173 - "There I was…" Fighter Pilot Legacy with "Guido"

and then he went back like this the flight lead and so I was I was way sucked and so I just I just put in the blower to kind of get back into position so put in a blower and then I tried to take it out of blower and it was just stuck right thanks yeah the throttle's just full blower you know you start pulling back and I'm like okay this obviously something wrong and I don't want to break something right so how hard do I pull and I start doing the negative G in the positive G and you know just shaking it all up and you know first telling him as I'm starting to go by my egg Guido lead right all right [Music] hello and welcome to the fighter pilot podcast I'm your host Vincent ILO call sign Jello and joining me in studio today is retired US Navy Captain Jim dimatteo he flew the A4 the F5 the F-14 16 and 18. he's an aviation Hall of Famer and just an all-around great guy Guido welcome to the show thanks Jello all-around great guy that's usually not in the intro but thank you very much all right well then let me uh do that one better you've got a real pain in my ass to get in this studio mister I know I apologize but I'm glad I'm here so thank you for having me I'm looking forward to it well let's see it was my Airline schedule it was uh Attack of the Killer African bees it was your schedule it was 100 things it was but here we are so yeah water under the bridge and no Bees which is good yeah I almost didn't want to get out of the car to come to your door to get you because I thought they might get me anyway all right well um yeah I mean your background is amazing that's why I've been looking so forward to getting you here in the studio to talk about that and really sometimes I just start off with oh where are you from what'd you do and then we get onto the subject but you are the subject Guido so uh I guess I mean let's start at the beginning you come from somewhat dare I say a legacy of military aviators starting with your dad well uh yeah thanks for having me here and uh that's that's a great uh intro in the sense of I find myself extremely lucky to be part of a family that's been involved in aviation not only Aviation but Naval Aviation specifically I wore this shirt to today in honor of my pops uh because he was one of the original Sundowners way back in uh in World War II um he uh he's my idol as a as a human being as a father as a parent as a husband as a naval officer and as a Naval aviator um still fortunate to have him with us he's about to turn 102 years old so he's got those good old Italian uh strong genes um I don't know if I inherited all of it but I hope uh I hope some of it and so feel extra incredibly fortunate to to still be with uh have him still be with us uh he was a career Naval aviator was 30 plus year years he started out in like I said in World War II uh when uh when it all went down and the U.S got involved he was a tail gunner in a TBM in Miami and just out of high school they all kind of went in and when things started getting bad and so he was a tail Gunner and then sure enough the uh the way uh unfortunately there was a lot of mishaps and a lot of casualties uh there at the beginning not not only from combat but just trying to get everybody up to speed and flying uh these new fighter type airplanes and so it was leaving a lot of openings for pilots and so his Pilot who is a lieutenant that he was the Gunner for in the TBM said you need to sign up for this program it's called the V5 program and so he went in as an enlisted kid to uh to the program and um his first CQ on the USS Wolverine which was a paddle boat on Lake Michigan wow yeah back in the the crazy days and then went zinging off to uh the Sundowners uh in in the Pacific they were stationed in Kahului which is if you fly into Maui you've probably flown into Maui airport that used to be called Network station Naval outlying Airfield I think Kahului so it was outside of Ford islands kind of kind of approach and he flew uh hellcats and Bearcats before the Sundowners back then uh and then came back uh got stationed at uh had to go to college then so uh well we have this incredible story about we found his diary just a few years ago and uh one of his entries in his diary is uh yeah I have to go back to college it's a little College in South Bay of San Francisco it's called Stanford uh and so he flew out of Moffett Airfield okay and then uh that's where I met my mom and fast forward we have uh six brothers and sisters my brother's also a Naval aviator uh was a Prowler A6 Guy and um older than me and uh big influence on my life as well on getting me into Naval Aviation but uh so that's uh the history and Heritage and Legacy of uh the demateo aviators but uh I I feel incredibly fortunate and he uh he started uh he was with the Sundowners Squadron and so I was fortunate enough uh when I was Skipper of vfc 13 we ended up starting a permanent Detachment down in Key West and then cnaf at the time Commander Naval Air Forces and my CAG said hey we have to come up with a name for the Squadron down in Key West and so I kind of pitched a couple different examples I was this commanding officer at the time pitched a couple different examples and or suggestions and said you know it'd be kind of cool with Sundowners one you know Duval Street and Key West as a very they're famous for their Sunset additionally it was the most prolific best Fighter Squadron on the West in the Pacific Fleet uh for a long time that a great group of people that were former Sundowners so they had a strong Alumni Association and oh by the way my dad was part of the first one so it'd be kind of cool if his son was part to resurrected it and uh cnaf at the time vice admiral zortman said that sounds great and so we were able to call it vfc 111 and now the Sundowners are back back alive and well is there any controversy dare I even ask Guido around the name because right it's a little bit non-politically correct the idea was that the Land of the Rising Sun who we were in battle with in the 40s was kind of based on that yeah that's uh I guess I don't know times have changed a little bit I have this great uh uh drinking shirt from my father in 1945 it's hanging in the ready room down in the Sundowners right now um there are some it was different they were in war at the time and the Rising Sun wanted to take over the world and they in their Squadron of of young fighter pilots they called it said Killers all and they said uh if you're taking over the the world you have to come through us we're gonna down the Rising Sun and that's where the Sundowners came from uh and Admiral once when I made the name change um down in Key West he said this was called the Sundowners because the men worked from sun up to sundown the men and women were from sun up to sundown in the Squadron and uh one of my good memories was my dad coming up son you know and he goes I don't care how many stars are on your shoulder it doesn't give you the right to change history yeah because we were called the Sundowners because we were stopping the Rising Sun and he goes in if uh he goes if we worked from sun up to sundown we'd call that a half a day and there are no damn women in our Squadron so that was my dad's little thing so Politically Incorrect sorry we're starting off that one I know sorry I brought it up it was uh well the world has changed and now we have this feeling like we're supposed to be sorry for all these things that happen but right like you said I mean that was Japanese imperialism we're friends now and that's good but at the time they were conquering basically most of the Pacific and kill or be killed and so they were warriors back then and you and I have a great appreciation most aviators do uh you know we stand on the shoulders of the Giants that came before us and uh I'm fortunate one of them is was my father but your father all our fathers and and mothers and uncles and all those those individuals uh really paved the way for our freedoms today and so um was everything politically correct no but they won and now we're here in the free and alive so yeah well I appreciate you mentioning it my father was a foot soldier in Europe yeah he was in Patton's third Army wow that at the thought at the battle of the Bulge wow and see he had yeah he didn't like to talk about it after so we didn't get very many stories but we weren't as close as it sounds like you are is your dad local he at Walnut Creek San Francisco Bay Area uh and he never it was interesting he my whole life he never said anything about any of this stuff and then occasionally as a as a Naval aviator I would say holy cow this happened to me today and he'd say it key a memory and he wasn't trying to outdo me but he'd be like because I I'll never forget the F-14 we had this uh at night this little uh red filter that went over the instrument panel to kind of give it the the night vision not as fancy as it is stuff today so you had to put this on and we tape it up and so I take this catch on off the front of the the ship and this filter comes back into my lap bright green I get blinded I over rotate coming off the the cat good thing we had GE engines in the Tomcat there uh probably would have stalled just I couldn't see anything I just wanted to get away from the ground um and so I uh of course I say to my dad later on I'm like yeah man this was just crazy got this cat shot this happened I was scared of course this is I'm I don't know 35 30 years old and it's the first time he goes I remember when I uh I got a cold it was right when they first started these cat types and and they yeah and it was like a hammer getting hit and it broke something and in the engine and he just at night he was a night fighter on one of his cruises and he was in a Corsair and he just it just yeah and he's like I know I felt kind of bad that that I was complaining about a little bit of green light and he goes uh because they would fly with it to do their the launch um with their canopy open just in case something like this happened and he hit the water and survived and he got out and he had his May West and he kind of you know a little obviously some Shock and he kind of gets out of the plane and he's like I lived and then he turns around and he sees you know the carrier bearing down bearing down on him and uh you know fortunately they did the little oh thank goodness you know turn and you know got out of his way and then uh the little starboard D the helicopter came over picked him up brought him back uh to the carrier and uh crazy enough that this is they said they brought him back and you know the the skipper everybody met him the doc and everything and he was 100 fine and they knew what the issue was and they had him go change and go back out and meet the yeah meet because they do like six hour oh my God missions on these these night fighter missions uh so yeah it made my little filter thing seem kind of a little bit that was the drama that you had to just you didn't know what to compare it to my goodness so you already talked about flying the F-14 let's get to that but let's fill in the Gap so did you know you wanted to be a pilot because your dad and then what was the course you took to get there I uh and I really respect this and I'm trying to do this with my son uh and daughter but basically my son right now who's uh a freshman in UCLA thank you uh go Bruins and he um so my dad my older brother so my dad was an evil Aviator my older brother became a Naval aviator and both of them went out of their way not to put pressure on me to do that if I chose that path then so be it and they would support it but there was no great Santini you know finger in the chest trying to push me to go do that um and I really respect that and I'm carrying through with that same thing with uh with my son Nico if they want to do it like you with your kids we'll be there in full support but there's no pressure to do that and uh and so my brother was older than me and he came and we have a place up in Montana and again this is probably um I don't it doesn't matter now but he so he came and did a little air show across on Flathead Lake and you know kind of he was in A6 at the time so they just buzzed around and did some stuff and I just remember as a young high school kid at the time looking up going like holy cow I want to do that and the one piece of information my dad did suggest which I carry into my life is it's better to have tried something that you potentially want to do and fail if that's the word or not pursue that then never to have tried and then regret for the rest of your life not trying to do something and so with that I went to I did not do Roxy or anything like that he said uh just kind of keeping the because he wanted to be an aviator and if Aviation didn't work I didn't necessarily want to go down another path um and so that that took me into aocs and went there and that's where it all kind of started so well I think you make a good point and I hope if there are any parents out there watching or listening that they take this to heart because this as you know or I don't have to tell you but for everyone else this job is so difficult and there's so much hard work and so many sacrifices being away from family and the risk to your own life if you don't want to do it for yourself I don't think you're going to escape because it's you got to really it's got to be internal it can't be externalized on you yeah 100 yeah I think you probably get a lot of these questions sue a lot of kids come and ask me about in the abbreviation especially in the college world is like should I go the academy you know and I'm like all those I'm happy to talk to you but it's got to be you don't do it for your mom and your dad or your uncle your grandpa because they'll wash you out if it's not your own gut your own grit that's going to get you through you won't make it and then you'll regret it and you don't you don't want it to go down that path so um yeah I credit my father for uh being a good Dad I'm trying to follow in that and keep the pressure off my kid yeah anything some pressure but anyhow because I don't think any of the three of mine are going to do it that I can tell right now it's interesting I because I literally just finished his freshman year a week ago right because uclas on quarters and he um he gets asked all the time by my friends right and our our Collective friends uh hey are you gonna do this and he kind of is like I don't know maybe and that being said what I told them was like hey go go to college go have fun go learn Chase your dream and if your dream ends up being Aviation for sure I can help at that point but there's no pressure to steer it that way but if it ends up going down that path of course you know we'll be able to uh to reach out and touch some stuff and I think um I told you before so this summer is actually a pretty cool Aviation kind of related internship if you will for him with Red Bull Aviation with uh the Breitling from Breitling jet team with Arizona and a bunch of stuff that we're doing so maybe it's a bug you caught the bug I caught the bug um maybe he catches it maybe he doesn't it's whatever he wants to do he has his own path through life and it may not look anything like yours but it could just like yours did for your dad that's cool so you went to Berkeley and got to aocs did well there went to flight school did well there did you select the F-14 straight out of the training command I did it was a fortunate uh uh at the time uh that movie was that movie called Iron Eagle I already go that's exactly what it was uh the Top Gun had just come out okay so um it was uh it was let's just say it was a pretty powerful movie for a young little Ensign going through flight school and so