say France, France, okay,
Jared Barkemayer (07:34):
so. But between South America and
Africa, and in a lot of pilottraining, I don't know if you
can speak to this, but they showyou know, some optical illusions
of airfields and how they looklike. So essentially, this
runway is on like a very largedrop off of a cliff and the
first 3000 feet of the runwayare like a straight uphill. And
(07:57):
then the back half, it lookslike a ski lodge jump, you know,
like, so a lot of trainingmanuals have the approach into
there. But that was kind of veryobscure place that a lot of
people can kind of put the thepin on the map. I don't know, if
you have one of those maps beenwhere you like put try to keep
track of it all, or an app. Butthat was one of the coolest
places I've been personally,
Emily Barkemayer (08:19):
I got I got to do go to Pisco, Peru a couple
times for a summit that washappening down there. And it was
very cool. And we don't get togo to South America too often.
So that was that was a lot offun.
Ben Hall (08:33):
When you have little deployments in sort of nicer
places. what's what's yourschedule, like? Do you actually
get to explore the place much?
Or are you kind of stuck on abase somewhere?
Emily Barkemayer (08:43):
It just depends. Like for that one,
there was no base. And so we gotto go out in town. And we ended
up being there for like four orfive days at a resort and so we
got to go travel around and andit was the it was really fun.
Now sometimes there's placeslike you know, we'll land in
Greece, and we'll only get tostay there for 24 hours, and
then we're out. So it just andof course those times you push
(09:04):
it up and try to make the mostof it. But it all just depends
on the mission and what else isgoing on down the line.
Dave Rogers (09:11):
I've just You were right. I don't know why a
question to charge. You wereright. It's got a bunion flag on
the on the essential. I think Igot it confused with Reunion
Island, which is in a completelydifferent part of planet Earth.
So never ever question theglobal geography of 71 actually
(09:31):
flies around the world. I toldyou I'd ask some silly
questions. So So Jared, yoururine demo team pilot, is that
correct? Yes, that means forsomebody to see 70
Jared Barkemayer (09:44):
for that pack, f c 17 demonstration team,
there's a few c 17 demo teams inthe United States Air Force. It
just means that we do a lot ofoutreach events and specifically
since we're, I want to say packAfro Pacific Air Forces are in
the US indo Pay comm Peter, it'sa lot of acronyms but our fancy
words, but all that means is wetry to fly around the Pacific
(10:07):
and do outreach events and inour partner allied countries, so
some of the big ones are SouthKorea, Japan, or Australia or
New Zealand. And we do air showsthere for recruitment as well as
to these are the first time somepeople have met Americans, and
obviously just put a good footforward. And I let them know,
we're all you know, good alliesand partners. And then they ask
(10:30):
some, so you say you ask themthe questions. I've heard many
silly questions that these didair air events in South Korea,
they're very happy to talk tous, but they just asked some off
the wall things you'd neverexpect.
Dave Rogers (10:41):
But I need to know more.
Jared Barkemayer (10:44):
Oh, yeah, I got to think of something I knew
there was a lead on question onlike, what have they been
saying. But to finish thequestion out, we do several,
either addition to conventionalorders called trade shows. So
the big one we're doing thisfall is the sole 8x, which is a
trade show. I don't know ifyou've seen Iron Man, but kind
(11:05):
of think of like the beginningwhere they're either they're
selling weapons or they'rebuying weapons, or they're just
buying planes or selling planes.
It's like that. And then weobviously do an air show on the
back half so and then we havelike three or four of those
shows. And then some of them arejust traditional air shows where
it's more of a recruitment toolas well as just an outreach
event. So like I said, firsttime people are meeting
(11:26):
Americans
Ben Hall (11:29):
you guys kind of doing aerobatics and formation flying
and stuff like that? Or is itmore what you checking out the
back of the aircraft?
Jared Barkemayer (11:36):
Both so the main profile is a 12 minute
profile, kind of almost like acapabilities demonstration to
show we do some high speedflight. With some manoeuvring
nothing substantial like bank,we only do 45 degree bank turns
but we do, you know, slowflight. So we'll be fully
configured at probably about 115knots fully configure doing a
(11:57):
slow flight over the airfield at45 degree bank turns just to
show them the manoeuvrability.
And then the biggest thing thatwe do is we do a landing a short
field landing essentially. Andwe go straight into an immediate
backing on the runway. So it'scalled the rubberband manoeuvre,
because we have, we haveloadmasters in a part of the
demonstration team, and they'llopen the back door up and then
(12:17):
they'll guide us back. So landsyou know, stop within 2000 feet,
and then immediately startbacking, you know, to around 10
knots, and that's the big crowdfavourite, it is tough to go
out, we usually follow an F 16demo team or the black angels
out of South Korea, we followthem or sometimes Thunderbirds
are the I know you've talked toBlue Angels pilot and after we
(12:39):
fly after them or an eye 16 demoteam, it's kind of tough to wow
the crowd with a big plane. Itdoes capture your eye just
because it's such a largeaircraft. But once we land and
start backing that is probablythe crowd favourite when we're
waving and backings and
Ben Hall (12:56):
flies a large aircraft, I cannot imagine a
stopping in that amount ofdistance and then be reversing
down the runway. work so it'spretty cool to popper in reverse
and just get off back lakemasterthat's just kind of telling you
a bit more left a bit moreright.
