Kind: captions
Language: en
the following is a conversation with
commander david fravor
who was a navy pilot for 18 years and
commander of the strike fighter squadron
also known as the black aces a squadron
of 12 airplanes consisting of several
hundred people
he's also famously one of the people who
with his own eyes
saw and chased a ufo
an identified flying object in 2004
that is referred to as the tic tac and
the incident
more formally referred to as the uss
nimitz ufo incident
his story corroborated by several other
pilots
from my perspective as a curious
scientist and an open-minded human being
is the most credible sighting of a ufo
in history
at least that i'm aware of he's a humble
fascinating and fun human being to talk
to
i put out a call for questions on reddit
and many other places and
tried to ask as many of the questions
that people posted as i could
and overall i really enjoyed this
conversation and i'm sure
if the world wants us to and if there's
more questions to be had
we'll talk on this podcast again quick
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to support this podcast as a side note
let me say that the world of ufos and
uaps unidentified aerial phenomena and
aliens in general
is foreign to me because of the high
ratio of outlandish conspiracy theorists
to actual hard evidence i'm a scientist
first and foremost but
an open-minded one often looking and
thinking outside the box
i'm often disheartened by the
closed-mindedness of the scientific
community
and in equal part i'm disheartened by
the lack of rigor and basic scientific
inquiry and study on the part of the
conspiracy theorists
i believe there's a line somewhere
between the two extremes that
more inquisitive minds should walk
i think we humans know very little about
our world
what's up there among the stars and the
nature of reality
and the nature of our very own minds
the path to understanding can only be
walked humbly
the very idea that there is a
possibility that david witnessed a piece
of technology
whether human made or alien made that
moved in the way it did
should be inspiring to every scientist
and engineer on this earth
there may be propulsion and energy
systems yet to be discovered that
once understood and mastered will put
distant galaxies
within reach of us human beings paradigm
shifts in science and
leaps and understanding can only happen
i think if we open our eyes
and allow ourselves to dream to think
from first principles
and remove the constraints and
innovation placed on us by the
scientific conventions and assumptions
of
prior generations if you enjoy this
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i fast often sometimes intermittent
fasting of 16 hours and then
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sometimes 24 hours
that's one dinner to the next i've been
even considering doing a 48 or 72 hour
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not eating somehow is a reminder that
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that every day is precious i certainly
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whatever you think of it i love the
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the answer is complicated but let me
pick one thing the first thing
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also called clrs for the first letters
of the last name of its four authors
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and now finally here's my conversation
with david fraver you're a graduate of
the
navy fighter weapons school yeah i am
better known as top gun so yeah let me
let me ask the most ridiculous question
how realistic is the movie top gun
so it's funny we used to joke and a
friend of mine who was a top cut
instructor
uh said this there's two things in the
in the original top gun that are true
that are very realistic one there is a
place called top gun
and number two is they do fly airplanes
there
other than that uh you know i went
through in 97
uh class 497 and there's actually a log
of every single person that's went
through kind of like
seal training you know there's a list so
people because there's a lot of posers
out there i was a navy seal no you
weren't well i went to top gun you could
actually go to top gun and matter of
fact
just to get a top gun patch the real
patch
uh you have to have gone there so a lot
of the patches you see
running around are not real there's the
real ones are controlled
the people that make them uh honor that
and when you go in they look up your
name
if you want to get one they look up your
name you just tell them they go okay
here and i'll sell them to you if you
are not on the list
you ain't get no patch because it is
it's it's it's a pretty big deal
to go through but it's for me uh
probably the best experiences of flying
uh because everyone there is extremely
competent it's it's
very very challenging but it's what we
all signed up to do
so it's uh it's just the entire group
that is when you want to be that you
know that level
uh you know where you go everyone really
cares and everyone really wants to be
good
is it competitive like what was it in
the movie or no
it's when you go through it's you know
it's
if anything it's more of the students
you know and then there's the instructor
side
and the instructor sides are really you
know they're guys that you know
they just chose to stay up and fallon
and it's extremely
uh difficult job uh because they have
they have a very small tolerance for um
not being good so they're briefs the
guys when they give a lecture so
let's just say there's a fighter
employment lecture which is one of the
hardest ones it takes about two days to
give the fighter employment lecture
um the guy who gives the lecture goes
through multiple what they call a murder
boards where he's scrutinized by his
peers and he practices