fortunately I had a situation where I could could choose it it was interesting because they were just selecting when I was going through they just started some F-18 slots and um that sounds like I'm arrogant here but but it's good and bad to be at the top because you could you have you get your choice but then you also blame yourself if you choose poorly right there's some benefit to having some happenstance happen and so I remember asking my brother and I'll never forget his input as he said I said should I go Tomcats or Hornets and he said um well they it goes if I were you I'd pick f-14s in San Diego he goes at most You're Gonna Fly one hour a day that means you're going to spend 23 hours a day in San Diego in San Diego in wherever you are yeah and he goes I'd much rather spend 23 hours a day in San Diego than in Lemoore sorry no offense to anybody but that was his guidance to me and I said sounded good and so picked Tomcats And came out to people who watch or listen to this show are I think a small sample of the general population which just seemed to love the tomcat and we had a whole spin-off podcast about it the F-14 tomcast I think you were on a show called what Comcast Tales I mean everybody loves the F-14 was it as fun as it seemed or at least it was well you know your your first jet where you get out to the feet your first jet I probably know more about I still know more about that Jet right now than any of the other Jets I've flown because when you're that student that first jet you know it absolutely inside and out because there's so much pressure on you to do everything um it was the way I describe it I've been fortunate to fly these five other fighter jets uh the way I always make my analogy with the Tomcat is it's like the Harley-Davidson just big it's badass it's loud it's you know was it was it the best in combat I don't know we didn't but it was cool just to fly and it just was like it felt like you were just coming around in a Harley Davidson where the F-16 is kind of more like a Ferrari and the Hornets I don't know a Corvette or something but it's like a Harley-Davidson and so um it was a lot of fun I got to fly we came in and um it just turned to the f-14b the GE engine so I went through the rag with the Pratt Whitney engines and then went straight to vf211 the checkmates and we were fighting uh are flying with the the 14b the engines that were GE and they had uh their mod it took a little while to retrofit everything and so what ended up happening was they um they limited our ability to go to the aircraft carrier for a while because they did they want we had to flare our Landings so we're kind of like we called this TFS uh 211 for a while because and we did a lots of detachable Fighter Squadron yeah because the Air Force version um or Skipper at the time you might remember them uh bad Bob Dan McCourt Top Gun bro and he uh also did an exchange with the uh Nellis guys uh back in the day and so he was like hey we are bogies for hire and so we for a whole year we just went from a Detachment Detachment Detachment as the f-14b you know simulating the MiG-29 back then uh I think we were we're doing so it was a blast though it was a lot of fun uh it was hard because it was not digital flight control the engines are so far apart that any type of you know line aircraft carrier Landings were hard especially at night um uh you didn't have a lot of room for uh for air uh in size uh the engines were nice and responsive we had this thing called DLC which because you'd get a little nervous or a little amped up and it would easily be able to over control your power and uh it was pretty instantaneous power and so you're jamming on the DLC but uh yeah there was a it was it was a wonderful jet to fly and Miramar was fantastic and so I just I felt very fortunate and I give my brother credit still to this day like yep you steered me in the right direction yeah well as I remember uh direct lift control I think it was was just something that kind of came up and spoiled some of the lift exactly Rings a little roller on you so you didn't go to the boat initially but you finally did go and did you end up deploying in it I would assume oh yeah absolutely yeah we went to Desert Storm that's we ended up that's where uh my first uh real cruise on the Nimitz uh to Desert Storm so um yeah that was our uh and our sister Squadron was vf24 at the time so we went out we had a brand new two F-18 squadrons new Prowlers new E2 you know it was a state of the art at the time yeah um uh Air Wing So the F-14 in Desert Storm not to go on a huge tangent here didn't get a lot of action because it wasn't quite in the bomb cap business yet plus the Air Force in the Navy hadn't figured out how to play well together yet and it was sort of an Air Force show 100 did you from from the air-to-air side uh we were kind of relegated in total honesty we were relegated to like you could tell you guys go over here yeah you guys Guido you're really good to be right over on this cap but it was more the Air Force were driving the air-to-air uh for in large part right over um Iraq and then we were kind of more in a support role but was was interesting was we had the the higher number of Tomcat was also what we call the tarps Squadron and so we were the tarps uh Tomcats And so we would carry a tarps pod and as crazy as it sounds to do BDA so I was a tarps pilot as well they designated I think three of us in the Squadron and so we would go and take to see what the BDA was real time before all the fancy you know some of the imagery with satellites and if there's cloud cover or whatever uh which was kind of like okay we're gonna come through spool everybody up dropped a bunch of stuff and then Guido's gonna come through and try to take pictures of it after everybody's upset so that was yeah those were the more interesting because you didn't necessarily not to take away from that story I'm sure it was harrowing but yeah that wasn't new I mean they had done that in Vietnam right the ra-5s and absolutely rf-8s and a bunch of others would do the same thing and usually they ran away from the escorts because just firewall the throttle and get through yeah your speed is live or whatever they said it's like I don't care if the picture's blurry I did my job I went over oh my goodness did that tour though was that the first and last time flying the Tomcat because we you have a Litany of aircraft and as one as I've known you I don't think I really know your story that well but I'm guessing you go from that to probably an adversary Squadron next correct so I came back so we came back to Miramar I mean that's where we're stationed and so after all the cruises All My First Fleet Squadron was done uh then went over to 126 and so it was uh Top Gun 126 we shared hangers aircraft the whole thing we were like their red air if you will at the time we were flying the F-16 in and then the A4 super Fox uh so it was that must have been glorious Yeah by far that was I think I had in my logbook I think I looked once and I had 500 hours and it was 500 sorties it was over 540 because most of them were um you know just a hard charging bfm back in that day that was the big deal yeah I used to be six two before that that cruise it shot me down here yeah so that was the F-16 in and the and the super Fox and those were really those were fun uh yeah Jets to fly and and you got you got very good at it as you know you get very very good when you fly three times oh gosh yeah had you flown the ta4 in training I flew the the t2 and then the ta4 in training um so super Fox the p408 engine and it was the two-seater the ta4 was was uh nothing like the the super Fox um that would you could Bullseye it remember the cone of death or whatever they talk about not in the in the super Fox you'd go right up and it had so much power so the things I would remember would be rotate so your full power rotate you know and you're just your head's like this right you can't see anything the canopy goes up to here and you see a little head and somebody made the analogy of uh it's like you're on the grill of a of a of a car and you're just I mean you don't see you don't see any plane around you you just you're just your head um and uh which made it funny because if you had to like do a cross country with a map it was it was it was challenging yeah but uh anyways you you'd rotate on the A4 you'd rotate we're talking take off here or just it take off okay so you go full power rotate in the in the super Fox you'd have to bring the power back at least halfway raise the landing gear and you couldn't touch the throttle until the gear were up because you would overspeed the gear so you had to take off pull a huge chunk of power off because it was so powerful and uh and then in dog fighting you know you had those uh um slats that would come out um gravity yeah aerodynamic wise and uh to do like to come over the top you would get about right here and then you'd have to pull your power back and you would just the nose would you get up like this so a loop say you're doing some vertical turning maneuvering or something coming like this and you pull the power back and it would drop the nose because if you left the power up it just would go yeah it'd take a lot longer so it was a it was a wonderfully fun airplane to fly uh the F-16 in you flew the F-16 AMD A and B so the end was uh again um super fun but people would always ah the hand the F-16 in that's like the Beast of all bees that's fantastic and it's like it is but if I had a choice because we would do we had lots of fuel and so we would Bingo the fighters out and then it was always an alternate Mission and it was just 1v1 B1 B1 B1 and just you know with with the other instructor and um I much rather would have the super fox really because the F-16 got on the limiter so if you get in a phone booth with the A4 you can you can turn that around like like this and the F-16 no matter how hard you pull I tried trust me yeah I like bruised my hand pulling and you know and then here's this little A4 just maneuvering wow you know and gunning you um so uh it was uh it was a fun fun experience a great tour yeah well but back to your point right the ta4 was a two-seater different engine and always flown at least when I went through with drop tanks and the super Fox I never flew it but sounds amazing because single C bigger motor no drop tanks probably most of the time yeah we didn't do drop tanks and um yeah much bigger number I think the ta4 was like the P6 and then it was the p8 and for the sounds right and for the normal A4 and then the super fox said the p408 and we had a marine version the mic as well um with the hump yeah exactly we had a couple of those that and aerodynamically that cone of death or whatever I think it's the you know your Center lift and the ta4 was it had some challenges but the super Fox people ask all the time what was your favorite Jet and it's like well it's kind of like what is your favorite car kind of depends what in what situation or circumstance um you felt in the super Fox you would you would again if you remember the A4 the the elevator was a little and the whole empanadas the whole back end was controlled by your trim right so when you flew like coming down like this on the back side you're trimming your trim trim trim trim trim you're pulling your stick back but you're also trimming and you're trimming forward so you you trim a lot which is crazy because normally no other jet I ever trimmed anything with and um so maneuvering you would trim a lot so you're flying you're trimming and then we have flaps and you're controlling your flaps you know half flap full flap no flap uh and so when there's a lot of stuff going on right and your Rudders and just you could maneuver like crazy so when you got really good at it which we did inevitably sure not because we're the best Pilots but when you fly it three times a day every day five days a week you get good at it I hope yeah even we gotta get it um that that whole kind of combination it was like there was no digital flight control system it was the your personal flight control system it wasn't fly by wires fly by Guido but it wasn't everything and it was but when you got good at it it was very fulfilling it was super fun yeah and you know the some of the Tomcat I'll I'll never forget that one Tomcat guy goes He we come in the brief and he goes so good are you in the F-16 or the A4 and he goes uh I said oh the A4 and he goes ah and he turns to his his Rio as a young guy and he goes well we'll we'll fly a single engine on this one to give Guido a shot and I just I'm like okay fight song like this one I'm personalizing now I thought we would ever do such a thing no holy smokes yeah sorry all right so golly let's stay professional though no of course um so let's see so how many hours did you end up with in the F-14 because you didn't go back again no it was like 1300 hours or so it's over a thousand how about in the A4 and the F6 A4 was about a thousand just under a thousand and the F-16 was like five six hundred okay were you there by the way so I don't know where size was but he was somewhere where they had like the kefir they have 21 or something were you anywhere near yeah so that was the East Coast version of what we had so we were here Miramar Top Gun they were Oceana and they had the kefir okay um back there he would talk about doing like the hat trick you know he would have three flights in a day and he flew I guess it was the kefir the A4 and maybe the F5 I want to say I don't know if he had did they have the yeah he would do the yeah so I talked about that and he uh we had a hat trick because we also did and this is it sounds silly but it was fun we had a a T2 and we did the departure spin yeah uh out of control flight program and so in the t2 if you recall super forgiving aircraft and so uh both the pilots and the Rios would we would get them in to some type of departure multiple different types of departure they're flip-flopping around and they would physically have to go through their bold face to do that which sitting here to go through bold faces you and I have done it 5 000 times in a brief totally different than when your head slammed up against and you're flip-flopping around and so it was a great program I wish the Navy still did it uh as a pilot it was super fun because it was just you go up and then you go okay you got it and then they flounder through their departure control you know uh bullface and whatever they did it would recover so you know it was going to recovery but it it forced them to go through it in a really strenuous situation and it everybody walked out of that going like okay yeah I gotta take this a little more serious if if you really get flapped around like that so so we would do the hat trick F-16 uh A4 and T2 in general though we were supposed to fly to Jets that's what the Navy kind of said be quality NATO's called in two at the end I had three but it was the F-18 a through D and enf and they decided those were close enough that they counted that as one but uh all right I have to ask off the Record how was the Buckeye in a dogfight I'm sure you never did but just you know theoretically it was uh theoretically it would do really well because you could just pull until the thing Departed and then you knew how exactly how to recover and uh hypothetically of course yeah I could do that you got to help me actually because I'm writing my Memoirs and I'm writing the part about the uh did you do like the gun profile in the t2 and flight school did it have like a little light you turned on like a little gun reticle or something it didn't have a gun but did it have something you turned on or did we just fake it and point at the banner uh that's reaching back and all