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fights

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on is produced with commercial consideration

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from Cubic Corporation. Since

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truth and training, Cubic LVC,

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yesterday,

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Welcome back to Fiteson,

0:25

Last episode, we sat down with Navy pilot

0:27

Brian Sunshine Sinclair to discuss

0:29

earning wings of gold in Navy Flight School.

0:32

Today,

0:32

we're going down low with retired

0:34

army helicopter pilot, Brian

0:36

Kasimov Harris, to learn all about

0:38

Army Flight School, the OH fifty

0:40

eight Kaiaw War

0:42

age sixty four Apache and how

0:44

the army integrates aviation into

0:46

ground combat. So hang on

0:48

because the fight's on huah.

0:54

Covering it in and out itself is the absolute

0:56

hardest thing. you

0:58

are clawing at the sky.

1:02

So I called my crew chiefs over, you know, blazer

1:04

spinning stuff. I said, hey, take that missile off. You know,

1:06

it's a hundred pound missile.

1:11

And trying to find that good sweet spot

1:13

between over

1:15

torquing the hell out of the aircraft, just

1:18

banging the ground.

1:23

the aggressors earning entering the airspace

1:26

at this time. Prefection in the contract.

1:28

Right. Badger Dario, I've

1:30

got one man. He's in a hot tamper. You're

1:34

about to get done. I'm going

1:36

on the entire nose down.

1:40

Turn in, fight's on.

1:43

Hey,

1:43

welcome back to fights on. I'm your host,

1:46

Scott. Today, we're talking army

1:48

aviation with

1:49

Brian Kasimov Harris. Brian

1:51

is retired Army Aviator. Welcome,

1:53

Brian. Hey. How are you? Thanks for having me.

1:55

I'm doing well. Casimo,

1:58

as I'll call you, has a pretty

1:59

interesting and varied

2:02

background in his military career.

2:05

And without further ado, I just want

2:07

to kick over to you, Kasimov, and let you tell

2:09

us about how you got into army

2:11

aviation, what came before that,

2:13

and the training pipeline.

2:15

So take it away. Yeah.

2:17

Sure. So joined the army,

2:19

gosh, back in

2:21

nineteen ninety eight, I wanna say, ninety

2:23

nine. So I commissioned through

2:25

ROTC through a

2:27

military junior college of all things and

2:29

went into the guard. So going into

2:32

the guard kinda forced me to choose

2:34

what was available. Right? You couldn't just

2:36

kinda pick anything. So I

2:38

ended up in armor because there was a cavalry

2:40

unit. So I ended up going going

2:42

to school and becoming an armor officer. m

2:45

one tanks. And

2:46

I did that for couple years in the guard

2:48

while I finished up my degree because it was again

2:50

a military junior college. And

2:52

once

2:53

I completed my bachelor's degree,

2:56

came on active duty, and continued

2:58

to be an armor after a couple of years,

3:00

did a more order platoon and

3:03

a headquarters company. And,

3:05

you know, I'd always wanted to fly.

3:07

So this was about two thousand two.

3:10

You know, I started kinda questioning

3:12

my life because at this point I'd already been a

3:14

company commander and I was gosh.

3:16

I was twenty three, I

3:18

wanna say. Like, I commissioned so early that

3:21

by the time I was twenty three, I was already a commander.

3:23

I had, like, you know, hundred fifty soldiers and

3:25

I was you know, just dog tired at the end of day

3:28

for

3:28

no reason. You know what I mean? Like, you just had one of those

3:30

administratively emotional burden

3:32

jobs and I was like, man, I'm too young to feel

3:34

this old. So I wanted to do something and get

3:36

back into why I joined the Army, which was really just

3:38

kinda like chase back guys and blow stuff up.

3:40

And, of course, September eleventh had happened. And

3:42

so I hadn't been able to kinda, you know, get

3:44

in the fight, which, of course, every twenty three, twenty

3:47

four year old wants to do.

3:48

And just by sort of accident,

3:51

I met these these various army aviators.

3:53

I met an Apache pilot who was stationed

3:55

to Fort Knox where I was at, and

3:58

then I met a retired COBRA pilot.

4:00

And just talking to these guys and start looking at

4:02

options and things. And, again, at this point, I was a

4:04

captain in

4:05

the army. And you know,

4:07

this warrant officer had lunch with them and he he was

4:09

like, well, you could just go warrant. And

4:11

I'd never thought of that, you know, as as an option.

4:13

So

4:13

I did try to branch transfer,

4:16

meaning going from the armor branch as a captain

4:18

to the aviation branch as a captain.

4:20

And I I did get selected. It

4:22

was very, you know, it's a very small pool. They only

4:24

grabbed a couple of guys.

4:25

And they they didn't pick me and they

4:27

said, well, hey, you know, you get a really good packet. Try again

4:29

in six months. By then, I'd already had the

4:31

bug. You know, I'd already just, like, thinking about,

4:33

wow, this could actually happen. So

4:35

I ended up doing exactly

4:37

what that guy suggested, resigned my commission,

4:40

and it it became a warrant officer.

4:42

So I left Fort Knox with the Fort

4:44

Rucker, which is where the Army's Flight School

4:46

is.

4:47

And, yeah, walk walk into a building

4:49

as a captain and walk down as a warrant officer

4:51

one and walk straight over to flight

4:53

school. He's you know, and of course, there's a pipeline there

4:55

because, typically, the warrant officer come out of

4:57

the warn officer candidate

4:59

school, and then they get funneled over

5:01

to the flight school. Well, I just show up out of

5:03

nowhere.

5:04

And these guys were like, well, who are you?

5:06

And so I just handed my paperwork and

5:09

said, oh, okay. You know, I guess

5:11

you'll start in two weeks in flight school. So

5:13

that's how I got started in

5:15

the flight school, and that was, yeah, that was

5:18

summer of two thousand three. Okay.

5:20

Let's let's

5:22

fill the listener in a little bit about warrant

5:24

officers. That's something we haven't talked about

5:27

in the series so far. because in in

5:29

the Navy, a warrant officer fills

5:32

a pretty specific role and

5:34

it's very different from that

5:36

of the army. So talk to me about

5:38

the differences in the army between a commissioned

5:40

officer and a warrant officer.

5:42

Sure. Yeah. And it

5:44

is a strange thing and it's sort of morphed

5:46

over time So as you look

5:48

at the history of the warrant officer, and I'm just

5:50

kind of summarizing it. But you you

5:52

used to have a specific branch,

5:54

the warrant officer branch, and that's where all

5:56

of these guys and gals, you

5:58

know, belong to, and they were managed

5:59

at this at this level

6:02

all within that branch. coupled

6:05

with the fact that aviation in

6:07

the army was not a branch unto

6:09

itself up until the eighties. So

6:12

if you think back to Vietnam, you had all these

6:14

guys flying Huey's and cobras and everything. They

6:16

weren't

6:16

even, you know, technically army aviators

6:18

from a standpoint of having specific

6:20

branch, like you do the infantry and the armor and

6:22

artillery. They were infantry, armor,

6:25

artillery, load stations. They were all

6:27

these different guys. who,

6:28

basically, it's almost like an additional

6:31

duty. You know, they went to flight school and they got

6:33

checked off and then they would go do a tour to

6:35

flying and then they'd go back to being an infantry

6:37

guy or whatever. And so across

6:40

the board in the army, you had these people

6:42

called warrant officers, and they were

6:44

not commissioned, but they weren't NCOs.

6:46

So they were sort of in between. And

6:49

because they didn't have the same sort

6:51

of career path as all those others, they

6:53

kinda stayed in their their lane

6:55

a lot more. And so they became real technical

6:57

experts. And so you have, you

6:59

know, the maintenance guys and you got the low magicians

7:01

and then you had the aviators. So,

7:04

again, the eighties, you you created the

7:06

aviation branch, but you

7:08

still had the warrant officers belonging to the

7:10

warrant officer branch. And it was until I wanna say

7:12

it was two thousand three, two thousand four, is when

7:14

I was still in flight school that the warrant officer

7:16

branch itself went away. And they

7:18

took all the warrants and put them

7:20

into those parent branches. So the aviation

7:22

warn officers became aviation,

7:24

you know, belonging to aviation

7:27

branch. The logisticians went over to the logistics

7:29

and things like that. But to kinda dumb

7:31

it down, I guess you could say that they're they're sort of

7:33

this in between officer. You

7:35

know, you you just salute them and calm serum

7:37

or whatever. But they're above

7:39

NCOs, but they're, you know, technically

7:42

below commissioned officers. They

7:44

can sometimes fill command billet.

7:46

I've seen warn officers commanding companies

7:48

because there weren't enough captains to fill the

7:50

job. So they're in the sort of weird

7:52

realm. And then, like you said, in

7:54

in other branches, you really don't see them

7:56

doing things like aviation. You see them in very

7:58

technical fields in

8:01

the army, you see them not only in

8:03

the technical side, but you also see them in the

8:05

the trigger puller side, if you will. You see them

8:07

as pilots, but also in the special forces, you'll

8:09

see those guys on the teams as

8:12

an adviser to the ODA commander,

8:14

the the captain that's running those those twelve

8:16

man teams. So, yeah, a

8:18

worn off, sir. It's a it's a really interesting

8:20

job, you know, like anything else, you're you're kinda

8:22

doing the same thing over and over, which sounds

8:24

great when you're flying. You know, you're just you're just a

8:26

flyer. You know, you're just a pilot and you're just out doing

8:28

stuff. But eventually, you'll you'll kinda

8:30

move on to to hire ranks in the warrant officer corps

8:32

and you'll start to to do other things at

8:34

the unit level and and work at the squadron,

8:36

battalion headquarters level, brigade level,

8:38

things like that. Okay.

8:40

So is it Is

8:42

it fair though to say that warn officers

8:44

with that different career path,

8:47

which is fascinating? because that really helps

8:49

explain how this came about in

8:51

the army. for army aviation, are

8:53

they generally getting more sick time

8:55

over the course of their career than a

8:57

commissioned officer? because they don't necessarily

8:59

have the same wickets they have to

9:01

jump through to

9:02

get career progression? Absolutely.

9:04

I I would say and I'm, you know, I'm

9:06

I'm absolutely zero data to back this

9:08

up. I would say that army warn officers get more

9:11

stuck stick time than any other pilot in

9:13

any branch of the military. And

9:15

I say that having known, you

9:16

know, fighter pilots and other communities and and

9:19

talking to them and asking them how many hours they

9:21

have and they tell me. And sometimes I'm kind of surprised, like,

9:23

wow, really only that much. whereas

9:25

as a warrant officer, like I

9:26

said, up until you get to a higher

9:29

rank of warrant officer, which could be years and

9:31

years and years, mean, what

9:33

else is there to do except for the most part

9:35

fly? So those guys

9:37

are they're constantly in the seat.

9:39

They're constantly in that position

9:41

where they can be out there flying. And

9:43

even when they do get bumped up to a,

9:45

you know, battalion squadron headquarters

9:47

level,

9:48

they're they're still such a commodity because they

9:50

are piloting command. They're air mission

9:52

commander -- Mhmm. -- they're still flying their tail off, you know,

9:54

especially when you're deployed. So, yeah,

9:56

absolutely. Those guys, a hundred percent,

9:58

get much more stick

9:59

time than the commission officers. Commission

10:02

guys, it's really dependent one. It's

10:04

dependent on how much they want to do it,

10:07

which is kind of a ding on guys who don't really make

10:09

it a priority. But two, it's

10:11

also based on your position. So, you

10:13

know, for instance, when I was a a

10:15

company commander or troop

10:17

commander, I made it a priority

10:19

of mine to fly. you know, still do my

10:21

administrative side. But then when

10:23

you move up to staff, you're

10:24

not gonna have the capability to come

10:27

down or in my case, you know, I got

10:29

sent to another post post command. I got sent

10:31

to another base to to teach. Well, there was

10:33

no

10:33

aircraft there that I flew. So, you know,

10:35

that was several years of not flying. Yeah.

10:38

So but, yeah, absolutely. Warm officers get a a

10:40

ton of stick time. Okay. And then

10:42

is it

10:42

the case that a worn officer doesn't

10:45

need to come college degree. Is that correct?

10:47

Or has that changed?

10:49

No.

10:49

That's correct. As far as I'm

10:51

still tracking, you know, it's been a while since it's

10:53

been a warrant, but, yeah, I'm pretty sure that

10:55

they they do not require 1II

10:58

think it helps later on as far as

11:00

getting promotions, but I I don't

11:02

believe that there's any requirement

11:04

even at the later ranks. But there's certainly

11:06

no requirement to to get in the door and

11:08

start flying, which is another draw for for

11:10

people because you don't

11:11

have to go through an ROTC program. You don't have

11:14

to go to West Point or something like that. You

11:16

know, there are guys that literally, you know,

11:18

essentially get hired by the Army to become

11:20

warrant officers. So they go through basic

11:22

training, and then

11:22

they go to the Warren Officer candidate school, and

11:24

then they start flight school. So we we call those guys

11:26

a street to seat guys, you know, and and I've

11:28

worked with a few of those over the time. over the

11:31

years.

11:31

Okay. Yeah. Just wanted to throw that out there because

11:33

over the course of the series,

11:35

we've we know that we've got some young

11:38

aspiring aviators out there and just wanna

11:40

make sure they know all the different

11:42

options and all the different paths because,

11:44

you know, that is enticing the idea of,

11:46

hey, I can you're eighteen, you're like, I can

11:48

just jump right into this. Yeah.