by the time they actually stand in front
of a class
they pretty much have their 250
powerpoint slides memorized
and they don't even turn around they
just click and they know them in order
and they repeat the same thing over it's
and it's standardized
so they are extremely extremely
standardized when you go through school
and there's a reason for that
because what they're doing is they're
training so when you come out a top gun
you're called a strike fighter weapons
and tactics instructor
okay so your sfti when you come out of
that
your job is to go usually to one of the
weapons schools on the east or west
coast and train the fleet squadrons and
then you
visit the squadrons and train and do
upgrade rides and all that so
there's a there's a reason that they are
extremely
particular when you go through the
course it's it is literally one of the
best things and it's not it's not a rank
based thing because think oh navy
you can come in as a you know like a an
o4 lieutenant commander
the lieutenants the hierarchy or at
least to be i don't know how it is
exactly today but i imagine it's the
same
the hierarchy is actually based on
seniority at the school not necessarily
ranked so when the
the tactical decisions are made which
are based on fact and
and trying things out in the fallon
ranges
uh they set this the top x number of
folks that have been there seniority
wise
is and i mean time wise uh are the ones
that actually make the decision and when
the door
you may not agree but when the door
opens and everyone comes out
from the staff they all speak the same
language
it's and it has to be that way which is
why the school has been so effective
since it was founded
so it's just a it's an incredible group
of individuals so
there's a bar of excellence that uh
that the instructors demand well very
much so and they're held to it
so it's not a hey i'm now an instructor
so i can do what i want
there is a standard and they have to
live up to that standard
they have to and i mean every moment of
every day
uh so if they go someplace if they go
from fallon and they come down and do
they're called site visits where they
come down and they'll come to la moore
california which is where the west coast
fighter wing is at for the navy
and they go around and start flying
sorties with the fleet squadrons
to kind of pass on some of that
knowledge that's that same high level of
standard it's they can't just drop your
guard
because you wear the top gun patch and
people know that and they wear light
blue shirts so it's pretty easy to
identify them when they're out there
and you know and then everyone else
who's been through the school including
them have the patch on their sleeve
so there's a standard that's expected
when you come out of there
so you're a navy pilot for 18 years yes
can you briefly tell the story of your
career
as a pilot yeah um so
you know first i was in i was enlisted i
was a marine
and then the marines actually sent me
recommended me to go to the naval
academy uh so it's always better to be
lucky than good but i got to go to naval
academy and i
finished and i've had that dream to fly
so when i got selected
they've always dreamed of flying yeah
since
1969 when i watched neil armstrong walk
on the moon
um i was at that point i asked my mom i
remember watching it i was
i was just prior to being five and i
said
wow yeah it's so cool mom and she said
well you know they were all pilots
and uh then at that point it was like
i'm gonna be a pilot and
if you knew me growing up because i was
a little bit of a delinquent um
people are just like yeah right i used
to joke i'm gonna fly
i'm gonna fly jets and i'm gonna drop
bombs then and if
people that knew me was a kid they'd be
like yeah and they'd be like not a
chance and then
when i did i actually had a funny story
and i'll get to it and i'll finish my
career but
i was at my cousin's wedding and uh we
all grew up in the same neighborhood
uh we kind of that italian side
of the family that's how we grew up so
it was my house right down the street is
my cousin chad and right around the
corner with my cousin ray and my aunts
and uncles and stuff
the guy two doors down from my and i was
a paper boy in the neighborhoods they
all knew me
and uh i went to my cousin's wedding and
he and mr race looks at me and he says
david fravor i go mr race how are you
doing you guys
you fly jets top gun and all that i go
yes sir
i guess i figured he'd be in jail by now
um
it was kind of a to me it was a little
bit of a badge of honor going on you
know i kind of overcame that but
uh what do you attribute that to so you
i've heard you before and just now i'll
say that uh it's better be
it's better to be lucky than good and
you you talk modestly about
uh about just being lucky
but if you were to describe your
trajectory
maybe in a way of advice like
retrospectively
uh how did you pull it off to be like
to be truly a special person the easiest
way is one
never never take no don't let anyone put
you down and say you can't do it or
those i mean i knew
i knew what i was capable of inside you
know and if i
really believe if you want something and
you want to do something then you
you can achieve it not in all cases like
if i loved basketball and i really
wanted to be in the nba
there's a realism that says i'm five
foot eight and i got like a really short
vertical leap but i'm really not that
good at basketball it's probably not
ever going to happen no matter how hard
i try and practice
it's just the way it is or for me to be
in the nfl
i'm not fast you know i'm not that big
it's just physically i'm incapable of
doing that
um but there's things that don't really
tie to
a true physical ability as far as size
and strength but
it's it's mental uh and i'm not saying
you have to be a genius and super smart
to be a fighter pilot matter of fact you
don't