Jared Barkemayer (13:13):
Yeah, coordinated dance, essentially,
they're like they're guidingtheir speed to make sure. And
then using the correct terms,and then if we stop hearing them
count where and stop talkingbecause we just assume that we
hopefully they didn't fall out.
But that never happened. That issomething we briefed you
contingency wise. So it is areally cool point.
Dave Rogers (13:33):
So whenever we speak to guys like you who do
amazing things in planes, myimmediate question to Ben is,
how does that make you feelbetter? And the answer is
invariably nervous. Does thatmake you feel better?
Ben Hall (13:51):
in commercial in the commercial world, we're just
like, surrounded by this bubbleof safety and then like extra
buffers just to make sure. Solike, I mean, just taxing a 380
around an airfield is is hardenough, let alone doing it
backwards.
Emily Barkemayer (14:08):
Yeah, exactly.
Yeah, we've drawn some 90 degreeturns or some star turns on a 50
foot taxiway and it gets realsporty. So
Dave Rogers (14:17):
sporty. And amateur you you don't demo fly, do but
am I correct in thinking you'rean instructor?
Emily Barkemayer (14:25):
That's correct. Yep. I'm not on the
demo team. We had to make adecision on who was going to
take that one and Jared tookthat for us. So but yeah, I'm an
instructor and so as Jared Okay,
Dave Rogers (14:37):
so how do you take like a package you
Ben Hall (14:39):
basically offer your services together to the
airforce?
two options for everything.
Emily Barkemayer (14:45):
Yeah, well, our our qualifications are so
similar that on paper we look welook very similar. Jared just
upgraded to evaluator so he'sgot me on that one. But on paper
when you see us to like okay,well which Mark Meyer wants it.
Dave Rogers (15:01):
Did you decide you said you sent out a tech that
one? How did you decide? Was itlike rock paper scissors? Or did
you have to toss a coin?
Jared Barkemayer (15:10):
I think it was a little more civil the despite
we usually do have somearguments or I guess that we
settle things with Walker chancein that regard. But yeah, I
think it was like, Hey, I kindof want to take this one. And
she gladly stepped aside. Andthen with obviously, having
babies and stuff, Emily, the onereason I'm a little farther in
(15:31):
the progression of flying in themilitary is just due to Emily's
time off having our children arefirst and then our second son on
the way. But that's the onlyreason and she's obviously it's
a unique experience to fly whileshe's doing that. And I'm very
fortunate and blessed that she,she's taking that for us,
because obviously I wanted afamily. But it's ultimately her
(15:51):
time out of the aircraft whileshe's pregnant. And out of that,
you know, after giving birthwith a maternity leave and stuff
like that. So with that beingsaid, I was very fortunate that
she let me do it because wecan't be on the team together.
The current roles is like wecan't fly, operate in the same
aircraft at the same time we canbe on the same aircraft was
(16:13):
passengers, that's fine, but wecan't be operating the aircraft
at the same time. Okay.
Dave Rogers (16:19):
So do you. Is it your plan to go back into
piloting Emily? Who you? Oh,100% can't wait to get back.
This is the thing, Ben likedoing this. So I think I said to
you before, before we startedthe episode, this is, since
we've been doing this podcast,this has really been my first
(16:43):
experience of getting to knowpilots. And I love how much you
will love being pilots and howmuch you will love aviation and
just just everything that goeswith it. And one thing I didn't
ask right at the beginning, yougave us your journey into
becoming pilots. But what was itabout aviation? In the
(17:05):
beginning? like the idea ofbecoming a pilot? What
originally sparked yourinterest? Emily, are you from a,
from an aviation family from amilitary family? How did you
originally get the spark?
Emily Barkemayer (17:17):
I'm really not my dad was a marine. But that
was way before I was born. Buthonestly, he would I grew up in
a really small town of Colorado,and every year there's an air
show in Grand Junction. And hewould take me to the air show
and the Blue Angels always came.
This is like so corny, but Ialways came and, and there was
some big jets there too. Butlike that really sparked my
(17:38):
interest and, and then I endedup at the Academy. And it seemed
like a pretty, I don't want tosay easy option. But the the
opportunity was definitelythere. And there's actually a
time where I chose not to be apilot, because at the time, like
the washout rates were reallyhigh. And as a 20 year old kid,
they were telling me that, youknow, if you wash out, you have
(18:00):
to pay back your education,which is to the tune of like 350
grand. And
Dave Rogers (18:07):
so when you say wash out, does that mean not
pass or leave?
