Inside The Most Unforgiving Job In Aviation | Coast Guard Search & Rescue

Most pilots train for emergencies they hope they'll never see. But when you're flying search and rescue missions for the Coast Guard, sometimes the problem is you don't even know what you're flying into.

Most of the time, you really don't know what you're up against. And when things go wrong, they can go wrong fast. Yeah, focused on that. The rescue swimmer in the back all of a sudden starts yelling, up, up, up, up, up, up as I pulled up and looked down, there goes the power lines right underneath us.

But it's a risk that they have to accept because every time they launch, there's somebody counting on them.

I used to always tell my crews, we don't know their name, we don't know who they are. We're going to search like it's your brother, your dad, your cousin, or your best friend. Everybody got that same level of effort.

Sometimes the environment itself is the biggest challenge.

You launch off a ship, your only landing point is the ship. Because the reality of a career like this is not everybody makes it through. I've lost several friends. Everyone that I've lost, I've always felt were a better pilot than I was.

Today we talk with Russ, a retired Coast Guard rescue swimmer and helicopter pilot, who spent decades operating in some of the most demanding and unforgiving environments in aviation. As experienced fans from the early days of the Rescue Swimmer Program to ship-based helicopter operations in heavy seas. This is the AirPod. My name is Mitchell. Now let's hear more about Russ.

Growing up in Colorado, I had seen the ocean one time when we went to Disneyland. I think I was like six years old. But uh long story, but I ended up in the Coast Guard. And uh my first station out of out of boot camp was actually in our old stomping ground from a near our former employer was Oxnard, California. Sure. Um at the small boat station. And we would do uh boat ops. We called the helicopter come up, we'd be the platform they would train on for hoisting. And I got hoisted up into an H-52 helicopter, and I thought, well, that was really cool. Prior to that, my only uh thought of aviation uh growing up in Colorado, I was a skier, and every ski magazine always had helicopter skiing. And so I there was a little bit of a dream to go, oh, I'd love to be a helicopter pilot so I could go heliskiing. Yeah. Um, so after that, uh getting hoisted into an H-52 helicopter, which are long retired, um shortly thereafter, a message came out that said, Hey, we're starting this new helicopter rescue swimmer program. And so uh being 19 years old and having been on the high school swim team, lifeguard, I thought, well, that's right up my alley. Had no idea what I was getting into. So um I went to rescue swimmer school, graduated in September of, can made me do math, 86. Okay. Um, one of the uh the rescue swimmer program, when you graduate, you you're given a number. So obviously the first guy that graduated is number one. I was number sixty-eight. They're up to uh uh one thousand two hundred something right now. Jeez, wow. Um, over a 40-year span, we just had the 40th anniversary of the rescue swimmer program. That's cool. So that got me into aviation, and my first unit was Traver City, Michigan on Sikorsky H3 helicopters, which also have long been retired. Um, and and so that was the intro, um, was as a crewman and a rescue swimmer. So uh uh rescue swimmer in uh travers city, Michigan, then went to Kodiak, Alaska. And at the time, not every unit became a swimmer unit right away because there wasn't enough people. They were building the pipeline and getting guys through school and gals um to be able to have enough swimmers. And so I went to Kodiak and and was the first group of guys to do the rescue swimmer program in Kodiak. From there, uh rescue swimmer in Detroit, Michigan. Um by that point, I was in Detroit nearing my 10-year mark in the Coast Guard. So I joined in '84, um, had no idea what I wanted to really do with my career. And I was on a flight one night, and we we always held the pilots in a very high regard for good reason, and and because A, they're pilots, B, they were officers. And uh two of my pilots were having a disagreement in the cockpit coming back from a search one night. And um I kept saying, Who's flying the plane? Who's flying the plane? Because they were finger pointing and and uh it it was not their finest moments. Um I'm still friends with them, but uh I after that flight, that was the turning point. Um, because I was like, oh, they're just normal guys. And if they can do this, I can do this. So that was the uh catalyst to go, well, I'm gonna try to go to OCS, Officer Canada School, um, and become a pilot. Very cool. Um so it took me, I got picked up on my fourth try because it wasn't an automatic, oh, I want to go to OCS, and they just go, okay, you can go now. You have to apply, interview, uh very competitive process. Um, but then once I got into OCS, my whole goal was to be a pilot. I was too old. Had there was, I believe, don't quote me, but it would you had to be 32 or younger. Sure. I was 33.

Okay.

Um had a waiver, got denied, got a second waiver. Again, another long story behind all that, but my second waiver um got approved, and so I got to go to flight school.

Yeah, I think uh I think they pushed those years back a little bit now too. I think it's 34 for most of the services now because they just need pilots so badly. But yeah. Yeah, I I would guess most people probably don't realize that there is a an age cutoff uh to become a pilot because they want I mean, they're obviously investing a lot of time and money in you, and they want to get that back on the on the back end once you get out.

Yeah, absolutely. And they want to and there's a health issue with that too, right? Make sure you maintain your your health and and physical flight status.

So Yeah. So why the Coast Guard? Was it just an interest in being by the water, or did you have a a call to serve in the military and just wound up there? What was it?

Well, uh, it was my uh because of my father, he was a city of Boulder, Colorado firefighter. And I grew up at the firehouse, and and that really um at the most of my life, that's what I was going to do. And I was in my senior uh year of high school, and the fire chief pulled me aside and said, What's your plans? And I said, Well, I'm gonna come work for you. Um, and he said, Well, one thing, uh, you need to mature and grow up a little bit. And number two, you had to be 21 to get hired. And he put the bug in my ear. He said, Go join the military and do your four years, get out, come back and see me. Um, and I'm sure there would have been a little nepotism there. Um, I I I at least in my 18, 17, 18-year-old brain, I was like, oh, I'm a shoe-in. I'll absolutely be able to carry on the family tradition. So I was watching Miami Vice, uh, the original Miami Vice, and there was a bunch of Coast Guard stuff on there. And I thought, Coast Guard sounds interesting. Of course, pre-internet. Yeah. So library, uh, phone book, found a recruiter, talked to him, and actually in Denver there was a Coast Guard recruiter, and my dad took me down there uh in April of my senior year, and I went through the process and did delayed entry. I went to boot camp camp in September. Okay.

Yeah, uh recruiter in Denver for Coast Guard. Yeah. That's pretty funny.

You'd be surprised. But he covered like Kansas and Nebraska and Wyoming and Sure.

Cool. Yeah, I'd uh when you're talking about the different stations you're at for what rescue squ swimmer, it makes sense now, but I guess I think Coast Guard is, you know, on the coast, not the Great Lakes. Um, but I guess they cover all that territory too for the same type of missions you would do on the ocean.

Absolutely. And everybody underestimates the Great Lakes, I will say that. They can be uh pretty treacherous.

Yeah.

And particularly at Detro in Detroit, we also did um ice rescues because the when the lakes would freeze, uh ice fishing's a big thing there. And there was years we were as busy in the winter as we were in the summer. Yeah, I can imagine so. And and with a large metropolitan population, at least around like Detroit, and then you get down into Ohio, Toledo, Cleveland, um, everybody had a boat. But not everybody had common sense to run a boat. So it uh it kept us fairly busy. Now, in contrast, in in Kodiak, obviously um uh uh the weather is way more severe, but they're 99% of the time it's professional fishermen. Um and and those guys are a lot like ranchers and farmers. Um they're the I got it guys. Uh so typically when they'd call for help, it was almost too late. Right. So so there's the happy medium in there somewhere, I don't know what it is.

Yeah. I I do want to get into some of the rescue side of stuff later, but um, so you you went off to training. What's the training pipeline like when you get, you know, obviously you went in, like you said, as a rescue swimmer. So is it just basic training the same for everybody, and then you split into your specialties?

Yeah, so Coast Guard, um, you go to boot camp and then you're what they call a non-rate. Uh, so you don't have a rating um uh or a job, job title. So you wait for a school and you know, variety of things you can do. Um in the aviation world at the time, it was called ASM, aviation survival and was the rate that the rescue swimmer was actually the crew position. So if you were an ASM, it you by default you were going to be a rescue swimmer. And along with that job was uh maintaining all the life support equipment, um all the uh issuing of gear, helmets, flight suits, gloves, boots, et cetera, to everybody. Um uh on the aircraft, it was the float bags that would inflate if they did a water landing, um, it was fire bottles, and the then the swimmer program, that was going to be your crew position. And early on in the program, most of us were dual qualified. Um I was an avionicsman in an H3, which was like a navigator prior to being a swimmer because we didn't have enough guys to do the swimmer program yet. I was a qualified swimmer, but we didn't have enough to be uh standing duty. Um and then I got qualified in the H65 as a flight mechanic when I went to Kodiak. Um so I think I think now that's a pretty rare thing to have a guy dual qualified because of the specialty and and the way the swimmer program grew over the years. Um so did that answer your question?

Yeah, yeah, it did. Um at the time you became a rescue swimmer and you were getting on the helicopters, you know, that predates our, I guess, modern understanding of crew resource management. What was that interaction like? You talked about the respect that you guys had for the pilots, but did it feel like you know they were not to say above you, but for lack of a better term, you know, they were the higher authority and you were just to be quiet and do your thing in the back.

Uh yes. And and you're right, CRM was not really a thing. There was a lot of uh uh not verbatim, but a lot of sit down and shut up um or sit on your hands. Right. I distinctly remember a a pilot we were flying some low level just for fun, and one of the crewmen in the back was not really enjoying it, and the pilot was a former Vietnam guy. Oh boy. And he said, you know what? Do me a favor, you can just be quiet, but if you see tracer rounds, let me know. It it uh we've we've improved greatly. Even back then, though, there uh was still it they didn't have a name. It didn't wasn't titled CRM, but but all the the pilots knew input from the crew was crucial to mission success. Sure. Yeah.

