The First Female AH-6 Pilot for the 160th SOAR | Lindsey Chrismon | Ep. 340 - The Team House

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
You have to climb a caving ladder, so you get
dropped into the ocean essentially, and then your stick buddy
basically flies out with an ip and they hover above you,
and you're bobbling in the water, and this other student's
trying to hover the helicopter of you and obviously is
sucking at doing so. And they drop a caving ladder,
which is the ladder that's as thin as I mean,

(00:21):
it's the tiniest little thing. So you're like putting your
heels in this caving ladder and pulling yourself up out
of the water with all of your gear. I remember
once again just thinking to myself, I'm like completely at
physical max capacity, like I thought. You have to get
to the top of the ladder, offously climb and pull

(00:42):
yourself into the aircraft and then hook yourself in so
you fly away. And I just remember thinking itself, I'm
gonna fucking fall off this ladder and fall thirty feet
into the ocean, and I'm gonna fail green platude because
I can't climb this dayan caving ladder. It was so
fucking physically challenge for me. I don't know what it was.
It was just all my muscles, every ounce of my

(01:04):
body was like, this might be it, and that was
a really, really challenging thing to do. But did it.

Speaker 2 (01:18):
Hey guys, it's your pal Jack.

Speaker 3 (01:20):
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Speaker 4 (02:53):
Special Operations overt as being the Team House with your
host Jack Murphy and David Park.

Speaker 3 (03:14):
This is episode three hundred and forty of The Team House,
Jack Murphy with Dave Park and Our guest on tonight's show.

Speaker 2 (03:21):
Is Lindsay Chrisman.

Speaker 3 (03:23):
She served in the one hundred and sixtieth Special Operations
Aviation Regiment and also as Apache pilot through the AH
six with one sixtieth. She was the first female pilot
to have that position, and now she is getting her
MBA at Harvard and has a text startup. There's a

(03:44):
lot of things to talk about here, Lindsay. Thank you
for joining us on the show today.

Speaker 1 (03:48):
Thanks Jack, and thanks David. It's really awesome to be
Here's our pleasure.

Speaker 2 (03:51):
Yeah, thanks for doing it.

Speaker 3 (03:53):
So, you know I usually start off we ask our
guests about their origin story. Tell us a little bit
about like what your upbringing was like and how that
sort of took you towards military service eventually.

Speaker 1 (04:04):
Yeah, definitely, so thinking back, I mean I grew up
in New Jersey and I was kind of like a
different kid. I came home one day I think I
may have been in let's say maybe like third or
fourth grade, and I had cut all of my hair off.
I went like, I was like, I want short hair.

(04:24):
I want to be just like the guys. All my
friends were guys. I like wore all like guys. Yeah
literally g I Jane, and like I was like, long
hair is so annoying, Like I spiked it all up. Yeah,
it's hilarious to think about. And I don't know, like
I just always kind of like fit in really well

(04:47):
with like the guys. Like growing up, we used to
play like train for the military, and like I did
not come from a military background whatsoever. Like my grandfather
served like for a very short stint in the art
when he was young, but nothing of substantial. And I
just kind of just like had this like a Nate

(05:08):
I guess, like calling towards it when we were a
little bit older I grew up with with two younger brothers,
and my dad, who loves our country's history, brought my brothers,
our whole family up to West Point. We grew up
only about an hour away from the academy, so it
was it was a very easy drive, easy day picnic,

(05:30):
and like from that moment on, I was eleven at
the time when he brought us up there, I was
just like, this is exactly where I want to be
at West Point was I just absolutely fell in love
with everything that I saw. I don't really know exactly
what it was, but it's kind of just like I
don't really know how to describe it, but it's always
just kind of been a part of me, and I
think God just kind of whispered into my ear and

(05:50):
was basically like, Blena, this is where you're gonna go
to college. And was Point ended up being the only
college that I applied to.

Speaker 5 (05:57):
Really, Wait, what did you're coming from, like a not
military family. What did because you sort of had that driver,
that desire at a young age, what did your parents
think of that?

Speaker 1 (06:11):
Yeah, I mean they were proud to a certain extent,
of course, you know who, like what kind of young
kid decides at eleven years old that they want to
go to one of the hardest schools to get into
and also no tuition, which is very nice for your parents.
I think, like from the military aspect, they were they
were excited, but a little bit nervous, you know, just
a little bit anxious. We had no idea what we

(06:34):
were getting ourselves into, even through the application process. I
remember I when I was like doing my interview with
with one of the congressmen in order to get like
the nomination to go to West Point. He asked what
ranch I wanted, you know, now I know he meant like,
do you want aviation, infantry, air defense, artillery? And I
was just like, I just want to go into the army.

(06:55):
Like I just like did not understand anything about like
the struct sure of the military, like what did it
look like after I graduated. I was kind of just
going into it very very blind And sometimes I think
if you lead with a little bit of ignorance, it
kind of leads it pans out in a positive way
because just having that little bit of blinders on sometimes
if you know too much, you not kind of want

(07:17):
to like put your you know, actually jump in. So
I think it kind of ended up working out a
little well that we kind of really didn't know exactly
what we were doing.

Speaker 5 (07:25):
Yeah, so you didn't really have an idea that you
wanted to go into aviation.

Speaker 2 (07:29):
You weren't reading.

Speaker 5 (07:30):
Like books about helicopter pilots during Vietnam or anything like that.
Like you just knew you wanted the army, and West
Point was was gonna happen.

Speaker 1 (07:39):
Yeah, I think it was. I mean I was a
very like disciplined child, just innately, that's just who I was.
Like my parents never had to ask me to like
make my bed or you know, wake up and get
ready for school. I was always just like very i guess,
like structural in my day to day, and I think
that that was a very attractive component of it. I

(08:00):
know that that's kind of a strange thing for a
young person to want to kind of like live throughout
their life, especially in college when you should be like
partying and actually having fun. But yeah, I did think
that it was just kind of it was like in
my blood almost and I don't remember reading military books
or doing anything other than well, you know, now that

(08:24):
I think about it, I didn't read military books, but
I was really into athletics. I was. I was a
good athlete growing up. I went to the Junior Olympics
for track. I was a track athlete. I ran the
heptafon the pentathlon, I ran the I still have somehow
my high school's forged me to record which has come on,
mom Ffiel high school. Someone has to get in there

(08:44):
and beat this record. And I just was like really
really really into fitness and health, and I had a
personal trainer and I went to I had like a
nutritionist and like all this stuff growing up where it
just like really helped kind of like me physically. And
I think that also kind of helped leading into, uh,
into West Point, Like why I wanted to go there
and continue that like health journey.

Speaker 2 (09:05):
I guess that's awesome. And so you get into West Point,
the only college you applied to.

Speaker 3 (09:12):
That must have been a happy moment for for you
and the family at that point.

Speaker 1 (09:16):
Yeah, it was, uh. I mean, I I was getting
recruited for tracks, so it helped a little bit, but
you obviously still don't know if you're going to get
in or not. And I didn't have the best grades.
I wasn't valedictorian of my high school. Class. But I
remember I was in one of my high school classes
and my mom calls me and I'm like why is like,
that's not typical for her to ever call, and she

(09:38):
called again. I was like, shit, I gotta go to
the bathroom. I gonna check out see like did something
happen and she could. I called her back and she
was like, like, you got into west Point. I was like,
you open my this isn't where I'm supposed to find out.
And but it was. It was exciting all around. I mean,
I did put all of my eggs into one basket,
applying only to one college and I and I had

(09:59):
I had teachers in high school too. I specifically remember
I won't name names or anything, but we were going
around the classroom and all those students were kind of
just talking about like where they wanted to go to college,
and I said west Point, and I remember she specifically
stopped turned to me and was like, oh, you're never
going to get into that school. And I just like,
I just fucking love that, Like good tell me that

(10:20):
I can't do something and then we'll see what actually happened.
So it just kind of like continued to light a fire.
I guess, like the doubt, it's like, bring it on, So.

Speaker 2 (10:31):
Let's spill some tea real quick.

Speaker 5 (10:32):
I know you don't want any names, but did you
bring in your acceptance letter and like slam it on
her desk or anything?

Speaker 1 (10:40):
Oh? Yeah, I did. And then I got accepted into
my town's Hall of Fame. And I remember specifically like
she was at the hall of Fame ceremony because she's
a coach at the school, and I was just like, hmm,
are you on the Hall of Fame, mall? I don't
think so. I look at that.

Speaker 2 (10:56):
That's awesome, That's fantastic.

Speaker 1 (11:01):
A little bit of revenge doesn't hurt.

Speaker 3 (11:03):
There's no there's a little bit of a bravado here
that I can see carrying itself into being a helicopter pilot.

Speaker 2 (11:08):
Uh yeah, I like it.

Speaker 3 (11:12):
So you make it into West Point, what's like plea year,
and then you became the I guess the position is
called first captain.

Speaker 1 (11:20):
Yeah, yeah, very I was a very different human being
between my freshman my plea year at West Point and
my senior year, my first year as first captain.

Speaker 6 (11:31):
One.

Speaker 1 (11:31):
I did not go into the academy ever thinking that
I was going to end up being the first captain.
It's the highest ranking cadet. You're ranked number one out
of all forty four hundred students. There, you are the
one that dismisses the class on graduation day. You're basically
like the face of the core. And so when I
first started, I was, I mean, I was a fucking
mess getting going going into this. I mean I had

(11:53):
I thought I was in good shape. I apparently wasn't.
I like, I gained a bunch of weight during beast,
which is basically like our training equivalent, because I was
so stressed. I would just eat a ton during when
we were in the mess hall, just because like I
was like, what the fuck am I doing here? This
is not for me. I was like, I think I've
made a grieve mistake. This is this is way more
intense than I thought it was gonna be. And I

(12:14):
just lived a life of just pure anxiety for the
entire first year. I walked around with my head my
head really low. I had absolutely no self confidence. My
times in track completely declined. I was running worse times
than I had run when I was I don't know,
in eighth grade or something crazy like that. I just
kind of like for a little while lost myself and

(12:36):
I forgot kind of like who I was, what motivated
me to be there, what motivated me to to you know,
to want to serve in the army. And I had
to kind of regain all of that confidence throughout my
couple of years while I was at the academy, because
I mean, if you saw I could show you guys
a picture, I was that and disgusting and just scared

(12:57):
of literally everything I didn't I didn't know any thing
about the military. I didn't understand the rank structure. I
had no idea why we were walking in lines and
like wearing weird backpacks that were really heavy, and my
ankles were bleeding.

