The development of aerial refueling was one of the greatest leaps in fighter lethality. A fighter, just like any aircraft, consists of hundreds of tradeoffs—cost, payload, speed, stealth, size, weight, maneuverability, the list goes on and on. But, the Achilles heel of fighters has always been their fuel consumption. At the heart of a modern […]
This is what it’s like to push an F-16 to the absolute limit
FeaturedAnything close to the maximum structural speed for a jet is usually just for the glossy brochure—99.9% of the time we don’t come close to reaching it. There was one time, though, that I pushed the F-16 as fast as it could go. I was stationed in Korea and there was a jet coming out […]
Taking the blame: Why fighter pilots have to own their mistakes
FeaturedEven the best fighter pilots make mistakes. One of the things that often shocks new pilots is how brutally honest our debriefs can be. After nearly a full day of planning, briefing, and flying a mission, we’ll gather in a room and spend hours picking apart everything that went wrong. Even if all our objectives […]
The Good Idea Cut-off Line: How to plan like a fighter pilot
FeaturedChanging a plan at the last minute is one of the surest ways to create confusion and cause a mission to fail. Before I became a fighter pilot, I didn’t realize how much time and effort went into mission planning. It’s meant to be a joke, but it’s surprisingly accurate that mission planning takes as […]
An F-35 pilot’s take on the only ‘stealth fighter’ lost in combat
HistoryOne of the sayings we have in the fighter pilot community is that the enemy always gets a vote. What this means is that no matter how good your intel is, how smart you think you are, or how inferior the enemy appears to be, they always reserve the right to do something you aren’t […]
The secret to fighter pilot morale is apparently Chick-fil-A sauce
LifestyleWhen I deployed to Afghanistan, a single care package full of Chick-fil-A sauce increased the morale of the squadron for weeks. I deployed as an F-16 pilot to Bagram Air Base, just north of Kabul—it’s a massive base that at night can be seen from over 100 miles away. The sprawling city is home to […]
Fighter pilots have to conserve mental energy like jet fuel. Here’s how
FeaturedOne of the sayings we have in the fighter community is that as soon as you put on your helmet, you lose 20 IQ points. A modern fighter pushes what the body and mind can handle to the limit. Tactics that look easy on the ground become difficult once you’re in the air under G […]
Dogfighting at 9gs: Like aiming ‘through a toilet paper roll’
FeaturedIf you have any hope of winning, your strength has to be greater than your opponent’s weakness. As a young second lieutenant in pilot training, I learned that lesson the hard way. I was flying a Basic Fighter Maneuver Flight, also known as dogfighting. The objective was for me to point at my instructor, who […]
How playing sports can make you a better fighter pilot (from an F-35 pilot instructor)
CareerLooking back, sports prepared me for flying fighters more than anything else. You develop thick skin playing sports—you learn how to lose, how to accept criticism, how to prepare, how to handle pressure; you grow you in a way that’s difficult to find outside of sports. Different sports teach different attributes, particularly team versus individual […]
An interview with Gravity Jet Suit Inventor Richard Browning
CareerMy guest today is Richard Browning, the British inventor dubbed the “real life Iron Man.” He’s the founder of Gravity, launched in 2017 with a dream to reimagine an entirely new form of human flight. Using 6 small jet engines, he’s built a suit that has set multiple world records. In just 2 years he’s […]