11:50

And

11:50

and it's not, you

11:53

know, it's not the

11:53

end of the road either. Right? So you could

11:55

you could get into army aviation at a

11:57

very young age. Like you said, you know, you could probably

12:00

eighteen, nineteen years old. And then after a

12:02

few years, if you decide that you do wanna

12:04

be a mission guy, you know, for whatever

12:06

reason, you

12:06

know, there's still options there to

12:08

to be able to do that as well. I've I've seen guys

12:10

do that. I've seen guys go from

12:13

heck,

12:13

I saw a guy go from a a CW

12:15

two aviator, went to OCS and

12:17

became an infantry officer, you know. So

12:19

there's there's other options. to to

12:22

continue to to change ranks and and or you

12:24

could do it like I do and just kinda flip flop

12:26

back and forth. So Yeah. Fair enough.

12:28

So So you

12:30

traded in your captain's bars,

12:32

became a warrant officer, and as you said, sort of

12:34

went across the street and

12:36

started learning how to fly. And

12:38

we've talked before on previous episodes

12:40

about the Navy and the Air

12:42

Force and how

12:43

they trained. but the army's a lot

12:46

different. So talk to me about how

12:48

the army addresses aviation

12:50

training.

12:51

Yeah. So and it

12:53

it is

12:54

different, and I think it has a lot to

12:56

do with with the scale of

12:59

of how many aviators that the Army putting

13:01

through. And I don't I don't have any numbers, but,

13:03

you know, I know later we'll talk about the size

13:05

of units, but I think that'll it'll start to

13:07

make a lot more sense when you when you talk about

13:09

scale but flight school

13:11

is just like all the others, you know, it's a

13:13

ton of work. It's it's not

13:15

just physical. It's it's

13:17

emotional. It's its

13:19

time. Now

13:20

things have changed obviously since I went through,

13:22

but they're they're kinda roughly the same,

13:25

but I'll speak more about what it was when I

13:27

went through, which you a a primary

13:29

phase, which, as I recall, is about ten

13:31

weeks or so, and we

13:32

would learn on a bell 206 So the

13:34

difference here too, in all the other

13:36

branches, they seem to all learn fixed wing

13:38

first. And then, you know, some of you have

13:40

been chosen and now you're gonna be helicopter

13:42

guys. We don't do that. we

13:44

go straight into the helicopters. Mhmm.

13:46

And so guys will learn now

13:49

they fly what we call l u

13:51

h's but back then we flew basically just

13:53

a bell 206 So we would do

13:55

that for about ten weeks as I recall and

13:57

that was called primary and that's just where you're

13:59

learning how to

13:59

basically fly the aircraft learn how to hover,

14:02

learn how to rotate, all that good

14:04

stuff.

14:04

And then you would move into the instrument

14:06

phase, which as I recall was

14:08

about eight weeks. I

14:10

think what they've done since then and they

14:12

they sort of merged primary and instruments

14:14

into one thing because when we went

14:16

through primary, you had the same

14:18

instructor pilot, then you went over to instruments and you got

14:20

a new instructor pilot. And

14:22

when

14:22

you're in an instruments phase, you'll do

14:24

some simulator time doing instruments.

14:26

and then you'll do

14:28

the actual flying, you know, hopefully in

14:30

the clouds if if there's any clouds around.

14:32

And

14:32

then and then there after that or

14:34

right at the end of that is when you get select for

14:37

whatever your airframe is is gonna

14:40

be.

14:40

And then that, depending on what you

14:42

get selected for and I and say that

14:45

because it's really based on the order of

14:47

merit list, which is established, you

14:49

know, from the from the day you start flight

14:51

school, everything you do matters.

14:54

Right? Every grade you make, every

14:56

PT test, every CheckRide, all

14:58

that stuff starts collating into these

15:00

points. And then when it's time to pick

15:02

what you wanna fly, and things that nature

15:04

now the order of meritless matters.

15:07

So I'll back up and talk a little bit about

15:09

primary just kinda go through the widgets if

15:11

that's alright, if that's what you want. Yeah. Please

15:13

do. Okay. So essentially,

15:16

going through the first two phases, the primary

15:18

instruments is is is hell on

15:20

Earth sometimes. because it's such long

15:22

days. We would have either a morning or

15:24

an afternoon flight line, and that

15:26

was essentially, you know, you're going out to

15:28

the to the airfield. Now when I went

15:30

through you know, it's always harder when

15:32

you went through, not for the new guys. But when I went

15:34

through, it was harder because we couldn't park

15:36

at the airfield. Apparently, these days, now

15:38

they just let them drive out to their would have to

15:40

park on may on main post to

15:42

ForRucker, get on

15:42

a bus and then go out there. So that added another,

15:44

you know, thirty, forty five minutes. Yeah.

15:47

of of dealing with all that stuff. So

15:49

morning flight line, I wanna say we get out there about

15:51

six, six thirty in the morning. So, you know,

15:53

you back that up and everything. You're getting up at

15:55

four AM, so you can you can make it light line.

15:57

You go out to

15:57

the airfield. You meet up with your instructor

15:59

pilots. You would have what we call a stick

16:02

buddy. And so it's just, you know, YouTube

16:04

and your instructor pilot. And they would

16:06

always do what we call daily

16:08

questions. You know, you'd have homework essentially the

16:10

night before. And then the the flight

16:12

commander who was the main IP, the

16:14

instructor pilot, he would randomly call

16:16

on people and you'd have to give your answers and all

16:18

this stuff. And it was just forcing you to get back in the

16:20

books. And remember, this was two thousand

16:22

three. we didn't have the search function, you know, on

16:24

PDFs. Right? We had seven

16:26

hundred page manuals that, you

16:28

know, they would just ask you this random

16:30

question and you're digging through the seven hundred page

16:32

manual. Nowadays, you know, when I went back to the

16:34

Apache course, we had PDFs like, oh, and this is easy.

16:36

Why are we still doing this? Control

16:38

f. Let's go. Yeah. Absolutely. You know, you

16:40

get done in, like, ten minutes. But back then, it was, you know,

16:42

it was a couple hours of work. It felt like so

16:44

you get through all that, and then they tell you when

16:46

gonna be working on that day. And of course, you already knew that, but

16:48

then you'd tell head out to the aircraft,

16:51

do all your pre flight, and you'd

16:53

go fly. So the way we

16:55

would work it with the stick buddies, we had these what we

16:57

call stage fields. And they were all these little

16:59

tiny just little tiny teleports

17:01

all over Southern Alabama. And

17:03

depending on what stage of training you're at, you would go to

17:05

whatever stage field. So

17:06

you'd you'd pack up you'd fly

17:08

out and leaving Karen's airfield. I mean, you could

17:11

imagine, like, I don't know

17:12

how many at least a hundred

17:14

helicopters out there. just it's like

17:16

Atlanta Airport. You know, everyone's just taken off at

17:18

the same time. It's really busy. And

17:21

you finally, you take these corridors, you

17:23

get out to the stage field. What you typically do

17:25

is land the

17:26

student not flying. He said in the back, we'd

17:28

kick him out, and he'd go into, like, a little waiting

17:30

area. And you'd

17:31

go do your maneuvers with the instructor pilot.

17:33

And then, eventually, you'd come back and then you guys

17:35

would swap out, maybe get some gas

17:37

during that. And then they would go out, do some

17:39

maneuvers, come back, pick you up, and then you'd fly back.

17:41

So that's your morning. then

17:43

you would get bused back onto main

17:46

post, and you'd have, you know, an hour or so

17:48

to eat lunch, and then you would start

17:50

academics. And we did you know, everything. You

17:52

know, learn how the engine works. Learn

17:54

about weather. Just learn the

17:55

rules of being a pilot. You

17:58

know, I mean, you're taking have zero experience with

18:00

aviation in any way, shape, or form,

18:02

teaching them everything they need to know to

18:04

not only be a a private

18:06

pilot, you know,

18:07

a commercial rated pilot, a military

18:10

pilot, you know, all that stuff. So it

18:12

was a ton of classes. And so you'd get

18:14

home, you know, and then because

18:16

you did flight line in the morning. Well,

18:18

you didn't do PT. And the army

18:20

loves PT. So that's what we had afternoon

18:23

PT.

18:23

So we would have about four thirty

18:25

in the afternoon. we would have PT for the morning flight

18:27

line guys. And of course, you

18:29

know, by then we're dogs hired. We'd show up and

18:31

we'd act like we're going on into

18:34

the woods and hang out, you know, thirty minutes

18:36

and then we'd come back, you know. I can only

18:38

imagine Southern Alabama in the summer,

18:40

four thirty, sixteen thirty,

18:42

Yeah. Great time for PT. Yeah. That's Absolutely.

18:45

We're all very motivated.

18:48

Yeah. It

18:48

was awesome. So we do that for about a week. And

18:50

of course, you know, you get home to live

18:52

your life a little bit. You know, I was married at the time to enough kids, you

18:54

know, eat dinner and

18:55

stuff in your study. But I mean, I remember staying

18:57

up, so probably, you know, ten, eleven o'clock at

18:59

night studying and then getting up at four

19:02

AM morning and and start it all over again. So

19:04

you'd do that for about a week and then you'd rotate

19:06

to afternoon flight line.

19:08

And so it it was a little bit more what you can

19:10

think of. Show up for PT, go

19:12

to classes, go to the afternoon fly line,

19:14

get home, you know, rinse and repeat.

19:16

So that was our schedule

19:19

for like I said, ten weeks for primary. I wanna say eight

19:21

weeks for instruments. And of

19:23

course, by the

19:23

time you got to the end of instruments, you're

19:25

kinda running out of classes to

19:28

do. and then you get selected for

19:30

your aircraft. Now when I went

19:33

through, it was not a it was not

19:35

a show as far as

19:37

getting selective aircraft. Now, apparently, it's a big

19:39

to do. They have, like, kinda like a a

19:42

ball and they they make big announcements. When I

19:44

went through, it was a dude with a clipboard.

19:46

Yeah. You came in. he came into the

19:48

room and he said, okay,

19:50

we

19:50

have six Black Hawk's, three

19:53

Kaiawas, four Chinook's

19:54

and one Apache or something like

19:56

that. And he would just go down the list and

19:58

say, okay, Bill, you're you're number one. What

20:00

do you want? and it just went down

20:02

the line like that. So I think I was number three on

20:05

the OML. So I I knew I was gonna get

20:07

whatever I wanted. And I wanted

20:09

Kyawis, so I so I managed to get that. I

20:11

do remember the one guy who did

20:13

not want Apaches. He

20:14

got Apaches because it was one

20:17

slot, and he was the last guy on the OML, and

20:19

he was not happy. But generally peep people

20:21

got what they want. But, you know, the rumor

20:23

mill runs through as I'm sure it does all the other

20:25

flight schools of, you know, we'd be going through

20:28

primary instruments and you'd

20:30

hear like, oh, I heard our class is gonna be all

20:32

Apaches because they ran out of, you know, they

20:34

don't have enough people or, you know, you'd start hearing

20:36

all these rumors. at end of

20:38

the day, it's always gonna be the needs of the military and and

20:40

whoever's available. So

20:42

you'd select aircraft, finish up

20:45

your instrument phase, I

20:47

think most of us were finished and another few of

20:49

us didn't. And then and then

20:51

we went to something called BNAV. I'm not sure if they

20:53

still do this anymore, but it's called basic

20:55

navigation. And

20:55

this was a two week course

20:58

where you went out to yet another airfield,

21:00

and we flew these old

21:03

Kiowa what we call alpha chucks. And these are old,

21:05

like, Vietnam era -- Mhmm. -- Kaia

21:07

was that don't have any sensors or anything. It's just, you

21:09

know, it's basically just a helicopter It's

21:11

just, you know, a Belle 206 painted

21:13

green. And, you know,

21:15

these old grizzled Vietnam that's because

21:17

that was a great time of going through

21:19

thousand three. All the instructor pilots are all old Vietnam

21:21

guys. You know, they just

21:24

completely unflappable, you know. Their teaching you how

21:26

to hover, which is not easy

21:28

to learn. and, you know, you're you're

21:30

putting this aircraft in situations that you're

21:32

positive it's gonna crash. And they're just sitting there like,

21:34

you know, nothing doing. You know, they've they've seen

21:36

it all but you head out to

21:38

BNAV. And essentially, you just learn how

21:40

to navigate. You don't even fly the

21:42

aircraft. You

21:42

learn how to plot things on

21:44

a map and and and you know,

21:46

re cage

21:46

your brain to moving at ninety knots

21:49

above the trees and identifying these

21:51

types of

21:51

roads and these, you know, this creek

21:54

bed and now I have to turn to this heading

21:56

and stuff. And you essentially just, you know,

21:58

he would give you a route and say, hey, I want you to

22:00

plan for these locations. And

22:02

then

22:03

you guys would take off the next day, and you would lead him.

22:05

You know? You'd be, like, okay, turn to heading

22:07

100 and fly for

22:09

five minutes, you know, and you're sitting there clocking

22:11

it. you know, you're like, okay. Make your speed

22:13

ninety knots and you're clocking it. So you're doing

22:16

all this old school navigation. So we do that

22:18

for about two weeks. and then we moved on to our

22:20

advanced aircraft. And this is

22:23

where

22:23

the timings kinda get really screwed up because if

22:25

you were a Blackhawk guy, I wanna say theirs was only

22:27

about six weeks. Shanoke's, I

22:30

think, were six or eight weeks. Kayo was,

22:32

as I recall, was about sixteen

22:34

weeks, and I think Apache's was about

22:36

eighteen weeks. So you're getting right

22:38

back into the same old rhythm of

22:40

an early flight line and academics.