Speaker 2 (13:08):
You know.

Speaker 1 (13:08):
It was just like the whole thing was just a
lot to kind of comprehend really quickly. But I guess
I did good at it because they named me the
first captain after four years or three years of being there,
so so it turned around.

Speaker 2 (13:21):
I'm out of curiosity.

Speaker 5 (13:23):
Was it sounds like it was sort of the military discipline,
the rigor, like all the nitnoid stuff that was kind
of overwhelming to a civilian because a lot of these
people have probably been in like GRT. C. GRTC or
something like they had some idea what they were getting into, right, Yeah.

Speaker 1 (13:41):
Yeah, definitely, And I thought I had an idea. You know,
I could watch all the YouTube videos that I wanted,
I could go on I don't even remember if freddit
was a thing back then, and just try and you know,
educate myself as much as possible. But until you're actually
in it, you have no idea. Like you think that
you can rock for twelve miles with a seventy pound
five pound pack, but you just can't do it until
you actually like really test yourself and get through the

(14:04):
actual physical and mental components of all this. So it
was it was a really developmental I guess is probably
a good word to describe it as, like those couple
of years as I learned who I am and I
was able to really actually challenge myself not only just physically,
but mentally and academically because West Point I puts a
lot of pressure on students to actually you know, the
academic burgers pretty high.

Speaker 5 (14:26):
And then when you were going through that, like in
that first year, you know, I'm sure it's like college
and you know there's a lot going on, but did
you find any mentors were there any people that like
kind of pulled you aside realizing maybe you weren't doing
great or things like that.

Speaker 1 (14:44):
Yeah, definitely. I mean we have tach and CEOs and
and TAC officers that we kind of like would be
mentored by. And then I also had, uh we called
them instructors at West Point, instructors that definitely like helped
I guess like incurag you know, I wasn't It wasn't
that I was doing bad. I had a crazy high GPA.

(15:04):
I was probably ranked like top fifty militarily, maybe my
physical score wasn't as good as where I needed it
to be. But like it was all in my own head,
on my own biggest critic, and that was like the
biggest thing I think that I needed to break away
from and just like prove to myself that I deserve
to be there because the imposter syndrome and this could
be like a reoccurring theme throughout my entire life is

(15:27):
just always there at the start and it's really hard
to kind of overcome that. And yeah, the mentors, the instructors,
the tack NCOs kind of put it into perspective as
to like, you know, we're there, Yes, to gain an education,
but we're also there to try and become and understand
who we are as leaders, so that when we're putting
these positions, when we're actually in the military, we can
you know, we can make those those decisions with very

(15:48):
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Speaker 1 (19:32):
Four years, let's go.

Speaker 3 (19:33):
Yeahah, So from being a fucked up plead to your
final year making first captain.

Speaker 2 (19:41):
I mean, what was that, like, you know, you know,
the last year that you were there.

Speaker 1 (19:47):
Yeah, it was. I feel so. I was named by
Business Insiders one of the most like one of the
fourteen most impressive students to graduate college in twenty fourteen.
Like I didn't really understand the immense amount of I
guess pressure that was on me at in that position
because I was just kind of living it day by day.
You don't really it's a really hard thing to kind
of step away from that and recognize, you know, what

(20:09):
really is happening on a big picture. But I think
kind of, like thinking back in hindsight, it was it
was really really really challenging because peer leadership is really
fucking hard, But it was also incredibly rewarding because I
just got to I mean, I got the opportunities of
a lifetime. I got to you know, meet just incredible people.

(20:29):
Madeline Albright, President Present, Obama was there, Gerald odierno him
and I actually became like pretty close, and like there's
just like there was just like this I guess opportunity
that I would have never wanted to have ever passed up.
But I think I was kind of living that with
this still immense amount of pressure to still make the

(20:49):
right decisions for the core because we I mean, other
than also being the captain of the track team that
year and then also trying not to fail out of school,
I had to implement all these policies that you know,
sustained life for the cadets, so there was a lot
going on.

Speaker 5 (21:05):
Lizzie, I want to ask you about peer leadership because
it's it's it's an interesting topic. Right in the military, Uh,
maybe it's sort of like the lower enlisted ranks, you
might get into that kind of challenge. But generally, like
in the military and the civilian world, there are very
clear lines of demarcation and you know, and you don't
have to worry, like you have your peers and you

(21:26):
don't have to worry about, yeah, who I mess with
with my subordinates so much? But here you are a student.
You want to have friends, you have.

Speaker 2 (21:35):
Right, you have peers, but now you're a peer leader.

Speaker 5 (21:39):
How how does that affect your relationship with other students.

Speaker 1 (21:43):
It's it's a really challenging it's a really challenging thing
because you have there has to be a differentiation, right
you have to still be a leader and represent the
institution as the first captain, but you also still have
to ensure that you're yourself and that you you know,
take time to come out of the academy with a

(22:04):
handful of really solid lifelong friends and you don't lose
them in the process. Because it's a very easy thing
to let the like the first captain entity take over
everything else that's going on. Right And in terms of
peer leadership, I think that the big it's really challenging
when you're trying to get I think it's a real

(22:25):
form of leadership because one thing that I've learned in
the military, and this is kind of like a better
understanding it now that I'm out of the military, is
I don't know how this will be perceived. Maybe it's
a hot take, but I think leadership in the military
is easier than either peer leadership or leadership outside because
there's this like forced rank structure, right, Like, no matter what,

(22:48):
we have to follow the individual who is wearing the
rank above ours regard. I mean, we're bound by law
to do so. So no matter like whether or not
you want to follow that person and they are a
good leader, you still have to. And so, like the
objectives and the mission still get accomplished regardless of really
how strong that leader is and what I've learned, like

(23:11):
it during my time as first captain that that wasn't
the case because cadet rank is fake. It doesn't matter,
you know, it's all it's all made up, and you
had to still be a leader amongst your peers, and
you had to strip away like this understanding that there's
a higherarchical structure because there isn't. And you still had
to get them to want to follow you and to

(23:31):
want to, you know, implement your policies that you were
coming up with, and you have your back, you know
when it comes time to talk to a higher ranking individual,
whatever it is. And that is just one thing that
I'm learning in the civilian world too. It's like there's
no rank structure. No one has to want to follow you.
You have to make sure that you're innately a good

(23:51):
leader or you're never going to You're never gonna make it.

Speaker 2 (23:55):
So was that type of leadership, the type of leadership where.

Speaker 5 (24:00):
Where you have to get buy in and obviously all
leaders should, but like you say, in the military, it's
not required. But here you are on the same level
as these people. There's no UCMJ. You can't fire them
from their job or whatever. Is that something that came
naturally to you, like getting people to buy in or

(24:22):
was this something that you learned along the way.

Speaker 1 (24:25):
I want to say like a little bit of both.
I think I have really good EQ. I think I
understand people really really well, And I think that really
helps when it comes time to be in a leadership
position where you have to get the buy in from
the other individual, because you have to come to the
table with an understanding of where they're sitting and what

(24:45):
their goals are and what their ambitions are. And it's
not only about like what you want out of the
organization or what you want out of like it's the
overall mission. It's how are you going to inspire them
to want to see the same thing that you see
as the end state? And so it's a really hard
thing to be able to do that if you can't
put yourself in their shoes or understand where they're coming

(25:05):
from and find a way to inspire them to want
to do to get to that end state. So I
think the EQ thing really really helps in that sense.
But I mean it's trial and error too. You know,
you learn so much just by interacting with other people
and interacting with other people who are very different than you,
who think very different than you, who have very you know,

(25:29):
opposite opinions on matters that you thought would be something
that you would come to a conclusion on. You got
to put yourself in the position where you're tested time
and time again, or you will completely lose the ability
to understand where everyone else is coming from.

Speaker 2 (25:42):
It's fascinating.

Speaker 3 (25:43):
And when you graduate as first captain, do they give
you like preferential treatment as as far as choosing what
branch you want to go into?

Speaker 2 (25:51):
Do you get first pick?

Speaker 1 (25:53):
No, it's all based on your OML. Now as the
first captain, you're not going to have a low OML,
so you're pretty much guarantee to get whatever branch you want.
And you're the one that I got to stand on
the stage and tell the whole class like open your envelope.
So that was a really exciting moment in life. But yeah,
there's no there's It's kind of funny because a lot
of people, anyone that knows about ONS's point, they always

(26:15):
think the first captain, our grades are frozen, we get
their first branch choice, like everything is kind of like
we're we eat off of gold platters. That's just not
the case at all, you know, We're we're actually just
probably working three times as hard as the average cadet
because there's just a little bit more pressure put on us.
But yeah, it would be nice if our grades were frozen.

Speaker 5 (26:34):
But whatever, how is the order of merit list generated?
Is it just grades or is it a combination of
a lot of different things.

Speaker 1 (26:42):
So it's a combination of your academic standing, your physical standing,
and your military standing. So we take obviously our all
of our academic classes a poor curriculum, and then that's
based off of your major starting I think your junior
and senior year. And then your physical grade is based
off of your sport. And every cadet is an athlete,
so whether you're on a D one team or if

(27:04):
you are on a club team or even a company team,
you get a grade from that. And then you also
take survival swimming classes, combatives classes, boxing classes, and all
of those kind of build into your physical score. And
then you have your military aspect to things, so that's
most of them. Are your leadership details, So while you're
in your academic year, so like August through May, you're

(27:25):
put in a leadership position. So like mine was first
captain of my senior year, I was a squad leader
my junior year. You're basically put in these positions throughout
the academic year that you're graded on, and then also
your summer details. So whatever position you hold over the summer,
then you get graded militarily in that component, and then
everything is aggregated and you get an overall class standard for.

Speaker 5 (27:46):
The for the lower ranks like the and maybe the
younger years, are those positions like squad deaderway are they
rotated through like in ranger school where everybody gets, you know,
a time to shine or not shine exactly.

Speaker 1 (28:01):
It's not as obviously frequent as ranger school, but I
think it's I want to say it's every semester your
change or maybe it's every term. I honestly can't remember,
but it does change. So like the company commander will
only be whether it's a semester or quarter long of
a period of time where you get you get the
opportunity to kind of dip your toes into different types
of positions.

