F-16 Pilot on a Suicide Mission to Save 9/11 - The Inside Story with Major Heather "Lucky" Penney

foreign [Music] good evening everyone and welcome to social flight live I'm Jeff Simon we have such a fascinating and inspiring show for you this evening retired major Heather Penny will be joining us this evening and her story is is riveting and inspiring all in one before we get started just a couple quick things first of all we are in the just about halfway through the last month of IA renewals and education through social flights FAA Learning System so if you are an amp mechanic with an inspection authorization you have just about three weeks left a little less than that in order to get your required eight hours of Education you can get that completely free through socialflight.com just click on social flight and then the FAA Learning Center and we have all those courses available and it actually prints out certificates and notifies the FAA of your education requirements so very very important stuff there in addition to that for Pilots mechanics technicians all of those other courses are available on the same Learning System in Social flight you can get wings credit for just sitting at home watching some fascinating educational content as well as participate in the aviation maintenance technician program that Awards program is available through the FAA and you can participate through socialflight.com finally social flights fly to win challenge we just completed another fly to win challenge period and we had a winner of a Lightspeed Zulu 3 headset that is Alex Hyatt of Locust Grove Georgia uh won that along uh he flies along with his son Andrew and we're very excited that they were able to get that prize and now we're in a new prize period so all you need to do is go to socialflight.com get the app get out there and fly check in and you can participate in the fly to win challenge so so many cool things and it's all available for free to support general aviation through social flight tonight's broadcast is brought To Us by Continental Aerospace Technologies Continental has been such a strong supporter of social flight for so many years that we are sincerely grateful and really in an unbiased fashion I've been flying the bonanza with a continental engine and having them do the cylinder work on it have new cylinders from continental and it's just been Flawless so I really do appreciate their products and their technical support is just Stellar there has been a recent service bulletin out there that people can notify if you have a new engine or new crankshaft and there's an article that I wrote for aopa that we'll talk a little bit more about that and Mike Bush was on last week so with that I would like to talk to you about tonight's uh guest because I am so excited and thrilled to have her here major Heather lucky penny has been flying since 1993. on September 11 2001 she was serving as a lieutenant with the 121st Fighter Squadron of the District of Columbia Air National Guard on that fateful day she accepted a one-way mission in an unarmed F-16 to intercept and down United Airlines Flight 93 believed to be headed to the U.S Capitol we're going to hear that story tonight in addition major Penny subsequently served two combat tours of Duty in the Iraq War and is currently a senior resident fellow at the Mitchell Institute of Aerospace studies researching and Advising on defense policy reach research and Analysis while her career has focused on patriotism and defense of our nation Heather also has a passion for general aviation she's raced Jets at Reno and remains an active GA pilot please welcome as I bring her on the line now please help me welcome to social flight live Heather Penny how are you this evening Heather hi Jeff it's great to see you hello everyone thank you so much for joining us Your Story from beginning to end uh just has me at the edge of our seat so I I just want to dive in and start with how did you get exposed to flying in the beginning what is it that drove you to to find your way first into the seat of an F-16 well I think like every one of us who's in aviation there's a calling they're just an urge you know it's it's in our blood I do like to say come buy it uh legit I'm a third generation pilot my grandfather was a pilot and he was an instructor and he managed an Airfield my dad was a pilot is a pilot uh fighter pilot in Vietnam he was a Sandy he flew a7s out of karate participated in linebacker two and then so I grew up around Aviation uh my dad was a uh you know airline pilot then he was a test pilot with a leer fan at Reno study became involved with the races with the rare bear uh he was a high roller flying rf4s out of there so I was just exposed to a tremendous community and variety of Aviation uh and I couldn't get enough of it so I I as a young girl I always wanted to be a fighter pilot um my mom didn't have the heart to tell me that girls couldn't be fighter pilots and so when I showed up to Purdue University I thought I was going to sign into ROTC and head on that Aviation pathway and they said yeah girls can't be fighter pilots so at that point my life took a a left-hand turn and um I was a an English major and I went into graduate school and I was in grad school when I heard that Congress opened up combat Aviation to women and so that is when I applied to all the guard units around the nation because I didn't care where I went