Emily Barkemayer (18:11):
Right? Yeah, exactly. So feel out a pilot
training, which is, I don't wantto say it's common, but it's not
unheard of. And so when theygave us our jobs list, I didn't
put pilot and, and of coursedeer has never been intimidated
by anything. And that didn'tfaze him whatsoever. But me.
Jared Barkemayer (18:30):
But one thing that's my wife. There's many
things that is the primary oneswho shouldn't say that.
Emily Barkemayer (18:40):
Anyway, so I put that and I immediately
regretted it. But there wasnothing I could do. Because I
had submitted my I've made mychoice. And now I have to you
know, I made my bed now I haveto sleep in it. And like a month
later, they came back and theywere like, hey, this system had
a malfunction. Like you have toresubmit your jobs. And that was
like, for me, I felt like it wasfate. Like I was meant to be a
(19:00):
pilot. This was God give me asecond chance. And I did it and
I never looked back. So that'sthat.
Dave Rogers (19:06):
I love that. What about you, Jared? That's a heck
of a romantic story to follow.
Jared Barkemayer (19:11):
I'm less romantic. My I grew up in New
Mexico. So in southern UnitedStates, and my elementary school
was sorry, its primary. Sorry.
Yeah, yeah. So I was kind of ina very rural area. And looking
back at it, I realised it wasnear kind of a military base
(19:31):
that operated some c 130aircraft. And I guess we were
like, underneath one of thetraining routes a low level
flight and they would fly butthe past our playground and I
was a kid and I would just lookup but that seems pretty neat.
Like I think I want to do that.
So it's literally just seeingthe planes, you know, fly around
our playground or at recess, youknow, playing dodgeball or
(19:53):
whatever seeing them and thatwas like a recruiting tool for
me and then the first time I Iwrote on a passenger aircraft on
Southwest airlines 737 Iremember that feeling in your
stomach on takeoff I wasprobably eight or nine. Usually
that feeling comes from likewhen the pilot does a more of a
negative manoeuvre which airlinepilots are not supposed to be
doing a lot of negative G's,looking back at it. Think thanks
(20:16):
for that pilot. I don't if yougot to turbulence or something
that I felt that I was like,Man, this is an interesting
feeling looking out the windowand seeing the mountain go by.
And I was like, this seems likea good idea. I want to do that.
But my family didn't have muchaviation. My father was in the
Navy. My brother was in the USArmy. And then so they kind of
steered me. But I think a lot ofour why we're fortunate to the
(20:36):
air forces, we both wanted to goto the Air Force Academy for
sports. And I know that kind oflends itself to your background,
Dave. So that's where we met ison the the athletics team are
used track and field team. Okay.
So that kind of was a recruitingtool. And that's how they kind
of got us there. And weobviously stayed for different
reasons, but to do sports, therewas a huge benefit to all that
and then we knew the benefits ofaviation and the career fields
(21:00):
afterwards. So that was a nobrainer. Awesome. I
Dave Rogers (21:04):
love that. What What were your events in track
and field?
Emily Barkemayer (21:07):
I was afforded hurdler and Jared was the
thrower.
Dave Rogers (21:11):
Yeah, right. We'll come to thrown in a bit. But 400
hurdles is the most difficultevent in track and field.
Discuss. I'm not going to arguewith you I think is pretty damn
hard. So here's why a
Jared Barkemayer (21:29):
sprint maximum effort but we're gonna throw
things for you to jump over alittle bit and then she's on the
Air Force Academy record for along time to store three. But
she was very good I was throwingis obviously totally different.
And when I was not anywhere nearthe top 10 lists, I just liked
lifting weights and seeing thepretty girls run box. Yeah,
Dave Rogers (21:50):
good man. Good man, man, you get on very well. So my
my point with the 400 hurdles isme as a human with full
functioning limbs. I couldcomplete a 10,000 metres or 5000
metres or 100 metres and it'd bevery slow. But I don't think I
(22:11):
could complete a 400 and you'relaughing there is no way you
could complete 400 hurdles. Theother the other one is
Ben Hall (22:20):
I'm 65 I can get over those hurdles. Dude.
Dave Rogers (22:23):
Come on. I know your knees. Yeah. The other one
is pole vault. I don't think Icould do a pole vault. So I
would say 400 hurdles followedby pole vault are the two
hardest in track and field. Imean, I I wouldn't trust me with
a hammer or a javelin either. Tobe honest. You can still move it
(22:45):
forward. But yeah, yeah, yeah.
So some people so what point didyou what point did the track and
field disappear to the side andit was full steam ahead with the
with the flying the planes?