it really comes down to the ability to
think very quickly
uh 80 solution is typically good enough
because if you overthink it
you're you're behind and then in an
air-to-air fight that's what happens
people try and overthink it
and before you know it because it's
happening so fast you don't have
you can't get to the nth degree you know
six decimal places
eighty percent solution is good enough
you build up a really strong gut for the
solution just yeah i'm a big believer in
80 percent solution i love that if you
get 80 percent
you can go and then you can always
adjust which is exactly what like if
you're fighting in bfm
the 80 solution is it's like a chess
game but it's a really really fast chess
game where you go
i'm doing this and then i know that if i
do a maneuver
if he's going to counter it correctly he
should do a
if he doesn't do a he does some degree
less like b
c d and then i know how bad his his
error is
and then i capitalize so my might i
don't have to be perfect you know i have
to go i need to go to 47 degrees nose
high
if i just kind of get above 40 then i'm
good and i can watch how he reacts and
then i can adjust for that and you
and you continually work that problem
and you chip away because if you start
neutral
you're just basically chipping away and
gaining advantage advantage advantage
till eventually
you know and if you're really you know
fighting you know just guns only rear
quarter where you got to get behind the
guy
kind of world war ii dogfighting type
stuff um
then it's it's literally it's a it's a
very very fast
chess game that happens at you know 400
knots 300 knots depends
so to get to be one of the rare
individuals that uh
are able to do that he just had the
dream
and didn't take no for an answer well
you know
you know part of it is family you know
uh
my dad was uh i used to call him a fire
ready aim guy
you know he'd smack me and then ask me
what i did wrong yeah
good parenting um back then you know i i
joke and and people look because you
know at times it was kind of tough you
know because
he can be pretty demanding but on the
other side you know i probably needed to
be
reined in a little bit at times uh but
then everyone else my family you know my
mom was really awesome when i was a kid
uh my uh my grandfather who is a big
big part of it my mom's dad uh
who he taught me a lot and you have a
question there that we'll talk about
uh about him but uh huge huge influence
very very positive
and a lot of the stuff that i do today
and decisions are based on things that
he taught me
um and uh you know and i figured
you know it was the first funeral i ever
went to and it was uh
it was about three miles long and church
was overfilling and people were out he
was a beer delivery guy
dead serious and you go there someone
asked who died the pope
um so a lot of people love them so back
to
back to my career yeah the first
question because i'm getting down on
rabbit hole uh
no i when i was at the i was gonna i was
gonna stay in the marines i really
wanted to go
man i love the core i think it's uh of
all services it's that one everything is
in a ball and they're very very
professional and it was a great great
organization to join
uh but i went out to the nimitz on my uh
freshman cruise after your freshman year
at the naval academy you go out on a
ship
and you you're an enlisted person you
get to experience that half when i
already was enlisted so it's fine with
me
because it comes up a lot would you mind
saying what the nimitz is what a ship is
like yeah so nimitz is uh an aircraft
carrier so it's
uh four and a half acres of sovereign
u.s territory that floats around the u.s
oceans does it have weapons on it
uh the air wing is really the weapons it
does have defensive weapons but for the
most part it's a giant
moving airport is what it is so i was
out there watching the airplanes land
and take off
and i'm like oh and the squadrons that
were out there one of the squadrons was
a vf-41 and a 14 squadron
vf-84 an f-14 squadron and then a couple
of a6 squadrons
and we actually ended up part pairing up
and hanging out with some of the a6
pilots and bn's so it was really a neat
experience and i said
i want to do that and the way to do it
was to not to
to go in the navy because there are
marine squadrons that go out to the
aircraft carriers but
most of them are land-based you know to
support the marines because they're
that that unit that whole unit you know
the marine corps is that one service has
it all
and so when i graduated and i got to
uh you know i worked hard through
primary and that's where
you know i knew missy uh we were
actually went through together missy
cummings
uh we went through primary together and
then uh i went to kings we all selected
the same time i went to kingsville there
was another guy scott wiedemeyer
uh the three of us so i went to
kingsville
scott went to beeville and missy went to
meridian
so the three of us that we had all went
through we got we selected out of
primary together we all ended up going
jets
and that's that's how besides from
school i knew her at school too
the long story i got done uh got winged
it took me two years to the day from the
time i graduated the naval academy until
i got my wings
and uh through some luck i ended up
getting asics's
on the west coast which is a
side-by-side bomber so it's a pilot on
the left seat and the bombardier
navigators on the right seat it was
built in the 60s
it is all weather and it flies low at
night it's got a terrain mapping radar
how many i guess is that a good term to
use fighter jets as a broad category for
for the public yeah that's probably how
many fighter jets are side by side like
that
that was uh in the navy that was the
only one the
air force the f-111 was a side-by-side
but the navy it was the a6 and then
there's the ea6b which is a derivative
of
that and now that those are all gone the
