Lessons From The Cockpit

Welcome to this episode of Lessons from the Cockpit! Air refueling does not happen without the KC-135 or KC-10 Boom Operator being in the Boom Pod of the tanker. These Enlisted heroes are what make air refueling possible. On today's show, our Chief Boom Operator from the 909th Air Refueling Squadron at Kadena Air Base Chief Master Sergeant Dan Jones shares his lessons of teamwork, innovation, and...

Welcome to this episode of Lessons from the Cockpit! There is one thing all US service members promise to their comrades in arms... we leave no one behind! In early March of 2002 coalition forces began military operations in the Shahi-Khot Valley of Afghanistan, known now as Operation Anaconda. The start of this operation did not go well. On 4 March 2002 then Captain Chris Russell, an F-15E Strike...

Welcome to episode 21 of the Lessons from the Cockpit Show! My good friend Dave Mason and I walked and talked moving around the displayed aircraft at Hill Aerospace Museum in Ogden Utah earlier this month. Dave relates how fliers learn in extreme situations to quickly compartmentalize problems and put fears in their place. The number one priority in the air always is maintaining aircraft control,...

Welcome to episode twenty of the Lesson from the Cockpit show! You are NEVER alone during flight. Every fighter or bomber aircrew will tell you warheads on foreheads is always a team effort. Ground weapons crews load Maverick missiles a Flight Lead directs after their wingman fires at a target called out by a Joint Terminal Attack Controller embedded with Special Forces teams. Aviators never forge...

Welcome to episode nineteen of the Lessons from the Cockpit Show! Flying in the F-15 is an ultimate thrill. I know because I've done it three times. But deployed duties where airmen, soldiers, sailors, and Marines solve the most complex puzzles having theater-wide effects are often the most rewarding. Lt Col Joe Katuzienski (retired) is one of those US Air Force airmen who impacted air warfare at...

Welcome to another episode of the Lessons from the Cockpit show! On today's show, our guest Lieutenant Colonel (retired) Mo Barrett fights for centerline deciding to fly a very big airlifter or deploy with her Tanker Airlift Control Element (TALCE) team opening airfields for war in Afghanistan on 9/11. Her team makes two large Forward Operation Bases livable and operable with hours and had a uniqu...

Welcome to another episode of Lessons from the Cockpit show! George Nolly gives us great lessons from logging time in O-2 Skymasters as a Forward Air Controller, and fighter pilot in the F-4D/E Phantoms over Vietnam. George even spent exactly one year in the big B-52! George flew with and now instructs for one of the major US airlines in the 737, and 777s with an Indian airline. He tells us there...

Welcome to this episode of Lessons from the Cockpit! Pete Fleischmann flew F-16 Vipers in the Air Force and currently is an A320 Captain for one of the major US airlines. He also trains pilots how to avoid the leading cause of fatal aircraft accidents worldwide in a very unique classroom. On today's show, he tells us where good judgment really comes from, an essential management tool whenever and...

Welcome to episode fifteen of the Lessons From the Cockpit Show! In 1948 Douglas Aviation ran full-page ads of their C-54, a little girl catching glasses of milk dropped from the Skymaster aircraft. The Skymaster was making history during the Berlin Airlift. An aviation Rockstar was born during the airlift, flying a C-54 and dropping candy to German kids gathered along the fences of Tempelhof Airf...

Welcome to another episode of Lessons from the Cockpit! I had a conversation recently with a Commander I highly respect, for both his leadership skills and impeccable insights on the battlefield and in business. He and  I were involved in numerous exercises with other US military services, our international partners, and the extremes of intense air campaigns over foreign nations. This episode capt...

Welcome to another episode of Lessons from the Cockpit Show!   While teaching at the Joint Forces Staff College many of my students asked what books they should have in their libraries. I developed a list of books on joint warfare, decision-making on the battlefield, and leaders who really left an impact on their organizations. This episode of Lessons from the Cockpit discusses some of the books i...