Speaker 2 (28:20):
Okay, fainting.

Speaker 3 (28:23):
Yeah, so you got into aviation, I assume was your
first choice. Yeah, yeah, but you don't know what airframe
at that point, right, You got to go to like
pre flight school and flight school and all that.

Speaker 2 (28:36):
Can you tell us a little bit about what that
progression was.

Speaker 1 (28:38):
Like, Yeah, so I knew I wanted to fly the
Apache that was and like My first experience with the
APACHE was at West Point and we do this thing
called Branch Week, where I mean, especially the younger cadets,
no one really understands what all the branches entail. So
they bring all of the branches to West Point. You

(28:58):
get to interact with the soldier, you get to interact
with officers who are in you know, who are aviators,
who are infantry officers and all of that. And then
APACHE came down and landed around the plane right over
my like room window, and I was like, this is
the fucking coolest thing I've ever seen in my life.
And I was like, this is like, this is what
I want to do. It was like boom, I figured
it out. I found what I wanted to do, and

(29:19):
it kind of just followed that same path where I
was like, I want aviation and I want to fly
a patchy helicopters. And so when I graduated from West Point,
I went to flight school. It was I don't know
if it's like what the post names are, I think,
like things are changing back all over the place, but
it was fort Rucker when I was there down in Alabama.
Flight school was a fucking blast. It was two years

(29:42):
I got hurt. At one point, I ruptured my ear drums.
I got set back a little bit, But other than that,
I had such a great time. It was it was
finally like the college experience that we were all yearning
for while we were at West Point. We could kind
of live out those glory days while in flight school.
But yeah, you had to be up of your class
in order to get your first pick of aircraft. So

(30:02):
I just kind of like worked hard and I drank
a lot, but I worked hard and ended up with patches.

Speaker 3 (30:10):
When you're in flight school learning how to be a
rotary wing pilot, I mean.

Speaker 2 (30:14):
What what do they do?

Speaker 3 (30:14):
They have you training on like Huey's or something like
that to get everyone kind of up a basic speed.

Speaker 1 (30:20):
Yeah, we flew We trained on the THH sixty seven.
So it's just a single engine aircraft. It's actually larger
than the little bird. I don't remember if it has hydrawl.
I think it does have. It does have hydrauls. I
think I could be wrong there, but it's it's still
kind of one of those like very manual type of
helicopters to fly on. It's it was a it was

(30:40):
a great training helicopter. Now they're flying on the Lakota,
so it's a different system. They can't do touchdown auto
rotations like we did. There's just a lot of like
as limitations with that aircraft that the new students are
training on. But I'm sure I think they have much
better like instrument capabilities. So there's kind of trade offs
between what we flew in flight school versus what the
students now are flying.

Speaker 2 (31:01):
What was that first flight like for you?

Speaker 1 (31:05):
I mean, I remember I remember coming down and landing
and getting out and being in my car and driving
home that day and thinking to myself, I hate being
on the ground. I was like, being in the sky
is so far superior to any experience that I've had
in my life so far. It was just one of
those like moments where I just realized I really like this,

(31:27):
and I picked it up pretty quick. I grew up
playing drums percussion. I played the drum set based I like.
For my fifth grade talent show, I did a drum
solo on a kit, So I just like good. I guess,
like I I can play with both my feet and
my hands and everything all at once. I could, you know, see,
I could read music and everything, and I think that
translated really well to flying a helicopter. I picked it

(31:50):
up very very quickly, and I absolutely loved it. Like
I never wanted to land. We just I just wanted
to keep flying like as much as possible.

Speaker 3 (32:01):
And then when you get through flight school, there comes
a time where you have to you know, everyone gets
assigned to the airframe that hopefully they want, right.

Speaker 1 (32:08):
Yeah, yeah, So most it's a tricky process and every
class is very different. So, like I mentioned before, I
ruptured my ear drum while I was in instruments and
it set me back like two classes. And the class
that I was originally in, every single student got assigned apaches.
So one I was like watching them and being bummed

(32:30):
out that I wasn't in my original class because then
I would have been guaranteed at the sixty four. But
so then when it came time for my our class selection,
I think we only had like two or three apaches
out of our class, and it went pretty quick. I mean,
people are always wanting to fly the attack helicopters that
and chinooks are the top two. We did not have
any fixed wing assets available to our to our class

(32:51):
for selection, and that's just kind of how it works.
It's very similar to man. I don't even know what
to kind of compare to, but it's just number one,
you pick whatever's available. Number two you pick whatever's left,
and so on and so forth.

Speaker 5 (33:03):
So when you go through flight school, there is there
is a fixed wing portion and there are fixed wing
options at the end of that.

Speaker 1 (33:10):
So we don't fly fixed wing as students, but there
is you can fly fixed wing in the Army at
the C twelve. It's a small it's kind a VIP aircraft.
It's a it's a very hard frame airframe to be
selected or to select four just because there's maybe like
two every year. Okay, so you have to get really
lucky in your timing and then you have to definitely

(33:31):
be number one out of your class.

Speaker 3 (33:33):
Interesting okay, Uh, so you get assigned to the APACHE
and what is it?

Speaker 2 (33:39):
Then off to Fort Campbell? Where did you go?

Speaker 1 (33:42):
So after I got assigned to sixty four, I went
through the remainder of the training that was for that airframe,
and then I actually went to Fort Bliss, who was
my first study station. Yep. I was in El Paso, Texas,
And I know a lot of people shit on El Paso,
but it was phenomenal. I had the best command I

(34:03):
could ever have imagined. It's the reason I gott into
the one sixtieth was because of those guys. And I
just had a really really great time living there and
I loved the I loved everything about it. The unit
was great. I ended up going there because so my
husband who's now my husband, he went to West Point too.
We met at West Point and he was a different cadet.

(34:26):
He wouldn't hate on me for saying this, but like
he was, like he walked two hundred hours while he
was there. We were like, oh, the opposites. And when
he got a signed he was an infant officer. When
he got assigned his posts, they basically were like, you're
going to Fort Bliss. So I was like the strange
aviator that was like, can I go to Fort Bliss?
They were like, yeah, obviously no, no one so you

(34:49):
can for sure go to Fortliss. But yeah, I had it.
I loved flying at Fort pless.

Speaker 5 (34:55):
Is it because it's just a wide open range for
an assault helicopter.

Speaker 2 (34:59):
I mean, I'm sure there's plenty of good training out there.

Speaker 1 (35:01):
For you guys, great training because it's all the mountains.
But it's also desert. I mean, you learn how to
fly like a pilot. It's not this like four Campbell's
just like rolling haills. You have like a couple of
like pieces of open terrain to land into when you're
flying out in those mountains out in El Paso, Like
it's it's a completely different environment. So that was really great.

(35:24):
But it was I think the reason that I enjoyed
my time so much was because of my command. I
was in three six cav My battalion commander was absolutely phenomenal,
and then my company commander was one of the best
leaders that I've ever had the privilege of working with.
His name is Captain Sharky. This dude, you should get
him on the podcast. He is hilarious. He pushes the

(35:48):
limits to the max, teaches you how to taste take risk,
like almost too much risk. But I think that that's
like the reason why I was able to get into
the one and sixty because I kind of I knew
my limitations because he like really pushed me. And one
of his big things was like you will fly more

(36:08):
than anyone in the company, like as a platoon leader.
That doesn't happen. Commanders don't protect their platoon leaders in
that regard, they make them, you know, create the flight schedule.
They don't get to put on the flight schedule. They're
doing the dumash training meeting slides and like all this
other you know, behind the computer type stuff. That was
not his philosophy. And I had more hours flying stateside
than some of my friends who were deployed at the

(36:29):
time just because of his philosophy there.

Speaker 5 (36:31):
So you were for the people who might not be
familiar with it. Can you tell us about the Apache airframe?
Kind of give us and then also sort of the uh,
I guess the the Army's tee, like, how you guys
are set up, like you said you went to three six,
How you guys are set up with other units and
things like that.

Speaker 1 (36:51):
Yeah, so, I mean the Apache is an attack helicopter.
There's it's it's uh, like, how do I even how
do we say this? It's not like you don't sit
side by side, you sit oh tandem tantam seats, so
you're ones in the front. It's the gunner position and
then the pilots behind. But both positions can both shoot,
both fly a range of weapons systems on the aircraft.

(37:16):
Thirty milimeter gone, you have rockets with all different types
of variations of rockets. I think it's a nineteen shot
rocket pod. Obviously hell fire missiles, So there's a bunch
of different configurations that the aircraft can deploy with. Some
aircraft had the FCR, the fire control radar, which basically

(37:36):
allowed us to identify, you know, any types of any
type of vehicles in the vicinity that were we could
track them from it from a distance and it helped
with when we were shooting how fires. But it's it's
it's one of those airframes where very very different than
like the attack profile than a little bird has because

(37:56):
basically what you would do in the Apache is you'd
fly at one thousand feet and you would just do
circles around the objective. So you were, you know, not
close air support, but you were always there ready to
support when needed.

Speaker 2 (38:08):
Yeah.

Speaker 5 (38:09):
So with the gunner sitting up front and the pilot
in the back, is there a like a seniority to
that as do which is whitch and things like that.

Speaker 1 (38:20):
I mean typically the pilot and command who would be
the more senior who owned the aircraft that they would
probably be sitting in the back. It's but it really
doesn't matter now that the pilot and command could be
sitting in any of the seats, but typically they'd be
sitting in the back seat. Okay, mhm, like flying I guess,

(38:41):
like more or less flying the aircraft the front the
front seat had the tads, so you had this like
I guess like configuration where you had both of your
hands on it and you can maneuver the weapons systems
basically with your thumbs. So you weren't on the flight controls,
and so you can lock in the the the sensor
on whatever you know objective you were going after or

(39:02):
zooming in to be able to see, you know, what's
happening in the objective area. So you were kind of
like the control node for the aircraft sitting in that
front seat.

Speaker 2 (39:11):
And then would you that be a partnership?

Speaker 5 (39:14):
I mean, I'm thinking like Maverick and Goose, Is that
like a partnership or could it be anybody assigned to
any two people in the squadron or whatever assigned to
a burden.