I just wanted to go fly something with a pointy nose wanted to fly past jet and the DC guard hired me and so that's where I've been ever since wow so so first of all at the time was it only combat that was that was out or was had it had they yet allowed women into um the uh the Armed Forces of Pilots at all so women could fly in the armed forces they could fly Heavies and the Navy did allow women um to fly Fighters as instructor Pilots but they weren't combat rounds right the Air Force because because of the way that we do the way we manage careers we couldn't segregate women to just be instructor Pilots because that combat knowledge is really crucial to how we instruct and how we pass that knowledge down and frankly how we also manage and promote too so the Air Force did not have any women in Fighters at all the closest you could get would be an instructor pilot in like t-37s or t-38s but but women in general they they did not for you know for for the Air Force and frankly across all the armed services none of them were combat rounds wow so tell me what it was like when you actually got got into the Air National Guard and what was that I mean you came for many Aviation background obviously so you already knew about a lot of things about flying what was involved in making the transition then into the National Guard and then uh working your way up through the different aircraft well so I wouldn't really call myself a super experienced Aviator I got my private pass license in a Cessna 152 like many of us um and then as a starving graduate student you know saving up my pennies for an hour here and an hour there um because you know my dad was I mean they lived in Denver I was going to school in Indiana there wasn't the opportunity to be able to go bomb a a flight in my dad's airplanes um and so I really didn't have that much experience and when I joined the Air National Guard when they when they hired me I went through their commissioning process and then I went through pilot training just like everyone else and I think that that was really important because the way that the Air Force trains our Pilots really it doesn't it's designed to go from zero to hero and is also designed to teach you to fly in a manner that the Air Force expects and that's really important to be checklist oriented it's about discipline um it's teaching a mindset there's a focus on airmanship and judgment and so forth and that's really crucial to the follow-on Tactical skills that will impart whether or not you're flying airlift whether or not you're flying um an RPA whether or not you're flying a fighter so all the different platforms that we operate and we take to war it's really crucial to have a very similar basic foundation of airmanship the Air Force is now exploring a different means to be able to achieve that so um using it Advanced Technologies uh being able to adapt the syllabus uh proficiency advancing students but it's still it's still ultimately focused on the same objective of delivering a qualified Airman at the end of their training that has the the solid foundation of not just Aviation skills but the airmanship that then we can build that tactical operational skill set on top of so after graduating from Pilot training I went to njept which is the Euro NATO joint Jet Pilot training in Wichita Falls Texas at Shepard Air Force Base we have there a lot of our NATO partners and allies send their studs who will be fighter pilots or combat Pilots there too so it's a very it's it's different than the other school houses that the Air Force has so I was really fortunate to go there it's where I bought my first airplane my my Taylor craft and then following graduation I attended my B course my basic school for F-16 out of Kelly Air National Guard base which is embedded on top of in in Langley and after I did that then I went back to my operational unit and went through my mission qualification training just like everyone else wow I have a couple pictures we don't do a lot of pictures here but I've got a couple here that are that I like this this is this is a good one with the tweet I love oh my goodness I love the tweet it was such a fun little airplane horribly underpowered but it was so flitty and Nimble it was just such a joy to fly and you still have your hearing right after that what a mighty dog whistle right that that's what everybody says we've got that one here here's here's another one yeah yeah I love the t-38 still flying still flying believe it or not so you can't get those I cannot get those t7s on the ramp soon enough yeah well that was uh that I mean those are fun when I saw those pictures from you I said I had to bring those guys up so that's what 121st uh Fighter Squadron uh with the District of Columbia and um hop you know right into it there's a lot more to get to but take us through what actually happened because your story on 911 is unbelievable with so much happening at one moment yes and I just have to say I was in the wrong place at the wrong time or the right place at the right time but I I will say that I truly believe that that what Mark sasseville and I were willing to do that day was nothing special any one of us would have been willing to do the same thing whether or not your military service member or first responder I mean if you just take a look at how Americans Across the Nation responded uh whether or not you were in New York whether or not you