a6b's just went away a few years ago and
now the
e18g growler is the replacement for the
a6b
there was never a replacement for the a6
that i flew
it really became the f-18 which the a6
could
go quite a bit further distance wise by
fuel
than the hornet and uh the horn is the
f-18 yeah is there usually two people
in the plane but they're usually like in
front and behind
in a the modern two-seaters yes uh but
most of the tactical airplanes in the
world today are single seat
so you can see just one person one
person with the exception of
i'll probably someone will yell at me
but really with the exception of the
f-15e strike eagle
and the f-18f super hornet which is the
f is a two-seater
and the g is also a two-seater but it's
more of an electronic attack by say
full-up fighter bomber so most of the
time that you've flown
in your like i said 18-year career
is was it two-seater i was about half
and half so i started off an a6 was a
two-seater
then i went to single-seat f-18s and i
flew those
all the way up until 2000 and
let me think 2001 to the end of 2001
and then i shifted over and started
flying the super hornets and i've flown
both of those the ease and the s but i
deployed when i had command of vfa41
i had the two seat they were f squadron
so you
eventually ended up commanding
the the strike fighter squadron
i love the the name the black aces what
uh
is there some parts of that
journey that are amazing parts of it
that are tough that kind of stand out
to me it was one it was a huge honor uh
and i got to serve with uh you know i
got pulled up because the the guy who
the the people that are exos because we
fleet up you go from the number two guy
to the number one guy
so the exo becomes the ceo so the
executive officer becomes the commanding
officer
so i had worked with uh now
soon to be vice admiral weitzel uh was
the
he was commander whitefield at the time
was the exo and he
really wanted because he knew there was
a little bit of a problem when the super
hornets came into lamore
lamore had been a single seat fighter
community
since the forever and now all of a
sudden you've got the f-18f coming in
which has the weapon systems operators
in the back
that are not pilots they're weapon
systems operators and there's a
difference
and kenny is a weapon systems operator
and uh
kenny knew because of my a6 background
that i have a switch that i can go one
seat 2c1 c2c because when you fly 2c
there's a lot of stuff that the pilot
will offload and
take the advantage of the weapon systems
operator and it's not that one plus one
equals two in that environment because
it really
there's a huge amount of capabilities
that the single seat has and the
autonomy that
comes for the ability to make decisions
quickly and how well the airplane flies
but it does it does equal more than one
and i would say
that one plus one with two people as
well as a minimum of 1.5
because you've got an extra head you've
got extra eyes you've got someone that
can monitor systems the airplanes can do
two things at once i mean there's an
incredible amount of capability that we
add when we do that
can we just pause on that just for me
from like a human factors perspective
and also an
ai perspective what's
how difficult uh so there's like when
there's two people
there's also a third person that's the
ai part there's some level of automation
like autopilot maybe
that's correct maybe you can kind of
talk about the psychology of like
you said making decisions really quick
how do you deal with another brain
working with you
and then also the automation is there
interesting
interplay that you get to learn and also
as that change throughout your career i
imagine it got
gotten better in terms of the automation
or perhaps not
well i can tell you so that let's say
there's a bunch of stars this is no this
is this is good this is good
and this is i'm enjoying this because
now we actually get to talk about
something other than a tic tac so
um so let's start with the a6 the a6 was
really an
analog airplane that was built in the
60s
all right and there's been studies done
on the crew coordination which is the
interaction between the pilot and the
bombardier navigator
so we would fly low at night in the
mountains so
i was stationed up in whidbey island
washington so you've got the cascades
and
incredible uh amount of time and we
would get in the simulators because
unlike
normally people think terrain following
and there's the radars the 111 the b1
has a system like this but it'll
the radar can see and it'll fly it
basically flies a straight line so it
goes up and over mountains and back down
and up and over mountains where the a6
was really manual so you do this
low-level routes where you're gonna
you're gonna fly in the mountains at
night you're gonna be at
you know 500 to 1000 feet above the
ground ripping through
like fog layers because you don't need
to see outside you're
you're literally flying a little tv
screen and a radar what are you looking
at most of the time so you just as a
screen it's this really
primitive if you look at it now what we
did you'd think wow that was crazy
but it was really fun so is it similar
to like the flair stuff
is that is no are you is it this thing
is totally radar based now the airplane
had a flear ball
it's a target recognition and
multi-sensor it's called a tram
um you're looking at like basically like
dots of hard objects no actually what it
is is the
the bombardier navigator had a radar and
he was getting raw feed off of a pulse
radar in front
okay so it's just basically mapping the
mountain so if you look at a mountain on
a radar and you're coming up on it
the front side is going to be it's going
to give you a really bright return and
on the back side it's just going to be a
giant shadow
because you can't see on the other side
so the bomb of your navigators would do