22:42

because now you're completely

22:44

learning the systems of

22:46

the new aircraft. And,

22:48

you know, it's it's it's

22:49

starting over for scratch, and so you're learning all

22:51

about the engines, which was great for

22:53

us who went Kyla

22:55

because the Kaya was really just a

22:58

bell 206

23:00

like like souped up

23:02

on heroin. You know, like, it's just

23:04

AAA better you know, it's got

23:06

kind of the same component. I mean, most of the

23:08

emergency procedures or the

23:10

limitations were the same, you know, the engine limits and

23:12

the oil limits. Everything was the same. So you're

23:14

like, okay. already got that memorized. So that made that a lot easier.

23:16

But you still had to learn all new systems. And, of course,

23:18

you know, it was a glass cockpit. It had,

23:20

you know, thermal imaging systems

23:22

and had weapon systems So you're

23:24

going through all these these academics.

23:26

And then you just go through different phases, then it

23:28

almost kinda repeats itself. So

23:30

you had the primary phase where you just learned

23:32

how to fly the aircraft how to

23:34

how to crash in a controlled manner and how

23:36

to fly with the hydraulics off and and

23:38

things like that. And then you'd move

23:40

on to, you know, night because we'd

23:42

never flown at night up until this point, which I

23:44

think they have changed. I think

23:46

now during that primary phase

23:49

in basic flight school, they do a little bit of

23:51

night training. but we would go out and

23:53

learn how to fly unaided, meaning you had

23:55

nothing. And then we'd fly with

23:57

goggles. And of course, all throughout this, you have

23:59

little check rides to to advance

24:01

you along. And

24:02

then and then you get into

24:04

the weapons. So the Kyawah,

24:06

in particular, we carried

24:08

a hell fires a fifty caliber

24:11

machine gun and two point

24:13

seven five inch rockets. We

24:14

did have stingers but literally

24:17

like a class before me is when they stopped teaching how

24:19

to how to use the stingers. They were taking it out

24:21

of the inventory. We'd still fly some of the had stinger launches

24:23

on, but, you know, we never learned how to use

24:26

them. So we go through the weapons phase.

24:28

And about that time is when they

24:30

kinda ran out of classes. And that's when fight school

24:32

really became fun because all you had was flight line, you

24:34

know, and you just work half a day, go in

24:36

and fly for an hour and a half and then go home, you

24:38

know, wasn't wasn't hard. But you

24:40

always kept that stick buddy

24:42

dynamic going on.

24:45

So you were always kinda showing up

24:47

and and

24:47

riding out to the stage field watching guys

24:49

do crash and and everything and then and

24:51

then swapping out with them. And then we'd go do

24:53

gunnery towards the end, you know, we actually got to go

24:56

shoot rockets at fifty cal. We'd

24:58

we'd do simulated hellfire because course, you

25:00

know, those things are, you know, hundred thousand dollars a

25:02

piece or whatever.

25:03

But you but you could set up the system to

25:05

to go through the motions. They need to have a, what

25:07

they call, a captive flight trainer So

25:09

it's basically a hellfire without the warhead, you know, without

25:11

all the propulsion. It just had the the

25:13

the seeker head, essentially. So you'd

25:15

get all the symbology in this in the

25:17

aircraft. So you'd know that you're doing it

25:19

right or wrong and and learn all that jazz. And, yeah,

25:21

that

25:21

was essentially it for the for

25:24

the Kiwa track. And at that point,

25:26

for us, we were essentially

25:28

done. We had to go through the

25:30

warn

25:30

officer basic course, which

25:33

was only

25:33

a couple of weeks. And and integrated

25:35

with that, we had, like, seer

25:37

type training -- Right. -- which is yeah. And it

25:39

was really just survival. It wasn't

25:42

evasion and and recovery or, you

25:44

know, resistance. that morphed.

25:46

So they started to integrate

25:48

SEER, what they call SEER C, which is the

25:50

level that you always hear about, you know, guys getting

25:52

slapped and captured and,

25:54

you know, you know, not

25:56

tortured. That came along later.

25:58

And very wisely, I think

25:59

they they ended up putting that at the very front

26:02

of flight school. and and it makes a lot of

26:04

sense because you think of it because people did get hurt.

26:06

You know, I mean, Sears is, you know, they don't

26:08

try to hurt you, but they

26:10

hurt you. And and, of course, through the

26:12

dating Yeah. Yeah. It's just the very nature of it.

26:14

You know, running around the woods and the dargot and chased

26:16

and all the stuff. You know, I mean, I almost rolled an

26:18

ankle pretty bad. but guys are

26:20

getting hurt. Well, you just spent a year training

26:23

this guy how to fly helicopter spending how

26:25

much money and time on this guy, and then he

26:27

gets hurt and seer. That's

26:29

it. He's done. So they put it at the front

26:31

eventually, which I think is really good move. And so

26:33

it's like, okay, you survived. See here now, you can go

26:35

to flight school. But for us, at the

26:37

time, we didn't have that built up.

26:39

They were starting to build the system. And it

26:41

was a few years later when I came back for the

26:43

captain's course was when they they finally caught us and

26:45

said, oh, okay. You you guys hadn't done sear yet, so

26:47

you're gonna go who do three weeks

26:49

of camps camps slappy. But,

26:52

yeah,

26:52

so for us, that was it. So I

26:54

wanna say that for me, my flight school

26:57

experience was a about

26:59

a year and a month, if I remember

27:01

correctly, almost to the day

27:02

from when I started.

27:04

Now that fluctuates

27:07

depending upon maintenance, weather,

27:09

needs of the army, just the

27:11

the throughput. Because as I was

27:13

telling you before we started, you know, army aviation

27:15

is pretty big. there's a lot of

27:17

pilots. And so you're putting a lot of people

27:20

through this very, you

27:22

know, this very tiny straw

27:24

and you're trying to push them through. so you'd have these huge bubbles. I

27:26

mean, I've heard of guys waiting, you know, between

27:28

phases up to, you know, five or six

27:31

months. waiting to start, you know, from

27:33

from essentially instruments to their

27:35

advanced aircraft or things like that. So you

27:37

have these huge bubbles. That's what we call

27:39

them where you'd

27:39

be sitting around. So So some guys could be

27:41

there for, you know, up to two years, in some

27:44

cases, depending on on the

27:46

situation. Now

27:47

when you're talking about doing

27:49

the morning or the afternoon, flight lines

27:51

are you? Obviously, weather and maintenance

27:53

dependent. You're flying just about every day

27:56

during this? Yeah. The

27:58

goal was, yeah, five days a week.

28:00

I know we never did it, but I

28:02

I've had friends who went after

28:04

they left the army and they ended up becoming instructor pilots

28:07

there. And I know that they would

28:09

sometimes work on the weekends depending on the

28:11

maintenance. But, you know, there's enough kind

28:13

of play built into the system where, you

28:16

know, you you technically have more time than you need

28:18

because they're factoring in some weather days and

28:20

and things nature. So,

28:22

yes, I don't remember us ever graduating,

28:24

you know, leaving one section,

28:26

you know, late Now when I went

28:28

back years later to do the Apache course, we

28:31

had a ton of bad weather. So we

28:33

we

28:33

almost did have to run through, like, a Christmas

28:35

break. You know, supposed to be done before Christmas, and they almost had us

28:37

come back after because we were running out of

28:40

time. But but, yeah, they

28:41

they do have the option to to do

28:43

some weekend stuff. But five days a week was

28:46

the plan. Okay. And I think we'll touch

28:48

on this a little bit later when we talk about

28:50

moving into tactically

28:51

learning your aircraft, but it

28:54

it is a different philosophy.

28:56

It's a different culture from the

28:58

navy, from the Air Force, and every service does

29:00

have their own culture. It's not better or it's

29:02

not worse. It's just

29:04

different. And that's why Being a

29:06

navy guy who's gone through several

29:09

iterations of army training, I can

29:11

hear the the

29:12

philosophy behind this. Right? Like I said,

29:14

it's not right or wrong. It's just that you

29:17

guys are the largest service.

29:19

Number one, And if

29:20

I'm not mistaken, I think the number still holds

29:22

true, you're the largest single operator of

29:25

helicopters in the world. Right?

29:27

Yeah. And I've I've

29:30

heard different numbers. I think we

29:32

have more aircraft than any of the other branches

29:35

too. Now I

29:35

don't know if that's a hundred percent true.

29:37

And and if there isn't some sort of, like,

29:40

asterisk to that. I would

29:42

certainly say in a deployed environment, we bring

29:44

more aircraft than anybody else. And that's just again sheer

29:46

volume and size of our units and

29:48

stuff. Right. But, yeah, it's a it's a

29:50

very different

29:53

It's a different culture. You

29:55

know, every branch has their own way of looking

29:57

at how they do things. Of course,

29:59

we're

29:59

more aligned with

30:00

the Marine Corps than I think

30:03

any other when it comes to, you

30:05

know, thought processes of of

30:07

aviation as it relates to the ground

30:09

force, you Because most air

30:11

force, you know, the the the air force

30:13

way of thinking is

30:15

very different, at least with most air force guys that I've

30:17

ever talked to. It was very different than

30:19

it is for the Army and Marine Corps.

30:21

And then amongst the Army and Marine Corps,

30:23

we look at things very differently. You know,

30:25

the Marines look at their aviation

30:28

almost like artillery, you know.

30:31

Mhmm. And I'm sure there's some marine guy who's

30:33

yelling at me right now and saying, I you know, I'm I'm

30:35

speaking in very general terms. Right.

30:38

They treat they treat their aircraft as a close air

30:40

support platform. The Army does

30:42

not. And so that, you know, and we

30:44

could talk about that, of course, later, but that gets

30:46

into a whole different way

30:48

of looking at how you're gonna employ

30:50

the

30:50

aircraft and and then how you're gonna train

30:53

the aircraft and and the

30:55

things that that are required. So, yeah, it's

30:57

a very different culture and it's

30:59

difficult to it's difficult to compare and

31:01

contrast because you do get into the conversation of

31:03

which one's not a matter which one's It's

31:05

just it's just different. Right. because

31:07

it's almost a totally different

31:10

mission. Even

31:10

between the

31:12

Marine Corps and the Army and definitely

31:15

between the

31:15

Army and the Navy

31:16

and the Air Force models. And

31:19

Yeah. I think in a little bit, we'll talk about how

31:21

you guys are employed in that philosophy.

31:23

But before we move

31:26

to that, I'd

31:27

like you to tell listener about

31:30

flying a helicopter. And what I mean is

31:32

we've talked to the fixed wing guys

31:34

about what's important there. And

31:36

obviously, you know, your your most obvious

31:38

difference is they've gotta have

31:40

forward motion to maintain

31:42

lift. And because of that,

31:45

thrust versus weight versus

31:47

drag, angle of attack, all these other

31:49

things come into play and

31:50

in

31:51

have to be intuitive.

31:53

They have to be second nature

31:55

to those guys with flying. And

31:57

you

31:57

guys helicopter innovators

32:00

have to have

32:01

probably some similar, but then a lot of

32:04

different knowledge

32:05

bases or or bits of information

32:07

that are intuitive to you. So

32:09

what is the helicopter pilot are

32:12

you are you learning

32:14

in this in, you know,

32:16

your basic aviation training?

32:18

Yeah. I

32:19

mean, at its base level, flying a

32:21

helicopter is more difficult than flying a

32:23

fixed wing aircraft. And and I'm very comfortable saying

32:25

that now. I fly seven thirty sevens you

32:27

know, I've flown suspenders, I've flown Seminoles. So

32:29

I've got time in fixed wing and and

32:31

I can tell you that a fixed wing aircraft

32:34

generally speaking wants to fly. a

32:36

helicopter wants to beat itself to death against the

32:38

ground with you inside of it. You know, that's what

32:40

it wants to do. And you spend every

32:43

waking moment in that air

32:45

aircraft, preventing that from happening. Now,

32:47

of course, some aircraft have some fancy

32:49

equipment to help them. You know, Apaches have

32:51

some some great hold modes and and things

32:53

like that that'll help you the Kaiawa was an absolute

32:55

death machine that was waiting to happen,

32:57

not because it was a bad aircraft, but just because

32:59

it was a very pure

33:02

helicopter was not you know, there was no fly by

33:04

wire or any of that crap. It was just it

33:06

was you. It was man, a machine, melded it

33:08

together doing stuff. Yeah.

33:10

Helicopters, I would say that a

33:12

vast majority of the time, it's really no

33:14

different. Once you get a helicopter

33:16

moving forward, it generally flies

33:18

like an airplane just slower, and you don't

33:20

do as much dynamic stuff. I wouldn't

33:22

suggest doing too many barrel rolls

33:24

and things. Though, of course, you you can in certain air

33:27

craft. I've been you know, I've rolled at

33:29

a hundred and twenty degrees. It's very

33:31

uncomfortable for me and a helicopter to have the big

33:33

spinny fan underneath me. I don't I

33:35

don't like it personally. so I try to

33:37

avoid it as much as I could. But, yeah, there are absolutely

33:39

some fundamentals that you have to understand,

33:42

primarily just I

33:44

always explain it to people like I always just pictured

33:46

a big arrow sticking out of

33:48

the top of the aircraft. And with all

33:50

things being equal, that arrow

33:52

is pointing straight up, and and

33:55

that's that's where I want it when I'm

33:57

hovering. And now if I wanna hover

33:59

over here, to the left or to the to

34:01

the front, I've gotta

34:02

adjust that arrow.

34:04

And

34:04

and it's really just a matter at that point

34:06

of understanding that If I

34:08

move the arrow forward, well, the arrow is probably

34:11

going to get smaller because I'm

34:13

transferring some of that energy

34:15

that keeping the arrow straight up. Well, now I'm transferring it

34:17

forward. So I need to add a little bit to the arrow.