Speaker 1 (39:25):
Yeah, it's any two people that are signed. And I
think it should have probably been more of like like
maverickan Goose type of situation where you have someone that
you just innately understand, you know everything about this individual,
But that's just not how it was. It was you
were just assigned to fly with any anyone within the unit.

Speaker 2 (39:45):
That's fascinating.

Speaker 5 (39:46):
So what happens And maybe you didn't have this in
your unit, but I feel like every unit has one, uh,
like the person that nobody wants to fly with.

Speaker 1 (39:57):
Yeah, I mean, for sure there's I'm not going to
say names obviously, but there are for sure people that
didn't want to fly with certain individuals. I think it's
like a safety thing, especially in the aircraft. You don't
want to fly with someone that you know is just
not a good pilot. Yeah, someone has poor judgment, someone
that's kind of just always fucking up regardless, like can't
even land the aircraft in the right place, or it

(40:20):
doesn't understand what's happening on the radio, will like start
making like an approach to a runway from the wrong direction,
or just like spatially not oriented. Those kind of people
are just the last kind of person that you want
to fly with, because you just need whoever you're flying
with to be on the top of it and thinking
way ahead of the aircraft, as opposed to like you're
like fucking dragging them along, be like okay, can we

(40:42):
do this together, and not you're going to make us crash?

Speaker 2 (40:46):
So did you have a profit? Was one position more
fun than the other?

Speaker 1 (40:51):
So I always found that it was easier to like
physically fly the aircraft from the back seat. I think
it had to do with like the center of gravity
of the aircraft. When you're flying in the front seat,
you're very far forward, so like the weight of the
aircraft was behind you, and so like there is a
little bit of like spatial disorientation there. And also when
you're flying at night, we don't we never really flew

(41:13):
under goggles. It was always under the monocle, So there's
just that like that parallax, I think that's what we
called it, Just a difference between where the sensor is
and where you're physically sitting. So it was it was
just a little bit more of a complicated position to
fly from the front seat. But I mean, let's be honest,
it was like maybe four feet of difference.

Speaker 2 (41:34):
So it wasn't that bad.

Speaker 5 (41:35):
But in terms of like being the primary pilot or
the primary gunner, did you have a preference?

Speaker 1 (41:42):
So yeah, I mean I in the Apache, it's very
different than the Little Bird. It really sometimes did like
the back seat would be flying, in the front seat
would be the gunner. Little Bird, if you're flying, you're shooting.
I preferred in the Apache to kind of take the
Little Bird model where it was if I was flying,
out was shooting. So I like to be in the

(42:03):
back seat, and I like to be on the controls,
and I like to actually be the one that's releasing
the weapons. That was my preference, And it was just
really just because I trusted myself right for over another individual.
But obviously you have to have trust in your copilot
in those instances.

Speaker 5 (42:20):
So so if you were flying and shooting, was the
person in the front seat where they basically just like
doing seduku or something, I mean, like.

Speaker 1 (42:29):
Drinking coat, yeah, hanging out, Yeah, I mean it could
get a little boring. Now you're like you're monitoring radios,
you're throwing in grids, you're figuring out, you know, like
what's coming up next. You're getting like a very good
situational awareness of what's going on, and then you can
relay that information because sometimes if you're you know, on
the flight controls, but also on the target, it can
get a little disorienting. So the front seat is just

(42:52):
basically just to kind of bring everything back big picture
and update the pilot.

Speaker 5 (42:57):
So now the in terms of how the army does it,
or were you guys attached to like an infantry like
a brigade or a battalion or like how does that work?

Speaker 1 (43:08):
Yeah? Pretty much? There just an infantry unit, whether it's
a light or heavy. It really for us we would
fly with whoever needed.

Speaker 5 (43:19):
The support it okay, time, okay, But you weren't like
part of a unit, a part of like an infantry unit.

Speaker 3 (43:26):
No, no, okay, So when does the idea of going
to assessment for one sixtieth start to creep up into
your mind?

Speaker 1 (43:36):
So it was always there. I kind of lost track
of it a little bit while I was just trying
to make pilot command an air mission commander flying the
sixty four, But it was always and I I mean
you could probably tell from knowing a little bit more
about my background. I just kind of want to do
like the hardest thing possible, and I just knew that
the one sixtieth was just that next step up right,

(43:58):
It's the grad school. It's exactly where you want to
be as an aviator. There was one trip I did
as in a patch of pilot. We went to Texas
and it was actually a flight lead evaluation and us
as sixty four's we were attached as some sort of
like additional asset that the one sixteenth could train with
and kind of just like add them into their stack

(44:19):
and add another layer of complexity into the planning process.
And I remember being there and integrating with the unit,
and I was so blown away at how professional everything was.
It was so incredibly different than how we were operating
as sixty four pilots. I felt so amateur and I
honestly just kind of felt embarrassed. I was like, I

(44:41):
cannot stand up one like one leg. Compared to these guys,
this is just another an absolute another level of aviation skill,
not only just flying, but planning and briefing and everything.
And so I was like, shit, why would I not
want to try and get into this unit and learn
and be exactly as professional as these guys are. And

(45:04):
so I got the opportunity to fly in the jump
stuit at A forty seven on one of these flightly
Vail rides and it completely I mean it completely changed
my mind. I was one hundred percent dead set. This
is exactly what I want to do. And from that
point on, I think it was twenty sixteen or so
at that point, so I was two years out of

(45:25):
West point, two years flying or I guess maybe like
end of twenty sixteen into twenty seventeen, and so I
still had a little bit of time left at three
six calfs at Fort Bliss before I had to go
to the career course. So I sat down by an
Italian commander and I was like, I am going to
leave the unit and I want to assess for the
one sixtieth. And he was like, oh good, you want
to fly forty sevens And I was like, because they

(45:47):
don't have a past t use in the one sixtieth
and I was like, no, I want to fly the
age six and uh he laughed, literally did exactly that.
But the crazy thing is he was he was also
a bcopilot. He flew in the one sixtieth as a
little bit pilot, so he knew everything about the organization,

(46:07):
about that company, the center of the universe, everything about
these guys. And it was like you are never going
to get into that, you know, like this just expectations like,
let's not make a red mark on your career. Let's
just level the playing field here, Like you can go
and assess, but you if you get picked up, you
will be flying forty sevens. It's just kind of like
the trajectory for a patch of pilots if they don't

(46:30):
make it the attack platform. And so I was like,
all right, bring it on, let's go. So I just
I mean, I did everything I possibly could to kind
of prepare myself for the assessment. Now, the assessment itself
was is a whole nother world. I probably blacked out
for half of it. I don't like you know what
I mean. It was just like one of those times
in life where you're just like just have to keep

(46:52):
your head down and just not quit. Yeah, literally, do
not quit. Yeah, I mean that's out of the bag.
I made it, but it was a hellish experience.

Speaker 5 (47:04):
Did you do I'm did you do a combat deployment
with the with the apaches?

Speaker 2 (47:09):
No?

Speaker 1 (47:09):
Not with the apaches?

Speaker 2 (47:10):
Okay?

Speaker 5 (47:11):
And then why why did like why is the Apache
uh to like the siege fory?

Speaker 2 (47:19):
So why is that? Is it because they're both heavier
like aircraft or No?

Speaker 1 (47:25):
I honestly think it's it's simply because of the demand
of the unit. I think there, I mean, there's a
very very small handful of age six pilots in the
one sixtieth. There's only one company in one battalion. Now
for the forty seven's, they're in the three of the battalions.
Out of the four, there's many there's a lot more pilots.
So when the DIC comes in the I guess like

(47:47):
the demand from the arm or the supply from the
conventional army on the forty seven side is much lower
than the sixty four and when you when you bring
that over into the one sixtieth organization, they need to
kind of crawl slowed that supply into the forty seven cops.

Speaker 5 (48:03):
And when he said he didn't think you'd get in it,
obviously he wasn't talking about your capability, But was it
more just like the number of people they selected, and
probably a lot of people had a lot of experience
coming into that unit.

Speaker 1 (48:17):
Yeah, one hundred percent. Like I mean, there's me no
combat deployment. I have like maybe five hundred hours, maybe
maybe twenty five hours flying goggles, you know, because we
did not fly goggles in the sixty four. I mean,
I have no prior military experience, and I don't fit
the mold of what a typical little Bird pilot looks

(48:38):
like at all. And I'm a chick. You know, no
woman has ever favorably assessed for the aircraft. Women have tried,
but there's been a lot of reasons why they haven't
made it. So, I mean he was not wrong in
telling me, like, your chances of getting to fly little
birds is basically zero percent, right, And yeah, I mean

(48:59):
I never really asked. I mean I know kind of
why I got in and why I was selected to
fly little Birds, but I mean the overall reason I
I don't know.

Speaker 3 (49:12):
Well, before we get there, tell us a little bit
about assessment and what that was like. I mean, you
said you were kind of blacked out through half of it,
But if you have any any recollections or stories from
that time, I would love to hear them.

Speaker 1 (49:24):
Yeah. So it's a week long assessment process, and which
isn't a lot of time, right, I mean obviously if
you're going through assessment for other organizations, it's a lot
longer of a process. So a week sounds like nothing
to most of these you know, Tier one organizations. But
it kind of is composed of like a physical aspect

(49:45):
of flying. You do a lot of psych evals, and
then you do like I guess that kind of falls
into the physical stuff like swimming. You do a pet
test and all this other stuff. For my assessment, it
my main goal going into it was to just not
quit no matter what I did. I was just I

(50:07):
just told myself, no matter how hard things get, no
matter what happens, I'm just going to not quit. I'm
just gonna keep trying until they tell me you failed.
Now it's time to stop. And that played out, I think,
really really well for me. We did a swim assessment
where you had to jump off the high dive whatever

(50:28):
in all your gear, stand to water, and then swim
for as long as you possibly could underwater. And I
just told myself, I'm gonna drown in this pool because
I'm not coming out of the water until they tap
my head, and I'm gonna try and swim as far
as I as far as I literally physically can. And
I swam the furthest that day than any other anyone
else in the pool. So like it's just like those

(50:50):
little types of things, right, you just put your mind
to like the right kind of outcome, and you just
tell yourself, like, they're not gonna let me die in
this pool, so I'm just going to swim.