That's good to hear.

Yes. And and as a new program, the rescue swimmers being introduced, there was a growth period where a lot of the pilots were like, I I'm not going to put a guy out of it was out of their paradigm. Um we don't put people in the water, we pull people out of the water. And so there was some angst on on when to use us, how to use us, um, and over the years, obviously we became a very important uh resource in the aircraft. Sure. Um but the beginning it was a it could be a little rough.

So prior to rescue swimmers as a position, would it just be, you know, show up to the call, lower a guy on the hoist, have him grab somebody and pull him up, or what was the process?

But it was fairly rare. Um and I know uh at the time the two helicopter platforms were the H three and the H-52. Both of them were amphibious. So depending on on sea conditions, they could land on the water and there was a platform that we could hook up and and and uh add basically a a step in the water to get people onto the aircraft. So um it was not a d defined uh role. It was just uh do what you can with what you have to help save somebody's life.

Yeah. Yeah, I guess in my mind, you know, rescue swimmers kind of the point of the Coast Guard, at least these days. You know, you're trying to pull people out of the water, how do you get them out? It it surprised me that it was that late into the Coast Guard's existence that became a position.

Yes, and and there's a lot of history that goes into that. Um, I know you wouldn't get into the pilot stuff, but uh a little bit of background, I believe it was 1984, maybe it was 83, there was a disaster vessel called the Marine Electric, and it was off the East Coast, fairly near to Cape Cod. A lot of guys in the water. I want to say 30 something, but again, don't quote me. I don't have that memorized. They were hypothermic and unable to, the the helicopter showed up. We put a rescue basket down, they were unable to get into the basket on their own. And that was the catalyst uh for Congress to say, okay, Coast Guard, you need to have a rescue swimmer program. Navy had one for years, decades, uh primarily for um off-the-aircraft carriers. Uh anytime they're launching jets off of carriers, they're going to have a helicopter flying in orbit, the um the Delta pattern, and in case someone splashes, they have a resource to go save a pilot immediately. So early on, um, like when I went through school, we used the Navy Rescue Swimmer School as the training resource. So we would do our our life saving, our our like learning how to pack life rafts, learning how to pack parachutes as part of the of the aviation survivalman raiding. Now it's AST, AV Aviation Survival Technician, but same thing. Um once we finished that, then we would go, we went to Pensacola and went to the Navy Rescue Swimmer School. Um and then we if you graduate there, then you were a rescue swimmer. Nice. Um it didn't take long. Uh I graduated in September of 86. In December of 86, there was a tragedy at the at the training facility in Pensacola where uh two instructors actually drowned a kid. Um and what they didn't know is he had an undiagnosed heart condition. So they were prone to hold you under um probably longer than they should. And and with this undiagnosed heart issue, uh the young man passed away. And that shut the school down for a while. Coast Guard finally said, okay, we need to have our own facility. So they uh moved it to Elizabeth City, North Carolina. That's where all the aviation uh schools um are, and so they built the pool, the platform, everything they needed to to do in-house rescue swimmer training. And so, and then I I'm a little biased. I think we superseded uh the Navy's training um by a lot over the years. Yeah.

I mean it makes sense that at the Navy it's a contingency, and for you guys it's the main mission.

Right. Absolutely, 100%.

When you went in to the Coast Guard, w did you have pre conceived notions of what that would be like and then what was the reality check for you once you got there?

I had no clue. I just, again, my only frame of reference was watching Miami Vice. You know, super accurate, I'm sure. And and every once in a while, maybe a a helicopter would fly by. All I knew is uh that I wanted to be a firefighter. So I figured the search and rescue element is, you know, there's I think 11 or 13 mandated missions of the Coast Guard. The first one's always search and rescue. Um and I figured that would tie in well to becoming a firefighter after my four years. But like I always tell everybody, I forgot to get out. So I after 31 years, I finally retired. So I had no, I can't really say I had preconceived notions because I had no idea. I had no clue. So I was a blank canvas.

Probably a good thing to come in a little blind and ignorant to it and just accept it as it came.

Right. Well, and and obviously pre-internet days, so um, we didn't have uh ability to look stuff up and and ask questions on forums and and things that we uh have the ability to do now. Yeah. Um and The Guardian wasn't out yet, so nobody knew about Yeah.

I do want to get into that because I think that's most people, including myself's biggest uh or I guess best understanding of what the Coast Guard does because it's the most prominent piece of media around it.

Yes, absolutely. And Hurricane Katrina.

Yeah. You you said that there's you know a number of missions that the Coast Guard is responsible for, with search and rescue being the primary one. What are the other missions?

Oh, you're gonna put me on the spot. I don't have them all memory, but I can tell you uh so search and rescue, drug interdiction, migrant interdiction, uh waterway safety, what which includes aids to navigation, um living marine resources, uh fishery enforcement, um national defense. Um I don't think I hit them all, but you get the idea. There's a lot.

Right. So it's it's not just rescue swimmers and helicopters, right? Like there's a number of missions that someone going into the Coast Guard might be trained to do.

Yeah, well, I it we'll we'll get w into that, but I'll just flash forward when I was stationed in Atlantic City, New Jersey, um, post-9-11, uh, we would have almost daily security patrols up the Hudson, uh critical areas in New York. Um, and that was your mission. Uh obviously you could be um put on a search and rescue mission um at any time because you're always ready for that. But the when you launch on that, the primary mission was uh uh port security. Yeah.

Yeah, I short story, I was on a cruise, this was probably 2016. So I think there had just been the earthquake in Haiti. Um, and we stopped at a cruise port in Haiti, and I guess a few weeks prior, um, it was either a an earthquake or a a hurricane that had come through there, but either way, a few weeks prior a cruise ship leaving the port, there were locals trying to jump onto the cruise ship as it was leaving the dock. And so there's a big ordeal about it. I don't know how that ended up for them, but when we went as we got ready to leave port, there's a Coast Guard 60 that came over, US Coast Guard 60 that came over and was just circling our ship the entire time leaving the port. Right. And I was trying to think like where'd they even come from? I don't know if it's Puerto Rico or the Keys or something, but it's just wild to see and uh that that defines what you were talking about with the different missions, like they were I guess security for a US ship, uh obviously not US flag, but primarily US ship leaving Haiti. Right.

Well and and and You know, obviously this podcast, your mission, uh, my background is focused on aviation, but then you also have the the uh ship-based part of the Coast Guard as well. Um and they work in concert with each other. We can get into that too. Um deployments with a helicopter on the Coast Guard cutter.

Right. You sp spoke about your pathway into you know how you kind of stepped your way through the different roles you served in the Coast Guard. What what would be a traditional pathway for somebody? I mean, is it common for enlisted guys to go to officer candidate school and you know become pilots or just uh officers in other ways in the Coast Guard? Or is it typically a split like the enlisted guys stay enlisted and retire, and the officers start as officers and and that's it?

Yeah, I I don't know numbers. I think ever since Coast Guard uh aviation started, there's been enlisted guys that have become pilots. It's not rare, but it's not an everyday occurrence either. So it's somewhere in the middle. And then the other two avenues are obviously the Coast Guard Academy, um, and then uh OCS from somebody that's straight off the street. So you graduate college and you say, I want to join the Coast Guard, you have your college degree, you can apply for OCS. Um, you go similar process, uh interview, application package, and if you get selected, like my OCS class was split um virtually 50-50 on prior enlisted attending and folks that were off the street um right straight out of college. So um for the prior enlisted folks, the first several, it's seven, it was, I don't know what it is now, it's 17 weeks long. So the first part is basically boot camp all over again because they need to get the civilian um folks uh in the mindset of being in the military. And then from there, once everybody was on the same page, it went into you know roles, missions, leadership, etc., of of becoming an officer.

For those that go through the academy, I know like with the Air Force, for example, you can have an idea of what you want to do, but when you go into the academy, you are needs of the Air Force. You know, that when you get done, even if you have the highest scores they've ever had, if there's not an F-22 Raptor seat available, you're not flying an F-22 Raptor. Is it similar with the Coast Guard Academy where you don't really get to pick your path, they just put you where they need you?

Yes, you can you can request and and say that's what I want to do. And I know that that every academy class has uh men and women that go directly to flight school. Um, but you're right, it maybe they'll take 12 or maybe they'll take six, or may you know, and so not everybody's gonna get what they want. So um always have a backup plan. Sure.

I for somebody who's coming off the street, let's say uh let's just start with a high schooler, for example. They have the option they can either go enlist in the Coast Guard, they can go to the academy, or they can go to college and then do OCS after the fact. And but they want to fly helicopters for the Coast Guard. What path would you recommend they take?