34:19

Right? So I've got to pull in a little bit of

34:22

power in order to maintain

34:24

my out too because if I don't touch anything

34:26

with the power and I go forward, eventually I'm gonna hit the ground. And

34:28

so just little nuance things like

34:31

that that it you know, it's kinda like riding a bike. You try

34:33

to explain this how to ride a bike to somebody. You just you can't do it,

34:35

you know, at least I can't do it. But it's

34:38

essentially the same

34:40

concept. It's just get on it and

34:42

keep doing it till you know how to do it till

34:44

you know how to do it. Sure. I mean, I

34:46

remember in primary, very early on, we I

34:48

think, gosh, it was like the

34:50

third flight. I think it was the night

34:52

before or the day before, you know, instructor, Bob Gilbert. I'll never forget this guy.

34:54

He was just completely cool, missed this

34:56

awesome old Vietnam guy. And

35:00

he says, alright, tomorrow, we're gonna do auto rotations. And

35:02

I mean, I'm not kidding when I almost broke down

35:04

and tears. Like, I just I felt emotional. You

35:06

know, I got the clumped and

35:09

And I was like, what do you mean? I was like, we

35:12

don't even know how to hover

35:14

yet. And he's like, oh, no. It's

35:16

it's easier. like,

35:18

you're talking about cutting off the engine and it's

35:20

easier than hovering. And he and he was not wrong

35:22

because you had forward air speed.

35:25

and all you're doing is just managing the fall, you

35:27

know. I mean, that's that's a you're just a

35:29

controlled fall and then and then creating some

35:31

cushion at the bottom. but hovering in and of itself

35:33

is the absolute hardest thing that that

35:36

people will spend a lot of time struggling with. And

35:38

even when you figure out how to

35:40

do it, you know, it's still it's

35:42

like having your little kid learn how to ride a bike.

35:44

It's like, yeah, they can do it, but

35:45

they're not very good at it. And then

35:47

over time, they get really good, and then they can do all kind

35:49

of crazy stuff. and stand up on the,

35:51

you know, the the the pedals and and do all kind

35:53

of weird stuff. And eventually, you get to that point

35:55

where it is very natural. But,

35:58

yeah, fundamentally, once you get

35:59

the understanding

36:02

of hovering, I think the rest of it's easy

36:04

and I think the hardest part at that point

36:08

is probably just understanding how to get back into a hover. Right? So

36:10

once you get it into forward flight, now you're

36:12

flying like an airplane and it's it's

36:14

very relaxed, like, well, now I gotta

36:16

land. And so it's, again, in the

36:18

understanding of that balance between air

36:20

speed and power. And it's a

36:22

constant management of the

36:24

two in and trying to maintain that balance or take a little

36:26

bit of that balance out. Because again, I'm trying to

36:28

land, so I gotta go down. So

36:30

it's like, well, I

36:32

need to I need to decrease my air speed, so I gotta increase my power,

36:34

but I don't wanna increase my power so

36:36

much that I balance this out. So I need to increase

36:38

my power just enough so that I

36:40

keep falling. but I don't wanna

36:42

fall too fast because then I'm gonna fall into my

36:44

own down wash and it's gonna be a bad

36:45

day and I'm gonna hit the ground

36:47

pretty hard.

36:48

You know, an example of

36:50

that as I understand, you know, the some have been laden raid, you know, they -- Right. --

36:52

unfortunately got stuck into kind of their own down

36:54

launch, and that has something to do with

36:56

the the structure of the

36:58

defense line there that, you know -- Right. -- just prevented the airflow and

37:00

stuff. So things like that. You so you're

37:03

you're you're always kind of on on

37:05

the margins and especially with

37:08

with aircraft that are heavy, you know,

37:10

and and

37:10

Caia was were always heavy. You know, we were

37:12

just an overloaded beast.

37:14

Apaches wasn't wasn't a big deal.

37:16

then you take a Blackhawk or Shinook, then it's got fully loaded with dudes

37:18

in the back and stuff. So you're always running

37:20

those margins and and trying to

37:22

find that good sweet spot between over

37:26

torquing the hell out of the aircraft or just banging it

37:28

against the ground. You're just you're just always running

37:30

between those two lines.

37:33

Right. And so Yeah. The my

37:35

understanding on the on the source level with what you were

37:38

talking about on the the

37:40

Neptune Spirit raid, the the midline

37:42

raid

37:42

the line raid was was and this

37:44

is funny because, you know, this whole series is about training and trend like

37:47

you fight.

37:47

Just sometimes the littlest detail,

37:50

my understanding

37:52

is that when they ran the mock ups, they used to chain link fence

37:54

-- Yeah. -- to replicate. Wow. And

37:55

it was it was actually a solid

37:57

structure fence in

38:00

that

38:00

little bit of difference made all the difference and, you

38:02

know, worth mentioning that those were

38:05

probably some of the best

38:07

telecom pipilists in the so not throw it any shade on them.

38:09

It's just -- Right. -- as you said,

38:12

operating at those

38:14

margins and of

38:15

course, especially in Afghanistan, in

38:18

addition to the heavy load

38:20

heat, altitude, all these things working

38:22

against a helicopter.

38:24

Right? Whereas a fixed wing, you know, yeah,

38:26

there's some ceiling

38:26

limitations, but, you know, speed

38:29

is life and you can you

38:31

went altitude, you could trade altitude for speed or

38:33

vice versa. You guys

38:36

have to make all of your

38:38

own power Right? because and what I mean by that is

38:41

you don't get a catapult to shoot you

38:43

off the bow. Right. You don't you can't

38:45

just go, I've got a longer

38:47

runway and I can do that. What you've got is what you've

38:49

got. Right? Yeah. You you have

38:52

to exactly.

38:54

So And there's so many things as you were talking and jumping

38:56

my head because, one, hundred percent, what

38:58

you said, I've read the same thing,

38:59

and I've never talked to anyone who was on the raid,

39:01

but I've talked to people who

39:04

were in that community, who knew them, and and a hundred percent is what I've heard

39:06

is, you know, while they practice with the chain link,

39:08

so it allows the airflow through.

39:11

When I was in Afghanistan, you know, we were up in

39:13

the the Terran cow, which was kind of in the mountain. So

39:15

we were already at high altitude. So

39:17

you start talking about density and pressure

39:19

altitudes and stuff. and we had these, you know,

39:21

these Pesco barriers, like

39:22

these giant sandbags -- Yeah. -- between

39:25

all the aircraft to protect them in case one guy

39:27

hit with a mortar, you know, didn't hurt

39:30

their others. it got to this summertime, it got to the point where you couldn't even

39:32

get out of your parking spot. You know, I would

39:34

remember I remember one time in particular trying to

39:36

pick up to

39:38

a couldn't even really get to a hover. So I called my crew

39:40

chiefs over, you know, blazer spinning stuff. I said,

39:42

hey, take that missile off. You know, it's a hundred

39:44

pound missile. I'm barely

39:46

on the the edge of being able to get out

39:48

of here. So I had them pull the missile off so

39:50

that I could pick it up to a sort of

39:52

hovered and kinda scratch my way down, like

39:54

literally dragging the skids across the ground --

39:56

Yeah. -- to get out away from these

39:59

these barricades and then have them put

40:01

the missile back on and now I could hover out and

40:03

take off. And then just like you said, you know, having

40:05

enough space is helpful, but you only

40:07

have enough power. And so, you

40:09

know, you'd be you'd be you'd be

40:11

hopping down the runway, essentially, you know, skipping across the

40:14

ground. And and in some cases, you

40:16

know, I would abort

40:18

the takeoff okay, you know, we we

40:20

don't have enough. We're gonna sit here for five minutes

40:22

and burn off some

40:24

gas. So Afghanistan was a really challenging environment,

40:26

especially for the Kyle. It still managed to

40:28

do it But, yeah, once you got in the air, you know, that's why I was

40:30

trying to tell people, like, the the time where you need

40:32

power the most is really at a

40:34

hover. You know, if

40:36

you're at a high hover if you're outside of ground

40:38

effect, which is essentially as a cushion of

40:40

of air that's created being close to the ground.

40:42

So if you picture it, you know, ten

40:44

feet hovering

40:46

your air the air is hitting the ground and it's sort of creating this

40:48

cushion. Now climb up to about fifty or

40:50

sixty feet. You are clawing at

40:52

the sky to keep that thing at a hover.

40:55

you know, you're using every bit of energy

40:57

that you have depending on

40:59

your weight. That's

41:00

the most power that you're gonna use.

41:02

And so once you take off, once you get into that forward air

41:04

speed, you start getting that fresh air into the rotor system,

41:07

you get a little bit of efficiency

41:09

gain back. And then once you

41:11

get up down too. Yeah. Now you're pulling,

41:13

you know, sixty five percent whereas taking off, I was using

41:16

eighty five, ninety percent torque.

41:18

And so, yeah,

41:20

it's it's power management is huge, especially, and this is why, you

41:22

know, I I say it tongue and cheek, but I also

41:24

kinda mean that kaiwa pilots were probably the

41:26

best helicopter pilots in

41:28

the world in the military when it came to

41:30

understanding power management because we

41:32

were always a hundred percent

41:34

right at the limit. You know, when when I'm

41:36

having to

41:38

make choices of how many rockets I can

41:40

take versus how much gas

41:42

or which crew member I'm gonna fly

41:44

with because I'm that close to the

41:46

weight limits. every time I'm

41:48

taken off, I'm right at the edge, I'm

41:50

always taking off at max gross weight. I

41:52

never had that problems with Apache guy, you

41:54

know. I I mean, you know, you might eyeball a

41:56

little bit okay, this one's gonna

41:58

be a little tight,

41:59

but I

41:59

was never finding that

42:02

little spot where it's like, okay, if I move the

42:04

collective up, just a quarter of an inch. I'm gonna over torque. But if

42:06

I drop at a quarter of an inch, I'm gonna hit the

42:08

ground. And and so

42:10

then the only thing you can

42:12

do is try to use the

42:14

environment and something that I used to do, and it wasn't

42:16

really it wasn't really taught, but I kinda

42:18

learned it through, you know, the old

42:20

school guys. you know,

42:20

if I was number two taken off, you know, I'd be parked next to

42:22

number, we'd come out of far, but we'd meet, you

42:25

know, in a in a in in

42:27

the gravel. And I'd be, you

42:29

know, right off his his four o'clock

42:31

or seven o'clock position. He would take

42:33

off, and I would immediately take off. And

42:35

he's used to scare new guys

42:37

until I explained to him what I was doing. But

42:39

when they took off, think about all the

42:41

air that they're pushing out. Right? In

42:43

all directions as they're as

42:45

they're lifting up. to me, that's fresh

42:47

air. Right? So I would up and kind of nose towards them

42:50

as they're nosing forward. So I'm

42:52

doing this really sort of tight formation

42:54

takeoff with

42:56

them. It's because I'm using their down wash to create

42:58

lift for me. And so you'd kinda learn

43:00

these little tricks over time because

43:02

otherwise, yeah, you were you were

43:04

super limited with your power and capability. That that part's fascinating.

43:07

I I

43:07

let me clarify. Term

43:10

Farp is forward

43:11

air refueling point. Is

43:14

that right? Ford arming and refueling point. Yeah. So that's

43:16

a okay. Yeah. So that's a gas station

43:18

for helicopters. Yeah.

43:20

Right. Because with some

43:22

notable exceptions, you guys don't have air

43:24

to air refueling. So

43:26

Right. Yeah.

43:26

So it's

43:27

not uncommon for you guys to leave

43:29

a base, move to move to

43:31

a fart, you know, and get

43:33

what you need and keep going. Is

43:35

that correct? Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. Okay.

43:38

So

43:38

what you were just talking about with

43:40

that is fascinating because I think

43:42

the layman looks

43:42

at a helicopter and just thinks, well,

43:45

okay, you know, it's know,

43:47

if the rotors going around, then that's generating lift. And if

43:49

you're near the ground, okay. Well, all that air

43:52

is pushing down and you're closer to the ground, and

43:54

that must be good. And as you're saying, it can be good

43:56

and it can be bad. you know?

43:58

Yeah. Depending on

43:58

how close you are. Yeah. Right. And that's

44:00

fascinating to me that you're talking about, you

44:02

know, the clean air because I

44:05

think fixed wing avators think

44:07

about the the slipstream off

44:09

another aircraft as dirty air.

44:11

Right? Like, it's not gonna

44:13

behave the way that just you float you

44:16

passing through the air medium wood,

44:18

but for you, you've you've got benefit

44:20

from it. So you

44:22

use that smartly, you can. Yeah. You

44:24

can. Or or it can be absolutely terrible.

44:26

Alright. I mean, it's it's still a concern

44:29

you know, if you're landing and there's wake turbulence

44:31

from another aircraft, then sure that could be a

44:33

concern. But, you know, and I

44:36

tell you, and I know we're

44:38

kinda jumping around, but, you know, I learned that trick from a guy who, you

44:40

know, very very seasoned pilot

44:44

and we landed in the small field. We're here at Fort Bragg,

44:46

and this is one of my first duty station. And

44:48

we landed in this field. It was really windy that

44:50

day. And he says, let me show you something.