Emily Barkemayer (22:59):
graduation So okay, we I was the four years
for track and then atgraduation, they you know, we're
like, Okay, well, that was fine.
Go pilot training. So what Idid,
Dave Rogers (23:12):
do you know what, Ben, that it's, I mean, I know
we're cycling into sports here,but you know, what hasn't? What
Ben hasn't told you is that bothhim and his wife are
Paralympians, but we'll get tothat. In American sports, it
seems as though the system isalways sort of set up to end at
one point, like you'll do ituntil the end of high school.
(23:33):
And if you're not good enough,you'll never do it again, or
you'll do it to the end ofcollege. And if you're not good
enough, you'll never do itagain, or you'll maybe get the
chance to do it professionally.
And then you'll come to the endof your career and that's it.
Whereas whereas in the UK wedon't have the same elite high
school and college setup, butthere are systems in place that
allow you to continue with yoursports afterwards. I mean,
(23:54):
everybody is terrible at it, butat least it's easy to do it a
little bit more like into intoadulthood and stuff like that.
Emily Barkemayer (24:06):
Yeah, yeah, that's we definitely like we
talked about often that we misscompetition now in pilot
training, it's a whole differentform of competition and so that
kind of fed into that wellenough I would say plus you're
too busy to do anything else butyeah, we we definitely still
(24:26):
like miss that form. And we seekit out in other avenues. Yeah,
Jared Barkemayer (24:29):
I tried to hold on to the athletic stream a
little longer than she did aftergraduation. I tried out for
never done this, like I said,New Mexico, you know us
geography but it's a desertclimate. After graduation. The
Air Force has a programme calledthe world class athlete
programme where if you're goodin a significant or an Olympic
event, you can compete wearingthe US Air Force emblem as a
(24:52):
recruiting tool as well. I wasnowhere good enough for tracker
athletic or throwing I wasterrible. So however, I am Just
kind of naturally athletic. So Ithere's tried out for the US
bobsled team yesterday skeleton,because they're recruit me
they're recruiting is just is acombine event. So you're running
(25:14):
short distances and get scoredon and then you throw shotput,
which actually was linked to mythrowing career and then some
Olympic lifting weights, as wellas like a standing broad jump.
And those are all things thatI'm just I trained towards, and
I'm really good at that don'tnecessarily apply to like
skipping well at a sport, but Ican do them stagnant. So I
(25:35):
scored really well got invitedto do skeleton, bobsled trials
in Lake Placid, New York. Andthen I got, I did fairly well to
camp, I got invited back tostart that journey. However, I
was really, it was kind of liketo, you know, the roads
diverged, I either had a fullhead of steam with trying to be
(25:57):
an Olympic athlete, and it'sonly like a two year programme
outside the Olympics. And Iprobably wouldn't have got on
even if everything went perfect.
Until like the 2016 Olympics. Sothis was 2012 at the time, and I
was, I was okay, the real dreamspilot, that was fun. I need to
kind of hang up the cleats orthe spikes and all that stuff
and go full steam ahead. It'sbeen a pilot. But I still want
to twist you saying I have thatthat hunger to competed
(26:20):
athletically and I still workout and try to find new new
hurdles to jump over,figuratively, literally.
Dave Rogers (26:29):
Opportunity, though, just to just to have the
chance to train at those wintersports must've been so cool. One
experience. It was terrifying.
But it was really
Jared Barkemayer (26:38):
it was no one really tells you there's no like
very easy way you just kind ofgot to go down the track.
Essentially. They put you theygive you a few tips, but they
can't be there with you yourfirst time going, you know what,
I was a little lighter than Ishould have been for bobsled. So
they asked me to chop skeleton,which is for those who can't
home his face first on the ice.
Yep. It's actually one of thesafer ones, but then pops that
(27:00):
are loose. So, you know, theytake you about halfway up the
mountain and there's like goodluck and you start getting up to
speed and they give you somepointers and they just want to
see naturally. Like still withyour steer with your shoulders.
I was like, I don't know whatthat means. And then the whole
way, you're just pinballingacross the ice and you're
(27:21):
hitting ice at 40 miles to 50miles per hour on your first
runs. And I was black and blueall week. But I it was very fun.
And then towards the end of theweek, you start really picking
it up and but the experiencealone just going doing skeleton
like class, it was just there'sso many things in the airforce
like that where you can trythese opportunities that are
(27:41):
there. So worth its weight. Andjust doing it
Ben Hall (27:49):
seems like the military over in the US is so
much more than like a career orit's just like an all
encompassing lifestyle, rightwhere they give you tonnes of
opportunities all over theplace.
Emily Barkemayer (27:59):
It really is.
I mean, there's so many doorsopen for you when you first
start out as you go, and as youage up, and you get older, more
experienced and more valuable,you know, some of those doors
closed. But overall, there'sjust so many opportunities.