right memory cells but I I know the A4 did right because well we used yeah but I don't I don't recall if the teacher would turn something on but maybe we just pointed at the banner but I remember I I sort of struggled through most phases because I was very blue collar but I did pretty well in the gun thing and it was fun it was my favorite story in the gun pattern was remember you tried to bag Hops and as a student uh there was a salty old guy in Kingsville I don't know he's like a 80 year old 80 year old Commander you know and he uh he was the the toe the banner toe and the t2 and so as a student you could like bag an extra hop and he would just you'd just be his autopilot so he'd get you up there and you'd just fly it ten thousand feet or whatever it was and he's out there he's the safety Observer making kids sure the kids run into each other or Simo run um and then all of a sudden I'm like you know I'm back there and doing my little trying to stay right on altitude and I'm like it sir sir there's smoke and fumes I Smell Smoke and fumes in the cockpit I think I know where this is going and he goes so again and I go sir I smell smoke I smell smoke in the cockpit smoke and fumes you know our bold face procedure and I look up and he's got a mirror and he looks and his visors up and his mask is off and he's like like that that's what I got against him like but it used to T2 had a uh ashtray in it so that was that was during the t2 gun pattern oh boy when did you get to the F-18 and maybe that is that a segue now at the end of your Shore tour as an aggressor by the way is that what you first went through Top Gun did you do that there okay yeah yeah initially it was to was supposed to be in the fleet and then Desert Storm started oh and then came back and then went uh in 126 um and then 126 the the kind of the timing was the Navy was doing BRAC the base realignment and closure stuff right and this is when the worst day in the world when the Marines took over uh Miramar and you know we uh we gave they came down from um uh Point Mugu or El Toro yeah they came down from El Toro and um and took over Miramar and then we sent because Tomcats all the remaining Tomcats went back to the the east coast and then everything else was hornets and they stayed up in the more uh and so during this whole process what ended up happening was um they they were shutting down they said hey we're going to move the adversary role so Top Gun we're gonna we're gonna move this the whole it was at the time it was just Top Gun right and 126 we were just merged together to do Mutual they would do more of the lectures and the light blue t-shirt side of it and we were the adversary for 90 of of the sorties and then they ended up saying we're going to move this to Fallon and we're going to go under this umbrella called insock and try to make it a national and two command kind of like the Air Force did with Nellis in doing so we're going to get rid of the F-16 ends they're going to go to the desert the a4s are going to go away and we're gonna take in the f-18as and B's to the adversary role and so they sent me over as the active duty guy to go over to BFC 13 and run at the time we called it f farp that's s-farp now but at the time it was Fleet fighter it was the F-14 yeah I think and so I went over as an active duty guy into this Reserve Squadron and they were flying the f-18as and so I went to El Toro and transitioned to the to the Hornet and then came back and flew the Hornet for you know many years and then we finished that and when we went up to Fallon they got rid of the Hornet and we took the F5 okay so and was that your first time flying the F5 then that was the first time flying the F5 my goodness well that's quite a pedigree I mean that's all the big Fighters at least on the Navy side modern I mean yeah not the f30 I didn't get the F-35 but the rest of them oh hey you're still you're still here I fight the F-35 yeah no well I won't get to that good okay how many so let's see so how many hours did you end up with in the F-18 uh about 800 okay and then I'm not going to ask about the F5 because that logbook is still open but my goodness okay so when you've built 2500 in there is it oh wow that's great all right so then at some point in here though do you decide this is all fun and games but maybe there's other things I want to do in my life or at what point don't you kind of kick over the reserves at some point yes so well I'm active duty for a while and then uh I go over to help vfc 13 as their active duty guy for a couple years has run their FR program and uh you know it was kind of um took a bite of The Poisoned Apple at that point and I added just other entrepreneurial Ambitions as you do of course with this wonderful setup thank you um and I had always uh had I had buddies in college where we were rugby guys Etc and we were teammates and one guy really um started a great restaurant and bar and Nightclub in San Francisco and uh he was a frat buddy of mine and a rugby teammate of mine it really still to this day one of my best friends and uh is Johnny love and so we had because we were like the love Brothers on this rugby team which was kind of a uh just a scam to hit on girls during do you want to be part of the love family you could be a love brother a love sister Kathy by the way my wife was one of the original love sisters so well I hope the last for you dare I say on camera say again there wasn't another one after her I hope no no no not at all cut cut is that what my face said no uh you said she was one of them so I was just trying to yes no she's the only one thank you all right yes all right yes we're back on track and when you've got your rugby ball over there behind you on the Shelf so uh yeah yeah isn't that something you can grow old playing don't people play that long in their life they do they do and uh rugby was uh was a huge part of my life and uh still is a huge part of my life actually in college I was fortunate to let's go to Cal and uh and um I was in a frat that a lot of the guys were rugby guys and said come on out um this is uh you look like you'd be good at this it's kind of a combination of soccer and and football at the same time uh Cal happened to be unbeknownst to me at the time because I didn't really know much about the sport they were the dominant team in the world uh from uh from a Collegiate perspective as they still are today uh and uh so won three national championships uh when I was in college um love love loved the sport from a cultural perspective what rugby I think brings different than American sports like baseball or football uh you tend to the coaches are like well you know in football it's like you're supposed to hate and kill the guy before the game during the game after the game and Rugby's a completely different culture it is we say there's three halves the first two are on the field the third one the home team has to this is on International on a high school on a grade school level has to um have a party for the visiting team nice and so food beverage so the little kids will will put hot dogs hamburgers and soda pops you know out and all the families come so you just are beating the you know snot out of each other on the field and then you have to whistle blows and you got to come and you got to share a meal and you realize very quickly what sportsmanship is all about and uh I say and so I continued I was fortunate I continue to play on some national teams after uh when I was in the Navy um which depending on the Skippers whether they allowed me to do it or not do it and injuries and stuff like that was interesting uh and and then fast forward my son started growing up and loves the sport he's playing at UCLA right now he won a national championship in high school uh last year or year before and um you know loves the sport as well and again it's more of I I tell people all the time uh I learned more in college about life from the rugby team and the rugby pitch and on the field um and being with that team than I did in a classroom yeah when it comes to overcoming adversity and being a teammate and you know grit and Leadership and following people and getting along with people and you know what it takes uh to to work yourself up to be at a you know the highest level performance which translated into being a fighter pilot and so uh yes I love the uh love the sport uh and I'm fortunate that my uh my son is uh you know maybe I pushed a little bit on that side of it but hey you only promised you wouldn't push the fighter yeah it's good to have something a father and son can share he loves it too so he that's good yeah well and I have a listener question coming up about rugby and air combat so let's come back to that uh but you so you go up to Fallon you know Fallon's an acquired taste for some but I liked it up there um do you kind of stay there for a while because you end up commanding the fc13 yeah so I ended up uh so this now enter the kind of the quasi-reservist kind of World um where I was running bars and restaurants down here in San Diego with Jimmy loves initially started out with that one and uh kind of doing that fighter Pile in the day and bar owner at night um which uh sleep can happen later when you're dead you can sleep when you're dead uh so that was that was kind of the how that transitioned and got me kind of balancing the life of new Aviation Plus entrepreneurialism at the same time uh my commanding officers and KAG were very they're kind of like hey don't know if this is going to work this isn't normal uh but if you as long as you do it to the level that we need you to do it at then it will work and so I kind of balance both of those for a while it was easier when Jimmy loves was here in San Diego and we were still flying out of Miramar when we went to Fallon that made the the transit was a little bit more difficult so what I ended up doing interesting in in our location here I bought a piper Meridian uh it's like a TBM it's got a pt6 engine jet prop uh kind of capability so it's a turbine engine I kept it right here that hanger right out there um would would literally drive out of my house be here within a half an hour be in Fallon within an hour and 15 minutes and add a brief in in flying up there so I would do that usually like three four days and then you know kind of come back and so that worked out uh extremely well from a family perspective and kind of juggling juggling those those two uh those two balls so Kathy and the kids stayed here and then I kind of Transit back and forth back and forth so that made it kind of easier to do it with your own plane because the airline guys there was first there was Reno air if you remember that I don't it was Prior they got bought up by American Airlines and then routes changed and now really even now Southwest is like the only way to get there direct oh and you still have an hour drive when you get to the Reno Airport 100 if you can take yourself right to Fallon Muni yeah and we had the deal uh Roy Rogers was Skipper back then and uh park on the base well not to be obnoxious what I said was I kept a beater car at Fallon Muni and would land at Fallon Muni if it was bad weather um and it was kind of outside of from a risk perspective and I wanted a big long or not so much long but a big wide runway at uh Fallon a 200 foot wide runway uh he said yeah just go ahead uh land here I got all the insurance and rights but I didn't and then I'd go park it over at the transient line and kind of keep it away from everybody I wasn't the obnoxious Skipper taxi pulled right up all next to that hornets and yeah no I tried not to do that oh dear all right well at some point let's see well I don't know where we are in history now but at some point you are down at cnaf as we've identified earlier here in San Diego so your family was here so that was great and you're still flying and I know all this because we had a spin-off podcast called the merge a couple years ago and we featured you as uh one of the guests talking about a story of a mishap which was very tragic because it was fatal but you were still flying and that was I want to say 2008 yeah that was after so after I so I commanded up The Fighter Squadron or the adversary Squadron up in uh Fallon and that's when we also started um BFC 111 the Sundowners okay so we were from a Navy perspective uh we were flying around 7 000 hours adversary hours in the Squadron per year which is a lot okay uh and a thousand of those hours were Transit down to to Key West to support the east coast squadrons to support the East Coast Guard is out of Key West and so it was it made a big a business sense to say let's resurrect a adversary Squadron used to have one down in Key West they really need one down in Key West so at one point I was a commanding officer both fighter squadrons wow the 111 and and 13 which was unique two different ux the whole thing but it was yeah and the restaurant and the restaurant um but the uh and then after that command tour was done for both of those those squadrons I came here by several kill Klein killer kill Klein um he was uh he was a former fi in talking to adversary guy as well and so we ended up chatting with him and when he got designated for cnaf um who said hey what better way to be the commander of Naval Air Forces and to be able to ascertain the capabilities of your Air Force than if you're the adversary guy in the red air side fighting them and so he came before he was coming to see now if he came got rehacked in the F5 I came down here at casino and ran the adversary program um all of it from uh the at the time in sock to uh the Navy and Marine Corps as well it kind of all fell under the cnaf umbrella and and fortunately he's like hey Guido you you helped justify they'll bring they'll bring a jet down and then we would go out and fight the carriers the the Jets coming off the fighters coming off the aircraft carriers for the comp2x's and the different uh exercises down here leading the deployment exactly and so it worked out well he got to to fly I got to continue to fly that was post command for quite a while um and then I retired out of that job what year was that that was like I think 2013 13. okay all right and I'm trying to think when we first crossed paths because I was at Fallon on the N7 staff from 2000 to 2002. were you at 13 at that time I was okay so probably then yeah if you turn around let me look at the back your head I know exactly well I'd have to get my helmet on over here he still has denmarks on the bullets and then in 06 to 09 I was at the weapon School in Lemoore we did a lot of vest farts and 13 helped us a lot there so I know our paths crossed many times so plus we both live on Coronado so that's that's not a bad gig all right so golly you are just a uh what's that expression like a polymath you know like you're good at like a lot of different things or at least you do a lot of different things but sounds like you're very good at all them and you didn't good at them you didn't record them quote retire you just moved on to something else because I've got written down here like in uh let's see you already well hold on you said you retired in 13 but in 2007 according to my notes you were the first and only us race director for the International Red Bull Air Races correct all right tell me about that so that was a that was a fun you know red boy races you know I do but explain briefly for maybe those who aren't familiar yeah so it's uh it was one of the the most fun things I've done in aviation um it it combined because normally fighter pilots are about the only situation you can fly and compete at the same time right push yourself to the absolute your the edge of your skill set and capability and compete against somebody else an air show you can