were at Shanksville um they're the Pentagon or even just in small town America the way that people came together to take care of each other uh I just there's nothing unique about me personally other than I was standing at the Ops desk when we got the call but I wasn't really supposed to apply that day it really wasn't I was not on the flying schedule uh it was a Skeleton Crew because we had just gotten back from red flag and what a lot of people don't understand is that when we do our practice missions I mean we do what we call CT training continuity training um so it's it's how we maintain our tactical Edge but we don't when we go out we fly intercepts or we dogfight or we go to the range to practice uh laser-guided bombs these are not real weapons we do not fly around with real weapons on board uh we do carry bullets but those bullets are not high explosive incendiary rounds they are lead-nosed bullets um so they're really not going to have they're like really fast big BB guns right they're not going to have any kind of big effect so a lot of people are were like wait a second why weren't you why weren't you armed because that's not how we operate on a daily basis uh so I was sitting in a scheduling meeting with a handful of of other folks the vast majority of our Guard unit um was either taking leave because we just gotten back from Red Flag or as part-timers because they had been that they taken two weeks off of work to be at Red Flag we're back to their normal jobs offline for the Airlines and so forth literally our Pilots were scattered Across the Nation because most of our Pilots were also airline pilots um uh we had sent a three ship of f-16s down to the Dare County ranges in North Carolina Cape Hatteras are 53-14 if y'all are interested um and that was uh that was Lou shooter Campbell um Eric Puck higginson was number two and Billy Hutchison was number three and we had sent them down there to go do basic surface attack which I is really it's comfort food for fighter pilots we love it you know you literally you have on the ranges you've got you know it's like a big Bullseye and um we had little 33 pound um phosphorus charged bomb so they go poof when they hit the ground and you you Dr you drive around in a rectangular pattern and you literally dive at the at the bullseye and release the weapon and come off so that's what those guys were doing that was our morning that morning when we heard that an airplane had hit the World Trade Center and it was a crystal balloon warning there was not a cloud in the sky it was a perfect flying day and we looked around at each other and like how does that happen because we're not that far away from New York we share a similar weather weather pattern typically so we thought well maybe they had missed fog maybe it was a Cessna that took a wrong turn you know they've got those little tour assessments going up and down and so we made to be honest um some some inappropriate jokes is fighter pilots were known for having a kind of black humor and we went back back to our business and it wasn't until um David chunks Callahan Dave Dave was one of our enlisted troops came back and said another aircraft hit the other World Trade Center it was on purpose and that's when we got up and we went to the Squadron bar and we saw everyone else saw that morning and we knew that our nation was under attack what was the command structure what time at what point did the military and did your unit start to respond to that the problem Jeff was that any structure at the time now this is totally different today um we are very well prepared today with units Across the Nation uh having active alert we we fly random air patrols and we we do as much as we possibly can to imagine the what ifs but on that Tuesday Morning in 2001 we were living in a post-cold War era the Soviet Union was gone it was the the Earth had flattened it was the end of History where a unipolar world and the Air Force had been cut in half literally and all the alert units that had used they they sat on the borders of our nation they were gone there were only five alert units sitting alert that that morning Portland Oregon Fresno California Homestead at Jacksonville uh Florida a Detachment um from North Dakota at Langley and then up in Otis and that was it and their mission was when they got the scramble orders is if they would head out over the oceans because that's where the threat came from so there was nobody sitting over DC it we used to as the DC guard we used this at alert but that mission had been taken away from us uh years and years before so as the DC guard we didn't belong to NORAD we weren't an alert Squadron um as the District of Columbia Air National Guard we didn't have a governor because the mayor of Governor the the mayor of DC was not our commander-in-chief our civilian chain of control goes all the way up to the president just like in a normal State their civilian chain of control goes to their governor and then they they get activated to be part of a federal response to go to war um our civilian cheating command went to the president and you can imagine he was pretty busy at that time so we had no way to get the authorization to launch and we couldn't do that on our own because we knew that it would involve lethal Force We Knew by that point in time that because we had seen the videos that the target was uh it would be a civilian airliner with Innocent