that and we they would have charts and
they could
shade their charts knowing that hey if
we turn a little bit left here we can
get in this valley we can sneak up this
valley and then go around the back side
of the mountain
which is what the airplane would do and
so and sorry to interrupt
i'm going to just keep asking dumb
questions i apologize but
the pilot can you can you at a high
level say
what the pilot does versus the bomb
bombardier uh
so you're you're actually just control
i'm flying the jet i have the throttles
the stick and i have a
uh it's about a probably a
four inch or six inch wide by maybe
four inches five inches high it looks
like it's literally a crt
that's how old it is a crt screen and
what it would do what the radar would do
is
the the the bombardier navigator is
looking at his radar and he's looking
out about 12 and a half miles in front
of the airplane
so he has the range really scoped down
because the radar can see a lot further
he's looking at about 12 and a half
miles when we're in the terrain mode
where we're dodging mountains and stuff
and what the pilot has is there's
they're called range bins and there's
eight of them
so the very far range bin is the 12 and
a half mile
you know and the closest range been it's
a thing and it'll be like between like a
half a mile
and or a quarter mile to three quarters
of a mile the next one might be three
quarters of a mile to two miles
and then it just keeps going out like
that so if there's a mountain for let's
say we're on a flat plain
and there's a mountain out in the
distance at 15 miles and we we're just
driving right at it
so when we get to the point where it
hits 12 and a half miles where the radar
is going to see it on his scope
my 12th my range bin for that would pop
up and it would show like a big bump
like a mountain
and then as i got closer to it the next
arrangement would pop up and show it
and i could see that that bump was
moving towards me and then if i turned a
little bit
you know to go over here i'd see the
mountain go over to the right hand side
and i could do that but it wasn't like a
video game it was it's literally like
if you think of the original ataris yeah
but you build up i imagine
that you start to get uh a really deep
sense
of like the actual three 3d environment
based on that little atari's it's solid
you're exactly right and you have to
you have to train so there's been
studies a matter of fact a lot of the
basis
and people probably argue with me but
it's true there were studies done
watching asics crews in our simulators
we called it the wist
the weapon systems trainer and it was
not even a motion it just kind of sat
there and
you just you could fly these things they
had terrain that they would inject into
the system
uh but the crew coordination so you get
so my first
uh my first fleet bombardier navigator
who who
i'll name him his name's crusado uh he's
uh
works at apple uh pretty high up bro mit
grad
i think computer engineering he's scary
smart
so chris could really work and matter of
fact all the guys that flew us so
there's another guy matt who also worked
at apple who's now at sap we did our
first night traps together
the bond between us i mean it's one of
those things that you just you're never
going to forget but chris and i when we
started flying together we were actually
the most junior crew
in the squadron uh we'd spent a lot of
time
training and and and chris was amazing
at how he could work the system
uh one because he was extremely
brilliant and he was
had that inquisitive mind of oh we could
do all these different things and
there's all these
degradation modes but we spent a lot of
time
to see how good we could actually get
because and it's
you almost talk in partial so as the bn
is looking at his radar scope
chris would say i've got rising terrain
that's just what they say
showing rising terrain at 12 miles and
i'd see the little bump and i'd say
got it this is going to go to your
question on the autonomy and how you
work with two heads
yes so when you first get together the
interaction it's
it's it's almost like you have to
rehearse it you have to know
and you talk in full senses the more and
more
we fly together chris could go
i'm showing and he'd get like rising out
and before he finished i'd say i've got
it
so you end up starting to talk in
partials because
i have to trust him like
i mean there can be no i can have no
doubt that he knows how to do his job
because i'm literally looking at this
little scope that's not giving me this
continuous picture of that mountain
moving remember the mountain's here
and then it's going to pop up here and
then it's going to pop up here because
there's gaps in the coverage on how the
system was set up remember it's an
analog system
to where he is telling me like i can't
see all the way to the left and he
he's got a wider scope on the radar but
my screen doesn't show that
so he's telling me start a left turn how
to avoid a hard turn
you know and we would do that so my
channel this is all happening quick
very quick well you're doing we we would
typically fly between 420 and 480 knots
of ground 70 miles an hour uh well 427
miles a minute
okay or eight months between seven and
eight miles a minute is what you're
flying as fast
at night i mean i broke out of clouds i
mean i remember him and i flying
we're on it's the ir it's called an ir
route uh an
instrument route that's low they're all
around the country there's ir344 that we
used to fly which would coast in off of
or you'd fly from the land you go out
over the ocean turn around and then you
could practice actually coming in on a
coastline
and we were flying and we ended up in
the clouds
keep in mind we're between 500 and 1000
feet in the mountains and we're in the
clouds like
you can't see anything and it had to
turn off our red lights that flash you