push yourself to the edge but you're not really competing with somebody else right so when Red Bull air race came along that was the only other thing I've ever seen where you're flying your skills and you're really competing against another person pushing the edge of the envelope um in a competition type perspective so it was interesting uh kind of a funny story I got called I was with the San Diego Sports Council at the time it's a local organization that we run all professional Collegiate amateur and Olympic sports uh so the Padres the Chargers back then getting the ballparks all those kind of the business aspect of sports um and it was a wonderful board of directors that I got to sit on somebody called them and said hey we have a a sport this new sport it's from Europe it's it's flying and it's racing and it's doing this crazy stuff and it's sponsored by Red Bull uh and we heard you guys uh are you know great at helping businesses you know work through this and the the executive director at the time was like oh my God we got a guy on our board that's some Top Gun blah blah blah you should talk to him and so I get a call from this guy and he's got a you know they're from Austria Red Bull's from Austria but he's got a you know heavy German accent and he's like you know I want to come down and you know talk to you and I didn't know at the time you might remember this Red Bull had a U.S Red Bull had a MiG 17 that they were flying on the air show circuit and I thought oh the guy's gonna come down and ask me if I because I'm still currently flying I think I was the EXO at the time or CEO or EXO or something like that up there and I thought they're gonna ask me to do that because I really didn't know that much about red boy race and so he comes down and we meet and he flips open this laptop and it's a race through Budapest on the Danube River flying underneath the Chain Bridge the house of parliament's right there just pulling 12 G's 20 feet off the off the water doing just crazy stuff 850 000 people in attendance and he's like you know this is a red boy race and we want to bring it to America this is the house of parliament we race through you know this exact thing so we want to race in front of the White House and the Statue of Liberty and went oh okay well this is America and you're not going to be able to race in front of the White House I no no never say never I'm like no this one I can say never The Statue liberty maybe but not the White House that you're not going to be able to do that well look here's the house of Parliament and we really we race right in front of it um 100 feet away and uh and so anyways fast forward he said would you consider this I said I don't even really know what it is and he said one in three weeks we race in Budapest at this location and we fly you out there and you come check it out and so we I went out there and I was just my jaw dropped um with with everything because it combined everything I loved it was the tactical Aviation you know that you know putting the jet at the absolute edge of the envelope in a competitive high speed Dynamic way and a party and so it was like Jimmy loves meets Top Gun it was like this whole like combo uh merge and um and so I started with them and it then they said will you be the race director for the for the U.S races and help us there and I said I would and then I started to help him there and then they said hey actually this is working really well will you just take over and be race director for Red Bull and air race and run the rest of the world and so we would do about uh 10 races a year in the most exotic places in the world on the planet and it was just spectacular the greatest group of uh aviators technicians maintainers uh support team staff just I mean Red Bull just as you can imagine does things right they have the money to do things right and they were always from a brand perspective they said um you know if we crash and and kill people um say for you know analogous is like an arena way race kind of that that challenging situation that that they had um it's not just damaging the red boy arrays it's damaging Red Bull the brand the brand the global brand and so we're going to do everything we can to make sure that we mitigate risk as much as possible so as crazy as it looked like we were flying through cities and inside stadiums and as crazy as it was the details behind the scene were just unbelievable I mean we're you know Red Bull has the formula two Formula One teams and so we'd work with them for Monaco cockpits try to it was just a Not That Money Was No Object it just they they spent the money necessary to make it a uh a safe event and in over 90 Air Races uh that I ran we never had a death or an injury so it was uh it was very very cool experience and it kind of combined is the only thing other than fighter pilot world that I've ever experienced that had that kind of competitive yeah and it came to San Diego at least once I saw it in the bay yeah no I brought it three times the first time uh flew out of Brownfield brought in the bay the second time uh convinced the uh um commanding officer of North Island that we would land at North Island so we actually did our whole setup at North Island took off flew right there and then we took a break for a little bit and then came back um maybe about six years ago or so and flew it in the bay again so um the status of that right now just real quickly we this little thing called covid happened and it dramatically impacted obviously our ability to run huge events around the world so uh we were taken we were doing a little uh like a organizational change and Red Bull was going to go from being Red Bull air race to being like World Championship air race or air race series or whatever and Red Bull would have teams kind of like similar to how Formula One is run um and where it was we just finished the last race in Tokyo bay uh you probably Narita and that area and Chiba right at Chiba and that was September and then in December covet hit and we haven't gotten back on our feet yet there's some iterations of like maybe this will happen maybe that will happen Red Bull's kind of kind of moved on a little bit of saying like hey we'll we'll support and be part of something but we don't want to run the whole thing and you really need a big animal like that to to be able to justify the money for something like that so whether it comes back or not TBD yeah what would you say though to because I remember having guests on the show about the Reno Air Races since you brought it up and one of the issues that they sort of bristle that is that they are neck to neck racing whereas the renal uh sorry the Red Bull Air Races are sort of solo go out race get your best time and then compare times so is it just two different things or did did the two different entities have a little bit of which is usually good right to have a little well-intended well-natured uh bantering that's a fantastic question and then get asked that a million times yeah okay um the and it's kind of like uh it it it really kind of goes back to the safety comment okay to to run a Reno air race style which is kind of like a NASCAR style of an oval track where guys are all kind of racing against each other um I don't know if you've ever have you flown in those or not flown in it but I've never seen it yeah um it's competitive but it's very scripted you you call where you are and you move forward and you get approval to move forward you get approval to pass somebody and stuff like that and so it's competitive but it's it's not just all out you know the maximum performance of anything like you would see at NASCAR for example because crashing has a terrible result and what we there was one before Red Bull air race there was a group that tried to do something like red boy arrays a kind of a hybrid mix of Red Bull plus uh Reno and in the first race two planes clipped each other and crashed what we went for from a Red Bull perspective is we wanted to have a raise in the most iconic backdrops on the planet literally the best scenarios scenes anything on the planet and so we couldn't afford to have planes hitting each other and crashing and going into you know a hundred thousand people the other thing is Mr Madison's the the uh was on there of uh of Red Bull he wanted uh he wanted to be able to see the entire Race by sitting in at one seat so unlike formula one where you're here and then they go away for a minute he said his one of his uh precepts was to say I want to sit in a seat and I want to watch this entire race you know right in front of me so they are being from Austria their sports are their huge downhill skiers and so their concept you know the downhills for example one guy goes against the clock right and then the next guy goes against the clock and that's the competition you you go through the course as fast as you humanly can go um but it's one at a time and so that's how kind of that evolved and and really he wanted the iconic backdrop the guy not 98 but 100 you know pushing uh the extreme of what he can get and that that bodes well for the brand itself of Red Bull right it's an energy drink and it's about you know thrill kind of high high adrenaline kind of stuff yeah well it'll be interesting to see if it comes back I'm imagining at this point it's just a business decision because they've done it and they proved that it works and people enjoy it but maybe it's not a bad thing to just say hey you know we did that and now we're on to something else so I guess we'll see and Red Bull does that they what they their branding philosophy if you will is they don't tend to do a ton of TV and print media they sponsor athletes and they they create Sports uh and they kind of that's their approach um which is used to be uh you know the only people on the planet doing it that way now other people saw how they're successful they've created the standard really and and they're doing that too so we'll see um there's a lot of uh you know lines in the water and lots of people are nibbling at different things and we'll see if it comes back well so now we're in this phase of the discussion where I'm just going to keep rattling off these different I don't want to say achievements but certainly they are and the different things you've done in 2011 if I remember correctly we celebrated the 100th anniversary or the Centennial of Naval Aviation and here again was Guido deep in it it was uh yeah Kona Centennial Naval Aviation we uh that was Admiral kill Klein Admiral Sizemore were were cnaf and chief of staff that was when size was uh chief of staff and the 100th anniversary was coming up and I was there on the staff with them and it was just a timing situation and uh killer kill Klein is like hey Guido you do Aviation and you run these restaurants and bars and you do these things and you're part of the Sports Council why don't you uh so I was part of the with the Sports Council I helped with a couple Super Bowls that were here in San Diego too and so uh we kind of did a uh he asked me if I could would run that and I kind of replicated what our Super Bowl host committee looked like um and tagged almost all the same people that helped with the super host committee is the civilian guys and then kind of paired them up as a wingman with active duty Navy guys and gals to say okay here's legal Joe Blow Big Time lawyer in San Diego that ran the Super Bowl oh here's a Jag okay so now you're going to be married up and you both are going to be you know co-legal committee chairs or whatever and so we went down that path and that was super fun uh I love the history and Heritage Legacy of because my my family Etc and um we we had the kickoff event here in San Diego 16 events and then we had the finale event in Washington DC and um it was uh to really to pay tribute to this incredible life that you and I get to be part of and so many have come before us and so many uh it it's I mean just to think of the magnitude of what Naval Aviation has meant to our country and so by doing uh being part of the 100th anniversary it was really a true honor for me to to be part of it a lot of fun it was I was here and I have a photograph of my youngest who's now in high school in a little set of the digi blue families uh walking under the Super Hornet that was painted like that so it was like an Airship it was like a air show with like the static demos at North Island but then they also had the generational aircraft fly up the bay which probably was its own coordination issue because right there is Lindbergh International so you had to stay clear of all that but I just remember okay here come World War II airplanes here come in Vietnam yeah we had lots of we had lots the Marines uh helped with that that part of it uh the the flyby and what really helped me coordinate that was I had already done the red boy race in the bay okay so I had all the rules requirements relationships with all FAA North Island Lindbergh Field even Petco Park the whole you know all this stuff um the but we did have I remember we had at the very end we had a huge we tried to simulate that in that photo at cnap with all the planes flying over North Island and I forget how many we had but we had a ton Sarge Slaughter I think was part of it too uh a ton of airplanes Jets fighter jets fly over and just the sound was I'll never forget the sound I mean when you 50 Jets yeah yeah it was pretty impressive thankfully it was in peace time it's not something you want to hear uh no it was pretty intimidating though if it was flying over your your country and then we we finished it in uh in Washington DC with the with an incredible Gala that was very fitting um lots of different countries came you know with the their entourages of you know High highfalutin presidents and Generals and stuff like that so it was uh it was an organizational challenge to do the seating chart which uh a pretty uh if we have a second I'll tell a pretty funny story um I I like this story so we had uh it was the head table and so it was my wife and I uh remember Thomas hudner Thomas hudner was the only living Naval Aviation recipient of the Medal of Honor at the time and so he and his wife were sitting here um prince Andrew if you remember prince Andrew from uh from the UK he was he was their rep John McCain was sitting at the table right here and then the uh the secretary of defense was Leon Panetta and then um we had Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman I think no Boeing and Lockheed Martin and there were two CEOs their CEOs and right before like literally a week before yeah it the event um Secretary of Defense Liam Panetta said hey I I can't sit and have dinner uh with you know a leader of Industry like that I mean we can socialize and stuff but just literally sitting next to is is probably pushing it too much Mike holy cow this is this is seating charts and you you can move one chess piece and it's there's a 1500 people on this event it just starts to collapse I'm like well now who's going to be uh who's significant enough but not significant enough to be at the head table of the Centennial Naval Aviation with one week left and so um I'm like okay and I didn't want to affect any of the other tables because it would have just been a colossal event did you get a couple Jos or something no so I thought well Blue Angel so I called stiffy mcwhirter he was a commanding officer of the Blue Angel and I'm a hey stiffy what are you doing next week I'm like you want to come to have a you know party and believe me you're gonna get approved for this so you know bring a blue jet up it'd be pretty cool and then uh Chris Ferguson who uh was the last commanding officer Naval aviator Checkmate and last commanding officer of the Space Shuttle so he