And so the caveat there is I've I've been retired over 10 years. So some of my information that may not be the most current, um if they want to fly, and that's their their heart's desire, I at this point I think probably um either doing the academy, um, because if you don't get selected for flight school directly from the academy, you're gonna go more than likely you're gonna go to a ship and be a junior officer on a on a ship. You still can apply for flight school. You still can continue to apply, and so there's always a chance you can get picked up there. Um and and the college degree, uh prime and if you're aviation focused, maybe you have your uh PPL um and and you say you go Emory Riddle, and you then you try to join the Coast Guard, uh, that's going to give you a leg up. If you get accepted to OCS, it'll give you a leg up to go to flight school. So I I and somebody can your comments and emails may tell that I'm full of crap, but I I think that's probably the best path. Um, because if you go the enlisted route, which I did, um it's gonna take you, you have to be an E5 and you have to have a uh minimum of, I believe, an associate's degree to apply for OCS to just apply, and it's very competitive. So a lot of guys aren't getting in unless they have a bachelor's. Um, and so you're basically six years before you can even apply for OCS. But um, and again, I'm biased because I coming from an air crew position, enlisted a swimmer for almost 11 years, being with that knowledge and going to flight school was a leg up for sure. Um, and even more important when I got to my first operational unit, um, because I knew what a mission looked like. I knew what talking and listening to the radio sounded like. Um, I knew the steps that we would take to uh hoist somebody out of the water. So um my contemporaries, like I uh I have a very good friend that we he he came from college, we did OCS together, we did our primary flight training together, we did our rotary wing training together, then we were partners for our H-65 transition course, and then we were stationed at the same unit. So we were attached to the hip for years. Um, and and he retired as an 06, excellent pilot. But when we were both co-pilots together, I had the advantage of I only had to focus on flying the aircraft. He had to focus on every piece of a mission that was new to him, where I took it for granted that I already understood what that what that was. Yeah, huge difference.

Yeah.

So same hypothetical high schooler that's wanting to go into military service. Um, and I know there's gonna be a thousand different caveats to this, but um, for our example, let's say their only goal is to fly some variant of the Blackhawk for whatever reason. You know, every branch of service flies some variant of the Blackhawk. What are the cultural differences in the Coast Guard that might be uh attractive to somebody versus all the other branches of the military?

You mean to to pull somebody in to fly 60s in the Coast Guard versus the Army? Correct.

Yeah. Army, Air Force, uh, Marines, you know, what about the Coast Guard sets them apart?

Um couple things. One, you're not getting shot at as a general rule. Usually, yeah. Um two, and and a lot of this uh I'm uh we had a lot of folks that came from we call them direct commission aviators. So they were already a qualified pilot. Army, Navy, Marines, Air Force, and they would come to the Coast Guard. Um and they were tired of living in tents, um, they were tired of the sand in the desert. So I the units in the Coast Guard where the air stations are at, obviously they're near the water. Um typically they're in some pretty nice locations, um, depending on what you like. You know, if if you are a person that needs to go to the shopping mall and high-rise, I want to live in a high-rise, Kodak, Alaska is probably not the place for you. But um uh an air station in Miami may be a good fit. So, but our locations are really good. Um Coast Guard is a small service overall. Aviation, whittle that down, it's a small community. Um, and I almost guarantee after your first tour at an air station, you're not gonna go somewhere else without knowing somebody directly or knowing somebody that knows somebody. Um, so it quickly the the family um becomes a family uh within aviation. Yeah. Um and I'm probably getting ahead of myself because there's two pathways. When you get Coast Guard aviation, um, and you're a pilot, and it's either an operations pathway or an engineering pathway. And when I say engineering, we had aeronautical engineers, you're basically um running maintenance. So you're you're in charge of all the maintenance of the helicopters, uh, all the uh mechanics on the hangar deck, um, and that is a competitive program where you apply, you get accepted, and you about a year's worth of schooling to become an aeronautical engineer. And that's the route that I chose because I love to being on the hangar deck. Um the one difference between Coast Guard Aviation and all the other services, unless it's changed, is you are a fixer and a flyer. So you are doing maintenance on an aircraft on a Tuesday, you could be standing duty the next day on Wednesday, flying in the aircraft you just worked on. Um, so we didn't separate there's only guys that work on the aircraft and only guys that are uh some a lot of the services call them crew chiefs, we call them flight mechanics, um, that were that crew position, hoist operator. Um, and so I am a little biased that we have a really high-level top-notch professional maintenance program, primarily because you're flying in the same aircraft that you're working on. Sure.

It's interesting. I just had a podcast with a guy named Creighton. He did some of the maintenance for us at the uh company that you and I were a part of before. Okay. Yeah. Um, but you know, AMP pilot, he's worked on a bunch of different stuff. And we we talked about how we think it's important that each position within aviation understands what all the other pieces are doing, and how you know maintainers that go get their pilot's license are probably better maintainers, and pilots that get their AMP certificate are probably better pilots, and you know, air traffic controllers that fly are probably better controllers. So it's interesting you talked about that because I think it does give you a better appreciation for it, both as a maintainer and as a pilot. You understand better what's happening with your aircraft. Um, when you're trying to fix something with the aircraft, you were the one that was in it, so you can say, I know this is wrong. You don't have to you know hand off the squawk sheet to somebody and be like, well, it was making the noise, it was going, and they're like, I have no idea what you're talking about. Yeah. Um, so yeah, it's just I think that's cool that you guys did both both aspects of that.

Yeah, and and um, and you're absolutely right, and I agree with what you guys were saying, um that you get uh a huge benefit for understanding the other side. So I'm I I support that.

Yeah. Um I want to get into some of the flying stuff, and maybe we circle back to some of the rescue swimmer stuff later because there's some pieces I want to touch on there too. But when it gets into flying, um correct me if I'm wrong, but we're did you spend time with a C-130 too? Did I remember that?

Oh, we don't talk about that, Nish. As a helicopter guy, it's like riding a moped. It was a lot of fun, but you don't want your buddies you don't want your buddies to catch you doing it.

It's okay to have wings that don't move. Yes. You know, we all we all gotta fly on those.

So yes, so I uh I'm gonna back you up a little bit. I don't mean to drive your show. So I finished flight school and again, needs of the service. I really thought out of flight school I was gonna go fly C-130s. Uh because that was the the writing on the wall, the the you know, Magic A ball said maybe. Um, but I was fortunate to go to an H 65 uh Dolphine platform, and and that's where majority of my pilot time was spent in the H65. Um when I flash forward years later, I was an assistant engineering officer in Atlantic City, time to transfer, and I went to Kodiak, Alaska as an assistant engineer. Um and my boss, who we both came there at the same time, he was also a 65 guy. So I lost that draw because I was because both of us couldn't be the same platform. And so um I tried to go 60s that nope, you're gonna go C-130s again, needs of the service, um, which kind of was uh ironic because the only fixed wing time I had was in a T-34 in flight school, single engine tandem aircraft. Yep. And uh I go to my transition course for C-130 and immediately get thrown in a sim flying a C-130. And so there was a learning curve that was off the charts. Um, and I'll I'll never re forget my first operational flight out of out of training, um, but did it in clear water, and the sight picture of a C-130 or a fixed wing coming to a runway versus the sight picture of a helicopter coming into land are 180 degrees. And all the time in the sim, I knew exactly what I had to do, but on that landing in real life, my body reflex was oh, I need to pull the nose up on this thing. Yeah, that's not what you want to do. Yeah. Um we call that a go-around. Uh so, but I was fortunate to fly it in Kodiak. You know, we used to always joke the largest bush plane in Alaska is a C-130. Right. Be able to see every part of the state and in a variety of missions. So I I did that for three years, and I was actually in my aircraft commander syllabus when I got orders to be the engineering officer in North Bend, Oregon. And so I went to the ops boss and I said, I'm done. I don't need to finish this syllabus, give it to somebody else because I'm going back to helicopters. So I I ended my career as a first pilot in a C-130, um, which was fine. And and honestly, it was a lot of fun, but as a helicopter guy, it was the landing and takeoff that made it the best part of the day. The 10 hours doing a fisheries patrol or a search, and you're just droning on and on and on. But it it was a it was a good experience. Now, I flew the uh C-130, the H variant, 8 model. I believe they were all gone now, is the J model, which so H model was my grandfather's C-130, steam engines, um, and and the J model is uh all uh electronic cockpit, um, less crew, uh better speed, better endurance. It's it's the super Herc, the the hot rod.

Yeah. Yeah, I wanted to dive into I thought I remembered that. And then now that you talk about it, I also remember you saying you don't talk about fixed wing stuff because you're a helicopter guy.

But behind closed doors and on a podcast that who knows who's gonna hear this, I I will say it was it it's a awesome platform. Yeah. It would do things that you would not expect an aircraft that size to do.

Sure. Yeah, what uh was there anything different about the Coast Guard's variant? Because that's another one that you know every branch of service operates, some variant of the C 130. Did the Coast Guard one have anything special?

Uh well, I would say we had observer windows that sat uh in the cargo bay, um, but there was uh large uh observer windows, so obviously when you wanted to search, you had something to look at. I don't know if the other services had it, but we had like flare tubes on the ramp where we we could put search flares um and and dump them out. Other than that, I believe they're extremely similar. Um and you know, it's a pickup truck. It's it's modular. So we could put a a pallet and a sensor on it, which we did often, and and particularly when we were doing counter-narcotic work, you know, in Central and South America, um with some high-tech uh sensor equipment. Um we could put a tank uh in there. I've I've hauled fuel trucks in there, um just uh utility uh to the max.

So was the primary mission then, you know, kind of the high endurance uh searching that you talked about, you know, relocating of stuff, I guess, uh logistics operations, is that primarily what it's used for?