44:53

he makes me get as close to the trees on

44:55

the upland side of this field as possible. And

44:57

he says, we you know, we're

44:59

always power limited He's like, I want you to just pick it up

45:01

to a hover and just continue to climb up into

45:04

the edge of the trees. And, I mean, we're

45:06

right on the limits. You know? Like,

45:08

it's it's it's kinda getting into the yellow on our little

45:10

chiplets, which is telling us like, you know, the

45:12

TGT and the the the the

45:14

gas temperature

45:16

and and all that stuff. And so we're

45:18

we're riding right on the line. But

45:20

the moment I got that rotor system

45:22

above the trees, it hit

45:24

the wind. Right? So the wind, you know, you got fifteen,

45:26

twenty, not winds hitting it. And the aircraft I'm

45:29

not kidding. When I say I didn't touch the

45:31

controls, the aircraft kind of

45:33

just just rose. It just kinda lifted into the

45:35

air. You know, it didn't jump, but it just we

45:37

just started climbing. And he was like, there there you

45:40

go. Like, that's that's the difference

45:42

between, you know, having

45:44

no air to to having some air. And so I just

45:46

sort of apply that myself. You know, no one ever taught

45:48

me that I just, you know, I just started doing it

45:50

and using other peoples. But those are the trick

45:52

that you learn over time. And then and then you become the old guy. You know, remember being the old

45:55

guy and flying with Apache instructor pilots. And I

45:57

was like, hey, I know you don't need this because you have

45:59

two engines, but let me show you

46:02

a trick. you know, they're like, oh, wow. That's kinda cool. And then they start teaching And

46:04

so, you know, stuff like that becomes tribal lore.

46:06

But, yeah, it's it's a it's a different

46:08

world. transition

46:10

from helicopters to airplanes was a

46:12

lot easier. You know, I've met

46:14

airplane guys who went to fly helicopters

46:16

and it it doesn't translate as

46:18

easily and it's because fundamentally, there's some differences

46:21

that are just hard to to overcome. And

46:23

most of those happens when you're landing. I

46:25

mean, landing the two is a

46:27

very different different feel.

46:29

Yeah. I

46:29

think when you described it

46:32

as

46:32

learning to ride a bicycle, that really

46:34

drove it home for me

46:36

because you can't really explain to anyone how to

46:38

ride a bicycle. You could you could tell him you need to

46:40

pedal, you can tell him you need to keep the I can't

46:42

keep the wheels straight. But until you get on

46:45

there and just do it, and that

46:47

now really gave me a feeling for all everything you're

46:49

trying to you're trying to coordinate all

46:51

these different things. And

46:53

like you said, you

46:54

know, if there's a lot of unassisted flying

46:56

there. Right? Well,

46:57

and you're you're trying to you're

46:59

trying to make different parts of your body,

47:01

do different things that

47:04

you're just flat out not used to. You know, it's like the old rub

47:06

your head and patch your belly type

47:08

thing. You know, I remember

47:10

mister Gilbert when he was teaching us how

47:12

to hover The first thing

47:14

he did was he picked it up to a

47:16

hover and he says, okay, you

47:18

have

47:18

the pedals. All I want

47:19

you to do is keep the

47:22

nose pointed at that tree over

47:24

there. And I'm gonna control everything

47:26

else. And, you know, you

47:28

start off You're like, okay, you know, I got this. The next thing you know, he's

47:30

yelling at you saying, why aren't we pointing at the trees?

47:32

Oh, well, I am. Well, no, you're not. Your head has

47:34

turned ninety degrees

47:36

off to side because you're so focused on staring

47:38

at these trees and you don't realize you're not putting

47:40

in enough pedal and so now the nose is pointing off

47:42

to the

47:44

other direction. And so then they, you know, you'd get used to that and they'd say, okay, you

47:46

have the collective. Right? So that that's what the

47:48

basically, the up and down lever. Right.

47:50

You just control that. And so

47:52

now you're moving that. And then when you fly an old aircraft like the Bell 206 you know,

47:55

it doesn't have a lot of this fancy stuff

47:57

for stability, it's all you

47:59

and so it's constant motion. You know, we used to call it

48:01

stir in the soup. You're constantly moving

48:04

all of your hands. You know, your right

48:05

hand is

48:08

is know,

48:08

making a circle between your legs, your left hand is going up and down, your feet

48:11

are pushing in and out, pushing in

48:13

and out. So your

48:16

constant moving all of these parts in ways that I can't think of any

48:18

other thing in life that we we do this,

48:20

you know. So it's a very alien

48:22

feeling versus an airplane an

48:25

airplane which is almost intuitive. But if

48:27

you've driven a car, you know, it's it's kind of the

48:29

same thing. You know, you just turn left and it

48:31

turns left. And so

48:34

that's yeah, it it's a little bit to overcome and then but much

48:36

like riding a bike, once you figure

48:38

it out, you've got it. You know,

48:40

it's it's

48:42

always sealed back in your brain case and and you can pull it. You might be a little rusty,

48:44

but I'm pretty sure I can jump and and start hovering

48:46

right now. And I haven't hovered in five

48:48

years.

48:49

So we've talked or

48:52

in earlier episodes about

48:54

these are

48:54

young kids. We're all young kids at one

48:56

point. Right? Doesn't seem like it now, but

48:58

and you're drinking from the fire hose learning all of

49:01

this. Oh, yeah. And in your case, you said

49:03

a year, you said maybe that's

49:06

that's about average. That's even less time

49:08

than the fixed wing

49:11

brother normally get.

49:12

So it's just a

49:14

lot. And you're training you

49:16

guys are training physiologically to,

49:19

you know, stir the pot like

49:21

you're saying, ride this bike you're

49:23

also learning how to process all this information.

49:25

And you mentioned, you know, terrain and using

49:27

the terrain and the fixed

49:30

wing guys talked

49:32

about road recke during their training, which

49:34

I think was more of

49:36

a a navigation exercise, which to

49:38

some extent it is for you guys. But you guys are

49:40

also learning to use

49:42

the train as part of your

49:44

battlefield. Right? And -- Yeah. -- as

49:46

I say this, this is maybe a good

49:48

transition into about

49:50

when you're moving on to your first unit,

49:52

which is where you guys learned how to

49:54

to fight the helicopter. So before

49:57

I do that, should we

49:58

talk about anything else from from

49:59

flight school? Like, about getting your

50:02

wings? Tell me about getting your wings

50:04

physically, like,

50:06

Yeah.

50:06

Ceremony, small ceremony? Yeah. It was a,

50:08

you

50:08

know, big ish ceremony. We

50:11

have

50:11

AAA Fort Rucker there there's a

50:14

the Army Aviation Museum, and they've which

50:16

is a great museum if you're ever in lower Alabama,

50:18

we call it LA. If you're

50:20

ever down in LA, swing by

50:22

Fort Rocker. It's right by the Frontgate. That's a great museum.

50:25

It's got the

50:26

old Comanche I think it still

50:28

does. Has the Comanche aircraft.

50:32

It's got you know, unfortunately, now it has Kai was. You know, you're old when the

50:34

aircraft you flew ends up in the museum. It makes

50:36

you feel weird. But Hey. At least

50:38

you get museums. Minor, I'll go into sync

50:40

x's and

50:42

stuff like that. Oh, jeez. Yeah. Yeah. They haven't

50:44

turned any mind in the drones and shot them down or

50:46

anything. But

50:49

a great museum, but they they that's where they have

50:51

a lot of the ceremonies for anything aviation

50:53

related to their rocker. And, yeah, you

50:55

know, and you'd have again, it's

50:57

kinda weird because you started with a certain group of people. I wanna

50:59

say there was about thirty, if I

51:01

remember correctly, when I started

51:04

flight school. But of course, some of us

51:06

went to flak Iowa, some of us went to Black Hawk.

51:08

So, you know, we we separated

51:10

halfway through. And now you go off

51:12

and I wanna say my Kiowa class was

51:14

about twelve. and then

51:16

you get sucked back into that warrant officer

51:18

basic course. And now you're back into a

51:20

group of, you know, like eighty, you know.

51:22

But there's there's Blackhawk

51:24

guys who who flew, you know, started flight school six months

51:26

after you did because their time line is different. So, you

51:28

know, it's not as homogenous anymore. You

51:30

don't feel like the

51:32

same crowd. But, yeah, you know, you

51:34

have a little ceremony and have, you know, the

51:36

speaker and stuff and then you go up there and you

51:38

you get your wings. You know, at that

51:40

point, you're just ready to go. So Yeah. So, you know, I don't

51:42

I honestly other than I I

51:44

can picture the pictures that I have from

51:46

that day, but I can't remember any

51:50

it because I think at that point, you're just like, you've already got your

51:52

assignment. You've

51:52

been flying for a year. You know, you

51:54

leave there with probably a hundred or so hours,

51:56

at least as a Kyle guy. I I

51:59

see seem to recall having about

51:59

a hundred hours. You're just ready to go. You're

52:02

ready to get after it. I guess I will say

52:04

one thing about flight school at least when I went through and

52:06

and when we talk about culture, And

52:08

unfortunately, I think this went away. I don't know if it's come back, but when I went

52:10

through flight school, we had colored hats. And so

52:12

every class had a colored hat.

52:16

And my class was

52:18

twenty 403I think we

52:20

were the last twenty fourth class of two

52:22

thousand three. We were the last class. and we

52:24

had yellow hats. And so they were like the baseball caps.

52:27

Yeah. And so you have these caps and that's

52:29

how they knew, you know, what

52:32

class I remember the class ahead of us twenty 303 they had orange caps. And

52:34

when you got to solo

52:36

and so we did solo, but it was

52:39

kind of a a hokey solo You'd

52:41

solo with your stick buddy. So you'd get

52:43

to about I wanna say it was about

52:45

seventeen hours or so of flying

52:48

during

52:49

primary. And you've

52:50

you've learned how to auto rotate, you've learned how to hover, and now

52:52

the instructor pilot says,

52:53

okay, you're gonna hover or you're gonna

52:56

go or you're gonna go solo solo.

52:58

And

52:58

all you did was like three laps in the traffic pattern. But

53:00

it was you and your stick buddy and

53:02

that was it. And that was probably

53:05

the most exciting thing that

53:07

I remember from flight school was was doing a solo. And

53:09

I remember what we call

53:12

chairflying. I'm sure most pilots have

53:14

heard that term before. chair

53:15

flying is when you sit in the chair, you know,

53:17

you close your eyes and you just think

53:20

about all the

53:22

maneuvers in and and, you know, move your hands and think about what you

53:24

would be doing. And I chair

53:26

was was chair flying thinking about,

53:28

you know, auto rotating and

53:30

what happens something, you know,

53:32

breaks or blah blah blah.

53:34

Totally prepared for this day.

53:36

And we go

53:36

do our solo. And I remember flying over

53:38

this elementary school that was right there,

53:40

and I just I just remember thinking, like, man,

53:42

there's kids down there looking up at us.

53:44

It's saying that's really cool. because I really

53:46

be in that kid. You know? See an helicopter. I mean,

53:48

like, man, I wanna do that. And

53:51

so that was, like, the first moment for me where it like, holy cow, this is this

53:53

is a thing that I'm actually doing that

53:55

I've always wanted to So

53:58

after you solo, you would get these these ridiculously

54:01

large so on solo wings, and then

54:03

you were allowed to put them

54:05

on your hat. And then we did something

54:08

called the solo cycle. And I don't know

54:10

when this started. It it probably Vietnam

54:12

time frame, but it was this weird little

54:14

bicycle that that had been, like, welded with,

54:16

you know, like, a little rotor on top and and stuff

54:18

like that. And you would take the junior

54:20

guy of the class, and he

54:23

would ride the solo cycle and

54:25

every class that was available would come out

54:27

to this to the solar cycle. You know what happened

54:29

like every month. And every class would come

54:32

out there. and, you know, they'd square them with water guns and

54:34

throw, you know, water balloons and stuff

54:36

and this kid, you know, whatever guy the junior

54:38

guy would would ride the solo

54:40

cycle down at the end of the street and then come

54:42

back and and do it again. And

54:44

and I remember just like that, you know,

54:46

coming into aviation, that's the kind of stuff you

54:48

wanna do. You wanna wear cool guy

54:50

patches. Yep. You know, you wanna you wanna

54:52

go get drinks after you go for a flight. You know,

54:54

you wanna do all this fun camaraderie stuff that

54:56

you always read about

54:58

in And I think we were the last class to have a solo cycle.

55:00

I think they got rid of

55:02

it. I think it came back. I've I I

55:04

can't remember talking to somebody if it

55:06

came back but for years, it it wasn't there. They got

55:08

rid of the hats. You know, they just

55:10

started getting rid of all this stuff

55:12

that I think was a

55:14

huge mistake. it it led

55:16

itself to, you know, limited itself to culture and

55:18

and just feeling inclusive versus just,

55:20

well, now I'm an army guy and I

55:22

fly helicopters. So more though more so than getting my wings, I

55:24

remember the solo cycle. I remember

55:26

putting those solo wings on, and and

55:28

it was just a a point of pride, you know,

55:30

I guess.

55:32

But but other than that

55:32

yeah. I mean, flight school is pretty straightforward. You go in

55:35

there and you learn how to fly and

55:37

then you go home. But we yeah.

55:38

We don't really do tactics at

55:40

all in flight school. And I think there's a financial reason for

55:43

that, honestly. Really? Okay. So

55:45

Yeah. Talk me through that. What what do you

55:47

think that is?

55:49

Well, again, having talked to other guys who

55:52

went through other branches and and how they do their

55:54

training, you know, their smaller

55:56

classes, generally speaking. You know, the throughput is

55:58

just not as not as

55:59

robust. You know,

56:00

they go to these other, I guess, what the Navy

56:02

calls it the rag or or whatever. Mhmm.

56:04

And they they learn how to

56:07

do the tactics and stuff. you know,

56:08

most guys I've talked to, even the helicopter guys, you know, they're spending,

56:10

you know, two plus

56:12

years in a normal

56:14

pipeline spending two

56:16

plus years learning how to do their

56:18

job and their aircraft. And then

56:20

they go to the

56:21

fleet or to the, you

56:23

know, wing or whatever. And

56:25

then they still gotta go

56:26

through some training. It's not like they show up day one.