Speaker 2 (51:00):
That's bold of you. That's very bold of you to
assume that, I know, well.

Speaker 1 (51:04):
Because I basically did pass out in the pool, they're
gonna yeah. But and then there was another instance where
I had to I mean, obviously, flying little birds, it's
a very physically demanding aircraft to fly, not only just physically,
but we reload all of our own AMMO. You know,

(51:24):
you're getting out your refueling yourself, so you have these
fuel blivets that weigh, you know, over one hundred pounds.
You have to lift reload the aircraft with an AMMO can.
So one of the things I had to do was
just after one of our flights, was get out and
reload the aircraft and lift the amocan off the ground.
It seems very very simple, but it's something that little
bird polts do literally all the time. But this is

(51:45):
like the one thing that women really struggle with because
it's like maybe one hundred and twenty five pounds. That
might be a slight exaggeration, but somewhere in that ballpark
of weight, and it's just very awkward. You know, it's
filled with AMMO and it's massive, that.

Speaker 3 (52:00):
Big rectangular can that sits in the back area of
the of the bird.

Speaker 1 (52:04):
Exactly, and so it's just bulky and weird, and women
are smaller and well there's a lot of small little
bird pilots too, which is kind of funny. But you
just had to like clean it and get it on
like on the rail and then slide it in. And
they brought the entire company out to watch me lift
the samocan because they were like, there's no way in

(52:25):
hell she's lifting the samokan. So it was just like
another It was just like another mental thing for me, right,
Like I was just like, I will pull both of
my hamstrings, both my shoulders. I wouldn't make sure the
samokan gets gets lifted up if it's the last thing
that I do. And I did it on the first try,
and apparently like no other woman who assessed for little
birds had ever done that before, So that was like

(52:46):
a And I didn't know that at the time, Right,
I'm just there lifting this stupid ammocan, and I go
on to do with the other tasks and whatnot you
have to you have to do like navigation flight at
night and you're flying with paper maps that you had
to make the night before, and then need to do
all these like briefs and and the it wasn't the
battalion commander, but it was the deputy commander who was

(53:08):
on my flight, who's my trail, So like there was
just a lot of like pressure, I guess in that regard.
They just really wanted to make sure that it wasn't
a mistake, allowing me to one assess, continue my assessment,
and then obviously get the handshake at the end. But yeah,
just when.

Speaker 5 (53:28):
When you talk about uh, the Little Bird being a
physically like, uh demanding airframe, you know, like I think
that anybody who's ever watched the TV show sees the
helicopter pilots sitting there like, can you can you tell
us why the the the Little Bird is physically demanding?

Speaker 1 (53:47):
Yeah, So the first reason is because there's no hydraulics,
so it's a literally a physically demanding aircraft to fly.
So I mean every input that you make actually tilts
the rotor system and actually maneuvers the aircraft itself. So
there's there's no assistance whatsoever. And then the profile that
we fly the aircraft itself is challenging. So there's it's

(54:11):
very i mean, we're always almost at max power, so
overtrquing can happen literally in a split second. You can
get like blowback through the rotor system, which could like
spike your Like, there's just like a lot of things
that can happen, and if you're not on top of it,
then things will escalate and get worse very very quickly. Yeah,

(54:33):
so it's not only just like physically demanding to fly
without hydraulics, it's also a physically like challenging aircraft to
fly because you have to pay attention to everything that's
going on. As opposed to in the Apache, it was
a very very smart aircraft.

Speaker 5 (54:48):
You know, I'm sure most of our viewers are too
young to get this reference. But the idea that I
always think of is before we had power steering, people
actually had to turn their steering wheels, you know, and
you know, and so you know, people don't understand these
days that are steering is assisted, and you know, you're

(55:09):
talking about that same thing that you are physically manipulating
the cables.

Speaker 2 (55:13):
In the aircraft.

Speaker 5 (55:14):
There's not a hydraulic system that's making it easy.

Speaker 1 (55:17):
For you exactly. Yeah. And another thing too about the
Little Bird is you can't take your hands off of
the flight controls whatsoever. And the Apache you had hold modes.
It wasn't like the greatest invention that's ever been put
into a helicopter before, but like you could take your
hands off off of the flight controls, you could not
release the flight controls at all. In the Little Bird.

(55:39):
Both feet were on both pedals at all times, as
well as cyclic and collective.

Speaker 3 (55:46):
Yeah, it's interesting, Yeah, to hear you describe it, and
how like this machine becomes an extension of your body,
you know, both like you know, you were saying with
the Apache, how you're using your eyes but you're looking
through this sensor on the top of the bird or
with the AH six and actually your feet are moving
the aircraft. Literally, that's pretty cool.

Speaker 5 (56:06):
Is there a lot I'm sorry, is there a lot
of like fatigue through vibration stuff like that, or is
it pretty smooth now?

Speaker 1 (56:12):
Yeah, there definitely isn't it. And it really depends on
the environment that you're flying in. So like if you're
up in the mountains, you get basically like blowback. So
if you fly like faster than a certain air speed,
the aircraft doesn't do very well, and so you're constantly
like shut. Like I we flew cross country from Campbell
to Albuquerque or Colorado or somewhere for just training, and

(56:36):
I was physically sore the next day because of how
aggressively I had to continuously like push the cyclic forward.
It keeps pushing you back. Yeah, it's yeah, there's a
lot and like the vibrations too. I mean I think
now the unit's starting to wear sensors. I know the
DAFT pilots are definitely starting to wear sensors because just
like the vibrations, the repercussions of like the weapons systems

(56:58):
that are feet away from you, right, you know, goes on.

Speaker 2 (57:04):
Yeah, I bet, yeah, I mean it.

Speaker 5 (57:06):
You know, talk about like flying cross country, it's like
the difference between taking a car ride and a motorcycle
ride cross country.

Speaker 1 (57:13):
Right, Yeah, it's physically abusive to your body.

Speaker 2 (57:16):
Yeah yeah.

Speaker 3 (57:17):
And so as you finish your training on the little bird,
like We've had some people tell us in the past
that the testing is pretty stressful because you have to
make target, you know, plus or minus thirty seconds. What
were some of those like final exams like for you.

Speaker 1 (57:35):
Yeah, definitely stressful. I mean there's like there was pressure,
and it's not just on me, it was on all
of the students. There were we had there were four
of us in the class that were that had assessed
around the same time that we're going to the company
at the same time, and one of them was a
very experienced cobre pilot. He had a lot of hours,
was very very experienced, so he stood out far beyond

(57:59):
the remainder of the three of us, and so there
was always just pressure on us to try and not
exceed expectations in that sense, but at like far beyond
meat expectations. I remember one thing really really challenging about
the train. It's called Green Platoon. Like during Green Platoon,
we did some overwater training and you have to climb

(58:23):
a caving ladder, so you get dropped into the ocean essentially,
and then your stick buddy basically flies out with an
ip and they hover above you and you're bobbling in
the water and this other students trying to hover the
helicopter of you and obviously is sucking at doing so,
and they drop a caving ladder, which is the ladder
that's as thin as I mean, it's the tiniest little thing.

(58:45):
So you're like putting your heels in this caving ladder
and pulling yourself up out of the water with all
of your gear. I remember once again just thinking to myself,
I'm like completely at physical max capacity, like I thought,
because you have to get to the top of the
ladder obviously, climb and pull yourself into the aircraft and

(59:06):
then hook yourself in so they could fly away. And
I just remember thinking it, solf, I'm going to fucking
fall off this ladder and fall thirty feet into the
ocean and I'm gonna fail Green Plato because I can't
climb this daan caving ladder. It was so fucking physically
challenging for me. I don't know why what it was.
It was just all my muscles, every ounce of my
body was like, who this might be it? And that

(59:31):
was really really challenging thing to do, but did it.
Training in the pool was way easier than training when
we were actually like out there doing it in the ocean.
So I was like I just caught myself off guard
and how challenging that was that was for me?

Speaker 2 (59:45):
How were you?

Speaker 5 (59:46):
I mean, you know that what you're talking about would
be challenging for ninety percent of men, right, like you know.

Speaker 1 (59:54):
Yeah, the guys struggled with it too, Yeah, exactly, And
I just don't want to admit it.

Speaker 5 (59:59):
And but obviously, like women don't generally have the same
upper body strength to wait for you know, ratio, Like
did you how were you training?

Speaker 2 (01:00:10):
Like were you doing a lot of pull ups?

Speaker 5 (01:00:11):
Were you doing a lot of like you know out
that's a lot of upper body strength for anybody.

Speaker 1 (01:00:17):
Yeah, for sure. So before I when I before I
got to the one sixtieth after my assessment, But like while,
like right before I got into Green Platoon, I was
really into like bodybuilding. I did bikini competitions, so I
was very I was very lean, and I was very fit.
I mean I could do probably upwards of over twenty

(01:00:39):
push up or pull ups, push ups. I mean I
was running my fastest two mile ever, like sub thirteen
two miles, Like things were just I was like just cruising.
So I came into Green Platoon in phenomenal shape and
then just continue to try and keep up with it. Obviously,
Like Green Platoon is very it's very stressful. Sorry, this
thing keeps sleeping. It's it's just like mentally stressful. So

(01:01:04):
sometimes when you're when you find yourself exhausted mentally, it's
a really hard thing to get to the gym and
continue to train. Yeah, but you just had to push
through it because there was no like dedicated time to
stay in shape. In Green Platoon. It was like work work, work, work,
work for you know, fifteen hours a day and then
find time to get into the gym. But just how
to do it?

Speaker 3 (01:01:25):
So what was that like when you finally passed and
you get assigned to what is a Bravo company, yep.

Speaker 1 (01:01:31):
Becom very intimidating. I mean I came in as a
platoon leader and it's just kind of crazy because like
you come from the conventional army and you're doing all
this stuff. You're a platoon leader, and you know, you
have your warrants and whatnot, and like the most senior
warrant in your company is like maybe a W three.
You know, it's who has just gotten there and they

(01:01:54):
have a track whatever it is. The one six youth
is so different, Like these guys have been like these
warrants are They're so fine for ten years, you know
what I mean, and then who then there's me coming
into the company, like, yeah, I'm going to make things
better around here.