know they're called the anti-collision
lights
because it was reflecting off the clouds
and it starts to bother you just gets
annoying
so i turned it off and we we're flying
we're flying we're flying we break out
of that coastal marine layer
and poof we break out and it's it's a
decent night and this is right by mount
st
helens this is kind of where we're
coming in so we're coming in from the
east and we're just north of mount st
helens is where the route goes
and you look up you know because you can
kind of see the silhouette of this
mountain that's right next to you but
you're flying along you're just like you
know you gotta trust
and you can see houses you can see the
lights they're above you we're literally
below people's houses flying down these
valleys and stuff so just
incredible experience so when you take
that and then you move into
an f-18f so now we're into modern
technology that was actually built in
this century
uh uh and you're flying so now you know
the wizzo is behind us and we're not
doing those night low levels but that
same type of crew coordination
that has to happen because what you're
doing is
you're sharing the load so most of the
communications that go out of the
airplane the wizzo does all the talk and
he's got actually he uses
the feet that's the weapon systems
operator in the back of an f-18f
so he's going to run well the radar kind
of runs itself now
but we have a situational awareness
display and it's it's linked to all the
other errors just like curiosity what's
the situational awareness display
because that term comes up a lot think
of it as uh think of it as a god's eye
view
so if you have a the back of the super
hornet has well the block twos has about
an eight by ten display for the wizzos
um that they can look at the pilots is
smaller it's down between us it's a six
by six between his legs and they're
they're getting ready to redesign that
boeing is but
when you look it'd be like if you put
your airplane and you're looking down so
all the stuff like if your radar seeing
bad guys out in front of you be like
looking down going oh i'm right here and
now there's bad guys out here
and my wingman is over here and it shows
everything it's just like
it gives you you can look at that
display and go oh okay
i can see where everything's at i can
see if one guy's trying to target
another guy
it shows you all this it's an incredible
amount of knowledge that comes up
for the crews to maintain uh
the the overall picture of what's going
on big picture sense of what's going on
because it's happening so fast
and this is with that autonomy piece
this is the third brain so we're all
looking at it and the third brain is
doing fusion
it's pulling stuff together going oh
this is all this guy this is this guy
this this guy it's sending it out
through the link so all the airplanes
are talking to each other through this
digital network
you know that we don't even see it just
says that airplane says hey i'm over
here and it tells us and we go oh he's
right there
and then we can go he's his airplane
says oh i'm looking at this airplane
this bad guy and it shows us oh he's
he's over there and he's looking at this
guy i mean it's an incredible
amount of uh visual intake because your
eye
you can hear a lot but when you look
down at stuff it's uh you know you can
solve the picture
really quick the third brain is doing
the
sensor fusion uh the integration of the
different sensors and gives you a big
picture view
what about the control like is there and
i apologize
as if this is a dumb question but you
know people use the high level term
of autopilot how much is there
let's use a loose term of ai how much
automation is there how much ai is there
in
helping you control there um the ai
piece would be more of a control loop
because the digital flight controls so
the airplane actually
they had to make the airplane easier to
fly and when i say easy it's relative
because people go i could do it because
i did it on flight sim
it's real life is a lot different in
flight sim you have no apparent fear of
death
you'll do things in simulator that you
would never do in real life but
uh the the autonomy in the airplane to
allow you to manage
i mean because you think about it you've
got a radar that's feeding you data
you've got a targeting pod that's
feeding you data all that stuff is
hooked to your head
because you've got a joint helmet
mounted queuing system on that basically
maps the magnetic field in the cockpit
so it can tell where your heads at
looking
so if i turn my head to the right the
radar will actually look to the right
the targeting flare will look to the
right
and oh by the way the backseater has a
helmet on too so he can look to the left
and he can do things so depending on
what sensor he's controlling
so if he's got control of the targeting
pod and he looks left the targeting pod
looks
left but if i have something where i
want to lock a guy up that i don't see
that maybe the radar didn't see but i
can get over and now point the radar you
know get the
because it's a it's a phase array radar
now it doesn't really scan
uh there's there's all kinds of cool
stuff that uh
that technology uh brings because if you
just if you went back 30 years and said
hey
or 40 years ago and said hey we're gonna
have this helmet and you're gonna be
able to slew everything to your head
and i don't mean a mechanical setup but
i mean literally you're just gonna map
magnetic resonance and go oh look and
then i can i can literally slew my
sensors this fast
and then mash a button and transfer you
know
high quality coordinates from a system
into a joint
you know a jdam which is a joint direct
attack munition that is the gps bombs
that you see all the time
and then let that thing fly and i'm i'm
solving this problem
in seconds by minutes or hey i got it
we're gonna have to menstruate
coordinates and