he flew the last space shuttle um so they're NASA astronaut Blue Angel there you go not too big but not you know kind of worthy if you will of the of the table so the funny part was so there was Prince Andrew so during the during the dinner I'd look over and I kept calling because Chris Ferguson's call sign is Fergie well I totally forgot that his ex-wife was Fergie of the Fergie for prince Andrew so you might not even know this because I kind of did not and so about halfway through the whole dinner prince Andrew kind of stops everything he's like you know please call him anything you want but stop calling him Fergie every time that happens you send a chill up my spine because I think I'm gonna see the redhead you know come walking it so some of your other listeners might get a a fun kick out of that but um yeah anyways that was a centennial Naval Aviation fun times wow well golly we could keep going I hope you got plenty of time because the next thing I want to ask about we're doing okay yeah next thing I want to ask about is in 2012 sounds like you helped revamp and run one of the largest Aviation events in the World Air Venture in Oshkosh Wisconsin yeah so it was again right you're you're this guy who's gets things done uh you're kind of like red and Shawshank Redemption like if it's an aviation thing you need to get done you go you well it was I was I was fortunate that it was uh kind of just a lucky guy in the right place at the right time sadly It Started from the Reno air race crash and um the NTSB had a big investigation P51 scouting ghosts or something no that yeah the the Reno Airways crash right yeah so what ended up happening um after the crash because it killed people it hit the crowd it it was really was fortunate because it didn't explode and so it killed a smaller amount of people there were there were hundreds of people that were doused with fuel that if that had exploded it would have been really bad um but it was it was a tragic event and so the NTSB and the FAA everybody was massive investigation as you can imagine legal issues and so the NTSB calls me up and says hey you're an American you run this thing called the red boy erase this is Arena where race we'd like you to come testify in front of this committee and I'm like okay so gamma the general aviation maintenance Association or material associations something uh they uh were kind of heading it up because they're a DC organization uh and they said hey this would be very beneficial if you could come and help and I'm like what is I mean this is like the big green table and yeah Congress kind of you know stuff and I didn't know it was a political politically assigned event and I never knew that about the NTSB but there's like five board members and two Republican tour Democrat and then the president picks the chairperson because it impacts rules and regulations and that impacts politics and you know all that other stuff so it was it was quite fascinating to experience um there was a couple other guys there like Sean Tucker was there uh I was there and the guy who was running Hightower and he so we were together for a few days and he said um you know it was right after we took a little break with the uh um we're taking a little break with Red Bull to to adjust like our pylons and stuff like that and he said hey would you come run um with your experience would you come run the Oshkosh the EAA uh features in airventure and features and track and I like I kind of I hadn't been which was uh but I I called buddies of mine that I knew really well Mikey gooley and some guys that were with me and with Red Bull and they're like oh my God Guido yeah you got to do this this is it's like nothing you've ever experienced and it really was like nothing I ever experienced and so I did that for three years and it was it was wonderful because it's have you been there I've not it is the mecca for Aviation right uh it is it's got civilian Aviation it's got general aviation they were there were not a lot of military Aviation stuff the the actual none of it would get approved today because it just it's so small it it's 65 years now 70 years in the making it evolved over time because if you went to the FAA right now and said I want to do this right here in San Diego there's zero percent chance that you would be able to do it but it's fantastic it's the busiest airport in the world ten thousand uh takeoff and Landings in one week time we have two Crossing runways dots on each Runway where three planes are landing on each Runway at the same time you you land get under control and then go off into the grass and get taxied into an area and people sleep underneath their planes that's just part of it the other part of it is there's 800 and plus uh kind of briefings from everything you could ever imagine from the type of airplanes to maintenance on an airplane to of course experiment Aircraft Association a lot of Builders and stuff like that to concert we did concerts every night um movies there's a theater in the woods humongous giant screens we play Aviation related movies and and have uh discussions uh beforehand and then pretty much every single company involved in aviation is there so it's the One-Stop shop around the world if you're hondajet and you want to you know show your latest and greatest that's where you do it every reporter is there so it's like the One-Stop shop and so I went there and I just I fell in love with it but the one thing that I I do I did recognize being a military fighter guy is there was no fighter Aviation there would be an occasional military plane here or there but they weren't allowed to fly there because the Box the aerobatic box was too small and so um the blues had never performed the Thunderbirds had never performed no tact demos you know would go there uh and I thought hey we could kind of play the trifecta commercial Aviation general aviation I mean commercial Aviation you know the biggest planes in the world would come and land there you know the Concord would come do flybys and landline and so um I'm like if we could add the the military aspect and so on the the other side of the field where they have Oshkosh truck and some houses Etc I'm like well what if we just bribed them not extort them but if we bribe them we sweeten the pot so I said I'm gonna I can move the box out we could take the the businesses create a big party tent over here we'll bus everybody there we'll give you free booze and food and sandwiches and sodas and everything would just be there for the like one hour that the blues and the Thunderbirds and the tech demo needs to the The increased jet uh uh display box and so that worked well and uh it's been a fixture ever since and so that's that's how they do it and then I also added some big jumbotrons uh because I had jet man do you know Jetman is is it the guy with a pack that can yeah Eve Rossi uh so I brought him and I'm like you know we're not not gonna be able to see anything unless we have jumbotrons that can kind of see it and that's the new way of being able to appreciate all all the stuff you know it extremely well and so uh that was a big part of um the the kickoff start and did that for three years uh until the Breitling jet team okay wow that's great is it still roughly what you've made it into or is it even Progressive well I wouldn't say I made it into it tweaked thousands of people have been involved in that for a long time and you know I was I'm proud to say that I you know added a little bit uh to it and uh it it is it's something you should see it is a bucket list item um for anybody who is in a any part of Aviation it's it's just cool it's a cool it's that homegrown American Spirit and it's connected to Aviation and so it's you'll love it I've had listeners and viewers reach out and say I can't believe you've never been you know just show up at the airport I'll pick up you know pick you up take care of you I just haven't been able to make it work and it's probably too late for this year probably too late for this year but something I might suggest is do a podcast there yeah yeah I need to do that that would be it would be really cool 24. there you go yeah as people are maybe watching or listening it might have already gone by because it takes us usually a month to produce these episodes but you and I are recording here at the end of June so hasn't happened yet but all right so you alluded to it you went on to the Breitling jet team huh talk about that well that was again just a lucky in the right place at the right time you can't attribute everything to that come on my wife says it's pure luck across the board she knows the uh okay uh so we're Breitling love Breitling although I'm we're in the IWC topical watch here so so that that's another story um but I did that for you let's see thank you that's nice the um I had Breitling so for red boy or race we would have what we call side acts so we'd race some and then we take a little break like half time and then during that break I'd have we called cydaxx and I would do some depending on where we were if it was in the bay maybe I do boat racing or the jet ski guys or the little guys that do this or have Eve Rossi do fly or power packs something that was the aerobatic or Red Bull aerobatic helicopter if you've seen us do that uh and then I in in uh quite a few places throughout Europe in the Middle East um or in Europe basically mostly in Europe um but a lot of different of our race locations in Europe the Breitling jet team would come and perform the brightly jet team flew or l-39s and uh they were they're just spectacular uh Jacques botolin is the uh the commanding officer if you will the the leader of the team and for the most part all the guys are French Air Force Patrol de France or Mirage 2000 they're all Air Show and fighter guys super super great group of guys and they ran under the flag of Breitling jet team and uh so they it what ended up happening is one day I said you know you guys are are fantastic you should come to America you should do a a tour of of the US and they said well we would love to do that we're going to do Asia and China and then maybe after that and so Teddy Schneider is the owner of Breitling um he calls me over to uh Switzerland and says uh you know hey how would you do this and so I do a PowerPoint just exactly how you would do it just a PowerPoint little Top Gun brief of you know just toggling through the slides this is what you need here's where I'd go here's how I'd do it here's FAA related issues here's Air Show related issues he was pilot related issues he was maintenance related issues you know here's how you would kind of do it I mean at the end of the brief and I love him he's a great guy he's like okay uh sounds good so I pick you up the car picks you up in like an hour for dinner I'm like okay he leaves and all the people and I said they said uh congratulations you have the jet team it's I'm like no no I don't want to do that this is how I would do it if I were you oh no you're doing it and it's like no no no no no no you you he wants you to do this he's in there laughing in the other room sucker yeah and and I said well I don't know what what wow this is a big undertaking and so for the next three years we did uh it was fantastic we brought the the entire Breitling jet team over to the U.S because I was working with all red boy race had all the connections with the faas doing the whole thing and so sue Gardner was great and all Air Races and air shows so I worked through her and her husband Jim Gardner was the head physio guy from the whole Chicago area so they they really helped me put together the whole concept and package they came over and for two years we didn't do you know the blues and the Thunderbirds do Hub and spoke kind of you know they're in Pensacola they fly to New York and do an air show and then fly back well that's how you do it if you're the government that's not the necessarily the most financially feasible way and so what we would do is we started in Lakeland Florida um uh where Sun and Fun is down there in Lakeland and draken you remember with drucken headquarters was it was there too uh we that was where our headquarters were so we brought the the planes in did everything there and then we just went like on a tour so we'd go do take a break take a break take a break and so we went around the whole United States and Canada uh did I think 50 air shows 120 displays uh every iconic because obviously from a marketing perspective they wanted every iconic backdrop right so the Grand Canyon the Statue of Liberty the everything yeah Chicago skyline um the uh not Rushmore Mount Rushmore yeah that was this that those were the most challenging things was like getting permission to then flying uh the the the photo scenarios the photo flights if you will with these iconic backdrops I mean because that's in a formation of you know seven Jets and we'd swap out I would usually fly either the videographer or the photographer and then so we'd make a pass for example of the Golden Gate Bridge and the photographer was snapping because it would be a different a different perspective that you try to capture uh and then we Circle back around and come back and do it again but this time a videographer and the videographer has a total different perspective he wants to see motion and movement and you know but timing it was was challenging so between the air shows and doing all the the the photo shots and photo flights it was a few years but they are they're exactly you and me with French accents in a little uh what do they call it cologne but they are they're exactly the same as you and I with the with a different accent and uh it's one of the things that I I love with red boy race and uh with the Breitling jet team you and I are fighter pilots all of a sudden you go to different parts of the world even Russia we raced in uh about 500 kilometers west of Russia of Moscow a few times in in Asia uh in Europe and South America we'd say the the air is the same you know there's borders there's religion religion there's politics but the air is the same bernoullis are the same Pilots are the same our love of flight and passion for flight is the same so it was really cool to from a fighter pilot perspective where you're kind of like I'm you're my adversary to a red boy race pilot or a Breitling jet team pilot where it's like no it's kind of like rugby get you know meeting after the game where it's like no our passion is rugby and it's like in our passion is Aviation we don't care about the politics we don't care about borders uh that type of stuff and so that was really cool uh to experience and when you go to Oshkosh there's a lot of international people coming you'll experience that as well I'm glad you said that greater because I actually bring that up on occasion here on the show with my various guests is that was a thesis of mine is I think we're all pretty much the same we might look different talk differently you know whatever but we all have that love for not being feet planted on the earth we want to get up there and go have some fun yeah exactly and when you you talk to a person and it barely speaks English and this or that and but you can see in his passion and his smile on his eyes it's exactly everybody understands this yeah fantastic all right I have some listener questions I want to run at you these are from folks that support the show on patreon so I tell them hey I'm going to sit down with Guido by the way I told him this like five months ago so they probably all forgot I'm just busting your stones but at any rate so we'll get through a couple of these so Jim gundog says he loved your interview on the Tomcat Tails I haven't seen that sorry to say I need to do you know Biz uh bizcarra I know