Yes. Uh I and obviously long-range search and rescue. Um and and I can only speak to my time in Kodiak, but we had uh actually it was the largest air station because we had C-130s, H-60s, and H-65s. Um H-65s are deploying on the ships into the Bering Sea, H60s were doing the the SAR all throughout Alaska. And you know, with helicopters, they're prone to have issues and they need parts. So we could deliver parts anywhere across Alaska and in in no time at all. Um and uh we would be a uh a cover asset for the H-60s and H-65s. They're going offshore, and so we would launch and and we would uh be a comms platform, a relay platform for them, and then and if something was to happen, we would be able to uh identify where their aircraft was, uh give them survival gear if they needed it, etc. Very cool. Uh but uh a a lot of logistics, and I don't know if you remember the days of Loran navigation. I don't know. Okay, it it was a maritime-based pre-GPS, uh, and there was Loran stations, one in like at two um on the uh Aleutian chain, like the last island on the Aleutian chain, a couple others along the the uh Bering Straits, and so those were remote stations with a handful of folks maintaining that equipment, so we would uh do monthly supply runs for them, few food, fuel, mail, etc., um, to maintain those stations. Yeah, I bet you went to some pretty remote locations in that I think uh the most remote that I went to um was actually a tragedy because Air Station Barbers Point had a helicopter uh mishap with loss of life. The entire four uh four crew members lost their life. When that happens, that station stands down. Every member of that station is not going to stand duty um as they're working through the the tragedy. So they bring other members from Coast Guard stations to fill the gap to fly. And they had H-65s and Hercs in in Barbers Point, uh, Hawaii. And so I came from Kodiak and uh the aircraft commander and I and our crew went down to for a couple weeks to stand duty. Um we got a call for Medivac on Midway Island. Wow. Which which I've heard of Midway my whole life, a little World War II, you know, um, and so that was probably the most unique mission I had was uh a guy was on a a ship, needed help, so they were able to put him on a small boat, get him to Midway, and then we flew it from Midway back to Hawaii. Yeah, that's out there. That's a haul. Yeah, yeah. So that uh uh I hated the reason I was there, but that was uh a a really uh unique experience. Definitely.

Yeah, going into the helicopter side now. I want to start. So you said you f you flew, was it only the H65? Correct.

Well, and and the variant of the uh Jet Ranger in the flight school. Okay. L206.

Yeah, so the H 65, um I guess for people that aren't familiar, is uh a little smaller than like the Blackhawk variant, the the H sixty.

It's quite a bit smaller, yeah.

When it comes to capabilities, you know, how's the car Coast Guard looking at what stations need sixties versus sixty fives and what missions are they sent on?

Um great question. And that's changing. That's very dynamic because the H sixty five, I believe it came the first one came into service, like eighteen. And they're becoming into life. They just got extended, I believe. But the to get the Airbus is is somewhat still supporting them, but the parts are coming, are becoming harder and harder to get. So the Coast Guard is transitioning a lot of the units that were traditionally H-65s to H-60s. And I don't have the layout of which ones, but it's it is happening. But traditionally, the H65 smaller footprint, so it was the workhorse for deployments. To be able to land on the ships and do the missions from there, primarily counter-narcotic work. The newer cutters can can take an H60 just fine. So that makes sense. Now guess who gets to go to the ship? Good luck, Boyd.

You told me a story one time about having to land on the ship in the 65 and how it had some unique capabilities to kind of attach itself to the ship in rough seas. Do you recall that?

Well, yeah, it's well the Talon system is what we called it. So on on the the landing on the flight deck of the cutter is a uh a round grid made of uh I believe it was stainless steel, but it was heavy duty with with holes. It looked like a like a waffle pattern almost. And we would mount the the talon on the underside hydraulically operated underside of the aircraft, and it worked off the weight on wheel switch. So as soon as the weight on wheel switch hit, that was if it if you had it turned on, the talon became active. And and so assuming that you landed in the correct spot on the ship, um, you would activate the talon and it would reach down and and grab that deck fitting. And if it missed, it would come up and rotate itself and and try again, rotate, try again, and then once it hit, it would suck you down. Um and if you had uh weak struts or struts that were going bad, that was a good way to blow them out totally. I'm sure is when it would when it would uh compress that. Um as soon as you're done and the aircraft's uh tied down by the tie-down crew, then you would release it so you may would maintain that pressure on the struts. Gotcha.

And would you uh would it stay attached through like shutdown or are they tying down when the rotors are still turning?

They're tying down while the rotors are still turning. Okay. So primary tie-downs. So the the the four primaries, two in the front, two up a little higher, um uh just below the transmission on the helicopter, those are the primaries. Once those are on, you can shut down the aircraft. And then the secondaries are two, four, six on each side uh chains. The primaries were uh nylon strap. Um and then the the secondary uh tie downs were chains.

And how rough a C's could you take to land on a ship? Officially or I I guess, yeah, officially, and then whatever you're willing to share.

I should have pulled out my flight manual and scrubbed up on that. I can't remember the limits, but they were fairly um high. Uh and and and really you're when you're out at sea, you know, you launch off a ship, your only landing point is the ship. Sure. Depending on where you're at. Yeah. And so we were very careful to to keep that in mind. Um the ship's crew is is understanding of that as well. Um, and there's times where they would have to say uh they'd give you the limits, pitch, roll, yaw, um, and it would be within limits, and they would say occasional, whatever it was out of limits. Um, so you kind of had to do some average math and and but end of the day, you're getting on the ship one way or another. Yeah.

Was there ever a a flight where you thought you weren't making it back onto the ship?

Well, there was a couple of of well we knew it was it the landings were a little bit not pretty.

Yeah.

And and it's funny, again, Coast Guard training is so uh well done that that there is a standard across the board. Uh that that's why like we were so successful in Hurricane Katrina. Because and using 65 as an example, I can get an aircraft commander from Atlantic City, a co-pilot from Miami, a flight mechanic from Kodiak, and a rescue swimmer from Los Angeles. Never met each other, they can get in that aircraft and go execute a mission with no issues at all. Because the standardized training is is so good.

That's pretty special because they're operating in extremely different environments, and I'm sure their their mission set that they did day in, day out was very different. You know, the Miami guys are probably doing a lot more, you know, people on charter fishing boats or drug intervention, and the Kodiak guys are freezing to death half the time. And yeah, it's a a a good mix of people.

Well, and I and make fun of my uh South of I-10 brethren, you know, the Miami guys, the New Orleans guys, the Houston guys, Corpus Christi, that, you know, if they had eight-foot C's in the Gulf, that was a big day. Um, North Bend, Oregon, Astoria, Oregon, you know, uh, you have eight foot C's, that's an average day. That's just meh, just a day. Um, and it's the same with shipboard landing. So you and I'm picking on Miami, but you can get shipboard qualified in Miami, and it's like landing on flat glass because the sea states are really calm. You get qualified out of North Bend, Oregon, you're gonna learn how to read the ship, the flight deck, the waves, the wind, um, with a little extra effort of understanding what that means. And we used to call it the West Coast Slam because, you know, what's every pilot want? They want a pretty landing, right? So you're coming on the deck of the ship, if it's calm, yeah, you can come right down, beautiful. But if it's not, you're you're timing this ship moving in, you know, three dimension to find that spot where it flattens out just enough and you're gonna put it down um aggressively.

Yeah. So you you would try to wait on it to get to the right spot. 100%. Yeah, I've heard Navy pilots talk about uh Navy fixed wing pilots talk about, you know, you're flying onto a pitching deck, like you're just trying to hit the deck. It doesn't really matter what position it's in, because when you have that forward vector of motion, you don't really have the luxury of trying to time when the ship is at the right orientation.

Right. Well, and and at least we have the ability uh to, you know, you can hover over the spot and and sometimes it would only take uh a few seconds to to read what the ship was doing. Um and a lot of the times it there was always uh like a almost a corkscrew effect as the as the ship would come uh uh pitch up, pitch down, and the flights decks are always the after the ship, and there'd be a little bit of yaw, and it'd give you like a corkscrew effect as it would come back off the backside of the wave. But if you're patient enough and you have enough fuel, you can obviously we're not sitting there for 15 minutes, but you you can look for and anticipate that that flat spot um and and it's a a quick moment in time, it's a snapshot that you hope to hit correctly.

And then you guys don't have on, I guess, any of the platforms any ability to refuel in the air, right? You're just stuck with what you got.

Well, they had what they call hyper helicopter in-flight refueling off the ship. So it if you had an issue and and basically it was there's a a fitting on the deck of the aircraft, I believe the 60s have it too. Um, don't quote me, but 65, there's a fitting on the deck, um, which is a fuel fitting. Um, and you would drop the hoist down, and there was a special fuel hose with a saddle that would you hoist it up, and where that saddle sat at the hoist, there was enough room to put the fuel line into the deck, and they would pump fuel from the ship into the helicopter. That's crazy. Um, and we practiced it, I've done it several times, and never had to use it in a real life scenario, but it's a safety mitigation that's an option. Yeah.

Um it reminds me of the uh the hacienda plane in Vegas, the 172 that set the record for uh most continuous flight hours, and they had like the pickup truck and they would raise the fuel hose up to them and refuel it in there.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And and I'm sure there's guys out there that have had to use it in in in emergency. Um I just never experienced that.

So the 65 was primarily on the ship. If you were at a station that had the 65 and a 60, and you know, it wasn't a ship-borne mission, would it almost always be the 60 that was sent out? Could it handle rougher weather, have longer uh loiter times, anything about the 60 that made it preferable?

Yeah, I think the only unit that had that was Kodiak, and it was two different mission sets. So they called it Alpat, the Alaska Patrol. That was the 65s in Kodiak. The 60s were, and and there's times where a 65 could be on a training mission, you know, near the base and get a call for search and rescue, and they since they're in the air, they're gonna go. But primarily the 60 was the search and rescue resource in Kodiak. 65s are dedicated to go on the cutters. Don't believe there's any air stations that have other than Kodiak that had a 65 and a 60 standing duty at the same time. Gotcha. But yeah, obviously you get you get way more uh endurance in a 60, anti-icing ability in a 60, or uh cargo and and payload capacity in a 60, but it's a larger footprint. Um, so there's trade-offs.