Speaker 3 (01:02:08):
There was I was going to say when we had
I think it was Clay Hutt mocker on here. He
he told us his story about One of the pranks
they did was the parking space is reserved for the
age six pilots. They painted them blue with the handicapped
signal on them because they were all so old, they're
all grandpa's.

Speaker 1 (01:02:27):
Yeah, it's it's hilarious's actually hilarious. Yeah, we did. We
There was definitely some good stuff that went on. I
mean we when we would go out to the Virginia
Beach for the underways, like some shenanigans happened, that's for sure.
I mean one of my one of my good friends,
he's one of those warrants that flew for the unit
for god knows how many years. He we like went

(01:02:47):
down to the beach and had like a bonfire, like
after we were flying or whatever. And this dude just
stands in the fire, bare feet in the fire and
then eats a live crab. Like these guys are literally in.
That's that's an insane thing to do. Who does that? Right?
And like it's you just like start to just love
these individuals like they're your brothers. Even though like you

(01:03:10):
know that they're ruthless killers, they're also just like such
good human beings. I don't know, I just at first
going into the unit, like to go back to your
original question, incredibly intimidating. I had no idea what I
was doing. I didn't fit in. But you just kind
of slowly like keep your head down, keep working, try
and relieve yourself with the imposter syndrome, because you still
have to perform. You still have to learn. You have

(01:03:31):
to put yourself in, like put yourself on the flight
schedule and get out there and sucks so that you
can always get so you can keep getting better. And
then you just start to just love every single one
of them.

Speaker 3 (01:03:42):
When you were the correct me if I'm wrong, you
were the first thing so far the only female little
bird pilot.

Speaker 2 (01:03:47):
That is age six, age six pilot.

Speaker 1 (01:03:51):
Okay, yep, there was an MHE six female that was
that she flew the MHE six probably maybe five years
ahead of when I was there.

Speaker 2 (01:03:59):
Okay, okay, right, We'll have to talk to her next time.

Speaker 1 (01:04:02):
Yeah.

Speaker 5 (01:04:03):
So when when you did being the first female a
Chicks graduate of the like the Green Green Platoon and
stuff like that, did they pull you aside? Did they
like say, hey, this is or you're just one of
the guys and no one.

Speaker 1 (01:04:18):
Of the guys and it literally did not matter. There
was I the psych at one point pulled me aside
and was like how's it going? Like are you okay?
Is this going all right? And I was like yeah,
don't care, Like remember back like when I was a kid,
I shaved my head because like I wanted to be
one of the guys and I was like, this is
my dream? Are you kidding me? Because it's perfect? And

(01:04:39):
yeah it was. There was absolutely no differential training or
treatment whatsoever. Like there wasn't even a female There wasn't
even a woman's bathroom in a hangar, like it was
two dudes' bathrooms. And I just had to be like, okay,
I'm coming in like yeah, your dick's.

Speaker 2 (01:04:54):
Way, and do you think that? Do you think that?

Speaker 5 (01:04:58):
Because everybody knew that, Like no allowances were you know,
nobody made any allowances for you in training like that.

Speaker 2 (01:05:06):
They're just like, hey, like she's here, she's here, Like.

Speaker 1 (01:05:09):
Yeah, that's that's exactly what it was like everywhere that
I went. Every I mean the only I guess, like
benefit was when we traveled, like when we stayed in hotels,
I got my own room. I didn't have to have
a roommate because there was no other one to room with.
So yeah, I mean I guess that's a perk. But
other than that, like no, absolutely nothing different.

Speaker 5 (01:05:26):
Yeah that's fantastic, and so how it should be.

Speaker 1 (01:05:30):
It should not. There should be absolutely no difference in standards,
no different in treatment, like nothing. It should always be
exactly like based on your qualifications. And like if I sucked,
I sucked, and it was brought up in the briefs
and like we debriefed it and it was just like
the same trajectory as everyone else.

Speaker 2 (01:05:48):
Yeah. Yeah, they're really ruthless with their ars in these units.

Speaker 1 (01:05:52):
Yeah, brutal good though. I mean you learn how to
like pay attention to details, that's for sure.

Speaker 2 (01:06:01):
Yeah, how you get better.

Speaker 3 (01:06:03):
So you did two deployments to Afghanistan with the unit.
Tell us about the first one as much as you're
able to anyways.

Speaker 1 (01:06:12):
Yeah, I mean obviously because I hadn't one. I never
wanted to admit to anyone that when I was in
the ones tick st it that I hadn't deployed before,
because like all these guys have so many like deployments
and no notice missions and blowouts and all of this
you know history. And I was sitting and I'm like, oh,
I've never been Afghanistan. It's like we're like towards the
end of the war at this point. Who am I?

(01:06:32):
So I kind of just like played it really cool.
I was like, yeah, here we go. But I'm like
on the inside, I was like shit, like us, this
is crazy, and but I mean it was. It was typical.
It was good. Got to do what I signed up for.
And that's really all that I wanted to do really essentially,
is like I got to actually take what I learned
and all these years of training, whether it was in

(01:06:54):
the sixty four through Green Platoon, you know, in Vico,
and actually put it to the test. And that was good.

Speaker 5 (01:07:01):
And how your first like time out, your first combat
op with the train that you've been both you know,
with the Apache and now here, Like did it all
just come together for you?

Speaker 1 (01:07:14):
Yeah? It was one hundred percent. I mean, it really
does translate. I mean they especially maybe less in the
sixty four world, but definitely in the Littleberg world. Like
how the one sixtieth trains, like they could definitely train
how they fight and it it it is very similar.
I mean it's they do that on purpose so that
when you get into these situations, you just know how

(01:07:35):
to react, how to respond, how like what contingency are
we you know, falling into At this point, there was
one mission. It was like an airfield seizure and it
was you know, we were working with all of our
customers and it was a very long operation and I
was the air mission commander for the entire thing, you know,
and it was it was intimidating at like when I

(01:07:57):
first like was assigned to be the am see and
have to do all the briefs and everything. But it
was one of those experiences that I'll literally never forget
because I realized in that moment that they trusted me,
and like that was like the one thing that I
think resonated just like for myself as a human being.
I was like this whole organization, all of these things

(01:08:18):
that you know, you've worked so hard for, there's finally
that one moment in time where they put the trust
in you and it's now it's your time to not
fuck it up. And things went fine on mission, and
so you know, I had other opportunities after that to
serve as the AMC. So I was just I was
just thankful that I could take all of the experiences
that I've had prior to it, and I showed up
when I needed to.

Speaker 5 (01:08:39):
Yeah, and so you know, you mentioned your your reception
at the one sixtieth and Vico. How was your reception
with the various customers and was there any like, hey,
what's up?

Speaker 1 (01:08:57):
I think I know what you're getting at And obviously yes, yeah,
I mean, but the thing is is like you just
have to you cannot fall into those types of traps
because the second that you do, you're not only screwing yourself,
but you're also tarnishing the unit. Like they put a
lot of responsibility on my shoulders to be professional in

(01:09:20):
that sense, and there was I just kind of held
myself as once again one of the guys.

Speaker 2 (01:09:26):
You know.

Speaker 1 (01:09:27):
It just it didn't phaze me at all. It was
just kind of just like, yeah, thanks, but no thanks.

Speaker 2 (01:09:33):
So the hair care products did not when you.

Speaker 1 (01:09:37):
Were I'm yeah, yeah, I mean no, yeah.

Speaker 5 (01:09:42):
Yeah, no, it's it's fascinating. So Witch, what was the
thing or was there a thing that, once you were
actually in combat, was different than you what you thought
it would be was the same?

Speaker 2 (01:09:59):
Like what was that like?

Speaker 5 (01:10:01):
Having that, you know, from being this little girl who
cut off all her hair to train for the army
to now like you're laying hate, Like what what was
that for you?

Speaker 1 (01:10:14):
I didn't think about it in the time, you know,
like while it's happening, obviously you're just very dialed in
and very focused. But I think afterwards, when you do
a little bit of reflection, it's I don't know, it's
kind of one of those things where it's like I
want to do it again, Like I like it, I
love I love this job. I want to be given

(01:10:36):
every opportunity to fly the aircraft and to be put
in those positions. Yeah, I mean, I don't I don't
know I've ever really like thought too deeply about like
that aspect of it. But I guess, like right now,
my initial reaction is, I don't know, it's kind of
crazy to think, like, I don't know, I'm I feel

(01:10:57):
like I'm like even now, where I am in my
life life. I feel like it's like a whole other world.
Who I wanted board where I'm at right at right now,
and I feel like I don't know, just give my
memory and be like, okay, yeah, what was that? Like?
It's like a movie. Really, it's like watching a movie
but it's real.

Speaker 2 (01:11:15):
Yeah. Do you do you consider yourself because I'm sure
that there are like both both guys and girls.

Speaker 5 (01:11:22):
Who find you in inspiration in your story having you know,
such a single minded determination and achieving it. But you know,
obviously for for girls who want to go into that field,
are there are fewer role models? Do you find yourself
you know, being that role model or considering yourself a
role model?

Speaker 1 (01:11:41):
Yeah, definitely, I've I've mentored a lot of women. I
really really enjoy that. It's part of I just found that,
like when I was kind of like going through the
rigor of finding out, you know, the challenges that I
would inevitably be facing, you know, whether it was going
to West Point and Order, playing a Patches or going
to one sexty with whatever it was, that there wasn't

(01:12:03):
really like this like image of a person that I
wanted to be, Like I was kind of like creating
it for myself, right, and I hope that I could
be that image for the younger generation to be like
it's definitely doable, you know, you just have to put
your mind to it. You have to be in a
really good shape, you got to be smart. Like there's
just those I just I hope that that's kind of

(01:12:23):
the case. I guess, yeah, in like a non conceited way.
I know it kind of could come off like conceited,
but it's just because like I was lacking that in
my life, and I hope that I could be that
for others.

Speaker 3 (01:12:35):
Sure, what was the difference between deployment IE and deployment two?

Speaker 2 (01:12:39):
For you?

Speaker 1 (01:12:41):
Just honestly, like then it just turns into normal. I
don't know. It was honestly very not very different, I
guess in a sense, but you just kind of just
get get into the groove of things. My first one
was a little bit longer. We were there for a
little bit of a longer amount of time, so you
kind of it was almost like two to plays in one.
I guess in that instance based on like how long

(01:13:03):
our deployments are in the one sixtieth, But honestly, I
just felt more comfortable. I understood kind of just like
the rules of the road, you know, like who to
talk to, who not to talk to, What what my
role is as a BMQ, you know who whether I'm
like serving in like the jock position, like a battle
captain role, or as a pilot. Like there's you just
you just understand kind of like the playing field a

(01:13:25):
lot a lot better, it's a lot smoother.