Americans and civilians on board it would have significant impact to whatever happened on the ground with the debris field um legal response and also we didn't know what other response was going on because we were not getting any kind of communication so if we had taken off on our own not only did did we have all of those other problems but we could have made it worse by inducing confusion and fog and friction so now remember I'm just a brand new lieutenant right I mean I am telling you these things with the wisdom of of 2020 hindsight of having to of being able to look back and all that but I was a wide-eyed Lieutenant really green I had just earned my combat Mission qualification a couple of months prior uh so I am watching the the the leaders in my Squadron and again we're we're a very small Squad and we've got um our our do our director of operations at the time Mark sasebo he's a a three star now but at the time he was a major um we had uh Dan uh raisin Kane a two star now but at the time he was also a major he was our weapons officer we just brought on uh Mark Drifter Valentine um who again was a major so we were all very young because we were part-time Guard unit so they they were they were doing what they could to respond and so our wing Commander General uh Brigadier General uh Dave Worley who was the Roman Commander he had come down to the office building he's going to try to get us that authorization to Launch so he's working through the chain of command he's pushing that noodle right trying to find someone who has the authority at the same time Mark sasseville is calling over to the control tower there on Andrews because at Andrews is where Air Force One lives right and every time Air Force One moves a secret service owns the field so the Secret Service controls who takes off who lands and so forth so SAS is thinking if he can get a hold of the control tower and they know one of the Secret Service Guys phone numbers then maybe he can go around that chain of command to go directly to the president get access to somebody within that civilian chain they can give us that authorization to Launch um what what's interesting is that what was going on you know beyond just that effort to get the that authorization right so you've got uh you've got Dave Rowley trying to get the authorization through the chain and man you've got SAS trying to work around it uh Dan Kane our Raising Kane are our weapons officer he knows we've got to get missiles we've got to get um actual weapons on board so he calls down to the bomb dump and again a lot of people don't realize that you know you don't just um you know it's not like a weapons come zip locked and you open up the bag and you're loaded on up it's a lot more like Legos right than different parts and pieces whether or not it's a bomb or a missile you've got the missile uh body you've got the explosive you've got the fuse you've got the guidance kit you've got the fins you've got the rocket motor all of those things have to be built up so it takes time to be able to do that um so raisin is calling down to the bomb dump at telling them I need you to build me up some real aim9s and then you just get them to the flight line now and you have to you know kind of put this in perspective this is the military this is the Air Force this is the military the world's largest bureaucracy we don't do anything without paper trail right and here's raisin calling out the bomb dump and saying hey guys I need you to build me up some actual missiles by the way we're in good guy land we're home we're not in bad guy land and I need you to get them to the flight line and it is truly a testament to raisin's leadership and his credibility that based off that phone call um our weapons troops began immediately to build up those missiles and the challenge was as SAS and I just wouldn't get them in time um Dave McNulty Dave McNulty was our intelligence officer and he is one of the smartest guys I know I just love the heck of him comes from a long line of Boston cops and again remember we're guarding it we're not getting we're not getting fused intelligence feeds or anything like that so what what nuts is doing uh Dave McNulty is called science nuts what he's doing is he is literally calling up the reservation desks of Airlines trying to figure out like who's Airborne what flights are scheduled what flights have landed and so forth so he's doing what we today so fancy call um open source intelligence because he's trying to build us uh an air order of battle he's trying to build us a picture of who's still Airborne because the FAA is already starting to bring folks down right um and uh Mark Valentine director Valentine that was his first day in the Squadron he had just gotten active off active duty and again one of the most brilliant guys that I know um and so what he is is doing is he's working with maintenance he's trying to Stage maintenance he's trying to work all that sort of stuff um so that we can you know start getting the Jets ready um start calling and bring in you know whoever is not in the Squadron all the pilots that are in the Squadron he's got to start mobilizing folks and bringing him in and so forth so so he's doing a lot of that back end work too so again I'm just a lieutenant like my job that day was to um build our take off and Landing data cards uh print some maps out and load up our data transfer cartridges like that's that's