Was there anything about flying the C 130 that you think helped you be a better helicopter pilot or just fixed-winged a helicopter in general?

Oh, that's a tough question. I I think let's go back to our flight school days, right? Whether you're a civilian or our our military pilot, your your IFR, um, and we flew our IFR in the helicopter as well, but I think your understanding of the the far aim, uh flying a fixed wing at flight level whatever, you know, 250 or you know, um were things that I never really I had put out of my mind as a helicopter guy. You know, above a thousand feet, I get a nosebleed. So um I I don't know if I answer that question well enough for you, but um Yeah, I was just wondering.

It was like we talked about with uh understanding some parts of aviation help you be a better aviator in other parts. I didn't know if there was a good crossover from fixed wing to Hilo.

Yeah, well, and it was it it it was pretty unusual to have a helicopter guy transition into C-130s. And I'll never forget, I was in Kodiak one of my first operational flights, and well-meaning aircraft commander, he had never flown with a guy that was a helicopter guy that had transitioned to C-130s. So he was like, Well, I'll talk on the radios and you can listen and and see how it how it sounds. And and I used to joke that I was a voice-actuated gear and flap actuator. I can get the gear and get the flaps.

The autopilot in uh airplane.

Yeah, and at the time I had probably as many flight hours in a 65 as he had in a C-130, and I was I just let it go. I'm like, okay, I'll you you teach me. I'll I'll I'll just listen up. It was humorous at the time. Yeah, and I think, you know, regardless of airframe, uh the aeronautical sense is aeronautical sense. Um, and and understanding that, whether you're flying uh a Robinson or uh a Learjet. Yeah. Those big those core competencies are important.

Yeah. Some of the takeaways I've had, uh, you know, I've told you about and I've talked about them a couple times on the show, but my friend flies uh Pavehawks for the Air Force. Okay. So he does combat search and rescue stuff. Uh they're obviously going into environments where they are being shot at occasionally. Um, so they do a ton of low level. He's like uh, you know, 80% of my hours are below 200 feet or whatever. Like they're just on the deck constantly. Um and it was interesting to see him go through some of the flight planning stuff. I got to tour kind of their ready room and and see some of the stuff they used to plan how much focus they have to pay to like uh power line towers and just other ground obstacles, like yeah, fixed-wing guys will pay attention to like the tall radio towers and stuff, but I don't really care about a hundred-foot transmission tower, where for them, you know, that's life or death.

Well, and and funny because we like I talked about the direct commission aviators coming from other services, um, able to teach me a lot, like low-level flying. Um, however, you take an army guy offshore at night, you want to see somebody get uncomfortable real quick, that was it. Yeah, I mean it's a a paradigm shift. It's an environment that they're not used to operating in. And and so it quickly they they understood it and and became very proficient, but that that first night flight hoisting offshore um was always an eye-opener. Yeah.

Did you guys have auto hover?

Yeah.

Yeah. It it was an augment mode. We I we used it, but not often. Um it would depend on uh sea state mission, what you were doing. Obviously, we trained with it. Um and there was times it would be beneficial, and there was times it would get in the way.

So when you're offshore at night with no visual frame or reference, what do you uh do you have instruments that are helping you maintain the hover?

Uh you do, but yeah, a lot of it is is uh, you know, obviously literally lived and died by a radar altimeter, um, the which was primary. And uh if you're hoisting, most of the time there was something to look at. Now, it it was a different frame of reference because it could be a a you know a 50-foot uh fishing vessel, and you're hovering at 40 feet, you're not seeing much of that boat, but it's there, and there's a lot of tunnel vision involved because the pilot, obviously in the right seat, looking down, co-pilot's job is to keep you out of the water, really. So his primary scans on the instruments um and and providing the pilot information because I'm looking at that ship, and the hardest thing to do is is not um you can end up if the ship's moving like this, if you're not careful, you're gonna end up moving the helicopter like this. It's finding that that happy medium of a a decent hover that's that's allowing the boat to move and you're not following the motion of the boat. Yeah. So we would pick the nose out, I don't know, 30 degrees, uh, if the you know, if the wind was uh in a good spot. So we had a little more view. And you talked about the CRM. The flight mechanics in the back are what can has saved my bacon more than once, but they're literally conning you in and and you trust them explicitly. So the fight mechanics can tell you forward and right 30, forward and right 20, forward and right 10, 5, easy forward and right hold. Um, and so you're listening to him, you're listening to input from the co-pilot, and you're doing your best to visualize what you're what you're hovering over. Yeah.

Man.

The staying in one place, you know, I I would guess you guys want to have your frame of reference as the boat or the person you're trying to rescue, because obviously, you know, the wind's blowing them or the sea's blowing them, and you're trying to move with them a little bit, but to keep your altitude relatively stable while you know the boat's doing this and pitching and rolling and moving away from you, and the person's maybe going the same way as the boat, maybe they're not. That's tough.

Yeah, and we had we had procedures in place where we could fly a pattern, mark whatever we're going to be hoisting to, say it's a person in the water, and then and then um upwind of that, be able to put a couple of flares in the water and then come back around. So then those flares are giving you a visual um of of what's happening, you know, as you look up a little bit of horizon. But with night vision goggles, sometimes it wasn't ideal because it would blind you with with the flares. So um there was always trade-offs.

Yeah. Yeah. This is this is really interesting to get into the details because it, you know, obviously I understand how complex it is, especially in an environment like Kodiak where it's just awful weather all the time. Again, we've seen The Guardian, we've watched Deadliest Catch, we know what it looks like, but the complexity of all that is pretty mind-blowing.

Yeah. And and again, um I think you had sent me some questions like the difference between civilian and and military flying. Um, I think the training um for military pilots is continuous. Not that not that the the civilian's not keeping up to date and keeping proficient, but I think in the military it's a continuous cycle. Um and and we have the ability to come back after flight and and debrief and say what went wrong, what went right. Yeah. Um, and lessons learned. And, you know, what are we going to do different tomorrow than we did today? Um, I think that's for me, that's one of the the big differences. And but also I haven't flown as a civilian, you know, whether you're I don't know if you're talking 135 ops, 121, or just private pilot.

Yeah. Well, any of it, and I think the debrief that you mentioned is one of the most underutilized tools for civilian pilots because you just don't get trained in it on the civilian side. Um, it's not com I mean, maybe obviously I've not gone through like 121 airline training, so I don't know if they do. But you're doing quick turns. You know, you're at a regional, you got maybe an hour between landing and takeoff. You gotta do your pre-flight and prep the plane and you know, input your flight plan and like check in with ops and all this other stuff. Like, do you have time to sit down for half an hour with your FO and go through what went right and wrong with the flight? Some guys do it. Maybe, maybe they do an abbreviated version, but um, even if you're just some guy who has his Cessna 18 or his uh Cherokee 180 and you're wanting to, you know, go do a weekend flight to get your hundred dollar hamburger, are you sitting down after that flight and saying, Okay, well, I you know, entered the pattern like this and I kind of did a banana when I was turning to base and I was a little high and probably not. Most people aren't.

Yeah. Um in a perfect world they would be, but I I think also uh ego and humility is something you have to look at um and in both worlds. But in the military, um you want to have confidence, but you don't want to be uh uh have too big an ego and not be able to receive that feedback.

Yeah. Yeah, and uh a lot of people do take it personally, like you're attacking me as a pilot instead of you're giving me advice to be a better one.

Right. Um and I think the other difference too is uh search and rescue. Um in our operations manual, I have the ability to to bend metal on an aircraft if I need to to save a life.

Yeah. I want to I want to dive into that because that that's the part that stands out to me as such a huge difference. Um, you know, I've talked with a lady that was a uh refueling boom operator on a KC ten. I've talked with uh Spencer, who was our helicopter pilot at the last company, flew four oh sevens. He does um Like air ambulance stuff now. And two very different mindsets. You know, she's uh coming from the mindset of there's people's lives at risk, obviously. And the military, I think, accepts higher risks because of just the environment they operate in. But what was interesting to me about what Spencer talked about is they don't have that mindset, uh at least anymore, where I thought, you know, air ambulance, you're called out to a scene, there's somebody, you know, bleeding out in the field somewhere. He was saying there's EMS there almost always. We're not search and rescue. You know, they they're getting medical attention. Right. And I'm not I'm not going to risk the two or three or four people in my helicopter to go get them when there's already EMS there. Um, but with the Coast Guard, like you said, you guys had just explicit authority to bend metal and uh basically risk your lives to go save somebody else's. So can you talk about that risk management at that level?