you know you bring back the data and
then they do all the targeting for it
and then they send another group out to
get it
instead of all that now it's that fast
so there's a
okay i mean we probably don't have
enough time to talk about the beautiful
fusion of mines that happens when two
people are flying
controlling the plane but at a high
level this is a really
interesting question for people who
don't know what they're talking about
like me
which is what is the difference between
a human being
and an ai system like
what can what is the ceiling of a
current
ai technology for controlling the plane
like how much
does the human contribute uh is it
possible to have
automated flight for example like what
is
the hardest part about flying
that a human does expertly that an ai
system cannot
in warfare situations in in
flying a fighter jet lane so i would say
systems are usually black and white when
you write the algorithm for an ai system
it's it's it's it's really it's
basically you're taking
thought and turning it into a giant math
problem is really what you're doing
right so you've got this logical math
problem math problems are
there's there's there's a line it says i
can or i can't and it's a it's a very
finite line
you know but you can go up to the line
where a human
we all have gray areas where we go
maybe yeah i'll try it um so he just can
operate within that gray so if you took
if you take an airplane and say and i'll
just take a hornet for a while a super
horn it doesn't matter any airplane
and you go here is the flight
performance model of the airplane so
if you know an uh an em diagram is the
energy so it basically says
the airplane can fly as slow as this it
can go as fast as this it can pull this
many
g's force of gravity you know so one two
three four five six seven
and then based on the airfoil design and
everything else and how it can pull
here's how it's going to fly you know
because it's really physics based
well if you depending on how you write
the ai but typically ai you don't want
the airplane to leave controlled flight
right you want to maintain it so that it
is flying in a controlled envelope
or there are times and you can go back
to world war one
where people intentionally departed the
airplane from controlled flight
in order to obtain an advantage which is
that's where the human
goes can i do this i know it's outside
of where i would normally go
but i can do that so you can do some
crazy things now especially since the
flight control logic
in modern airplanes with digital flight
controls
they're extremely forgiving so you can
literally i've done things in super
hornets that
literally even as a pilot inside the
airplane you're just like wow i cannot
believe it just did that
like it'll flop ends which defies most
logic and i guess
you know in a way you could probably
program it but i still think that when
you get to the edges
that may or may not give you an
advantage um
there are things that a human can will
do
that ai won't and i don't think we've
got to the point because
how do you how do you map illogical
solutions
you know most ai is logical it's based
on some type of premise when you write
the algorithm to control it
um there's bounds yeah there's this
giant mess like you said the difference
between the
simulator and real life also gets at
that somehow that there is uh
somehow the the fear of death all of
that
beautiful mess comes into play like is
there
a comment you can make on commercial
flight
like with sully landing
uh that plane famously uh versus the
simulator all of those discussions is
there some
well it's it's very it's very similar
what i was talking about earlier with
the a6 so
one is when you're flying with a crew uh
their standardization
so you gotta remember when sully flew
when his first officer that's the
co-pilot
showed up you know first time they met
and this happens all the time in the
commercial world you know there's
six seven thousand pilots at united
airlines you know your chance of flying
with the same guy all the time is slim
and none we're in the navy
we were crude so i had a primary and a
secondary wizzo that flew with me
for a while for months oh hell yeah for
like all of the deployment
so because you want to use you have to
trust
all of those things it increases the
capability airplane it's not to say we
can't swap
out but for true effectiveness
especially in very complex missions like
a
forward air controller we're in the air
actually controlling ground assets and
supporting ground troops
if you're in a high threat area which is
crazy busy
you have to you have to be melded when
you do that you have to have trained to
do that job otherwise you're going to be
ineffective
so when you get to the commercial world
and i've got
tons of friends at fly commercial there
is a standardization
like we know that at this point i'm
going to put this switch you're going to
do that and everyone
they know their rules captain's going to
do this first officer's going to do this
and they know that when the emergency
breaks out so in sully's case
when they take the birds and they know
they've got a problem and if you've
listened to the cockpit recordings of
him the two of them talking
you know you gotta remember they're
talking to each other when you hear the
full tapes but they're also talking to
the air traffic controllers in the new
york area
and it's like we got a bird strike and
the first officer already knows hey
silence the alarm they silence the alarm
the first officer is pulling out the
book he's going through the procedures
while sully's actually flying the
airplane knowing that they've lost their
motors and you got to think his decision
process like they're trying to get him
to go into an airport into new jersey
and he realizes not happening we're
going to put this thing and he made a
decision soon enough