Ben Hall (28:16):
Point you guys gonna be knocking on the door of desk
work.
Emily Barkemayer (28:20):
Oh, well, I'm currently there. But that's
because I'm pregnant. Sowe we already are to be honest,
we're, we're senior captainsabout to be majors, which is the
next rank up. And we'redefinitely getting ageing out of
being line pilots and cominginto more desk centric
leadership roles.
(28:43):
Coincidentally, our pilotcommitment also ends in 2024. So
just a few years from now. Sothat's when a lot of people make
a decision of whether they wantto pursue a 20 year or more
military career or they loveflying more, and they want to
jump out and see what otheropportunities there are
Dave Rogers (29:02):
20 years sounds a long time, a long time.
Jared Barkemayer (29:07):
And then that's it. That's another one.
Emily was alluding to failing ata pod training. When we
initially signed up thecommitment. It was a 10 year
commitment after trainscompleted. So I was you know, 21
years old at the time, they'relike, Hey, this is the next 12
years of your life. And you'relike what, like, I'm, I haven't
even have cognitive thoughts for12 years. Yeah. And I have to
promise the way the next 12years like, so that was kind of
(29:30):
alarming. However, there's no Imean, I have zero regret saying
that I would do it again andagain. But at the time, that is
a long time. And then as yousaid another eight years after
you've given you know, 12 yourbest years doing this, and it
does take a toll on you and weenjoy it and we're passionate
and that's I think why we dorelatively well. But it is a
(29:52):
long time. Yeah. Yeah.
Ben Hall (29:54):
It's a bit of a young person's game, isn't it? Because
you're, I mean, you're all overthe place flying. It's elf is
pretty physically and sort ofemotionally demanding, and how
to actually work with yourrelationship. Can you, like,
organise flights at the sametime? Or like, how does your
roster pattern work? Because Iknow
Emily Barkemayer (30:17):
in terms of pre kids and post kids, so pre
kids dirt, and I would chaseeach other around the world, we
would be on different missions,but we would find each other in
different countries. And like hesaid earlier, we've been
deployed together three times.
So yeah, we would take trips.
And sometimes we'd be like shipspassing in the night, or
sometimes I'd come home and highfive him and he would leave. So
(30:40):
it's quite busy. Now with kidsthrown in. It's obviously a
little more complicated thanthat. So we have to plan our
schedules more, which isprovides a lot more
predictability to our life,which is is a welcome change.
But yeah, it does get it can getdifficult. I mean, I don't know
if you guys have kids, butsingle parent ops is not fun for
(31:00):
prolonged periods of time. So wemake it work. But it's, it's
because we have such a solidrelationship that we're able to
do that.
Dave Rogers (31:09):
Yeah, you're incredibly lucky. And it's
important to acknowledge that aswell, isn't it the sort of roles
that you you have to play tomake life good for everybody?
But no, Ben and I are childlesslads about town. That's not true
at all. So Jared, you weretalking about that competitive
(31:30):
nature, and you find ways to tryand be competitive. And right at
the top of the podcast, Imentioned, both of your social
media followings. And thenumbers are quite similar. But
there is a differential is thatcompetitive between the two of
you?
Jared Barkemayer (31:47):
No, I swear, it's not it really wasn't. To
begin with you it she actuallydelved into it earlier on as
more of a recruiting tool, andshe's done amazing things in the
space, I think, not speak foragain, and I'll let her take
this. But we both have thesocial media as a way to let
people know about this careerfield that we kind of, I like to
(32:09):
think like backed into, we justdidn't know how many amazing
opportunities are out there,especially when you're younger.
And that's how you kind of reachto the source of that
generation. And I'm not doing iton behalf of the Air Force or
anything, it's just, I this isan amazing opportunity, I want
people to know about how amazingit is. And if you work hard, you
can do these things or not.
They're not that hard to do,honestly, if you if you put you
(32:29):
know, the work and you can dothese things. And and that's
kind of and then they morphedinto like adding more followers
and more people askingquestions. And, and it's kind of
this positive feedback loop.
Because you get these stories ofpeople saying, like, hey, how do
you become a pilot, and then I,you know, I try to write as many
people as I can, like, this iswhat I recommend in the US. And
(32:52):
then, you know, I've done thatstarted that three or four years
ago, and I've already got like,those people saying, you know, I
just graduated pilot training, Ijust dropped the seven teens,
and you're just like, oh, itreally warms your heart and
like, gives me goosebumps whenyou hear those stories. And then
mine and Emily has just been aninspiration. Because obviously,
in the female aviation, youknow, there's not there's, they
make like 4% of aviators andmost commercial airlines, I
(33:14):
think statistics, I'm not, don'tquote me on those, but she's
recruited so many young women toknow that they can do whatever
they want to do. And I'm justgonna, like, segue into that,
because she's done so manyamazing things for us. But she
has way more stories about youngwomen like reaching out to her
on social media than I do,obviously.