56:28

I'm like, okay. Cool. You're ready. You're combat ready. Like, they're

56:30

still gonna go through some sort of training. I think

56:32

for us with our throughput,

56:34

trying to then have a separate training

56:37

program that focused on tactics, it

56:39

would just be a nonstarter. You know, you

56:41

would just you you would you

56:43

would create even larger bubbles than what I talked

56:46

about prior. So the way

56:48

that we do it is you finish flight

56:50

school, you are what

56:52

we call a pilot, a PI. So that's your code. You put

56:54

in a a PI when you fly. You're not a

56:56

pilot in command. So you're a

56:58

standard PI.

57:00

and then you get assigned to your unit, and then

57:02

that is where you start

57:04

learning the tactics

57:05

of the aircraft. you

57:07

know, you you go through some more training just to verify that you

57:10

actually know what you're doing and you do much auto

57:12

rotations and basic

57:14

flight stuff. a lot of

57:16

night stuff because, you know, you don't have that much

57:18

time doing night. And of course, you know, especially if

57:20

you're a scout or a tech guy, you're gonna do a lot of

57:22

night flying. So you do all that

57:24

stuff and then you move into the the tactics, the the multi aircraft tactics,

57:26

and then you get signed off

57:30

to be a a fully fledged combat ready pilot, and

57:32

then you're focusing on becoming a a pilot

57:35

in command. Okay.

57:36

you know, having been well,

57:38

being a navy guy who went through a

57:41

couple different

57:41

types of

57:44

army training it

57:44

sounds culturally very much like army training. And

57:46

again, as I said before, that's not better

57:48

or worse. It's just

57:50

culturally different and I

57:53

know

57:53

going through the army training for the various

57:55

things I did jointly.

57:58

Just

57:58

like you said, they're training you how

57:59

to use all the component

58:02

tools. Yeah. But

58:04

not how to employ

58:06

those tools. And that

58:08

I think at every army unit, be

58:10

it infantry armor, aviation artillery,

58:12

whatever. Yeah. That's just the way the

58:14

army does it. Again, not right or

58:17

wrong,

58:17

just different. Well, So let's I

58:19

mean, do you wanna talk about Scott

58:19

the size and scope? because I think that's

58:22

the form. Let's do that because I think

58:24

if if you

58:26

don't mind people are

58:28

probably familiar even if this is all

58:30

they've listened to. You know,

58:32

the the first episode here, first

58:34

two episodes, they get

58:36

squadrons, they sort of get wings, they get

58:38

set that stuff.

58:40

Explain the combat structure of

58:42

the army and, you know, probably, you know,

58:44

squad to a brigade combat team or start at the top and go

58:46

down. I think we don't need to go divisions court.

58:49

Things like that. But will

58:52

attempt to touch on it. So, you know, I was

58:54

joking. The marine the marine corps is a core, you

58:56

know, the army's got several. Right?

58:58

So, you know, we've got, you know, three off the top of

59:00

my head, third core, and

59:02

eighteenth airborne core. Each of

59:04

those cores have multiple divisions. Right?

59:06

Each of those divisions is made up of

59:08

brigades, and this is where aviation starts come

59:11

into play. So you've got we'll take the

59:13

eighty second airborne, which is where I spent a

59:15

majority of my time as a pilot back in

59:17

the day. I think it's changed again, but they

59:20

had four infantry brigades, you know, airborne infantry

59:22

brigades. Then you had some support staffs,

59:24

artillery, blah blah blah. And then over there in a corner,

59:26

you had the combat

59:28

aviation brigades. So this is organization

59:30

commanded by a colonel, and

59:32

it has under it five

59:34

battalions. And those battalions are

59:36

led by lieutenant colonel. So If

59:39

you look at a Air Force squadron and I'm I'm again speaking

59:41

very generalities, you know, Air Force squadron from what I

59:43

understand led by lieutenant colonel has

59:45

about twelve aircraft. an

59:48

Apache squadron or an Apache battalion would have twenty four

59:50

aircraft led by a lieutenant colonel.

59:52

So we got those five Italians.

59:54

One of them is the

59:56

aviation support battalion. So this is

59:58

all of the the

59:59

logistics or I should say the higher

1:00:02

level logistics supporting the

1:00:04

brigades, supporting maintenance of the aircraft, supporting

1:00:06

ground maintenance, things of that nature. And

1:00:08

I spent about eighteen months in one of those as an

1:00:10

executive officer which was a great

1:00:12

experience. Even as a pilot, I thought it was, you know,

1:00:14

deafness, but I I loved it.

1:00:16

And then we have the four, what we call,

1:00:18

line battalions. So you've got a general

1:00:20

support aviation battalion. You've

1:00:22

got a

1:00:22

air assault battalion. And then

1:00:24

you

1:00:25

have two Apache units. One of

1:00:27

them is an attack battalion. or

1:00:29

I guess they call them an attack reconnaissance battalion now.

1:00:32

And then you've got the air

1:00:34

reconnaissance

1:00:34

squadron, which

1:00:36

is basically

1:00:36

the same thing. It's just sort of a lineage type thing. You

1:00:39

know, the the army's very big on its

1:00:41

lineage and going back to, you

1:00:44

know, priest of award, cavalry, and all that kind of stuff. So

1:00:46

that's your cavalry squadron, and I'd I'd spent

1:00:48

some time and and I've spent a vast

1:00:50

majority of my aviation career as a as

1:00:53

a cavalry squadron guy. So we'll go back to the

1:00:55

Kiowa days. You would

1:00:58

have an

1:01:00

attack battalion of

1:01:01

Apaches, you have

1:01:04

a chyla, cavalry

1:01:05

squadron, you'd have that assault battalion, you have

1:01:07

the g sAB. So the

1:01:09

g sAB was Again, general support, you had some Chinook's,

1:01:11

and you had a bunch of BlackHocks. And those BlackHocks were

1:01:14

broken up into two different companies. One

1:01:16

was doing your

1:01:18

MetaVAC. And then the other was

1:01:20

your I can't think of the name, but

1:01:22

it's like a general support company. They they would

1:01:24

have the command and

1:01:26

control birds they would do VIP stuff, and sometimes they would do assault type

1:01:28

operations if you don't have enough aircraft. But

1:01:30

and then you'd have your

1:01:33

your Chinook's, which is your heavy lift, and they could do assault

1:01:36

operations as well. So that

1:01:38

that battalion right there

1:01:40

is, I wanna say,

1:01:42

about thirty two aircraft. I can't I might I'm probably off in that number

1:01:44

just a little bit, but thirty two, thirty

1:01:46

five, thirty six, somewhere in that

1:01:48

number. Aircraft.

1:01:50

Then you've got your assault battalion, which is

1:01:52

three companies of Black Hawk's. Each company has

1:01:55

ten aircraft, and each of those companies

1:01:57

is granted by

1:01:57

a captain. So

1:02:00

so

1:02:00

right there, you're getting this very strange like a captain in

1:02:02

the air force. You know, maybe he's like leading a

1:02:04

flight to two. You know, captain in the army

1:02:06

and aviation. He's got like ten

1:02:08

eight ten aircraft under his command. You know? So so that's where those cultural

1:02:11

things start to really change. And then, of course,

1:02:13

he's got a ton of worn officers. Most of

1:02:15

which probably have more experience than

1:02:18

he he does. You know? So then there's a different dichotomy of of

1:02:20

leadership that that has to go on there. And

1:02:22

not everyone does very well at

1:02:24

that understanding that leadership of you

1:02:27

know, yes, you're in charge, but that guy knows a lot more

1:02:29

than you. And, you know, how do you how do you

1:02:31

balance that? But of course, that also lends itself

1:02:34

to followership. You know, some guys aren't very

1:02:36

good at understanding that you may know more, but

1:02:38

that guy's in charge of you. So

1:02:40

it it it leads to some interesting

1:02:42

conversation. And then you've got your two

1:02:44

Apache units or again, like I said, back in the day at Kyle unit.

1:02:46

So we had an Apache battalion of

1:02:48

twenty four. Apaches broken up into

1:02:50

three companies of eight.

1:02:52

And then The

1:02:54

current model is a cavalry squadron of

1:02:56

twenty four patches broken up into three

1:02:59

troops of eight. But back in my

1:03:01

day in the QIAWAS, it was cavalry

1:03:04

squadron of thirty kylas with

1:03:06

ten aircraft per troop. And

1:03:08

that's that was my career as a as a

1:03:10

kyla guy. So already, we

1:03:12

can see that this is a huge

1:03:14

outfit. Right? This is a brigade. That's a

1:03:16

hundred you know, I I used to know the

1:03:18

numbers, a hundred ten, we'll say, a hundred

1:03:20

ten aircraft. Well,

1:03:20

I've got one of those division and I've

1:03:23

got four divisions

1:03:24

per core and I've got

1:03:26

three cores plus I'm probably gonna have

1:03:29

some units that belong to, you know,

1:03:32

kinda weird organizations that

1:03:34

exist. And and then he the hundred and

1:03:36

first had two

1:03:38

aviation brigades. So already we can

1:03:40

see we got a lot of aircraft. And knowing what I know about the military,

1:03:42

I hate to say this, but

1:03:44

i hate to say this but A

1:03:46

lot of

1:03:46

times the military doesn't trust itself when it comes to training. And I saw

1:03:49

this a lot even as an instructor. We

1:03:51

assume guys coming out

1:03:53

of the schoolhouse have a technical knowhow, but

1:03:55

we don't always assume that they have a practical

1:03:58

knowhow. And so when I

1:04:00

say things

1:04:02

are financial could the

1:04:04

army create a platform, AAA

1:04:06

school by which you could teach these guys to

1:04:08

be tactically savvy so that they could show up to

1:04:10

their unit? and and immediately get into

1:04:13

the fight.

1:04:13

Yes. But I'm telling

1:04:14

you right now, I don't think anyone would trust it.

1:04:16

I think guys would come out of there. and

1:04:19

they would show up to their unit, which every unit does things a little

1:04:21

bit differently. Everyone's got a different S0P and hell sometimes they have

1:04:23

different missions. Right? The eighty second airborne is

1:04:25

a very different animal. than

1:04:28

the first cavalry division, you know, in in the way that it approached

1:04:30

doing stuff because it had

1:04:32

a very different mission. I don't think guys

1:04:34

would show up from that type

1:04:36

of environment and be treated as if they

1:04:38

knew what was going on. They they still have to

1:04:40

pay their dues and and go through the

1:04:42

training plan. So I think it would be wasted

1:04:45

and even talking to guys who are

1:04:47

in other branches, they still have the same problem. You

1:04:49

know, they still go through some sort of tactical phase

1:04:51

and they learn all this stuff. they show up

1:04:53

to their unit, they still have to go through some other

1:04:55

train up. So it's really no different. And

1:04:58

again, since we're not trying to

1:05:00

create a solo combat ready

1:05:02

aviator because none of our aircraft

1:05:04

are are single pilot. There's no

1:05:06

need for me to spend a whole lot of time

1:05:08

early on teaching this guy how

1:05:10

to be a

1:05:10

master. You know, I don't need him to be a master

1:05:12

aviator. I need him to be a competent

1:05:14

aviator in flying the aircraft

1:05:16

and knowing what button to push

1:05:19

generally speaking. And that's it. That's all

1:05:21

I need because he's gonna show up to

1:05:23

the unit, and then he's gonna be taken

1:05:25

by an instructor pilot, and they're

1:05:27

gonna spend about six

1:05:28

months teaching this guy

1:05:29

and getting him up to combat

1:05:32

ready. So the way that it works for us is,

1:05:34

again, like I talked about, we show up as a as

1:05:36

a PI

1:05:38

and you're considered what's called readiness level three, so

1:05:40

RL3 They have about ninety

1:05:42

days to make you RL2 So

1:05:44

RL3 is all about flying

1:05:48

aircraft flying a lot of nights, just all these

1:05:50

individual tasks, you know, flying with

1:05:52

your your protective mask

1:05:54

on. You know, you have to do a little bit

1:05:56

of that flying doing basic gunnery and, you know, everything

1:05:58

individual. Then you get to

1:05:59

RL2 and now you're

1:06:02

learning

1:06:03

the team tactics. So

1:06:05

you've learned how to do a route

1:06:07

reconnaissance just how to functionally do it as

1:06:09

a crew member. Well, now we're gonna go out

1:06:11

with another aircraft. and we're gonna do a route

1:06:13

now an now we're gonna do gunnery and we're gonna do all

1:06:16

these things.

1:06:16

Once you complete that phase,

1:06:18

which is another about three months,

1:06:21

then you get signed off as readiness

1:06:23

level one. You are no kidding. Ready

1:06:25

to fly with any pilot in command. You

1:06:27

are a combat ready

1:06:30

crew member. before you

1:06:30

make R01 you have to fly with an instructor pilot,

1:06:32

or they can sign

1:06:34

you off for certain tasks, you know. So

1:06:36

when I was a pilot command in Apaches,

1:06:39

sometimes I would get a guy who's RL2

1:06:41

and they'd say, hey, you know, he he

1:06:43

can fly goggles and he can

1:06:45

do these specific tasks.

1:06:47

and say, okay. So I can I can do that with it, but I

1:06:49

can't go do something else that that wasn't

1:06:51

signed off. But that's generally how it

1:06:53

works. And that and that's where that all that

1:06:55

tactical training comes into play. even by

1:06:57

then, you're still not a wizard by any stretch of the

1:07:00

imagination. There's because there's just too

1:07:02

much to cover. And so then I go go

1:07:04

I go back to this idea of, like, well, if you

1:07:06

did make school? How long is

1:07:08

it gonna

1:07:08

be? Because, you know, you start factoring

1:07:09

in how do you fight near peer threats?