what I did I did not contribute much but um really impressive when you think about the initiative um that these guys took uh and as much risk as they could they were leaning forward as much as they possibly could now Phil dog Thompson uh dog is now well he was an airline pilots he's one of our part-timers uh and I love dog went to weapon School in the F4 and he had his big still has a big fluffy like Vietnam style mustache and dog is just full of good Common Sense he was a damn good fighter pilot dog was our supervisor of flying that day and so he calls down to the Dare County Rangers where he had sent the bully flight remember I had said we'd had a three ship of f-16s down there shooter Campbell uh Eric haginson Puck higginson and Billy Hutchison and he tells them okay you guys got to come home um so he tells the ranger send him home tell him to bust her Hot Head actually bingoed himself out uh not unusual for a lieutenant I'd never done that right you know After Burner can fix a lot of problems but uh um so Puck was actually already on his way home when dog calls down and tells the Dare County Ranger to send home the boys those folks listening bingoing out his fuel on that yeah yeah that's your like okay I don't have any more playtime fuel I gotta go home now otherwise I'm gonna have to divert for fuel um so shooter and Billy are on their way home Puck is is starting to get in the airspace and he calls up dog who's sitting supervisor or flying kind of the you know adult supervision of the flying operation for the day it's just a duty um and so uh pot calls up and says you know guard softbally too and dog picks up the radio because he's kind of annoyed because things are getting a little busy he goes all right bully two guards off go and Washington Center is not going to let Eric higginson back into the airspace because they're shutting down all the airspace so doc says don't you worry about that I'll take care of everything and you know calls up Potomac none other one of ours bringing one back home we got another two ship coming in so forth and then Puck calls back and he says hey they're asking me if I've got missiles or bombs on board you know kind of what's going on here you gotta remember at that point in time we all lived in like two separate worlds right you lived in a pre-911 and you lived in a post 911 and everything had to do whether or not you saw the images did you see the towers if you saw the towers you were living in a post-911 world if you hadn't you were still pre-911. um and the bullies are all pre-911 right they were down there at at the Dare County range they have no idea what's going on so anyhow dog says don't you you just keep on coming home and it was a couple weeks later after Puck lands and you know we all do our stuff he comes home he lands safely I listened to his tapes like a couple weeks later and he's coming in he's dialing up the atis and this is what the androzata said this is Anders Air Force Base information Bravo Anders Air Force Base is closed Washington class Bravo airspace is closed any aircraft attempting to enter Washington class Bravo airspace will be shot down that was it um it was shortly thereafter that we got the call uh to take off because the Pentagon had been hit and vice president Cheney says aren't there Fighters at Andrews somebody get them airborne so the secret service calls us I'm standing there at the Ops counter General released their SAS is there dogs behind the counter pucks coming in he's already he's he's already landed raisins there um Brandon Rasmussen who was an active duty Captain he was also he was embedded in our unit so he's sitting there too and when that's when we get the call and Seth says lucky you're with me raisin you and I Gore wait until you get missiles lucky let's go now I would love to say that SAS picked me because I was a Sierra Hotel wingman but really I think and I've never asked him this but really I believe that what was going through sasa's mind is that first of all he we knew at that point in time that if we got the authorization launch before those missiles got loaded up it was going to be a suicide mission um we had the four of us had sat down in a briefing room and had kind of gone through what uh what our options were kind of weaponered it on the Fly based off of what we knew would be required to take down an airliner-sized uh Target and even though we were flying around with 105 rounds of those training bullets remember those those BB guns um in our noses between the two of us even 210 rounds was not going to be sufficient to bring time The Airliner the flight and uh so SAS knew it was going to be a one-way Mission if we were successful and you know Brandon's got a wife and a baby and um Dan's got a a wife as well so they have families I am single I've got a dog someone can feed my dog I think I truly believe that's why Vice aspect me and because we believed at that point time based off of what um nuts was able to kind of put together that there were maybe up to three airliners still unaccounted for and dog had just gotten a call from Washington from Potomac tracon saying that they think another one's coming down the river so I run after tests we go down to life support putting on my you know my gear and I'm thinking don't forget anything because you can't come back you know and that's when you know I'm I'm got my DTC in my lineup card you know my helmet my my