Dave Rogers (33:31):
Yeah. Can you can you give us a bit of an idea
that Emily, because Ben and I,as to, for want of a better
term, straight white middleclass men, we always have the
conversation about diversity inaviation, whether it's women,
whether it's people of differentethnic backgrounds, and we
always kind of ask the question,why isn't there as much
(33:53):
diversity is there could be orshould be, or we'd like there to
be. But ultimately, as I said,we are just two people from the
demographic that are overrepresented in not just
aviation, but plenty of otherindustries. So you're an example
of an incredibly successfulwoman in aviation, who was had a
family has a great job is abrilliant pilot. And you're
(34:16):
obviously working hard to tryand show people that this is a
plausible pathway where you canliterally have everything. So
yeah, just tell us about whatyou're doing, who you're doing
it for, and any kind of storiesyou've got. I mean, Jared
mentioned the people that he'sspoken to who've, who've now
passed through, are there anyexamples that that you've had of
(34:38):
success on that front as well?
Emily Barkemayer (34:40):
Absolutely.
And honestly, it's a privilegeto to be able to demonstrate
this life that we have becauselike we said, we're very
fortunate and, and we absolutelylove what we do. And I just try
to do my best to demonstrate ourlife so that people can see
like, hey, they're relatablepeople like they're totally
normal. There's nothing I mean,we have our old, our, you know,
our oddities and stuff, but likewe're pretty normal people and,
(35:03):
and we're doing this and we'rehaving the time of our lives
and, and I and diversity isreally important to me. Mostly
because I have never personallyfelt like I was treated
necessarily differently. BecauseI was a woman or because I was
in the military or because youknow what I mean? Like I work
with professionals, purely trulyprofessionals, however, you
(35:26):
would not believe how many womenor young girls reach out to me
to be like, Hey, is it really asbad to be a woman in the
military as they make it soundor what's it like to be, you
know, one of one woman in a seaof 20 dudes, like in a in a
squadron or something like that.
And it's like, Burgess, Burgessprofessionals. And I love that I
(35:49):
have this platform, to sharethat from to be like, it's okay
to be the only woman in theroom. In fact, like it you
should want to be because thesooner you're there, the sooner
other women will know that theycan be there too. And as long as
you are strong and competent,there's nothing that's going to
stand in your way. At leastthat's been that's been the
(36:10):
situation for me. And so I'mjust so grateful that I can
share that and that I've had,you know, I can literally say
hundreds of women that havereached out to me and asked me
questions all the way from, youknow, the military to pilot
training to upgrade. And I'vehad the full circle feeling that
Jared was talking about to wherethey were like, I didn't think I
could do this. And here I am. Ijust dropped my dream plane from
(36:33):
pilot training. So thank you forinspiring me, which is, which is
so like, heartwarming, and just,you know, awesome. Yeah.
Dave Rogers (36:41):
Yeah, absolutely.
incredible stuff. Like, it's allwell and good. living the life
that you live and live in thedream that you've, you've
created for yourselves, but thefact that you are creating a
pathway and not pulling theladder up after you, if
anything, you're pushing it backdown for other people to climb
up. That's, that's prettyamazing. In terms of pilot base,
then then to sort of bring itback to, to your business, what
(37:06):
kind of uptake Are you gettingfrom women at the moment in
terms of applications for pilotjobs and things like that.
Ben Hall (37:15):
So it's actually really interesting what Jared
and Emily have just been saying,because when I first started
pilot base, it was kind of itwas to help pilots out. But I've
started with a kind ofcommercial mindset. So I started
building the platform. Andactually, I started the podcast
as a marketing tool effectively.
But as I go along, and the moreand more people we speak to, and
(37:36):
the wider the network grows, themore you realise it's that sort
of personal interaction. And,you know, just being able to
help people out on a regularbasis is a really, really
important thing. It's not, youknow, spreading stuff far and
wide for 50,000 people to seeit's, you know, just helping one
person every week, just tryingto find their way in the
(37:57):
aviation world. That's the thingthat's been really special. From
my point of view. We were mainlyEuropean based at the moment
we're trying to branch intoAmerica. And having guys like
you on board is is justfantastic to, you know, have
that bedrock of reallyinspirational pilots where
people can look up to you andyeah, and see it's it's a
(38:21):
realistic path for anybodyreally.
Jared Barkemayer (38:25):
Yeah, I agree with what Ben saying,
wholeheartedly. We're kind ofobviously in a generational
shift right now, where we'reprobably at the tail end, I
don't know, you're kind of likestuffing, email white pilots you
guys are talking about. Andthere's just this path, and you
can read about it. And there'sbooks and there's always
information, but it's not aseasily digestible, I would say.