Welcome to this episode of Lessons from the Cockpit Show! In this episode, we discuss red underwear, one of the greatest victories and defeats in modern air warfare, and how a Commander's Conference kept this Navy Captain from being incinerated. Our hero in this episode is Imperial Japanese Navy Captain Mitsuo Fuchida. Commander Mitsuo Fuchida was an expert tactician and planner, leading many Japa...

Welcome to the eleventh episode of Lessons from the Cockpit! Thirty-one years ago early this morning my crew took off and flew our first combat mission on the opening night of Desert Storm. We refueled the first F-4G Wild Weasel and EF-111A Spark Vark package going to Baghdad to take down the integrated air defense system. This mission was intense! I kept a journal of every event and flight during...

Welcome to the Lessons from the Cockpit podcast! Into whose hands would you place trust and risk your life? Military service members deal with this question every day. There is one community of US Air Force aircraft aircrew members all over the world trust with their lives to. Why? Crews flying these two jets have the reputation of ALWAYS being at the right place and right time, but more important...

On this episode of Lessons from the Cockpit; Airplane designers analyze three elements for creating an airplane: Range, Payload, and Endurance. All three of these elements are affected by the aircraft engine. Two world-famous engines almost didn't make it into their iconic airframes. There were numerous obstacles business and engineering leaders overcame. One engine was within two weeks of cancell...

On this the eighth episode of Lessons From the Cockpit: The US Air Force has its version of TOPGUN, training the best of the best from 18 different weapons, intelligence, command and control, Special Operations, rescue, and intercontinental ballistic missile forces. It's called the US Air Force Weapons School, based at Nellis Air Force Base in North Las Vegas. During one large force night training...

On this episode of Lessons from the Cockpit: The good Lord gave us all two ears and one mouth for a reason. Important information is often given up because we spend too much time talking when we should be listening. One day my Boss set up two TOPGUN wannabes to be humiliated and it cost them $30 each! On a trip to San Diego, Jim and I visited the USS Midway Museum ( https://www.midway.org/ ). Sitt...

Welcome to this episode of Lessons from the Cockpit! There is one training event during my Air Force career  I can truly say was transformational. And it started with a 3M sticky note on my desk written by the #3 Commander on Kadena Air Base, Okinawa Japan. Fearing I wasn't up to this task, that Commander let me and my counterpart use our imagination and initiative to create one of the most comple...

Welcome to this episode of the Lessons from the Cockpit show! Our conversation with Mike "Coma" Reed continues this week, telling us his story of integrating all the systems in the Lockheed F-22 Raptor, arguably the most lethal fighter jet in the world. Mike explains why the F-22 program and development performed so well and the F-35 program continues to have challenges. Age and treachery will alw...

Welcome to this week's episode of Lessons from the Cockpit. This week my best friend from my boyhood Mike Reed callsign COMA was in Utah. He and I sat down to talk about his lessons from flying F-4 Phantoms during the Cold War in the Far East and aeronautical engineering. Sun Tzu's first chapter in The Art of War opens with the line "The art of war is of vital importance to the State." You may not...

On this episode of the Lessons from the Cockpit show: Twenty years ago this past Saturday, a phone call at 5:50 in the morning caused me to go from fast asleep to full up war in 30 minutes. The United States was under attack. While driving into work that day I was doing "Taker Math" in my head, the number of sorties and amount of gas it would take to keep all the fighters and Command and Control p...

On this episode of the Lessons from the Cockpit show... Many aviators have flown into bad situations or worse killed because they didn't listen to the voice in their heads. The military has a term for this voice: GUT CHECK. Malcomb Gladwell has written an entire book about this gut check phenomenon. Recently I had a discussion with a close friend and both of our professions, he an EMT in Houston a...

There is a three-word slogan every aviator memorizes to help deal with emergencies in the air. It's so simple and has saved countless pilot's lives. An instructor in Pilot Training taught me the five commandments of flying complimenting the three-word slogan. On a training sortie, I violated two of them and almost killed myself. A Navy SEAL taught me a slogan that guides their training philosophy....