Speaker 2 (01:13:27):
Yeah. Oh, Dmitri has a question, what is a BMQ?

Speaker 1 (01:13:34):
Yeah, So a BMQ is so when you come into
the one sixtieth, it's you're the like the lower I
guess qualified. I think it's like basic mission qualified, okay,
and then you go through an assessment process to become
fully mission qualified. And then the next level up is
flight lead and that's the pinnacle is being a flight lead.

Speaker 3 (01:13:56):
Uh So, before we move on, I mean, any flight
stories ops that you can tell us about that maybe
were particularly memorable for you.

Speaker 1 (01:14:09):
I mean, there was there was this one instance where
it was like I think it was like Christmas eve.
It was one it was an eve of a holiday
and we didn't think anything was going to go down
that evening. We were all just kind of like hanging
out by a bonfire, and all of a sudden, like
our beepers go off. We got to run to the
jock and there's like this vehicle that's approaching, and so

(01:14:31):
we just like sprint to the aircraft and take out
this vehicle. And just like in the middle of the night,
and we were thinking that it was going to be
a very very chill evening where we could just kind
of hang out. But I don't know, I love that
kind of you know that those types of instances where
it's like Okay, yep, here we go, We're going to
do our job. You'd like change your mindset instantaneously from

(01:14:51):
like relax mode we're like playing video games just hanging
out to all right, now we're gonna go protect the base.

Speaker 2 (01:14:58):
I'll because the base was getting hit.

Speaker 1 (01:15:01):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:15:03):
Was this was this the one down in uh down
in Salerno?

Speaker 1 (01:15:07):
Uh No, we were in uh that was a dwire.

Speaker 2 (01:15:13):
Yeah. That's Helmand, isn't it.

Speaker 1 (01:15:16):
Yeah?

Speaker 3 (01:15:17):
Yeah, okay, And and that was like a particularly spicy time.
I feel like that you were there in Helmand as well.

Speaker 1 (01:15:25):
It was it was all right, It really wasn't that spicy.
I know, like a couple of years before we were there.
It was way worse, but I mean things were still
popping off.

Speaker 3 (01:15:36):
So so Charlie was in the wire and you guys
had to spin up.

Speaker 1 (01:15:41):
Yeah yeah, Christmas Eve, good times.

Speaker 2 (01:15:46):
Nothing a few gun runs.

Speaker 1 (01:15:47):
Can't cure exactly. It really didn't. It wasn't a very
long operation. If you know what I mean, you have
a sick prayer rug from it. I don't know if
I should admit that, but whatever. The guys went out
and did SEC afterwards and brought us back some some trinkets.
Holy shit, bullet holds all through it.

Speaker 2 (01:16:12):
Hey man, shit happens at Helman. Uh?

Speaker 3 (01:16:16):
Okay, So to deployment, stay Afghanistan on the AH six.
Uh you get back home? What's what's going on after
deployment number two? Kind of like what are you thinking about?
You know, your future at this point?

Speaker 1 (01:16:29):
Yeah. So I wasn't if you ask any of my friends, like,
there was very little, I guess, like inkling that I
was ever going to get out of the military. Everyone
was like, oh, this is going to be a general
one day. Like this was just like my trajectory. It
kind of just like fit the mold. But when I

(01:16:51):
got back and I was serving in a different position
I had left. I left the cone. I was in
l and olso a liaison officer for one of our customers.
And I don't know, like I was just sitting there
and I was like, I don't want to I'm not
going to become a warrant officer. I love flying, and
if I want to keep flying, then I basically have
to become a warrant officer, right, And I was just

(01:17:13):
sitting in this position, like almost like in an operations role,
sitting behind a desk, and I was like, I don't
want to do this the rest of my life at all.
This isn't exciting to me. Like out flying and being
in the company that's exciting to me. That gives me life.
And so and then I like looked over to the
S three position and I was like, if I stay in,
I will be an S three in the one sixtieth

(01:17:34):
one day, but in first Battalion, and I I already
know what they're doing day to day, day in and
day out. You know, I'm working as basically like their
right hand man, and I don't want to do that
job down the line. It's not where I see myself.
So I just kind of like slowly but surely, like
started to consider other options, you know, getting out of
the military or whatever else I kind of wanted to do.

(01:17:56):
And I sat down on my battalion commander at the time,
and I was like, all right, sir, I am going
to get out of the military. And I thought like
at first he was, I mean, at first he was
definitely like disappointed because I was slated for a command position,
like all this stuff in the one sixty that they had,
like you know, I was, I was on the path
to do these things. But then after I kind of

(01:18:17):
explained myself to him, I was like, yeah, I feel
a little bit intellectually capped. I eventually want to have children.
This really is not the place to have kids at all.
And he was like, honestly, I kind of wait, mission
wish I made that decision when I was in your shoes.
So I was like, oh, that is a sigh of
relief for sure. And so from that point on, I
kind of just worked on my transition and getting out.

(01:18:41):
I applied to well. Actually I started off taking the jury.
That was a nightmare and a half because I mean,
what was in ten years since I opened up a book,
you know, other than like flying or studying like manuals
and dash tens for aircraft, so re trying to like
learn geometry fucking sucked. And then I applied to a

(01:19:01):
bunch of different business I played a seven business schools,
and I did my interview for one of them when
I was deployed to Jordan, which was hilarious, and yeah,
the rest is history.

Speaker 5 (01:19:13):
Did you did you all ever consider going warrant or
was that just not going to be a thing for you?

Speaker 1 (01:19:20):
I mean I thought about it, I did some research
on it, I talked to people who had done it.
It wasn't It never made it past like the discussion phase.
I guess I never got to the point where I
was like highly highly considering it. I did think of
it as an option, but it didn't really it didn't

(01:19:43):
really like amount to too too much.

Speaker 5 (01:19:45):
I imagine that of any place, the one sixtieth might
be like I don't know how often officers kind of
take that step back, but I imagine if any place,
the one sixtieth probably is where if it happens at all,
it's where it happens.

Speaker 1 (01:20:02):
Yeah, exactly, there's exactly. And they tell you when you're
as sessling for the one six y did you get
to pick your schedule? Like you get to you know,
like it's very easy to take vacations with your family.
You're always with your kids and all this stuff, and
it's just not really the case, especially when you're in
the company. Yea, So that was just like an extra
layer of complete city that was put on top of everything.

Speaker 2 (01:20:22):
Sure.

Speaker 3 (01:20:23):
Yeah, so you get into Harvard Business School.

Speaker 1 (01:20:28):
Yep. Yeah, I got into all seven business schools that
I applied to, which is Larry Yeah. So I got
into MI t Warton Harvard, which is where I am.
I got into Columbia Kellogg Booth. I don't know if
that's evened, but it was. Yeah. Absolutely, Like would have

(01:20:48):
never thought in a million years that would have been
the case. But I guess business school really loves special
operations pilots. And I've just been I've been here. I'm
in Boston right now. I've been here for the past
two years. I actually graduate in a couple of weeks.

Speaker 5 (01:21:02):
Wow, what what was it about Harvard? Was Harvard Boston? Like,
why did you choose that?

Speaker 2 (01:21:08):
Of all them?

Speaker 1 (01:21:10):
Harvard was where I wanted to go. It was my
top school that I that I had ambitions to go
to I actually I think it's in my West Point
yearbook where I wrote, one day I'll go to Harvard
Business School. So again, it was just one of those
things I kind of had in the back of my
mind that I finally brought to the forefront. And Harvard
is it's a it's a very intense school, especially for

(01:21:32):
a business school. It's very different than anything else that's
out there. We have class essentially five days a week
from you know, early in the morning through the afternoon
that there's no act that there's no electronics in the classroom,
so everything has to be handwritten. It's chalkboards, starts on time,
You're not allowed to believe in the middle of class.
Like it's very rigorous. It's actually kind of similar to
West Point in a sense we're not wearing uniforms, but

(01:21:55):
it's I liked that structure. And it's all the case methods,
so you read the case it's like a case study
on a business before class, and then you're expected to
know the material before we show up in class. So's
it's a very unique way to learn the material. And
I enjoyed that because I had a lot to learn
coming from ten years in the military to the business world.

Speaker 3 (01:22:19):
And what do you see as the next step. You
said you're going to graduate in a couple of weeks.
What's I sense that you have some direction in life?
Where are you heading to next?

Speaker 1 (01:22:29):
Yeah, So I started my husband and I actually started
a company together. It's it's a tech platform. It's called
oply And essentially what we're doing is we are using
AI to predict home maintenance for homeowners and then auto
booking their services for them. So creating essentially an operating
system for your home, so homeowners don't have to remember

(01:22:51):
to do literally anything in their home and it will
it will. We've built all of these agents that learn
your home systems inside and out without any hardware installation
on your property, and then it'll autobook those services that
are most needed through the CRMs of the home service providers.
So say goodbye to like any of the days of

(01:23:12):
like having to call a plumber or reach out to
an HVAC guy, remember to change your filters, all of that,
you know, the nuanced things of being a homeowner. Were
just streamlining the entire process.

Speaker 2 (01:23:24):
Who how did you guys come up with that? That's fascinating.

Speaker 1 (01:23:27):
Yeah, it's very it's very interesting, and it's gaining a
lot of traction. It's honestly growing way faster than we
ever thought, which is great. But we so my husband
and I actually started our first company. This is our
second company. We started our first company when he got
out of the military, and it was in restoration. So
we did water fire mold remediation. I ran like business operations.