(38:46):
And that's kind of where yourplatform comes in, the more
easily digestible, like dailyinteractions you can have,
showing people what you do, andthen be authentic about it and
not, you know, to be overlylike, serious about it. Aviation
is a serious, I don't want tomake light of that aviation is a
serious business with safetymeasures, and crew resource
management, all that thing andall that, obviously. But the
(39:09):
easier you can relate to thisnext generation, who is very
more visual learners, they wantto see things they don't want to
go read them. They want to knowthe person that is in that job
before they have that job to seeif they could see themselves
doing it, as opposed to justmore traditional, you know,
university structure or justroll right into that job and
(39:30):
study and there is a gap that Ithink we've started to bridge
and that's kind of what we enjoydoing is giving the next
generation involved. That's whywe do it.
Dave Rogers (39:40):
I think the most important word that you said
there was authentic, you've gotto be authentic Avenue and and
accessed and that's the that'sthe beauty of it. If you if you
post something and it's got apicture and it's got a story
people can be like, Oh yeah, Ican be like that guy or I can be
like that woman and I can I canfly the plane and Do the bob
scatter turn or I can be theinstructor and the moment. They
Ben Hall (40:05):
say what helps your Instagram channels out there,
especially you Jared, yoursoundtrack is unbelievable. The
biggest compliment
Jared Barkemayer (40:16):
about a curator, it's like a modern day
sad curator where I really doenjoy the music fitting with the
short clips. And like I said,it's easily digestible. It's
like 15 seconds to 30 secondsof, wow, this is really cool.
And for whatever reason, themusic behind it matches so well,
but I do spend time trying tofind the perfect soundtrack. So
(40:36):
thank you, Ben, I reallyappreciate that.
Dave Rogers (40:39):
So can you share your process your music
selection process? Oh my gosh.
That's, that's a tough thing tonail down, honestly. But talk
you through it 100 times over.
And like, over simplifying.
Never with headphones in.
Jared Barkemayer (41:07):
Some dinners have been interfered, or I'm
like, my brain works in themoment where I have that idea.
And I immediately must do it, Ican't write it down and say I'll
do this later. So like I said, Ijust try to find the short clips
that will capture your eye. Andthen usually, the music just
kind of adds to that. And thenthe story is always behind it
where people can address it. Ijust tried to keep it quick and
(41:32):
authentic. And then if peoplereally do want those deeper
conversations, they directmessage me and then I am happy
to have them. But I try not todo you know, every post is like,
you can be a pilot and beinspiration and all these things
like every time because in thatI think that it goes too far the
other way where you almost seemunauthentic when you're trying
to be overly authentic, if thatmakes sense. So I just try to be
myself. And then if people wantto talk to me, I'll always talk
(41:55):
to them and give them as muchtime as I can obviously not to
the detriment of my family or myinteractions with my peers, but
I will help as much as I can.
Dave Rogers (42:03):
So if people are listening to this podcast, and
they want to reach out to eitherof you, they can get in touch on
socials and you'll give themsome time.
Ben Hall (42:11):
percent of your handles just for the listeners
point of view.
Emily Barkemayer (42:16):
I'm flying with Emily two y's one was taken
so I fly with Emily
Jared Barkemayer (42:23):
and then I met he pilots on Instagram as well
as Tick Tock. I got into thetick tock world and that's been
a whole beast of itself.
Dave Rogers (42:33):
I am I am in the north side of my 30s I'm not
going anywhere near Tick Tock
Emily Barkemayer (42:42):
I tease Jared that I think at one time he was
probably the oldest. I don'tthink she's wrong.
Dave Rogers (42:49):
Somebody has to be it's not gonna be it's gonna be
someone else. How's the ticktock going? It all seriousness
people inside?
Emily Barkemayer (43:00):
Oh, he's blown up. Yeah, we have what do you
have 1.7 million followers orsomething? Yeah. See,
Dave Rogers (43:08):
I only knew about the Instagram. I did. That is my
bad research. I didn't knowabout that. One point.
Wow. Yeah.
See? That is where goodsoundtracking comes in Ben.
Jared Barkemayer (43:24):
Oh, yeah.
Honestly, that's where that'swhere I kind of I was pretty you
know, just the casual partake inInstagram and Emily had the more
of a traditional Instagrampictures and content and then I
found Tick Tock when I wasstudying. I was actually in one
of our captain's career courseslike a polishing school Air
Force officers, if you will.
(43:45):
We're no flying is involved. Sonaturally, I was bored, but
still trying to pay attention.
But that's when I found TickTock when I had some more time
on my hands. And I posted avideo not thinking anything. It
just had a cool sound to it. AndI was flying in Hawaii, which
obviously lends itself to somegood views. And that video blew
up and I just kind of kept doingit. And then I was like, Oh, why
(44:05):
social Instagram kind of copiedtik tok in a way with their
Instagram reels. And so Istarted posting reels and the
same the same kind of outlinewith a short video and a good
soundtrack that I could find andthat's why my Instagram started
progressing as I got a lot offollowers from tik tok coming
(44:27):
over. Is
Ben Hall (44:30):
that when you over took Emily Yep.