1:07:11

How do you fight

1:07:14

peer threats? how do you fight an

1:07:16

insurgency? Which you know, we're still trying

1:07:18

to fix things. Yeah. You know, you're not gonna

1:07:20

help teach all this stuff. So what's the point of

1:07:22

trying to do it

1:07:24

that way? the current model, you know, as painful as it can

1:07:26

be, you know, it works. And

1:07:28

it allows those guys to get steeped in the

1:07:30

culture of their unit. It allows them

1:07:32

to learn the

1:07:34

specifics. You know, again, I go back to the eighty second airborne, which I

1:07:36

really enjoyed being a part of, but we

1:07:38

did things very differently. We flew Kaya was that

1:07:40

had a different type of landing gear than any

1:07:43

other Kyla in the army

1:07:46

because we would have to load up on the back of c

1:07:48

one thirties. And, you

1:07:50

know, if the balloon

1:07:52

went up, The paratroopers are jumping out of planes. They're seizing an

1:07:54

airfield ten minutes after they

1:07:56

land. The c one thirty is landing on the airfield

1:07:58

they just captured, and

1:08:00

we're pushing Kaiwa. You know, two Kaiwa was out the back of the c one

1:08:02

thirty, squatting the thing up, putting the blades back

1:08:04

on, putting the sensors back on, and we're flying, and

1:08:06

we're in

1:08:08

the fight. no other division had Kaios that had to do

1:08:10

that. So, you know, little things

1:08:12

like that, it's better to just get the

1:08:14

guy out of the unit, let him

1:08:16

start training, and getting ready.

1:08:18

But but of course, the drawback there is you don't always have a full stable

1:08:23

of instructor pilot. you know, when I was a commander, I

1:08:25

generally only had two and you're supposed to have three. So it makes it challenging to to

1:08:27

get those guys. And so you really

1:08:30

gotta manage your people and manage your

1:08:32

training. so that you don't have these

1:08:34

huge bubbles so that you get guys in. And, you know, sometimes you gotta hold the in circuit pilots to the

1:08:36

to the fire too

1:08:39

and say, look, I you know,

1:08:41

you've been flying this guy for for two months. Is he ready to go?

1:08:43

because if he is, let's sign him off. Yeah. Let's do it. Keep moving on. And

1:08:45

sometimes, guys are lucky,

1:08:48

you know, sites like putting your

1:08:50

kids on a school bus, you know? Sometimes you just don't wanna let them go, but -- Yep. -- you know, they're a big kid, you let

1:08:53

them let them

1:08:56

go fight. Yeah.

1:08:56

So couple things that jumped out there.

1:08:58

I mean, one is that unlike

1:09:03

You know, most well, I won't say most, but a lot of

1:09:06

the fixed wing assets and the other services to your

1:09:09

point, you're never

1:09:12

flying alone. you know, you're getting

1:09:14

OJT from the every time you're flying and tell you that PIC. Right?

1:09:16

So That's alright. You're

1:09:18

learning all that. And then The

1:09:22

other contrast that you brought up

1:09:24

is that, yeah, every

1:09:26

squadron is gonna be different

1:09:28

in the air force, in

1:09:31

the navy, But by and large, I think there's an

1:09:32

expectation that if you're an f eighteen

1:09:34

pilot and you go to one squadron,

1:09:36

you should be able to

1:09:38

move over to another squadron learn

1:09:41

-- Right. -- maybe some of

1:09:43

the idiosyncrasies are just the way they do it. But to your point, same

1:09:46

the platform platform vastly different

1:09:49

way of doing things because of the

1:09:51

different mission in the different divisions. Yeah.

1:09:53

Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely.

1:09:54

The different and that's a

1:09:56

great point too because the different divisions just in and of

1:09:59

themselves. I mean, if, again, use my comparison, eighty second airborne, it's all infantry. You know,

1:10:01

I mean, they've got vehicles, but, you know,

1:10:03

they're not rolling with tanks. Well,

1:10:06

now you have first cab division or

1:10:08

third infantry division. They got tanks

1:10:10

and Bradley's. So your lift guys, you know,

1:10:12

it's a great thing that I I used to notice all

1:10:14

the time as an observer at the a joint right in

1:10:17

his training center. You know, the Lyft guys coming

1:10:19

from a heavy division were not as practiced in

1:10:21

the art of

1:10:24

air Mhmm. Well well, sure. Because they work for a

1:10:26

heavy division. And when the hell is a heavy division gonna

1:10:28

do an aerosol. Right. You know, they're not

1:10:30

gonna leave all their bradleys and tanks behind.

1:10:33

In fact, I think there's been some

1:10:35

discussion here in recent years of completely changing the dynamic of these combat

1:10:39

aviation brigades because you know, again,

1:10:41

Iraq and Afghanistan for so long, it was a plug and play mentality. You know, they made all these

1:10:43

units try to look similar so

1:10:47

that you could pull them out

1:10:50

of one place. You know, as an

1:10:52

eighty second airborne guy, I deployed

1:10:54

in direct support to a striker Bargade out

1:10:56

of Fort Lewis -- Mhmm. -- who was then replaced by

1:10:58

a brigade out of Fort Hood. I never even saw an

1:11:02

eighty second airborne guy in the ground. But because we were this plug and you

1:11:04

know, modular type force, you could do that.

1:11:06

But I think now we're starting to to

1:11:08

to pull our head out of the, you

1:11:10

know, the the close target and look

1:11:13

look deep and say, okay, this doesn't make sense. The black auction of guys are

1:11:15

not getting the reps that they need. And then con

1:11:18

you know, contrarily, the hundred

1:11:22

first as a great example, is an aerosol

1:11:24

division. You know, that's their bread and butter.

1:11:26

Well, they should probably have more Chinooks and

1:11:28

probably have more Blackhawk. So I think there's

1:11:30

some discussion of changing that dynamic so that so that Lyft guys get that so that they can get those reps. But, yeah,

1:11:32

you're hundred percent right. I mean, the

1:11:34

Apache guys in particular, you know, an

1:11:39

Apache is an Apache, even though some places have Delta models, some places have

1:11:41

Echo models. But as long as you have

1:11:43

basic understanding how

1:11:46

to fly the aircraft, that's great. You can move between the two units.

1:11:48

But again, that's it's too much to

1:11:50

teach in a in a schoolhouse environment.

1:11:53

And and that OJT cannot be overstated. It doesn't

1:11:56

matter what you learn school, especially

1:11:58

when you're a new guy, you

1:11:59

know, there's your

1:12:01

brain is a is a sponge,

1:12:03

but even a sponge can get filled up. We have to ride the water. Right?

1:12:05

Yeah. So it come you know, and

1:12:07

I see this just in my

1:12:09

own transition to flying seven thirty

1:12:11

sevens. It's like, you

1:12:13

can throw all this information at me, but I'm

1:12:15

still back there at that piece of information you gave me two days ago. You know, I

1:12:19

need to process that before I can move on

1:12:21

to the next thing. So I again, I think it's just a it would be a wasted effort. Allow

1:12:23

guys to get to

1:12:27

their unit and and get spooled up at a

1:12:29

at a different pace. And a little bit more personal pace quite frankly. Yeah. And I guess the

1:12:32

other thing is, you know,

1:12:34

can you imagine the food fight

1:12:36

over what

1:12:38

that tactical school would look like based on

1:12:40

what you've told me. Right? Like, so which

1:12:42

of these paradigms is the school? And

1:12:45

if you're gonna teach all the different

1:12:47

paradigms, why? to your point -- Oh. -- you know. Absolutely. Yeah. And, yeah,

1:12:49

where's the money coming from? And, yeah, who's

1:12:51

who's got the ownership now? Yeah. I

1:12:53

don't wanna be involved in that. Right.

1:12:55

So Sounds terrible. having said

1:12:57

all that, having talked about all that, we mentioned a little bit earlier

1:12:59

that what the army does with aviation is

1:13:02

different from what the Air Force and

1:13:04

Navy do

1:13:06

and

1:13:07

related to the Marine Corps, but even they're a

1:13:10

little bit different. You mentioned the Marine Corps is

1:13:13

seeing their aircraft as close air

1:13:15

support. artillery almost. And that's not necessarily I

1:13:17

I think my understanding, at least correct

1:13:19

me if I'm wrong, is that

1:13:22

that's more of a an

1:13:24

effect

1:13:24

said that

1:13:25

army aviation can bring to the

1:13:27

battlefield, but that's not what you are. You guys are a maneuver element just like all these

1:13:30

other brigades and battalions. Right?

1:13:34

Yeah. Exactly. I mean, you said it just right. And again, you

1:13:36

know, we're speaking in generalities. I'm sure there's some unit

1:13:38

in the marines that treats it different, you

1:13:41

know, whatever. In general, you have fires and you

1:13:43

have maneuver. Right? And so fires is exactly

1:13:46

what you said. It's effects. What am

1:13:48

I what am I what effect am I trying

1:13:50

to have? Nobody cares about the fires in it in and of itself.

1:13:52

It's what's the effect. And then maneuver is

1:13:54

exactly as maneuvering on the enemy. We

1:13:57

treat our attack and and reconnaissance aviation as a maneuver element. So the way that I

1:13:59

like to explain that to guys who who look

1:14:01

at me funny when we

1:14:03

talk about it, is

1:14:06

think of a tank. Okay? You've

1:14:09

got a tank. Now think of

1:14:11

it fifty feet in the

1:14:13

air. Like

1:14:13

like, how would you tell that tank to do stuff when it was on the ground? We'll we'll do

1:14:15

that except treat that it's

1:14:19

in the air. And that's huge. And it's

1:14:22

hard for people to even in the army, it's hard for for a lot of those ground

1:14:24

force commanders to

1:14:26

kinda understand that. And,

1:14:28

well, frankly, some aviation leaders do.

1:14:30

It's hard to understand that dichotomy or that that that difference between the two. And

1:14:32

I always again pointed out

1:14:34

to if you send out two

1:14:38

helicopters to go do something. It's like, well, would

1:14:40

you send two tanks to do this?

1:14:42

You know, how

1:14:43

would you maneuver if this was

1:14:45

anything other than a helicopter? And so then you

1:14:47

start layering on the support, you start layering on

1:14:49

the distance and and, you know, time

1:14:51

considerations and all that good stuff. But

1:14:53

fundamentally, it comes back to what we would consider close air support

1:14:55

and what the army who the term changed recent

1:14:58

like, right as I was retiring and I

1:15:00

I couldn't

1:15:03

bother myself to learn it because it was kinda confusing. But we used to call

1:15:05

it close combat attack. Now I think

1:15:07

it's a combat

1:15:10

within close proximity to troops. You know, it's

1:15:12

the old military game of, let's change

1:15:15

this acronym -- Yeah. --

1:15:17

just just because but but essentially it's the same

1:15:19

thing. It's it's am I attacking something

1:15:21

that's close to friendlies or am I attacking

1:15:24

something that's far away from friendlies? So it

1:15:26

used to be called like a a deep

1:15:28

attack. but we'll look at what's

1:15:30

what's close to friendly. So in a normal everyday construct, I'm not talking about

1:15:32

an an extremist situation or

1:15:34

somebody who's specially qualified as Fakke

1:15:38

or something like that. A normal call

1:15:41

the normal situation, if a jet

1:15:43

or a a marine helicopter, generally

1:15:45

speaking, sees something on the ground,

1:15:47

it has to coordinate with someone to engage that

1:15:49

target because of cast. Right?

1:15:52

So cast

1:15:54

needs a JTAC or, you know, some sort of terminal

1:15:56

control to engage targets unless they've

1:15:58

been given some clearance, like, this

1:16:00

is a kill box or something like

1:16:02

that. really by the letter of the law. Of course, the rules of engagement

1:16:04

will change these things. But just generally

1:16:07

speaking, if I'm flying along

1:16:10

and I see a t seventy two, I seventy

1:16:12

two's. Well, then I can shoot the t seventy two.

1:16:14

Mhmm. And I'll let you know about it later.

1:16:16

You know, I'll call you

1:16:18

when it's when it's done. And again, that

1:16:20

goes back to when I was a tank

1:16:23

guy. You know, we would learn contact reports and and spot reports. So

1:16:26

if I'm driving a tank, and I see BMPs, I'm

1:16:28

gonna call on a radio, contact

1:16:30

three BMPs east out. That's it.

1:16:33

That's all

1:16:33

I'm gonna say to you. because in

1:16:35

the next couple

1:16:35

seconds, I might be dead. And then somebody can at

1:16:38

least who's been tracking the stuff, who's battle

1:16:40

tracking, should be battle

1:16:42

tracking. They say, okay, blue

1:16:44

platoon was Vicinity checkpoint three.

1:16:46

They just called and said contact BMPs to the east, and we haven't heard from them since. We

1:16:49

know there's

1:16:49

BMPs over in

1:16:52

this area. Now

1:16:53

a few minutes later, I may call back and

1:16:56

and here's my spot report and my salute report. Hey. Engage

1:16:58

has started 3BM p's, Vicinity grid, blah blah blah

1:17:00

blah. that's the

1:17:01

same mentality for army aviation in the the the peer

1:17:03

or near peer fight. Now, of course,

1:17:05

this has changed dramatically because

1:17:07

of the insurgency and

1:17:11

we don't wanna go out and just start randomly shooting stuff, you

1:17:13

know. I mean, we really don't. The the

1:17:15

what I what I want people to really understand for

1:17:17

for all of us, not just the army, but for

1:17:19

all of us, we really do

1:17:22

go through a lot of to civics,

1:17:24

civics, civics, infrastructure, you

1:17:27

know, all that stuff. You

1:17:30

know, I've watched guys on the ground getting shot at, and I can't shoot back. Because in order for me to shoot back,

1:17:32

I gotta shoot that building. I don't

1:17:34

know who else is in that building.