checklist everything's my helmet bag I'm you know zipping up my g-suit when SAS looks at me and says I'll ram my jet into the cockpit and I knew that I would ram my jet into the tail the empennage and that's how we were going to divide it up now about this time the bullies are coming back so you've got the two ship you've got you've got shooter Campbell you've got Billy Hutchison they're coming back they're coming back into land um and so dog asks them like how much fuel do you have and shooter didn't have enough and I don't I I don't I'm not sure exactly how much fuel Billy had it was probably like a thousand pounds 800 pounds maybe it was totally men fuel because they had been coming back in uh Mill power and but but dog says okay Billy you got just enough fuel you got just enough fuel to do one pass up and down the river they think another one's coming low over the Potomac and so I actually hear that little piece um in my radio you know as SAS and I run out to the Jets right and I'll tell you this part because this part's pretty funny remember I'm a I'm a lieutenant I'm a dumb Lieutenant brand new super green uh SAS uh he he had done his nuke shirt so he'd done like the actual like Nuke alert thing um so he runs up to his jet and he just like jumped right in and I'm thinking okay we all know as Pilots that when you deviate from your habit patterns when you start disregarding your checklist that's like when things that's the start of the accident chain right so this is if anything in my life mattered it was now I could not get this wrong so I'm going to follow my habit patterns and totally do my checklist so it's gonna be the best pre-flight I've ever done it's just me the fastest one I've ever done so I run up and I grab the 781 forms from the crew chief and I'm looking through the forums and status is already up in the Cockney because lucky what the hell are you doing get in the goddamn jet and that's like that's when it occurred to me like we don't have time for checklists I Gotta Throw the book out I gotta rely on my own systems knowledge to improvise something that I had never been trained for I have to make up my own procedures for scrambling right yeah so I just I I climb up the jet I climb up the ladder and I tumble into the cockpit and I at this point like I'm not even strapped myself in and my crew chief normally the crew chiefs they follow you up the ladder and they tuck you in and they you know they snap your harness into the it's it's you're getting tucked in it's wonderful um no like I tumbled into the cockpit and poof that ladder is gone right and so I'm doing the minimum to get this thing started 911 2001. we do not have GPS on the Jets we had recently been upgraded to ring laser Gyros for our inertial navigation systems yep so it only took eight minutes to spin up that system we don't have eight minutes we don't have time to do the whole starting sequence so I'm going to do the minimum necessary to make sure that I have a safe flying aircraft Jacob start 2 20 going to idle watching the RPM and the temperature 40 less than 750 let that stabilize out I do my SEC check my up check I do my flickest bit to 43 so I know my digital flight control system has done its minimum necessary and at that point in time like SAS is taxiing and I'm getting ready to jump the chalks in afterburner and suddenly you know they pull the chalks and as I'm taxing after SAS I look down and my crew chief he's actually still plugged into the jet and other guys are pulling pins they're pulling the pins out of my gear and out of my tours um out of my external fuel tanks and the last thing my crew chief says to me is um is Godspeed wow and I taxi after SAS we take off on a Runway one right and we fly low head Northwest through the smoke over the Pentagon and we never found anything now remember I had said I had said that the bullies had come back and and I could hear Billy and dog on my tapes and sassa Sass and I are taxiing dogs asking you know shooter and Billy how much fuel you got shoe doesn't have enough um Billy has like I said probably men fuel 800 000 pounds he's got just enough to do one pass up and down so Billy takes off first Billy takes off first and he he goes up down the Pentagon or down the Potomac or up the Potomac probably Great Falls comes back down kind of circles around and then he lands and but SASS and I we take off right after and we're seconds after him and um and SAS takes us I don't know I don't even know how many miles into the Pennsylvania Countryside but we never saw anything you know we're spread wide searching low with our radar it's just burning worms but we did not find flight 93 the passengers had already crashed the jet and they were the real heroes that morning and thank God they did thank God they did what was happening with flight control at the time for you coordinating and trying to both find 93 as well as as you mentioned in that kind of fog of War situation there were a lot of people thinking that there were other aircraft also out there so I'm glad you brought that up Jeff because I will tell you the air traffic controllers are freaking amazing they are real unsung heroes here because if you think about it you take air traffic controllers and their job is to keep all of us on our Airways and in Our Stars and our SIDS and you know keep us separated and suddenly now their job is to bring us together and their professionalism and mental