Dave Rogers (44:34):
Just turn the grenade in there, Ben. Yeah, and
also well, and you're just like,Oh, there goes the pin. Unreal,
Emily Barkemayer (44:42):
he earned it.
I mean, he posts nearly everyday, which is what you have to
do and he's doing a great job.
Dave Rogers (44:49):
I'm on like, a post every seven months at the
moment. It's fine. It's fine.
Right then guys, this has beenan absolute joy. A couple of
quick ones to finish them. Anyplanes you haven't flown that
you'd love to fly?
Emily Barkemayer (45:07):
I've always wanted to fly so I'm 47 maybe I
still can. We'll see.
Dave Rogers (45:11):
What is it about the 747 that you like?
Emily Barkemayer (45:15):
I I just like how big it is. Honestly, it's so
pretty. It's so Amish She's thequeen. I want to fly the queen,
Ben Hall (45:23):
right? Yeah. And she's getting it she's going extinct.
So my time is limited.
Dave Rogers (45:31):
Jared,
Jared Barkemayer (45:32):
I'm much more like newschool so like the
newest stuff on the block. 787Dreamliner seems awesome. We I
think we were passengers on one.
And I mean, the air even smellsnicer. So I was just like, man,
that'd be pretty nice to fly. Soanything that's the newest? I'm
kind of those guys. You know,this phone guy. I know. Some of
those people are the worst, butI like the new stuff.
Dave Rogers (45:52):
Something smells like rich people.
Ben Hall (45:56):
Not gonna get Americans like near bosses. Oh,
we
Jared Barkemayer (46:00):
were I'm coming around. Honestly, I
didn't. I was the stubborn, youknow, Boeing products, but we
fly an Airbus 320. I've been ona couple times with Alaska
Airlines zones. And I wasimpressed. Honestly.
Dave Rogers (46:14):
I love the 320.
Last time I was on a 320 I had anap woke up and forgot I was on
a plane. Yeah, what a joy. Whata joy. Any countries that you
haven't had the chance to fly toyet that you'd love to visit.
Emily Barkemayer (46:30):
I have not had the opportunity to hit New
Zealand or Australia yet, whichis rare for being stationed out
here. Blaming the COVID. So soonas I'm back from maternity
leave, I'm hopping on the firsttrip down here I can see Jared.
Jared Barkemayer (46:46):
The same actually i want to i would like
to go to New Zealand andAustralia. And c 17 actually
does go to Antarctica, we needto do some. There's one unit and
in Washington state that goes toAntarctica. And that's kind of a
bit of bucket lists. That's howit usually most of us get the
seven continents as you shoulddo that mission and land out in
the ice down there. It's in thecards but good. You got skis on
(47:11):
for that. Now we don't we justhave the C 130s. Do the skis. I
think it's the New York unit andyour garden unit. But now the C
17 has the braking capabilitiesin there Phil does have to have
to be in the right conditionsthe right weather a little more
so than the 130s. But yeah, itlashes out of Christchurch in
New Zealand. So it's a good gooddeal to be down there operating.
Dave Rogers (47:34):
I was about to wrap the podcast up but we need to
put more meat on this bone. skis
Emily Barkemayer (47:43):
would like to see a C 17 on ski. Now they just
put skis on the on the 130
Jared Barkemayer (47:50):
there's still wheels like on them. It's just
kind of think of about thinkabout I've seen a water plane
that lands on the water. So verysimilar the buoys, they're
shaped the same way. They'rejust skis to spread the
dispersion on the runway, butthere's still tires on there.
Dave Rogers (48:09):
But how? How does it stop?
Jared Barkemayer (48:13):
Well, that's still the braking on the tire.
Okay. that'll cause the stoppingon until a shout out the bottom
of the skis
Dave Rogers (48:21):
told you that he said he questions told you guys,
this has been such a joyousconversation. It's been so nice
to get to know you. And I reallyhope that some listeners do
reach out because it sounds likeyou've got some wonderful things
to say and examples to give. Andhopefully, you continue to have
(48:41):
a great life together with yourfamily as aviators and helping
more people get into into theindustry to lead that great life
as well. Thank you so much.
Emily Barkemayer (48:51):
Thanks for joining us. Truly. Thank you.
Jared Barkemayer (48:54):
Thank you guys, obviously, for having us
and reaching out and I mean,we're honoured obviously, Ben,
we love what you're doing. Dave,it was great to meet you. You're
such a pleasure. Honestly, ifyou ever want us back down the
road, just shoot us a message.
We'd be happy to continue thisand hopefully, this helps you
guys get reach out to morepeople as well. Many say
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