1:17:37

i don't who else is an adult you know, I don't have permission

1:17:39

to shoot. So guys on the ground, sorry, you're on your

1:17:41

own. I'm gonna I'm gonna cheer you on, you

1:17:44

know. But I can't do

1:17:46

much else. But generally speaking, that's

1:17:48

that's the rule that we have in a in

1:17:50

a normal fight. And so that's that fundamental difference between close air support. And again, I'll

1:17:53

go back to just

1:17:55

call it CCA. We can do close our

1:17:57

sport. I've absolutely been given targets by a JTAC, given the whole cleared hot

1:17:59

and all that jazz. We can

1:18:02

do that, but we don't need

1:18:04

it. and that's sometimes very

1:18:06

difficult for other services. And again, sometimes even difficult for our own people in the

1:18:08

army to understand

1:18:11

is that I don't I don't

1:18:13

need your permission, dude. You know, this is this is this is

1:18:15

the wild west out here and there's bad guys and there's good guys

1:18:17

and as long as I can identify that

1:18:19

that dude's not good, then

1:18:22

I'm gonna throw a hellfire at him. Yeah. It's

1:18:24

I think what I'm hearing

1:18:27

from you is that

1:18:28

it's just so fundamentally

1:18:31

different because the air to ground interface for

1:18:32

all the other services is sort

1:18:34

of coming out of their element.

1:18:36

Right? They are

1:18:39

they are services in the air arms of

1:18:41

the navy or the marine corps. Take out the marine corps because they're

1:18:43

they're particularly different

1:18:47

hybrid you know, when they fight in the air, you wouldn't think

1:18:49

at all about having to

1:18:51

call for clearance for

1:18:53

an air to air engagement. for a fighter. Right? You there

1:18:55

is new Right. It was went to a JTAC. Yeah.

1:18:57

You've got a a WAC a WAC for

1:18:59

the Hawkeye, but he's

1:19:01

giving you the picture. you would never do that because

1:19:04

you're fighting it in your in your environment.

1:19:06

For you guys in the army, that ground

1:19:09

battle is your environment. So in the same way, you're

1:19:11

not waiting for the JTAC. You you see it, you've

1:19:13

been trained to it, and this is what

1:19:15

you're doing. Yeah. That's that's

1:19:16

an interesting way of looking at it. I've

1:19:19

never thought of it that way. Yeah. And I

1:19:21

think unfortunately to our somewhat detriment the past

1:19:23

twenty years of dealing with Iraq

1:19:25

and Afghanistan, which again for

1:19:27

the right reasons was very

1:19:29

controlled. Mhmm. You know, I remember my first deployment, TYRAC was

1:19:31

two thousand six. I think I talked to a JTAC

1:19:35

three times. Afghanistan, two

1:19:37

thousand nine, two thousand ten, I don't think I never talked to a JTAC.

1:19:39

You know what I mean? Like, they were everywhere. And then

1:19:41

my last tour in

1:19:44

Iraq was two

1:19:46

thousand eighteen, same thing. I never

1:19:49

talked to anybody who wasn't a JTAC. And

1:19:51

so I think that that level of

1:19:53

control started to seep in and

1:19:55

we became very reliant having j tacs because

1:19:57

it was that sort of safety blanket of, like, you can't just go out

1:19:59

there and shoot bad guys. But, you know, then it

1:20:01

became this weird, like,

1:20:03

I'm out

1:20:04

here. I see

1:20:05

bad guys. The JTAC is nowhere near me. He's just a dude on the

1:20:07

radio. Mhmm. You know, eating eating shawl

1:20:12

food, back at the fob. And I'm telling him,

1:20:14

hey, I see dudes hiding in bushes and they've got AKs,

1:20:16

you know, and you start working up

1:20:18

the clearance. You know, they're not there.

1:20:21

but I gotta get their permission because if

1:20:23

I just shoot these dudes randomly, even if they're a ISIS, get in trouble. And so it's a

1:20:25

very different experience. It's kinda funny because

1:20:27

I have talked to to

1:20:31

fighter guys who were in Syria during the early days

1:20:34

of of the the the anti

1:20:36

ISIS. And

1:20:38

it was they were living our life. You know, they were

1:20:41

going out and being told, like,

1:20:43

hey, if you see dudes

1:20:45

with dishes on the back of their

1:20:47

truck, like, do and let us know about it later.

1:20:49

And every pilot that I've talked to that kind

1:20:51

of flew those time periods. They were like,

1:20:54

oh, it was awesome. You know, like, that

1:20:56

was because they were so

1:20:58

used to being so controlled and so badly controlled. Yeah. Yeah. Now it's like, hey, this is KillBox

1:21:00

Syria, you know.

1:21:03

Go find ISIS. Right. You know,

1:21:05

you gotta do your due diligence and make sure it's ISIS because I, you know, I hate to say it. I'd rather

1:21:07

let a ISIS fighter get away than than

1:21:10

blow up a school

1:21:12

bus. Yeah. You know, the you know,

1:21:14

you don't wanna let those guys get away, but, god, you don't you don't wanna make that mistake

1:21:16

and and have that live with

1:21:18

you. It's it's a good feeling. So

1:21:21

So you gotta do your due diligence, but still the ability

1:21:23

to make Big Boy decisions in the cockpit cannot be overstated. And I think we'll get

1:21:25

to this later in the series when

1:21:27

we talk about

1:21:28

training

1:21:32

opportunities and integration and

1:21:34

and training systems because

1:21:36

be it, you

1:21:37

know, Iraq and

1:21:40

Afghanistan or Syria, which is,

1:21:42

you know, not the pure competition. But we've we've taken on

1:21:44

that

1:21:47

imprint. Right? We've sort of got that us now. This joint

1:21:51

operational capability and maybe

1:21:53

in a peer competitions, it's

1:21:55

not gonna be that maybe

1:21:57

it's gonna be a really clear

1:21:59

sector where the Army, you know, the Army Corps has sector and

1:22:04

mean, we even saw this in the initial

1:22:06

invasion of Iraq. And then, you know, the map for the marine, the mew

1:22:08

or the whatever marine

1:22:10

element there is in the physically different

1:22:13

section. Maybe you guys have the air force and support. The marines

1:22:15

have the the navy and the marine corps

1:22:19

and support. But then again, it might be a mixed environment

1:22:21

even in a in a pure

1:22:23

level war. So we

1:22:24

need to be able to

1:22:27

train

1:22:27

with this stuff and And

1:22:29

to your point, and I if for anyone who hasn't been

1:22:31

there, and I'm not, you know, I was doing what you were doing.

1:22:33

I wasn't kicking down doors in Iraq

1:22:35

or anything like that, But,

1:22:39

you know, you're talking about the guy back, the chow hole, who's

1:22:41

the guy who's clearing the in, and you're the

1:22:43

guy out there seeing the guy,

1:22:45

and you're still not clear

1:22:48

to fire. like, there's a lot more of

1:22:50

that sort of I I hate to say this, but apocalypse now sort

1:22:52

of are

1:22:54

are you are you serious?

1:22:56

Like, really, that's how we fight a war.

1:22:58

Like, there's a lot more of that out there that I think people really realize that it

1:23:01

just gets

1:23:03

a little weird. I don't

1:23:05

know how else to say it. Tech

1:23:07

technology is is absolutely contributed to that. I mean, you

1:23:09

know, the the modern Apache

1:23:11

can can transmit what

1:23:14

it's seeing. And so now, you know, Big Duke six

1:23:17

is back at the talk and he can see what

1:23:19

you're shooting at. You know? And we used to joke

1:23:21

about this all the time. You know? It's like, hey,

1:23:23

this is Big Duke six. Why why did you guys use rockets on that engagement? because I

1:23:25

don't know how far. You know, you you threw them

1:23:27

all the way. But

1:23:30

those things happen they held it happen in Vietnam. Right? I mean, you do have

1:23:32

guys flying overhead and he was making calls

1:23:34

for the infantry squad down on the

1:23:36

ground. You know, part of its

1:23:38

risk aversion, part of it is it

1:23:40

it really is love. You know, there are

1:23:43

certain commanders that they, you know, they're concerned about their dudes and they don't it's hard

1:23:46

it's hard

1:23:47

to let them again, get on the

1:23:49

school bus. It's hard to let them make big boy decisions because, you know, you

1:23:51

want them to make the right decision, or you're the guy who

1:23:54

I don't want them to

1:23:55

make the wrong decision. because

1:23:58

this is gonna reflect poorly on me. So, yeah,

1:23:59

technology has certainly contributed to that, but I think what you're saying. I mean, the the

1:24:02

future, you know, we we could go back and forth on what we think the

1:24:04

future conflict

1:24:07

looks like, you know, I think currently the events going on in Ukraine

1:24:10

are kinda showing us why why we

1:24:12

don't really wanna fight like that

1:24:14

anymore because technology kind of prevents

1:24:16

us you know, prevents the

1:24:18

the the desert storm slash world war two that, you know, I think yeah. I

1:24:20

will tell you this a hundred percent. When I was

1:24:22

a tanker, yeah, I wanted another desert storm.

1:24:27

Like, that's what I wanted because I want open. I want

1:24:29

my badass tank against your not

1:24:32

so great

1:24:34

Russian tank. and because I'm gonna win a hundred percent of the time, and that's

1:24:36

what I think secretly, you know, or maybe

1:24:38

not secretly, all, you know, at least

1:24:41

army officers, they want that again. I don't think we're

1:24:43

gonna have that again because if you watch the news, you

1:24:45

kinda see that it just doesn't work out that

1:24:47

way anymore. Technology is

1:24:49

is is too good to, you know, allow that

1:24:51

the where it will happen, we're absolutely gonna be

1:24:54

in a joint environment because we all

1:24:56

bring something

1:24:58

different to the table. you know, and without getting too deep into that even

1:25:00

I heard when I was working,

1:25:02

you know, the doctrine side with

1:25:04

with the JRC and kinda

1:25:07

watching this stuff develop, their

1:25:09

reliance on, you know, long range precision

1:25:11

fires. And and

1:25:12

you can you can argue

1:25:14

about

1:25:14

where those come from. Are they

1:25:17

Are they ground based? Are they air based?

1:25:19

Are they rotary wing? You know, the ability to reach out

1:25:21

and touch things far away is huge, and it affects all

1:25:23

of us. And

1:25:26

so some of us are better at certain

1:25:28

parts of that than others.

1:25:29

Some of us rely on other

1:25:31

parts that we don't own. You know,

1:25:34

the armies not a big electronic

1:25:36

warfare proponent, you know. We don't have a

1:25:38

lot of that stuff at at least airborne

1:25:40

wise. But I tell you what, it when

1:25:42

you're rolling it on a target that

1:25:44

you know has radar defenses, it'd be really cool to work with the

1:25:46

guy who does have that stuff. And so that joint environment

1:25:51

is absolutely the future, which, you know, leads it to

1:25:53

its own pain because it's it's politics, it's

1:25:55

it's finances, it's

1:25:58

who's paying for this. who's in

1:25:59

charge of it, you

1:25:59

know, if you can't, you can imagine. So, yeah,

1:26:02

it's a frustrating environment, but it's a it's

1:26:05

it's the one that we find ourselves and have

1:26:07

to really? You mentioned JRTC just now.

1:26:08

And we're gonna talk, I think,

1:26:10

a lot more about that in

1:26:16

a later series

1:26:16

episodes as we talk about big exercises. But

1:26:18

can you just define that force really quickly so

1:26:20

the

1:26:22

listener knows what that is? And then I wanna pivot little bit

1:26:24

because you talked about joint fires

1:26:26

and how we're going to integrate

1:26:28

those. I think that'll

1:26:30

come into that episode to But

1:26:32

after defining JRTC, let's talk about the o h

1:26:34

fifty eight and h sixty four specifically in

1:26:37

terms of the sensors

1:26:39

and weapons you brought. that

1:26:41

were the component of those joint

1:26:43

Yeah. The Joy Center is of three combat

1:26:48

training centers. Most

1:26:49

people have heard of NTC,

1:26:51

which is out in California Fort Irwin,

1:26:51

California. It's a

1:26:54

big desert training area.

1:26:56

joint radius

1:26:59

training center is basically the

1:27:01

light infantry equivalent of NTC, and

1:27:03

it's located at four Polk,

1:27:05

Louisiana Anna, so it's kinda swampy, wooded

1:27:08

area. And then you've

1:27:08

got the joint oh, gosh. JJMRCI

1:27:12

think is what it's called. I I

1:27:14

can't remember always made fun of them because they weren't they weren't as good

1:27:16

as NTCs there. So we but

1:27:18

no. But but it's a it's a

1:27:20

another place, but it's out in Germany.

1:27:22

And I think they only run four rotations

1:27:24

a year. I'm I'm sure somebody's yelling at me

1:27:26

right now, but but was it was it as widely used as JRC and

1:27:29

NTC because we do, like, twelve,

1:27:31

thirteen rotations a year. But

1:27:34

this is AAA place where a

1:27:36

combat brigade with attachments

1:27:38

would go to fight Laser

1:27:40

Tag for for two weeks. Okay. And

1:27:42

so you'd have a infantry so JRC, you'd

1:27:44

have an infantry brigade show up with

1:27:47

all their stuff, and then you'd

1:27:49

have a aviation task force, which was basically a

1:27:51

mix of lift and attack assets put together and you'd

1:27:53

have all kind of supporting stuff. And they'd

1:27:55

go into what we call

1:27:57

the box, which is the huge training area.

1:27:59

and they would fight AAA opposing force,

1:28:01

an op four, which we had

1:28:04

a resident there. It was an

1:28:06

infantry battalion that they they trained and

1:28:08

fought like Soviet style. They had,

1:28:10