of him okay yeah he'd be a good guy to oh yeah he's a big Tom cat guy I think he's reached out to the show actually I'm probably gonna feel bad when he writes me after this you don't remember anyway uh Jim wants to know what was your favorite non-adversary Fleet Squadron you served in and why I guess would that have to be your first one yes it would be uh it would be the Tomcat it would be vf211 uh checkmates and again your First Fleet Squadron is just it's like your first girlfriend that's I think he's I I said that in the Tomcat Tales it's like you you always have a special place for your first isn't that like some Ernest Hemingway quote or somebody talks about that it is you always have the special place for your first love and mine was the first cat and uh that uh for sure in that Squadron and um still best friends uh today from that Squadron as you know it's just lifelong friends and uh definitely uh bf211 and that's okay well I have another F-14 question coming up but not yet uh let's see here's one from John Clark which airplane did he puts but maybe I should say do you wish you had flown and never had the chance to hmm you've flown a lot mostly Navy modern Fighters um I mean the natural thing to me would be something like the F-35 because I fight the F-35 a lot right now and they're they're incredibly capable from a bbvr kind of perspective and I would like to somehow come and experience some of that gee whiz technology uh but I think from uh from a maneuverability perspective because they don't do that that craziest stuff is like some of the things you see it like the su-57 or some with the forward canards just uh just the Cobra crazy kind of stuff where engines and everything don't matter you can just do whatever I think I would love to fly that the su-57 or yeah something like that very cool I don't know maybe what do you want to play I always say the F-22 yeah well that's quite a chance to fight it once and I was like rooster in the back seat of what you know this thing just it gave me vertigo the Maneuvers it was doing it was crazy yeah that that kind of weird because you and I have a certain Crossing kind of muscle memory and these things do things that are not like that that's right so um it is I would love to F-22 is a good one I was kind of picking a foreign one I you know I flew uh the demo with the the helicopter demo oh yeah yeah we're brave enough to get in that uh yeah one of my best friends uh Blackie Schwartz is our in is the Red Bull one in in Austria and uh so we were south of Munich between Munich and Salzburg over the mountains and and he'd do do this whole thing someday I'll show you the video but it was the same it was the the weird thing was that that again your brain is you associate a certain track crossing angle with certain G-Force and a certain feeling in your body because it's always felt that way when you're I saw it that's what you felt and so it was it's strange in a helicopter scenario you see these crazy Maneuvers but you're at like 1G or one and a half G and that's it's like it doesn't make sense like you said almost like that's sick like nauseous but like confused it's confused it's like it's not the synapses are not firing yeah properly I think muscle memory is the best way to put it because of all the aircraft we talked about today again right A4 F5 F14 16 18. they all do like you said pretty much the same thing and you get used to seeing that yeah yeah all right Niels Hansen wants to know is there anyone in aviation you met that left you Starstruck if so what was that interaction like probably you get that when people meet you um very fortunate again with with uh Oshkosh with Breitling with Red Bull I've been very fortunate to meet lots and lots and lots of very well-known uh Aviation people from the civilian side to the airshow side to the air race side the general aviation uh no one I wouldn't say star struck everybody has their own passion and that's what I'd say it's more like the similarities um I mean somebody like a Bob Hoover had tons of stories tons and tons of stories and I I was in uh at Sun and Fun and I was fortunate to fly back a friend Jim Slattery flew him back and it was just Jim Slattery uh Bob Hoover and myself and for like six hours just flew back and listened to some stories or at Oshkosh he'd be sitting around fire pits you know drinking whiskey and and telling the story so those types of things are are pretty they're what I get out of it is not a star struck it's more of like okay you have the same passion as I do maybe a little different story here or there um type of thing I I would say as far as like the most impressive this goes back to like emotionally for me um Thomas hudner you know what he did in his real life it you know not an air show not but really what he did and given everything I don't know if you've seen the the movie or not in the story um I've not read the book the book is fantastic and uh but to meet him and I did a lot of Centennial Aviation events with him and his wife and to to see his humility and you know as a Medal of Honor recipient to you know he there was he would never brag or boast or anything I mean I've I've boasted more in the last 30 seconds that he did in his whole life and so as far as like Star Struck as far as impressive human being he and really that Whole World War II generation of individuals I would say are are the people that kind of impressed me the most very good all right Javen has a hypothetical situation I think this is what I was alluding to earlier you in a previous Rio of your choice find yourself Behind Enemy Lines and have to jump back into an F-14 and escape the country How likely would you be able to get a tomcat in the air he's got a corollary about fighting the su-57 on your way out but let's just start easy I thought they did a good job in the movie uh flicked this get the error disconnect yeah that's uh as funny that uh I wonder where he got that idea just he's very imaginative um funny story about that specific airplane as well bring up in a second but I I think picking a Rio um just because he's a good buddy of mine Slap Shot Ted Carter okay uh you know he he and I went to the boat uh at the very beginning when I first started flying at 14s and you know Slap Shot probably actually I don't know okay yeah I'm sorry I'm I'm trying to think while we're talking he's got the most most traps as a Rio of anybody two thousand something man was the uh Naval Aviation or Naval Academy superintendent and now he's the president at Nebraska and just just a super good guy and uh you know Mr Tomcat okay you know as far as the backseater so I think uh in a great friend so I think he would be my my Rio and I think the reason I say that is he probably remembers everything and being a Rio that had to deal with knucklehead students he probably could talk me through how to start the dang thing back up uh but I'd probably be able to start it up and I think I'd be able to take off like we said before that first jet is the one you remember I remember I had a actually it was not too long ago well a few years ago but uh we got up did our G worm back going into the Fallen ranges and uh and he turned back and he was like you know 90 right 90 left and then he went back like this the flight lead and so I was I was way sucked and so I just I just put in the blower to kind of get back into position so I put in a blower and then I tried to take it out of blower and it just stuck right thanks yeah the throttle is just full blower Mike you know and you start pulling back and I'm like okay there's obviously something wrong and I don't want to break something right so how hard do I pull and I start doing the negative G and the positive G and you know just shaking it all up and you know first telling him and as I'm starting to go buy my Guido lead right I got I got a problem uh and so then I'm trying to pull it back and it's like gosh darn it you know I couldn't I couldn't do it so I'm like all right so I'm gonna have to shut down this engine before I run out of gas and can't Land This Way stuff like that and so now is funny because I'm like okay shutting down and then I thought oh I have to pull oh no wait that's the Tomcat shut down do I have to put no that's the horn it should then do I have to do it no and it was like the the memory of of like which airplane you had the most experience in and how you kind of you know kind of remembered that so I think I'd probably remember how to start it up and definitely from a takeoff perspective I think I'd remember to sweep my wings forward uh to uh to take off so do you know coochie uh Mingo yeah so he helped with writing that scene uh in Serge Slaughter both Tomcat buddies as well uh in the movie for uh for that very good and also the you know when you bring back one throttle and throttle and swap throttles yeah that was a that was a coochism I thought that was and that came up I think on the F-14 tomcast Crunch and bio we're talking about that but I thought that was sort of verboten it is oh for sure and the GE engine you might do something like that but the Pratt Whitney you would sorry you'd you'd be off to races they're much better now at the uh yeah you and uh you probably stalled okay Harrison Wells wants to know what is your quintessential Navy memory and this was an interesting question because it's up to you to decide what quintessential means wow so you know there's tons of uh I mean I think Airborne kind of related stuff but a lot of it kind of all kind of comes together you know maybe an emergency here or there or a crazy issue that happened um at the boat or you know with an emergency or something like that but those aren't I'd say to me quintessential um a couple things being in command is a very rewarding role to get and I remember vividly some command experiences the not Aviation not flying kind of stuff as much as just uh like leading somebody in in a young petty officer coming in and introducing me to her mom and dad and like you know like the emotion and the pride that the parents had on their face when I was like thank you for being good parents because she's a rock star and she's helping the Squadron and she's helping America and she said and I'd say those things and you know the Mom starts to cry you know the kid starts to cry yeah and then the dad's beaming and pride and you know to me that actually kind of that was the human element um and so I would say between something like that and then you know again we've kind of talked about my family my my my wife yeah my kids my dad and mom you know their involvement and especially with my dad that this this thing and and that pride in the bond I think are the the quintessential emotional things more than I got a thousand like you do a thousand Airborne stories for sure yeah nobody else sees yeah sunsets yeah for sure um but uh emotionally probably my you know my family yeah there's so many of those you know what jumped into my mind when I was listening to you thinking about Harrison's question which is an interesting one is the time and you've probably done this too um when we went by the USS Arizona and we were Manning the rails and I happened to go up just because I wanted to partake in that and they had everybody render honors and it was like it's kind of cool yeah that's like that same thing that hey this is we're a small piece of a pretty enormous thing and so when you you get that magnitude it's pretty cool yeah all right here's the question about rugby I promised you it's right by Ben Todd who started off as a supporter of the show and I recruited him into helping so he's uh my right hand guy with all this stuff you played in coach rugby What similarities do you find between a rugby team and a Fighter Squadron Ah that's a good question there's a lot of synergy and similarities there um yeah a rugby team in a locker room is much like a Fighter Squadron in a ready room um there's that uh like I said before I learned more on a rugby pitch which is the Rugby field than I did in a classroom about life uh and the bond I think it's like when you go to somebody else famous says this when you go into battle with your peers um the bond that you form with your peers is like no other bond that you can form no other co-work I shouldn't say no other it's very odd that a regular job and co-workers have the type of bond that you form with somebody that you go into battle with and so going into battle on a rugby pitch is the same I mean maybe it's not life threatening but at the highest levels uh from National Championships to playing the U.S national teams um I couldn't have tried harder right there's no I I was at a hundred point zero percent and so was everybody else on my team and the bond and coming together we you know it's the it's not a Net zero-sum game where you it's like one plus one plus one is not three it's one plus one plus one can be 20. because of you coming together and doing that that's the exact same as in a Fighter Squadron right you you can be more together well you know section and or section Integrity division Integrity about you know one plus one is worth three or four sure uh type people and so I think there's that Bond of like you know my best friends are still I have a on my cell phone it says uh 85 national champs and there's 19 guys still to this day that was 35 years ago we text each other all the time Knuckleheads they're just absolute knuckleheads and the same Knuckleheads are in fighter squadrons and we text each other all the time and so um that that uh Play Hard Work Hard Play Hard fly Hard Play Hard mentality and that we're going to go into battle but then we're going to go into the bar and we're going to have fun and we're going to have like just enjoy life because now we know how special life is uh those are some similarities and bonds that uh a fighter Squad if he's a rugby player a fighter scoring is exactly like a rugby team very good drinking games call signs all this all the same stuff all right the last question is from Michael of all the aircraft you have flown which is your favorite I think we answered this maybe I don't know at least you have a deep love for the F-14 is it your favorite if they're all out there on the flight line and you can be magically current right now we're gonna walk out of the hangar and go jump in one which is your quote unquote favorite again that's kind of like what does favorite mean I I think if I had if I could resurrect my skill set like I had the ability to be as proficient as I once was as I once thought I was maybe whatever that country western song is yeah I think it'd be the A4 super fox really and just because every when you really got good at it it was like playing a an instrument that there was no computer it was you it was your feet your hand your brain your fingers your your it was all your movements and boy but if you really got good at it it was it was like you know they say it's like putting on a glove it was so tight I mean I'm not a big guy and I had to switch I had to move my shoulders to lower the canopy and you know so you touched here and it was just this incredibly you know uh maneuverable aircraft um any one of them would be great I could talk about anyone it's like your favorite car though but yeah it depends what you're doing if you're going to Costco you might take one car but if you're going first exact same afternoon drive maybe a different one well you're not done I mean today you're still flying Fighters for heaven's sakes right very fortunate technical support um one of the couple companies out there in the U.S right now in the world that uh friend of yours and mine uh RC Thompson dog Thompson built this company and it's basically a a red air Top Gun adversary type uh model we fly the F5 still but it's