It obviously the life, my life and the life of my crew was primary. Um the person I was gonna save, and this sounds harsh, is secondary. I want to bring my guys home alive so we can do it again tomorrow. But the mission said is we want to go save a life. Um and yeah, so if if we had to uh exceed limits on the aircraft, as long as you could justify why you did to save a life, uh no harm, no foul. Um now, if you exceed limits and you're just flying around screwing off, you're gonna have to answer to the man for that one. But um and and and so I think we were really good at at accepting risk with what mitigations we could. And what I understand now from the civilian side is is the risk mitigation is the default no, um, because there's no reason to do this and put people in jeopardy. And so, and we we would have the option as an aircraft commander and a crew to say no, we're not doing this. It's kind of hard to find that crew um that would say no. Um and it it has happened, but I think it's more rare than than anything else. The uh the risk mitigation is what's important. And I used to joke, we're you know, in the aircraft, CRM, we're a democracy. However, as the aircraft commander, I get 51% of the vote. Um, because I signed that's my plane, and you're my crew. And and I'm willing to accept any and all ideas and ways to do this different, but I have you know uh overriding authority at the end of the day. Um but and and again, it's trusting your crew. It's knowing um that flight mechanic and that rescue swimmer. You may have a rescue swimmer that's been doing it for 15 years and has has a lot of experience, and you may run up against a situation that you've never seen, but he has before, or the flight mech has before. Um, and so you're receiving that input um gratefully to have that and go, thank you. That's a good idea.

Yeah. When you're going out for a mission, say uh let's just use the example of you know rescuing a sinking boat or or whatever, you're going to rescue somebody. What's that mindset like preparing for that flight as you're walking out to the aircraft? What what's going through your mind?

Again, it's basics, the basics, because most of the time you really don't know what you're up against. You you get a little bit of information. Somebody calls the Coast Guard and they can say, hey, we're sinking and we're a 65-foot vessel, and we have three people on board. And we're you get a lat long and we go. What you don't know is what kind of you know is a rigging on the vessel? Are the are the people, you know, 80 years old? Um, is one of the person an infant? Um, is there is there a spot that you can actually hoist to on the vessel? Is there somebody capable of maintaining a course um that puts you into the wind for a good uh ability to hoist? So those are variables that every time you launched you really couldn't control until you got on scene and laid eyes on it. Yeah.

Do you have one particular mission that stands out in your mind?

I I don't well, I and I actually was on a a podcast recently that'll come out here in a couple weeks, but I I told the long version of this story. But um Atlantic City uh called the Bow Mariner. It was a 400-plus foot freighter that had, I think the number was 300 metric tons of ethanol. Oh, wow. And it exploded. Oh, geez. And and uh Elizabeth City, North Carolina launched a 60, we launched a 65, and um from miles away you could see the thing glowing. And and it's funny, it was February, but it was flat calm. A little bit of wind, not but the seas were flat calm, and we got there, and they had just left New York, so they they were full of bunker oil also. So the seas looked like I always uh use the analogy, you know those uh like from Spencer gifts, the little wave machines that go like this, has the oil in it, and the waves are really slow. That's what it looked like because it was covered in oil. Um, it didn't look like water. It was uh again, paradigm shifts. Um, but that's another scenario of you don't know what you're up against um when you got there. There was there was uh I think there was twenty, I want to say twenty-four or twenty-five crewmen and only six survived. Uh and they're they were the ones that were able to get into a lifeboat um uh after the uh post-explosion. Um and the rest were uh lost at sea, whether trapped inside the vessel or or um in the water oil water mix. So um, but that's that was transitioning to the civilian world sometimes was difficult because your day gets boring. Sure. And then we were you're programmed to not know what you're gonna get every day you go and stand duty. And and we stood duty like a fire department. Basically, every fourth day you were there 24 hours. Um learned very quickly to not lay in bed at night and wonder if you're gonna go fly. You learned very quickly to sleep as much as you can in case you went to fly. So that was a learned behavior. Yeah.

When you go out for a mission like that, and um, you know, it sounds like maybe you haven't been a part of one in particular, but if you've I'm sure you know other guys that have, maybe you get set out on a mission and for whatever reason you weren't able to accomplish that. Again, rescuing somebody they go under before you get there, or for whatever reason that mission fails. And I use the term fail because um the primary objective of the mission wasn't completed. We we know that you know failure is just kind of a state of mind and there's always things you can learn from and all that, but you know, you're set out to complete a task and you weren't able to complete it. How is that processed by the flight crew as they come back from that?

And I've had several of those. Um, you know, the ultimate goal is to go and and save somebody's life. Um secondary goal, as as dark as it sounds, is to give family closure if if you're going to recover somebody uh that has lost their life. Um and I used to always tell my crews and my philosophy was we're going to search for this person. We don't know their name, we don't know who they are, but we uh we are searching like it's your brother, your dad, your cousin, or you know, your best friend. Um, and and so every search we went on that I went on, they got everybody got that same level of effort. Um and I think like any first responder, you deal with the um it's easy to celebrate the victories, um, and the the ones that that you didn't succeed at are kind of studied in the dark, if you will. Um and and you learn quickly that you had to share that with others. Uh you had to talk about it. And I'm not talking a kumbaya, hold hands in a circle, but you had to have an ability to vent. Um I think overall the community has gotten better because it used to be the best place to do that was at the bar. Um and that turned into not such good habits. Um if if that was your coping mechanism, and and I've I've been there, I've had friends have been there, and that does not solve anything. That's your little uh public service announcement uh for your podcast.

Do you think that process is harder for one crew member than another, like maybe the rescue swimmer that has to go down in the water versus the pilot that is still separated from that at at some level?

Aaron Powell It it can be, yes. Um but again, everybody's individual, right? And and I am not uh I'm I'm not uh in a position to tell you uh your own trauma um because everybody handles it differently. But I will say there's a and it's actually funny, I thought it was a funny story. I had a uh new co-pilot, I was an instructor pilot with Sarkase, Atlantic City, offshore, maybe 40 miles, and a guy had got his arm caught in a winch, and there wasn't much arm left. Yeah. And and uh I had put him in the right seat so he was able to hoist, and I told him as the guy was coming up, he was in a basket, he was mobile enough, but um, it was not a pretty sight. And I told him, I said, just don't look at it. Just don't look at it. And what's he do? Oh I'm like, oh, you looked at it. Um and and and so you learn uh quickly that it everybody has a different skill set, you know. Yeah. And and and I know I I changed over the years. I used to be, you know, as a swimmer, you're also an EMT, and I used to love the anything gory and and and I could throw something on it to stop it to bleed. Now I'm like, yeah, no, thanks. I I don't need to deal with that anymore. But uh, yeah, I think that's a valid question about how you handle that. I everybody's individual, and I think um the strength and vulnerability to be able to say, hey, that really bothered me. Um and finding, you know, we had uh the critical incident stress management, they called it SISM, um, good program, but I think knowing who you're stationed with, knowing who your friends are, um, and in our line of business, and again, law enforcement, first responders, firefighters, EMTs, paramedics, um, the biggest thing is is not causing collateral damage. So a lot of times we would be able to take that home and tell our spouse what happened because I don't want to damage them and they weren't even there. So you have to find a network and a release of of folks that you trust to be able to talk about it. Yeah.

And then losing uh you talked about there was the one station that had lost four crew members in in a tragedy. When you have colleagues that are doing the same work you're doing and you lose them. Processing that, understanding, you know, I'm big for studying accident investigations. I think that makes people better pilots, but when it's so close to you like that, how do you how do you work through that? And what are the lessons you can take away? And also how do you separate yourself from um I don't know the phrase for it, but it's like, you know, my girlfriend loves watching murder documentaries. Like some people just like to do it's like a sick fantasy almost. How do you separate from like, okay, I'm watching this to become better educated versus like I'm almost torturing myself by digging into the details.

Yeah, almost like a voyeur of yeah. Um I I and I've had it happen. I've lost several friends. Um and and I think it's a learning learning point, and it's also a point of humility. Cause everyone that I've lost, I've always felt were a better pilot than I was. Um and and that made me want to be a better pilot. Because no matter who you are, um you can have a bad day. And sometimes that bad day has severe consequences. Um but it uh uh every time that happened, it personally for me, I going internal with it is to up my game. Um and and not Monday morning quarterback, not throw stones, and and don't be the guy that said, Oh, I would never do that. Because if you say that, you're a liar. Um because and we weren't there. We we weren't in that situation, we weren't living it in real time, so I'm I'm not one to to nitpick um somebody else's tragedy. Yeah.

Yeah, I I think it can be taught better a lot of the stuff around accident investigations, um, five hazardous attitudes. I just had a conversation on a podcast this week about um how I used to teach my pilots in the operation that I would run the hazardous attitudes, because the way it's taught is like these five hazardous attitudes are bad, don't do them. And it's just not a realistic way to be like uh teach people how to be a better pilot, right? Right and and the way that I would tell my pilots about the five hazardous attitudes is these are not a reflection of you as a person because you exhibit the traits of this doesn't mean that like you are a macho pilot. You are uh you know, you think you're invincible, all this stuff. There's situations that you get in that make you more prone to these attitudes versus others. Like there's gonna be a day where you have the invulnerability and you're like nothing can stop me. There's gonna be a day where your macho, you had that great landing on the pitching deck on the ship, and you're like, Yeah, I'm the best pilot there ever was. Yeah. It's being able to recognize the situations where you're prone to those and then counteracting that.

Yeah. Oh, I agree 100%. And and again, I'm going back to your military versus civilian. Um it's the mission first attitude that sometimes can get you in trouble. Um, and and it's cliche, but knowing your limits, knowing the limits of your crew, obviously knowing your limitations of your aircraft, and combining all of those to be successful. And there's times where the I've had to say, no, we we can't do that. It's beyond our capability. Um, and I'm not going to risk my entire crew to even attempt it.

Is it harder to do that walking out to the aircraft before you take off than it is when you're in the air on the way, or vice versa?