(01:23:50):
He kind of threw the team, scaled the scaled the
business to multiple cities. And what we learned was that
homeowners just simply had no idea how to maintain their home.
And all of these large losses and homes, you know,
this water mold, all of these like you know, things
that you had to call insurance companies come out for
and the adjusters and everything was due to things that

(01:24:12):
could have been prevented. And it was because homeowners don't
know what to do. They don't know where their water
shut off valve is. They don't know that they have
to plush their water heater annually or get their HVAC
system checked up, like all these little types of things.
And so we wanted to figure out a way how
can we streamline this process without building another angis or thumbtach,
you know, like this antiquated marketplace type of model. And

(01:24:35):
so I just started to do a whole shit ton
of research in AI and all of the new developments
and everything that's being built now. And so we have
like three patents out on our technology. We're a very
very AI native platform that is using the newest technology
to completely streamline how homeowners are interacting with their property,

(01:24:58):
like their person, like their residential property that they live in,
but also if they have multiple properties. So we're trying
to get rid of, like just destroy honestly, property management companies,
any type of search like having to go to Google
to search for anything, as well as like fumbtack and angies.

Speaker 5 (01:25:15):
So did you did you guys hire out people to
build the AID?

Speaker 2 (01:25:21):
Did you guys like just train your own like models
to do it? Like, how do you guys? That's fascinating.
How did you get into it?

Speaker 1 (01:25:30):
Yeah, So we have a team of two engineers and
a product manager that builds everything, and they're in house,
like they're part of the optly team. We actually met
our CTO through our old business. Our insurance guy went
to high school with Joel who's our CTO. So just
kind of like these weird connections that we got introduced
to him, and he's absolutely phenomenal, has fifteen years of

(01:25:52):
like full stack development. He's an mL engineer. Like, this
guy's got it all and so I can bring the
vision to the table and him and Corey, who's our
lead DevOps, can build it and it's it's been work.
I mean, you could go into the app store and
download optly and check it out to.

Speaker 5 (01:26:11):
The country for people who are listening, it's it's o
p l Y or op opl Why uh so go
to the app store and download it.

Speaker 1 (01:26:22):
Yeah, it would download, check out the website, optly dot app.
We're on all social media platforms as well. You know
what we're what we're really trying to do is build
trust between the homeowner and the home service provider. Right, Like,
I feel like there's just this hatred towards and just
like this thought that this guy is gonna come in

(01:26:42):
my house, his butt crop's going to be hanging out,
He's he's gonna break my vase. It's gonna be a nightmare.
He's not gonna have insurance, And it's just really not
the case with a lot of these home service companies,
And what we do is we vet every single entity
that's that's part of this ecosystem that we're building so
that home owners get the best quality but also don't
have to think about anything because it automates it. It's

(01:27:06):
like it builds this vector database on your individual home
and then we predict exactly what your home needs and
then we take care of all the rest of it.

Speaker 2 (01:27:13):
That's amazing. Well, thank you, Lindsay.

Speaker 3 (01:27:17):
And is there anything that we haven't asked that you'd
really like to talk about before? Do we have any
questions day, anything, anything else that you'd like to bring
up or get into that maybe we didn't ask No,
I mean not really.

Speaker 1 (01:27:35):
Yeah, No, this has been really fun. Honestly, it's kind
of it's kind of fun to think back and to
remember things. I hope hopefully it wasn't boring. No, not
at all, but yeah, it's I really really appreciate you
guys having me on cool.

Speaker 2 (01:27:48):
Yeah, no, I'm glad that you enjoyed it. All right.

Speaker 6 (01:27:50):
We got a couple of questions from m Corbin. What
is your all time favorite airframe? Also, do you have
any funny stories about the Kentucky Air National Guard From
the want.

Speaker 1 (01:28:02):
I don't have any funny stories from the Kentucky National Guard.
I didn't ever work with them. And then my favorite airframe,
I mean, I would argue it's the Age six. I
think it's an absolute fucking beast of an aircraft and
I love the mission and the profile.

Speaker 5 (01:28:20):
Was there like a friendly rival rivalry between the h
H six pilots and the MH six pilots in terms
of like ability to fly precision stuff.

Speaker 6 (01:28:31):
Like that.

Speaker 1 (01:28:32):
Six piles. Well, they're they're just better pilots, like they
really are. I mean, what those guys do. They land on,
you know, the edge of a rooftop. They've got poor
dudes hanging off the side. It's it's a completely different profile. Now,
if you put an MH six pilot in the cockpit
of an Age six, they can't shoot for ship like
It's just it's a totally different dynamic. But you just

(01:28:54):
learned how to. It's almost like a different airframe differently
feels different and the are so different, but there's there's
like a fun rivalry. There's a couple of guys that,
especially in the company. With one of my good friends,
he was an Image six pilot and then came over
to fly the Age six. So it does happen.

Speaker 5 (01:29:11):
Yeah, Yeah, I'm always you know, obviously the the you know,
the Age six is are a godsend.

Speaker 2 (01:29:18):
But I've always been just so impressed.

Speaker 5 (01:29:20):
By, you know, by the other pilots, the way they
can deliver you know, troops on target and stuff.

Speaker 1 (01:29:28):
Yeah, I mean it's that's just like what the one
that's like the mission of the one sixtieth. Obviously Pluster
might arrive on time on target plus or minus thirty seconds. Yeah,
so it's and they land, i mean skids down on
that building exactly when they need to. Yeah, So the
customer can always depend that we'll get them there on time.

Speaker 2 (01:29:45):
Yeah, alrighty.

Speaker 6 (01:29:48):
We have a couple more thoughts on the MV twenty two.
Ospray has the one sixtieth ever considered using this air airframe,
so to.

Speaker 1 (01:29:59):
My knowledge, the one SAT two has not considered using it.
My thoughts on it. I think it's an incredible piece
of technology, the fact that it can basically lift as
if it's a helicopter but fly as if it's a plane.
But I do find it to have a lot of
technical challenges, mechanical challenges. I mean, it's caused a lot
of issues, a lot of a lot of deaths. So

(01:30:21):
I think it's a very risky aircraft if whoever's asking
the question is considering possibly flying one one day. Just
obviously there are auspee pilots that are out there, but
I personally think that it's just kind of one of
those aircrafts that may fade away into the distance over time,
just because there's a lot of assumed risk around the

(01:30:42):
technicality of the air free self.

Speaker 5 (01:30:44):
What do you think of you know, because they've talked
about getting rid of AC one thirties eight tens, I mean,
and this is supposed to in this supposed to replace
the black Hawk.

Speaker 3 (01:30:54):
No, there's a new aircraft that's coming out to replace
the blacklowk.

Speaker 5 (01:30:58):
You know, what do you think of Do you think
that our military, especially when it comes to airframes, do
you think that they have a.

Speaker 2 (01:31:08):
Realistic view of like what we need and what works?

Speaker 5 (01:31:11):
Or do you think that they look at these shiny
objects and go, well, this will replace what we have
when there's no reason to replace what we have.

Speaker 1 (01:31:19):
Yeah, I think like history paints a good picture here.
So if you think about like where we started and
where we're at right now, there is obviously some difference
in the helicopters that we've adopted over time, but like
where I think the military, and this is just Lindsay's opinion,
and I'm not really tied into the space at this point.
I haven't really kept up with the newest technology. But

(01:31:41):
I don't think that autonomous aircraft is necessarily the answer,
like without pilots physically in the aircraft making the decisions,
because we can't even get cars to be autonomous these
days successfully. But I do think that there's a huge
opportunity for drones to kind of take forefront of where
aviation is. I think that's that's like the next frontier

(01:32:04):
of aviation in terms of war fighting, especially in the
types of wars that we might find ourselves, you know,
getting into against those adversaries that the drone capacity I
think is a very unique tactical approach to to win
some of these types of wars.

Speaker 6 (01:32:24):
All Right, we got one more. What was it like
flying with nods?

Speaker 1 (01:32:30):
I mean, it took me a while to get used
to it, but I ended up absolutely loved flying at night.
It was not a problem for me, I had. I
kind of picked it up pretty quick. I think just
coming off of like twenty five hours flying on with
it under the sixty four and then getting into the
one sixtieth where it's you that's all you do is

(01:32:52):
fly at night under nods we had. We had white phosphors,
so it wasn't like a green picture. It was white,
and honestly it was almost like flying in daytime, especially
if there was high loom.

Speaker 2 (01:33:02):
Yeah. Yeah, one more and we're done. Have you ever
supported any marine units?

Speaker 1 (01:33:13):
Yeah, we worked with We definitely worked with the Marines
for sure. Good group of guys. MARSK was pretty much
the ones that we would work with the most. Yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:33:27):
Cool, Lindsey, thank you for doing this interview, joining us
on the show tonight.

Speaker 2 (01:33:33):
Again. People can go check out the app.

Speaker 3 (01:33:35):
It's called oply uh out on the app stores right now,
and presumably they'd find you have a website or any
social media presences that you want to work.

Speaker 1 (01:33:46):
Yeah, everything is just going to be optly underscore app.
That's all of our social media is so op l
y underscore app. And then our website is just oply
dot app.

Speaker 5 (01:33:57):
And what about you if people want to follow you,
are you present on social media?

Speaker 1 (01:34:01):
Yeah, it's just my name Lindsay Prisman I think on Instagram.
I don't have a TikTok but my Instagram, I think
is just Lindsey dot prismin okay and then LinkedIn. You'll
find me there too.

Speaker 2 (01:34:14):
Awesome.

Speaker 3 (01:34:15):
Well, thanks a lot for doing the show and we
will talk to everybody out there soon.

Speaker 2 (01:34:22):
Thanks, and please stay in touch.

Speaker 1 (01:34:24):
Definitely. Thanks guys.

Speaker 3 (01:34:27):
Hey, guys, it's Jack. I just want to talk to
you for a moment about how you can support the show.
If you've been watching it, enjoying it, but you'd like
to get a little bit more involved and help us
continue to do this, you can check out our Patreon.
It is patreon dot com slash the Teamhouse, and for
five dollars a month you can get access to all
of these episodes of The Teamhouse ad free. The same

(01:34:50):
goes with our affiliated podcast eyes On with Andy Milburn,
Jason Lyons mcmulroy that one you will also get all
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and the show and we really appreciate it. The Patreon
members are literally what has helped this company and this
small business survive, especially during our early years, and you

(01:35:13):
are what continues to help this thing going even as
we navigate the turbulent world of YouTube advertising, so we
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and there is also going to be a link to
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(01:35:35):
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(01:35:57):
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The First Female AH-6 Pilot for the 160th SOAR | Lindsey Chrismon | Ep. 340

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}The First Female AH-6 Pilot for the 160th SOAR | Lindsey Chrismon | Ep. 340