what we call the advanced tiger uh pretty vastly the airframe is the same the wings the engines you know Hydraulics uh those are all the same but all the inside all the avionics is completely different we have a Garmin 3000 you know screen we got other touch screen radios we have aim9 Helm amount of cubing queuing system uh radar specific built raw specific and now we have a couple new things uh durfum jamming and attack erst the irst that we just put on our nose that we're just developing now so um so it looks the same as the older F5 but it has vastly different capabilities turn rate turn radius bfm stuff same but the bbr stuff significantly different and so and that's really where our our role is right now as you know is in against the F-35 and in the Hornets and even we fight um with the the Air Force a lot as well uh it's about this game more than this game and um so having having the ability to uh really simulate emulate replicate the highest level adversaries which give the blue Fighters the best training is very rewarding so um so it's fun uh I'm old for sure so I don't pull as many G's so it's kind of nice that uh in in the break is probably the highest G's that uh in today's world most of it's bbr stuff um but no lots of fun and uh you know still still lucky and I to be quite honest it's to me the the reason why I still do it um is is probably why you're doing this right now as well as um I love naveo Aviation all aspects of it so much and the patriotism and the camaraderie and the in everything that is is made up in the concept of of fighter pilots in this this relationship that we have and to be able to still kind of be in that and feel like I'm contributing just a little tiny bit um to something is incredibly rewarding and so that's why I do it uh at some point uh dog's gonna say hey old old old man you know get out um so uh but right now I you know it's I'm I'm proud to be part of it Tech air is a tech air support is a is a great company to be you know work with and uh is a lot of fun to fly and I think we're doing a really good job so we have the contract a couple things we have just resigned a with Top Gun with nautic with the uh the nautic recompete so we have five years next an additional five years to be the red air provider and we're kind of at the disposal of nautics they might say go help that rag go help that as far go have that Air Wing that Havoc you know go help whoever we need to be adversaries for uh wherever we need to go so we help East Coast West Coast we go to Key West we're just there a month ago I was in Moffett Field yesterday uh so um we'll go wherever we are in addition what this company does is we're modifying I talked about the advanced tiger the air the Navy and the Marine Corps have decided to upgrade their fives to be similar to our 80s and so they kind of went through like a menu and said we want that that that that that that that and that and so our company now is taking Navy Marine Corps Jets and remodifying them into into these Advanced capabilities very cool so so it's fun it's a fun game yeah sounds like it um there's one system you didn't mention that I bet you wish you had on the old F5 any of these would be great but also the ability to come back and look at your tapes right so the recording system yeah yeah the recording system is important obviously from a debrief perspective uh it's it's pretty interesting now um in today's we've gone a little bit like the validating validating shots is still there and from the F-35 F-18 perspective is still there from the adversary perspective or we're kind of doing more of now as from a redneck perspective there's a lot of stuff back in the in in the building in the tax range so a lot of the stuff we do it's it's more it's not validating our shot necessarily in a valid shot at trigger squeeze kind of the old school stuff it's more like okay let's go back let's see where where these where the fighters did well where they are maybe a little bit vulnerable to to pull out the um Lessons Learned uh to make them better fighter pilots tomorrow so and the tax ranges are so incredible now um that uh as you probably have talked in other episodes with like lvc and reject alive and stuff like that it's really it's getting a little bit less about what happened inside of my cockpit and more about the the big picture what's happening and what those Fighters are seeing and how they're addressing it yeah I took a couple years off of flying uh for other reasons but when I got back in 2013 the red air had totally changed because when we used to do it in Fallon before that you just show up get the card yep standard go out rage around have a good time come back give the whoever was going to go to the debrief a few notes and you're done but by then they wanted you know what were you doing specifically what time what did you see what did you feel here and et cetera et cetera so yeah it took took some of the pure joy out of it I uh found but it definitely makes the blue guys better it does and uh and it's more about that big big picture uh engagement and so you really glean the most out of seeing the tax range and seeing how the geometry Works uh and the F-35 is so fine fantastic with super important is too but F-35 their sa their situational Awareness on what's Happening and is is just phenomenal yeah all right so you're still flying and I'm guessing maybe what you might have a week off but then when you're flying you'll probably fly every day kind of thing yeah we play let's all fly so I still live Coronado with you um and so since we detached it so I'll probably spend half my time maybe two weeks out of the month to two and a half three weeks out of the month flying uh but I some half the time is probably in Fallon and the other half is we do a lot of stuff like off the coast now because the ranges are really big and that's that's good um so we'll detach out a Moffett in Santa Maria uh a lot so I'll go straight like this last week I was just right at Moffett so I just flew up to San Jose they brought my flight gear down flew all week in San Jose Adam off it and then flew straight down here so I didn't even go to Fallon uh this last week and then a month ago we were down down in Key West we tend to do West Coast just for administrative you know flying the Jets around is easier um but uh yeah so about half the month I'll be flying well and you said earlier you used to keep your aircraft here before bones bought this FBO turned it into the circle Air Group which is kind enough to let us use and make it into a studio he's got a bunch of F5s as we've talked about before on this show are you involved with him at all are you guys a fan Fantastic uh guy deconger and what he's done here is just unbelievably impressive yeah I mean he's not this giant well he's got the giant company and stuff but he as an individual has really put together this whole capability they have um very impressive uh and I think one of the unique things that he's brought from a business perspective we tend to we being technical support and the typical uh fighter pilot world our muscle memory is the military and Naval and Air Force Aviation Etc and so our Squadron is very much like if you came and flew with us tomorrow you'd be like Yep this is just VF XYZ or vfa XYZ and what D brought in is because of his his corporate business experience is really like thinking outside the box of everything of like design about manufacturing about maintenance and and so it's interesting what he's done and how he's done different like okay there's an issue we're going to solve this issue but it's he's solving it different than how you might think a typical fighter pilot would solve it so he's really introduced a lot of cool policies procedures techniques you know whatever you want to call it um of how to do that and so we utilize him technical support utilizes him not only from a maintenance perspective but he also lets us borrow or we rent right he doesn't let us buy it's not like borrowing your uh Jets from him when we have to uh surge different aspects of certain things and so um no he's fantastic fantasy I mean you can great guy great pilot great fantastic businessman so he's that was his thing was building this business here at the FBO like a squadron so people take care of each other and look out for each other and have a vested interest in it so that's great uh all right so you're you're still flying um are you still doing restaurant stuff not doing restaurant uh per se so I sold all the restaurants and bars and clubs um which was kind of fortuitous given the fact that uh kovid and you know all that kind of hit um lots and lots of friends still in the restaurant bar uh industry uh and they had some challenges that that some guys didn't make it through that was a that was a tough for for the hospitality world that was a tough run uh um for those guys so I do have uh you know I kind of dovetailed still business in the sense of it's It's combining my passions of uh fighter pilot Aviation and aviation in general with hospitality and fun and enjoying life but since you mentioned it there's a nice little segue here I feel like uh whoops whoops Man Down uh try starting a a vodka line okay and um it's uh interesting that I I named it fighter pilot Distillery is our Distillery and uh and I this line is starting with vodka but we'll do whiskey and you know Tequila and gin and rum Etc um but it's Aviation related vodka and uh it's called check six vodka and the reason I started with vodka vodka if you know from a distilling perspective is is pretty uh pretty straightforward in the sense of you don't have to age it it's not like a whiskey or a tequila or something like that that would take years to do you can do this quickly that being said I'm I'm very very much of a nitpicky on making sure the product is is Top Gun quality if you will uh best of the best and so I found a wonderful Distillery here in San Diego created a great recipe we're actually distilled from from Pure cane so sugar cane uh which is a little bit more expensive but it makes it much smoother you distill it up to like 195 proof and then the dilution uh we're using reverse osmosis to bring it back down to 80 proof which is the required uh strength if you will proof of uh of the alcohol so it's super super smooth um in the from a marketing perspective the concept is you know check six you and I know this uh Airborne all the time you're checking six we say it as a wingman in in a real scenario like check six like there's somebody behind you check six if you and I are doing a 1v1 it's kind of more fun it's like hey I'm I'm beating you I'm gunning you look behind you um and then that translates down into the bars and the restaurants and our social life check six I'm behind you in the bar or look at that cute girl behind you or um Etc so it kind of that's why pick check six and then what I did I thought a a good fun side of this is because it will be um like private label and specific to different scenarios and so I'm I have different brand ambassadors from say you know Top Gun the Blue Angels NASA um the Thunderbirds uh vintage Etc uh and then when you check six you can if you check six of the bottle then you'll see this special collection and this one look at that you see that yeah this is the uh fighter pilot podcast special collection with the some photo that you might recognize I do indeed so um but you can you can try it let's see you say it's good huh dude how did you Chuck that like that it's smooth well see oh that's really really good it is yes well thank you so I'm uh proud to uh to uh we'll we'll we'll put some and then part of it is a philanthropic kind of uh capability too is so for example if we'll do a uh a fighter pilot podcast a special collection then you designate as the guru um where proceeds from this water will go through so a charity of your choice uh Etc so it will be fun it's a great like you in this whole environment it's a great way it's a fun way to stay connected and uh we'll uh we'll have some fun with it fantastic well let me know when you're ready I imagine there's some red tape to get through with that to make sure you're the government is pretty particular about people producing alcohol so yeah we're doing it the right way though I hope you're not printing guns in your house too because you might as well just do everything no we haven't so so my drink responsibly my daughter says don't drink and dog fight you know so true that will be a little catchphrase for uh for that um that could help with your legal side of things as well so yeah exactly all right well so all these things though that we've talked about today you've been a good sport thank you um a lot of this is I don't want to say fallen in your lap but you've built a network and people know you and you've achieved various cool things if you had to predict I mean is your phone going to ring again and you know if we met two years from now to talk about oh yeah first it was Oshkosh then it was the Jet Li uh the Breitling guys then you know not in this order obviously but like who's going to call you next if you had your crystal ball what's or or is there a um maybe like I hope to do this next yeah there are there are a couple things so this is one thing yeah the check six vodka was one um again from an entrepreneurial Spirit you have it it's that bug and it's it's palpable it's it's there and you want to do it and I did that with the restaurants and bars and now with this uh that being said there is a there are two other things that I'm I'm looking at and one I'll save it I'll tease it because I think uh it would be something nobody's done it and it's I think really really really cool um and I'm about two-thirds of the way through most of it and so maybe on a future podcast okay come back and uh I think I think you would really like it okay well but I don't want to divulge anything absolutely but clearly it's not a book because people have done that so when's your book coming out I don't know if I can that takes a lot just because if this doesn't this kind of well sure this is the book of transcript but no people I mean you have amazing Stories so you gotta here's what you do I'm told uh you talk to someone who ghost writes for like three or four hours on the phone they send you a book I'm not doing that by the way I'm painstakingly writing my Memoirs do you know nasty manager yeah so nasty did that and he told me that that's exactly how he did it and he was like yeah like he talked to somebody for a while and then they wrote this thing and now he's on his book tour yeah so uh I'll I'll yeah I don't know I'm I'm uh you know how the book there's so many things when you start talking like this the stories are great so I love the fact that podcasts have gone not only from audio but now visual as well because that really kind of brings it to the next level I I will there is something uh and I mentioned it earlier and I'd say um this is like really super important to me um is my dad's like his diary um we my sister found this diary and it literally goes through every day from 1940 to 1950 as a as a young kid in the Navy and every night before he he uh put his head on his pillow back then culturally people wrote a lot wrote a lot of letters and stuff and so he kept the diary and we found this diary just a few years ago just by happenstance and um it's unbelievable because there are certain things that you you will look at and go oh my God that's exactly the same today exactly same words same everything uh and then there's other things that are just awe-inspiring in the sense of like what not just my dad what all of our parents did in that generation to give us the freedoms that we have I mean there are things like um it was classic he'd say