Yeah, I don't think it was i I don't think it has ever been a thought walking to the aircraft. It's it's always, like I said earlier, it's always once you get on scene because you just don't know. And and sometimes your mind can play tricks on you. Like we had one, uh it was an Easter Sunday was in in Oregon on the coast, and it was an aircraft accident, and we were told that an aircraft hit a power line. That's all we knew, and we knew the location. Well, we almost hit a power line getting into the aircraft because um both the co-pilot and I, we saw uh it was a Cessna, I think it was a uh 172 or 152, but it was like the size of a Volkswagen. It was just completely balled up. And there was a guy walking around the aircraft, only one person there walking, and I'm like, how did he live? How did he live? And so we got focused on that. And the rescue swimmer in the back all of a sudden starts yelling, and we had briefed that there's power lines. Three times uh we said there's power lines on this approach, we need to watch for the power lines. Well, we got television on the guy walking around, because in our mind we thought he was alive. And the swimmers like, up, up, up, up, up, up. And you don't when somebody says that, you don't hesitate. You just do. And and as I pulled up and looked down, there goes the power lines right underneath us. Come to find out, the guy walking around the beach was a volunteer firefighter that just got there first before any of the rigs or anything. And and obviously the occupant of the aircraft was did not make it. But it's that that mindset instantly that we lost focus. Um, so I don't even know what your original question was to that story.

But no, it's it is all good. Yeah, I was talking about the decision to call off it's not easy, right?

It's not it's not anything we take lightly, but but it also allows you to come home and do it again tomorrow. Yeah.

Yeah, and I feel like and you see it on the civilian side too, where you know you're at your airport, and this is where I want to land, and it's just just at minimums or just below minimums, and I just want to get down to this airport. I've already gone missed three times, but this time, like I'm already here. I just want to land. And I wonder if that carries over where you're like, we're we're where the ship said they were, like we're out here, but the weather's deteriorating and we're low on fuel, and like maybe I can just see the light in the distance and how difficult that is to say, no, we got to go home.

Yeah. Oh, that yeah, that's happened. And and but there's also times I pushed the limit, probably shouldn't have. You know, uh North and Oregon, um, Oregon coast weather, a lot of a lot of fog, a lot of low viz, and and there was times where we would do a low viz route rather than spending the time to pop up, get a clearance, fly the IOS, um, and we'd be like, oh, well, what we'll just do the low viz route. And we made it, but it was dumb. It was a dumb decision to do that. You know it's bad when you land on the the approach end of the runway, get on the taxiway, and the tower goes, um, are you on the ground yet? Because we can't see the end of the runway right now. Yep, we're good. See how the difference between flying military and civilian, right? If I did that in a civilian helicopter, I would have gotten the hey, I need you to call this phone number. And as as military and coast guard, it it you almost get lulled into uh uh being untouchable, which isn't true, you're not, but there that you were given a lot of leeway.

Yeah. It when you're telling that story about the power line, uh, reminds me of the recent incident with the MD 500 that hit the slack line. Have you seen that?

Yes.

Yeah, and the helicopter that went to look for them almost hit the same one. Yes. It's just getting that tunnel vision on either you've you found the thing that you're looking for or you're still looking for it, and your eyes are just on the ground trying to find whatever that is and losing that situational awareness. That's tough.

Yeah. Well, I had a a mentor when I was a young pilot, uh, it stuck with me. He gave he said, he said to me, Never, never let your aircraft take you someplace you're not willing to go.

As a military aviator, I know you said you haven't really dealt in the civilian side as much, but what do you think military pilots should unlearn coming out of that military operating environment going into the civilian side? Um I think oof.

That's a good question. Um I think because there's so many policies and procedures and and in the military that virtually not every, but uh a majority of the things you run up against, there's a policy or procedure for it. I I don't think that carries over into the even like the 135 side with your your GOM may or may not cover those things. And so I think the uh the kudos to the civilian pilots that have to um on the fly make those decisions that that may or may not be in their within their company policy, may not be within their personal uh comfort zone. Um and what I just talked about about getting uh the little Mia Copa from Tower as a military pilot, you you're not gonna receive that same benefit as a civilian pilot. Um and and I think the third thing I would add to that is the the ego check of you know uh see you can you can be uh you know. 8,000, 10,000 hour helicopter guy that spent your entire career in the cockpit and you go fly civilian, um, you have to relearn the way of the company you're flying for. Um you may not be able to fly the aircraft the same exact way you flew it in the military. Does it make sense?

Yeah.

Yeah, you lose a lot of the protections that you had and right. Um and uh again, a conversation we had earlier in this podcast is the uh knowing when to say no changes. Um and and I think yes, every every aircraft that takes off has a mission. Um you have uh whether you're flying in your your piper cub, you have a mission when you take off, something that you want to achieve. Um and I think in the civilian side, a lot of that is financially driven, if it's like a 135 operator, and being able to say no and tell your your chief pilot why you didn't go and you lost revenue for the company.

Yeah. Yeah, it uh you talked about the um former Vietnam pilot that was flying and saying, you know, if you see us getting shot at, then let me know kind of deal. I think that generation of pilots, especially on the helicopter side, you know, they had the mentality of like, my life doesn't matter, I just gotta go try to pick up these other guys. I hear so many stories. Chicken Hawk is a great book talking about that kind of stuff where it was just go, go, go, doesn't matter the risk. And uh, you know, that's softened quite a bit in the military and for good reason. I mean, we were just losing people left and right for no reason. Right. Um, but yeah, like you said, coming to the civilian side, it's like what's at stake here? Okay, I didn't get uh, you know, I'm flying a learjet across the country, I didn't get whoever's chartered the plane there on time and they have to wait an extra day. Big deal. You know, somebody's not dying if I don't get there. Um whereas somebody could die if I push the limits and try to get there when it I shouldn't.

Right. Oh, 100%. Yeah, and I I think again that mindset, and you know, and your audience knows uh aviation it inherently has risks. Um it's how you mitigate those risks, and and again, on the military side, Coast Guard experience, we were probably because of the mission set, you're gonna push yourself further. And I think again, that that switching back to the civilian side to go, like you said, is anybody going to die if I don't do this? If the answer is no, then don't do it. Yeah.

Yeah, we uh we had a a project that I did for a little while where I was a sensor operator fixed wing. We were doing uh aerial surveillance at night. A lot of it was high mountain terrain, and we had to be relatively low for the sensor to be effective. Right. We're we're probably 3,000 feet AGL, but we're in 10,000 foot terrain following a a designated path. And every night, I mean it's you know, we're not getting shot at, so that risk is gone. But it's I mean it's risky as far as GA goes. Like that was a pretty risky mission. And every night I would tell the pilot that I went up with, my only goal is to be back on the ground safe. I don't care if it's here, I don't care if it's 500 miles from here, my only goal is to be on the ground safe. If we find what we're looking for, great. If we don't, fine, if we end after two hours when we're supposed to be out here for eight, that's fine too. But and we were on this, me and the pilot were always on the same page. Like that was that was our goal every night. And I think you know, you can get task saturated and so focused on the mission, even if the mission is inconsequential, where it's just human psychology, right? Like we want to finish the puzzle, we want to finish the project.

Right.

Um, so it's good to have that conversation with your crew members, I think, when you go to the civilian side to say, what's our end goal? Our end goal is to be safe at the end of the day. How do we do that? Okay.

Yeah, 100%. And and what you were talking, the word that came to mind is uh the get home itis. Like, oh, I I have to land at the airport I took off from. No, you don't. You don't have to. It it may disrupt your life, but you're gonna be able to um live the tell the tale of the night you had to spend the night away from home.

Yeah. Yeah. The cost of a hotel and Uber and overnight parking at the airport is inconsequential compared to your funeral cost. Right.

And we forget that sometimes. We do, I think, as pilots.

On to the leadership side. So you've uh for me, you were a great mentor, a great leader at the company that we worked at. And I I want to learn more about how those characteristics were instilled in you either through the Coast Guard or otherwise. How does the Coast Guard train leadership, especially going through OCS?

Oh, well, uh, you know, that's book learning. And and um how do I summarize that? You you can read every leadership book in the world, um, and you can get good ideas and you can get tips, but the practical application sometimes is difficult. And and thank you for your compliment because that's my answer. I had mentors, and and I think that's how the best leadership is taught is is emulating leaders that I had that I work for in the Coast Guard, both in my enlisted world and the officer world, and and and also um don't get the titles, uh, you know, somebody's position confused with mentoring. Because somebody that's junior to you may have more wisdom in a certain area that in in leadership that you can learn from. Um and I think that's the biggest thing. If young people are interested in going into the military and they say they go uh become an officer and and they're uh uh O three, a captain or a lieutenant, depending on what service you're in. Uh don't think that the people below you, including the enlisted, are not as smart as you are. Don't have as much experience as you do. Um be humble and open to receiving that input. Um and the other place you're in leadership is from bad leaders. Um so take those lessons because I learned as much from bad leaders as I have from good leaders. Um, because I know that's not the way I want to be. Yeah.

It goes back to like the the accident investigation stuff we were talking about. That's accident investigation, but for interpersonal communication.

Yeah, exactly. So you so you can deconstruct that bad leadership, right? And say, nope, I'm not gonna be that guy.

Yeah. What would you recommend for somebody who becomes a leader young through official title, I guess? You know, anybody can be a leader if they're acting as a leader, but say they get put in a management position, or like you said, there's a young officer coming in and maybe they're dealing with uh people that are older than them, they've been in the service longer, or even at the airlines. Like we're in a weird time where there's a big hiring boom during COVID, and you got some pretty junior captains that might be flying with you know 40, 50-year-old first officers. It's just a weird dynamic. So, what would your recommendation be to those younger folks that are trying to find their way as a leader?