so that he could prepare everyone on the
airplane that he was going to put this
thing in the hudson river
and he did it flawlessly i mean every
single person walked away from that
wreck the only thing that didn't survive
was the airplane you know and it got
fished out of the hudson but
um what is it about those human
decisions he had to make
is that something you put into words or
is that just
deep down some instinct that you develop
as a pilot over time it's when we
when you train uh you know an aviation
is a self-cleaning oven so if you make
bad decisions
you're you know and the list is long and
distinguished of those who have died by
making bad decisions
oh man um so when you look at what he
did or the way we train because the the
commercial industry and
the navy and the air force for all that
we have what's called we have emergency
procedures
that we have to know like engines on
fire the first three steps you just have
to know what they are
right so they know the airline uh same
type you know they go hey i know this is
they pull the book out because the
airplanes are designed they're built to
have some time
but there's a point where you have to
make a decision and you can't
second-guess it so when he decided i'm
putting this in the hudson river
he couldn't all of a sudden halfway
through it go well maybe i can get over
to that airport
he he looked he made a quick assessment
this is that 80
solution where you go these are not i'm
you know it's
like a multiple choice test when you go
oh my god i don't really know the answer
but i know a and d
are wrong yeah gone so the jersey
airport and going back to laguardia gone
yeah so what's my next option well the
hudson river's there and that's probably
looking pretty good or what is my other
one
can i get a restart on the the motors
and then if i can get a restart now can
i take it someplace else
he had to make really really fast
decisions and then once they as they
they go that 80 solution you realize all
right i'm going into the hudson
there's the 80 percent get the book out
let's see if we can get an error star
because if you listen to the tapes
they're trying to get it air started
the closer he gets to the water the more
he's going i'm ditching the airplane
so the original decision to this is my
best option right now
this is where i'm going and you start
eliminating anything that could possibly
change
the events which they tried to do and
then he gets to that last minute says
we're going in the water
they change the plan they secure the
airplane they do exactly what they're
doing and he does that basically
flawless landing on the
on the hudson but you got to remember
every s it's every six months for
commercial they go back and they do
research in the airplane in the
simulator where they train to
the airplane being broken you just lost
a motor you just lost another motor
so they go through this extensive
training you know
and all these and it's you know you know
we used to refer to it in the navy as
the pain cave where you're gonna get in
because you know
that when you get in for your check ride
in a simulator that the airplane is
going to break
you're going to lose hydra and it's
sometimes there a problem like oh i just
lost this hydraulic system but i'm
having an issue on the other motor well
if i shut down this motor
and i've got a hydraulics you know
because there's two hydraulic systems
one on each motor
well if i've got an issue with the left
motor hydraulic system and my right
motor is starting to give me indications
do i want to shut the right motor down
because that's going to kill my
hydraulic system that's good
and now i'm flying on a good motor with
a bad hydraulic system and without
hydraulics the airplane won't fly so
they
it's a really they're challenging
problems that you have to think through
in real time and of course the weather's
never good it's always dark
it's always crappy you're going to break
out it i mean it's just all this stuff
gets compiled on top of you
and it's intended to increase the level
of stress
because when things happen like in
sully's case we like to joke it's going
to stem power
you know where the functional part of
your brain shuts down and you are
literally on instinct like an animal
well if you've trained so much that that
is the instinctive reaction that you're
going to have
when the main part of your your your
cognitive abilities start to shut down
your you're running that instinct is
ingrained so much into you that you know
exactly what to do
and that's literally how it happens so
there's no
how do i put it fear of death like in
sully's case
do you think he was at all ever thinking
about the fact if his decision is wrong
a lot of people are going to die
you know i can't speak for him but i
would say there was so much going on in
the cockpit in that time
his his mindset was probably
i can do this i'm trained i'm going to
do the procedures i've practiced this
before
i've done these things and you know i'm
assuming that in his mindset because i
never thought about when things were
really bad you know if you're having
problems with the airplane that
you know that i was going to mort you
know and and planted into the ground it
was always
you know maybe it's an ego thing where
you think i can do this i mean
so you never have you experienced fear
during flight like um
i mean one one way who just offline
mentioning mike tyson
he talked about like uh as he's uh
walking up to the ring he's like
he starts out basically in fear
and uh yeah worried about how things are
going to go i mean it's
purely to put in towards his fear but as
he gets closer and closer to the ring is
the confidence grows and grows until the
ego basically takes over to where you
think there's no way
anybody could uh defeat me
so like that's that's his experience of
overcoming fear but
do you uh did you experience any