went up or got up went to church went to church a lot now Satoshi boy yeah yeah a nice Italian boy we went to church um had three hops today uh uh gun hop rocket hop bombing hop played some football they watched the movie every night roll them right uh it's uh It's a Wonderful Life you know with Jimmy Stewart um good movie lost five planes in sp2c to a TBM a Hellcat and a bearcat next page it's I'm like if we lost five planes like that we would stop right we would if we lost five points a year yeah we would have a safety stand down and so it was page after page after page of just um his his roommate his wingman his Co his EXO is decag perishing and and and to feel like they have to get up the next day because if you asked my if you asked you or me who's the best fighter part we all have the you're looking at them right that kind of stuff I never did say that I never did either way but but you know they have that we have more bravado sure and um if you ask my dad you know he like uh Thomas hudner one I mentioned before their humility is just you know incredible and I was very very fortunate um with this uh uh this award this Aviation um Hall of Fame thing and um bunch of years later I get called by this committee that was you know doing it and he said hey you know we're going to we decided to um elect your father to be in a part of the aviation Hall of Fame as well and you're the only son and father oh wow combo and do you want to tell them or do you want us to tell them and I was like okay I'd love to tell them so I call my dad and I said hey I've got this you know really cool news you know you're gonna get this award this Aviation and Hall of Fame it's it's super prestigious it's very cool it's it's so deserving and he said um why and I said ah what do you mean why Dad come on pops and he goes no why why me and I said why you you've got multiple DFCS distinguished flying crosses you got a ton of air Metals you've fought in three Wars you've you what do you mean why you come on pops uh because he used to always say that and and um well he said that to me then and then he goes he said you know I was the lucky one I came home I had a wonderful wife my mom I have all of you wonderful kids and grandkids because I got my reward I got the best reward in the world you know don't you think you should give this award to one of my wingmen that didn't make it home I'm like you know like a gut punch of like you know um holy cow well dad you're here they're not and this is great because you can tell these stories um but I think it's like a uh what I call it a almost like survivor's guilt so many people perished that the people who made it home he doesn't want to get an award for being lucky all right you know and and I'm like you know when I got it I wanted to pull a billboard up there did you see it it was on Highway five but the uh so that kind of stuff it comes through in this uh in this diary and um he didn't write it for anybody ever to see it it was just his thoughts as a young 20 year old kid um and in a war and uh but you you would love it actually Top Gun notic asked me um Sonic uh asked me to to because I have pictures of every I took pictures of every page just so we didn't I have the book but it really the pictures of every page just to capture it and forever um and he's like hey could you post some of those because literally it's like okay the Japanese attacked our westernmost possession today like westernmost position yeah Hawaii wasn't a state it was a western possession at the time so you know Ori he'd say something funny like um because they were in Kahului he'd say I flew over to Ford Island uh and uh we got in the TBM and I filled it all full of beers and booze for our our beach party Mike okay that shows you that naval aircraft can be used to transport alcohol or he'd come over and he'd say hey I got my first haircut from a woman today you know so it's just to hear that or even like he's like hey bukri and I is one of his wingmen bukri and I um went out into town and we met two swell gals Gloria and Susie well Gloria is Mrs Buck Creek I've known her for my whole life but this was like 1945 when when they met you know these swell gals so uh so if I did some kind of book it would I would hope to maybe do something that could tie that kind of stuff in because it's not about me it's about your dad and my dad your listeners dads it's about are their families all the things they did and this is like a and to think it would have been thrown out like my sister just happened to she mailed it to me in the mail on like a manila envelope like oh my God but she didn't know what it was and so uh it almost got thrown out so anyways sorry for the long story no that's good that's good um and that's right part of what we're trying to preserve on this show and others that do is this generation that's unfortunately although yours is almost 102. that's impressive so but a lot of my dad's gone he passed at 93 but uh all right so let me ask you this then you he didn't drink as much vodka as well we should do it again um you uh you speak very reverently of him and his generation and I appreciate that suppose maybe my kid has your kid on the show in 30 years and we're talking about you what do you want your legacy to be or what do you think your legacy is because oh by the way a moment ago while you were thinking about that you dropped this so oh yeah Aviation Hall of Fame thing which I had on my notes and forgot to ask you about but you know you've done a lot you've seen a lot you've made a big difference as well so what do you think when you when you hear the word legacy well I think I don't think I'm in that category uh because I hold my dad pretty high clearly um so I don't I don't want to assume that I'm you know like that so I think I've been extremely fortunate uh I worked hard like you have worked hard uh some things fell on in both of our you know uh in our laps in in the sense of like in in a good way not saying that we didn't deserve it but it's like there are other people it's like crashes it's like you know I know people that geez it was a great pilot I don't know maybe if that happened to me at that same time that same thing would have happened to me um so I I think uh I feel more about being honored to be part of this team then be singled out as an individual achiever of the team you know it's at least it's probably how you feel too it's like I'm just I feel so dang proud to just be a Naval aviator not necessarily because of what I've done but because of what everybody's done yeah and I'm just I'm on this Super Bowl championship team I get a ring uh that uh you know they're coming gold wings but um that's what I'm I'm mostly proud of so if as far as a legacy I I hope uh if my son and your son are here 30 years from now uh saying this that uh he's first gonna go yeah my dad's 112. still drinking vodka and his tequila but he really has tried to knock him off he's resilient Italian jeans that's right um no I hope that he would say um he's a you know good human being good dad you know good Mentor and uh you know had a positive impact on people yeah Naval Aviation outside navigation whatever just had a positive impact on life yeah so that's what I hope they're good Legacy would be do uh people who maybe want to follow you do you have a Persona somewhere on social media or online anywhere yeah you know that that's interesting that you should uh ask that I should uh because it's all I've been so with Red Bull now that was a big thing right so Red Bull we did the smoke on because so I'd call Smoke on your clearing the track smoke on that was our catchphrase and so for each race for each racer and and uh and we'd say it in different languages and you know it would it was fun and uh and yeah like um the Czech guy uh Martin shanka they they do uh it's a diki kamo which means like thanks dude and check and it was like hashtag D could come okay a humongous thing all around the world it was Czech thing so I kind of pulled back from that just from uh can I do the Facebook stuff and for the last five years I've been holding off just because I from a social media side I kind of wanted more you know Instagram and that kind of stuff uh uh going down this path so uh I will from a social media perspective yeah I I'll have to tell you what the what I don't know what my handle is I think it's like well you're on LinkedIn yeah LinkedIn linked to Instagram I'm on Instagram I'm trying to think it's in it uh it's like bogey pilot or or something like people have to do their own sleuthing oh by the time this airs you you'll put a little tag what Guido meant to say nobody ever reads the descriptions on these I can say you're getting well uh all right well we're almost done here but um wait hold on one more thing uh when I was researching I mean I feel like I know you pretty well but I like to do a little research as well I see that people can book you as a keynote speaker is that still something you do actually I've done quite a bit of that yeah it's probably been 50 different right yeah that's uh I actually enjoy that a lot I mean it's kind of like this and um uh they can I do probably one a month well that's ish okay from big large things to multiple thousands of people to uh to smaller uh Coronado rotary like what you did the other uh it's been a couple years a couple years yeah I just did it just a couple days I'll tell you I mean this is I have a really good uh presentation that dovetails my dad's story in that book and that's like a home run because it ties in some leadership well I do leadership stuff and I turn the rugby in the Navy Aviation and the difference is I've got a unique approach that from a business perspective because it's not just Joe Blow fighter pilot saying this is how you have to implement these leadership rules because it works for me and Company yeah yeah um it's more like holy cow in the Top Gun debrief scenario culture you try to run a restaurant and have a debrief culture and tell that Hostess that you know she really needed to seat the people this way not that way and then she starts to cry and you know people in general it's from a civilian perspective you have to be careful about constructive criticism there's a way to do that and how how to do that so um it's a unique situation and it's a lot of fun uh I typically do a lot of it uh I'll bring my wife just um as you know wives have a that's an they're an integral part of this and although a lot of guys a lot of people like to hear the top gun Maverick world of uh you know how did you get where you are and what did you learn a lot of people like to go okay Mrs Guido Mrs dimateo how do you deal with this dude how did you deal with him being gone for so long and you raising your kids with no husband and cutting the lawn and doing the insurance and fixing the car and you know shopping and you know so so we do we've done quite a bit where where I'd go and I'd talk and then she would be on a panel or something like that and answer some questions too and it's it's more fun yeah to do that uh that way as well so yeah so that's I do it for more entertainment than business good well I'm sure you get as much as you give because you can learn from the people you're interacting with so 100 yeah I love the big companies corporations like that I just did one um with uh you might know so Tony larussa he has ARF uh animal Animal Rescue Foundation uh Tony larussa was Hall of Fame manager baseball player and then manager Oakland A's and then St Louis Cardinals World Series you know great great great guy but he had a cat run on the field uh one time when he was a manager of up in in uh at Oakland and and they did this story and then he kept the cat and then they they put and it turned into a huge Animal Rescue Foundation and I just did a presentation and Incredibly they have this thing called pets and Bets and they they marry they call it um helping both ends of the leash and they take veterans with like PTSD and they take animals that are going to be euthanized and then they put them together and train them both the animal and the owner and uh it was spectacular I just did this dinner it was in Vegas and this guy was you know contemplating taking his life this guy was contemplating taking his life that dog and that dog were both going to be euthanized and now here's these two wonderful families it was just it was really cool so anyways yeah I get as much out of them because they they probably a lot more than they get out of me well and back to then the beginning of why I was somewhat cussing you out was you keep pretty busy so you're always running around hard to get you to sit down but I'm so glad you did because I really enjoyed our I don't know how long we've been talking but time flies when I sit down with great guests like you so thanks last question Jim dematteo you've talked about your Italian Roots Guido probably I can figure that one out but any good story when it was bestowed on you maybe the Carl sign Guido will the um I had a a flight instructor that uh was from New York and um he suguito I thought Guido was actually a complimentary term I didn't realize that he was doing it as like a derogatory demeaning yeah like a demeaning like you're just you must have been a weird fighter Aviation at that point because come on who would give you a complimentary well that's what I thought I was like hey this is pretty cool you're like butt head you're like you know Bozo and I get Guido that's cool and he's and then the other guy's from New York are like no no no a guido is like a derogatory term for them and I'm like not for me I'm like totally proud of my Italian Heritage this is great uh I'd love it uh so yeah that's I'm surprised you stuck if you liked it well that's what somebody actually told me they said don't don't don't look too excited that with it because they'll pull that thing from you that's right we're gonna name you assassin oh darn it I did have that one I did have the I had like the Saint Christopher and the Italian horn you know because my mom and dad had given it to me and they're like you wear this when you fly because this will keep you safe and it was actually uh a metal that my dad wore for his whole career so I was like oh absolutely I'll wear that and so so I did have the you know a little bit of a guido thing going on but I I don't I think that's I didn't realize it was bad all right you've been a good sport and uh let's let's uh open up some more vodka but then I gotta drive you home so uh I guess we better be careful but anyway thanks for coming on the fighter pilot thank you and thank you for what you do for uh all this this is spectacular you're obviously you're um you're taking your skill level it was a top gun fighter pilot and applying it to to this world of uh podcast and uh thank you for continuing to keep the uh Naval Aviation and Aviation and fighter pilot World alive this is spectacular so congrats thank you hey thanks for watching this episode of the fighter pilot podcast I hope you enjoyed it and learned something new I still do every episode now as a quick reminder we try to explain all the jargon but in case you missed something head on over to fighterpilotpodcast.com where we have a glossary of all the different terms we use and while you're there check out some of the cool merchandise that we offer for additional content and to help support the show please go check out our patreon page we'll see you next week

Channel: Fighter Pilot Podcast

Views: 91,257

Keywords: Military Aviation, Air Combat, Fighter Pilot, Air Force, Naval Aviation, TOPGUN, Red Bull Air Races, Top Gun, VFC-13, Sundowners, VF-211, VFA-211, Breitling Jet Team, Cal Rugby

Id: fnOFtCLiMGo

Length: 148min 51sec (8931 seconds)

Published: Fri Aug 04 2023