Well, in that scenario you just said, when they're the captain and their FO is is 20 years their senior, maybe have even more flight experience than they do, um, is check your ego and and and understand where they're coming from. It's funny because I there was a point a few years ago, I'm like, maybe I'll try to go back and fly. And I have a friend that works for a major, um, I I won't name the company, and and he said, Well, uh, if you do get hired, you know, you'll probably never make captain. And I said, No, I don't care. I can be the grumpy FO telling the telling the the captain everything he's doing wrong. But if you are that grumpy FO guy that that is it has a young captain, be easy on them too. Um and and so that that communication piece is huge. But you still want to go fly or no? Me? No, I think those days are behind me. I I would not change anything I did in my career. Um, and yes, it usually when it's clear blue and 22 and I look out the window and go, oh man, it'd be a great day to fly. But when the when the storms come in and the viz drops to half mile, I'm like, yeah, nope, I'm good. Yep. Yeah. Um but back to the leadership piece, I I think it's it's uh number one issues that I've seen with young guys that get put in that position is they try too hard. Um, and they and the difference between your positional power and your personal power. And that's another way to say what I just said earlier is is somebody junior to you, younger than you, less experienced than you, may have that that personal power of leadership that you can learn from. And and the biggest thing is admitting when you are wrong as a leader. If you're gonna lead, and you know our previous employer, we had a lot of folks, and there was times where I made mistakes, and I and I hope that you remember when I would say, Yep, I called that one wrong. That's on me. Um, and and own own your mistakes and fix them. I believe it's still true, maybe it's not in the military. Uh we would really call it intrusive leadership. Uh unlike the civilian world, where you know, your your personal life choices, uh, things you're doing off work, really in the civilian world is none of my business as your boss. In the military, because of our mission set, the way we did things, we had intrusive leadership. Where if I knew that that your wife just left you, you and I are going to talk about that. In the civilian world, maybe or maybe not. And and if you want to be, in my opinion, a solid leader, is get to know your people. Know what they like, know what they don't like, you know, know what what drives them, know what what things they avoid, what jobs they avoid. Um, and as it as soon as you get to know your your crew, you can fill the gaps and and you make a pretty cohesive team knowing somebody's strengths and weaknesses. Um, but you can only do that by understanding who they are as a person.

Yeah. And I would never recommend that somebody be invasive into their co-workers' minds, but I think that's a great uh, or their lives rather, but I think that's a a great example of understanding the the mental side of flying, especially. I mean, we talk about all uh the I'm safe checklist, you know, emotion is one of those. And you might not be able to recognize that. There's a lot of people that just kind of tamp stuff down and don't let it ever come to the surface until it boils over one day. And you know, if you're at an airline or something, like you're not with the same person all the time, you're not gonna get to know them, but just having some friendly conversations when you're allowed to, if you're at the hotel bar, you know, go sit and have a a drink if you want to do that, or have dinner with the the captain or the first officer and just understand what's going on in their life. And it's not always you know looking out for red flags, but just understanding where, like I said, with uh hazardous attitudes, understanding the environments that could trigger, for lack of a better term, something in that person, or they might overlook something uh because you know their kid is going to college. They don't know how they're gonna pay for tuition, or like you said, their wife just left them, or whatever that life event is that could cause distraction for them. I think it makes everybody safer on the whole to understand that stuff.

Absolutely. And and to your point earlier about don't recommend being and again, that's the military way. Um and and I I don't think I did that so much on the civilian side. Maybe I did, but but let me reframe that is just know your people and and understand. I and I've kicked guys off flights, you know, a a flight mechanic, because I knew, and I'm not specific like doing a divorce or they had money issues or anything else going on in their life, I I have told them, no, you're not you're not coming on this foot. We need to find a replacement. Um, because what in aviation, what are we told? Compartmentalization, right? Um, we're really good at that until we're not. And that's a fine line. And and we can compartmentalize to a certain point, and then everything boils over, and you can't keep anything together.

So and and being able to own up to your mistakes is one thing, but I would also encourage people to be forgiving of other people's mistakes because I think we live in a time where people are quick to say, you know, oh, you're a hypocrite, or that's not what you said before, you know, look ha ha, they messed up kind of deal. And just no one allows the grace to realize that everyone's human and everybody makes mistakes, and the ones who will actually come out and say, I messed up, here's how I'm gonna do it better, those are the ones that we want to support.

Well, a summary of my my in-brief at when I was an engineer, so all the all the guys working on the aircraft would would work for me. And when they get to the unit, whether they were coming from another unit, very experienced or right out of school, brand new, didn't matter, it's the same thing, is my number one rule is just don't lie to me. And particularly the brand new guys, I'm like, you are gonna make mistakes. And I have enough experience um to know that that you're gonna make mistakes in your personal life, you're gonna make mistakes at work, um, and we can work with that if you own it. If but if you lie to me and try to hide something, then this is a totally different conversation that we're going to have. Um, and so that that's how I based everything I was trying to do is off that. So, you know, we are human, and you know, human factors in aviation, and we know both on the pilot side and the maintenance side, things are going to happen. And if you try to hide a mistake you made, it's gonna have severe consequences for somebody, including up to losing their life.

Yeah. Yeah, that's probably the biggest thing as we try to co-work in aviation is building that trust, especially at these huge companies like at Delta, you're never gonna know the mech the mechanic that worked on your plane. Right. You know, it it it's just too big of an organization. And how do you build that trust when it's so large that everybody's just a number? Um, and it's just having that inherent uh you know, your word has to be worth something. And the people that put their names on the papers and sign off and um just have pride in their work are the ones that make it work long term.

I agree.

Um so after the military, I don't want to speed run this too much, but um just to talk through what you're doing now, you know, what happened after you left and uh how your career progressed and then what you're doing now.

Yeah, quick summary. I retired uh 2015, and virtually since then I've been in the unmanned space, both as uh uh operator um of UAS for a DOD contractor overseas, program manager uh for the Coast Guard, uh putting uh UASs on on ships, um, worked for a drone service provider. Um and I had a little bit of time actually back in manned aviation. I was a business development helicopter guy for a local company um and helping with operations. We had uh a lot of firefighting contracts and selling some helicopters as well. And currently, the last couple of years, I'm doing uh I work for N-State Solutions. Um we consult with uh emerging technology, uh primarily in the drone space. So FAA regulatory work, waivers, exemptions, airworthiness. Um we're not limited to that. Uh we can work on SDCs, um so uh plug for in-state solutions.

Yeah. The most exciting world of regulatory.

Oh, yeah.

Sometimes I wonder. I tell you what, it is it is somewhat exciting, only because you get to push some limits with the FAA. And and this is new technology that's not going anywhere. Um the the if the overall I it's gonna continue to grow. There's some bumps in the road, but unmanned, um, to me as a complement to manned aviation, it's not a replacement.

Yep, totally agree. Uh hot seat question is the DJI ban good or bad for UAS long-term?

I think right now, currently, my opinion, uh my personal opinion, not my work opinion, is is it's right now it's going to really hurt the industry. The the FCC ruling, I think, was a little bit out of bounds on what they did and the way it's written. I know there's a lot of work going on currently as we speak to um try to reel some of that in, but it's it's uh that DGI is the number one selling aircraft in the world and in the United States. And I I won't go into the the geopolitics of all of it. I just know that it's a a a well-built, um, fast-moving company that listens to their customers.

And from an operator standpoint, where uh you know what I was doing before this, I will say that the ease of use and the capabilities of DJI aircraft are far and above competitors at the moment. So it's tough for the industry to not have that option available to them.

And it's yet another bump in the road that we've seen for now several decades as as UAS and and drone work is is starting to grow and it goes and starts and stops.

Yeah. Um, I always like to leave people with a few pieces of advice. You've had some great ones throughout the podcast, but like to just end it on a couple of questions. Uh, what's the biggest lesson you learned from aviation? How to remain flexible. You said that you would not change anything that you have done to this point. If there if you had the opportunity to go back, do you think you would follow the exact same path all the way through?

Yeah, I probably wouldn't have flown C 130s, but that's not well, just kidding. I wish I would have started my career earlier, my pilot career earlier, I guess, if if there was one thing. And then that would allowed me to uh gain even more experience. I mean, I have uh it not tons of hours, I think 4,000 um of pilot hours and another couple thousand as crew. So there's plenty of experience there, but I I wish I would have started it sooner, and I think that would have translated into flying as a civilian a lot easier than than it did for me.

Sure. What's a mindset shift that every pilot should make?

That you're not invincible.

That's a hard one.

Yep, it is. And and and the the ability to say no and live with that decision, don't second guess it.

Yeah. Yeah, like we talked about earlier with the accident reviews, everybody has that hindsight thing in the back of their mind. It's like, well, that was dumb. I wouldn't have done that. You don't know.

Right.

Exactly.

Exactly. Yeah. The pilots that were in the accident thought the same thing. Um, you know, they didn't take off that day thinking, oh, I'm gonna crash today. Like it's a good day to crash.

Yes.

And then any advice you would have for somebody who has aspirations to become a military pilot.

Stay resilient and persistent. Um learn to accept the no, because uh very, very rare that your path is gonna go exactly how you think it's going to go. So if if aviation is in your heart, in your soul, it's your your goal uh in life, be persistent and resilient. Like I say, there you're gonna get a lot of no's. Um you're you may not pass a check right at some point. Um, but stay persistent.

Hey, thanks for watching. If you want to hear more from aviation professionals just like Russ, you can subscribe to the AirPod on YouTube, Apple, and Spotify. I will see you right back here on the AirPod.