agility and their ability to do that is was mind-watering to me it was just blew my mind um so when we took off we were talking with Potomac because there was no air force a wax Dark Star none of that we didn't have you're on civilians yeah we're talking to civilians exactly so the only the only battle space awareness support that we have is Potomac approach so SAS takes us out I don't know I'm guessing maybe 100 miles it's insufficient to sanitize that airspace on the axis that we went to make sure no one was coming down in that that area and once we've sanitized that airspace he goes okay we got a ranch house we got to go back to um what we had called Bullseye which was the the DCA Vortec because if we Captain continued just heading out to the Northwest what if we had picked the wrong axis and we got flanked by the bad guy so he he brought us out just enough to sanitize and then then took us back to to DC where he had us set up a counter rotating cap so he'd be looking to the Northwest and I'd be flying to the southeast and then we'd turn around right and while we're doing that sassa's talking to Potomac and saying okay um we're gonna need your help in identifying uh radar contacts and potential um unknown aircraft and so this is how we need you to help us DCA Vortec let's call that Bullseye if something is on the on the zero nine zero radial so to the east of of Reagan um for 15 miles into 3 000 feet I want you to say you know Bullseye 090 uh uh 15 15 for 3000. right yeah so that would allow us to be able to point in that direction you know set our Radars find that contact and then go investigate it and that's what they did um immediately like something off to the north uh you know uh cap one two you've got uh unknown contact uh Bullseye 360 for fifteen three thousand feet we're gonna head out north and go see that and remember again a lot of people were living in a pre-9 11 world so a lot it was a gorgeous flying day a lot of people a lot of guys just went this is awesome I'm gonna watch the 6 a.m news have my cup of coffee go to the airport hang around eat a donut and then go for a spin yeah and that was totally normal totally 20 20 years ago people didn't didn't have the same things with with even even news on their cell phone while they're driving or anything like that going on cell phones we didn't have cell phones yeah right there was there was not we were not bombarded by this 24 7 media so we have to remember and put ourselves back into that mindset so Potomac were they were phenomenal and before long they were adding um iff squawks so so whatever whatever your transponder code was and then they were telling us who that was and what their point of origin was and what their destination was so they'd say you know um uh we've got a Medevac flight uh Bullseye zero two zero for seven two thousand feet uh point of origin is um you know at some hospital and they're going to the Pentagon you know so by adding that additional identification and information they were able to help us sift through really who are the good guys and who do we need to go investigate wow so I just I cannot say enough wonderful things about uh Potomac uh they were just they were phenomenal and by the way those guys were on the zipper now I still love those guys they are the best I love them they're fabulous that is you know I I I'm so uh appreciative that you explain that because I don't think many people think of that aspect of what ATC did on 911 and and obviously there were some of the first to really understand there was an issue to start to spread the word internally of what was going on but I didn't realize the extent at which they became the combat Center for coordination for folks like yourself yeah no they they really were they were incredibly important for that for that initial response and then as we continued our 24 7 combat um air patrols over DC where we had layered Fighters and we did at that point then have tankers and a-wax um and so forth they were still a crucial piece of every element of responding because they tied together the civilian battle space picture um and shared that then with the Air Force and and our E3 a-wax at that point in time so and supporting uh what niaz was doing the Northeast air defense sector uh they just phenomenal just phenomenal um I can't tell you how much I respect and appreciate our air traffic controllers so moving ahead a little bit what was the transition like as you as time went by and you transitioned into a combat role having had this experience and then moving as uh as things proceeded with the war in Iraq um tell me a little bit about that that transition what your experience was we continued to fly 24 7 combat air patrols for through June of 2002. and it took time to begin to um normalize scheduling normalize procedures The Rules of Engagement to hand over the authorities to the Air Force because interestingly the DC guard were we were the cap commanders we had the commit authorities for the first couple weeks and so um it took us time to then transition all that and of course everyone was like why did it happen what happened so there was just a lot of confusion to work through for those first couple weeks and frankly after about a month or so um things began to normalize out it was really amazing uh coming back in I mean so SASS and I you know we we did our our we were Airborne I think I think like for four hours it was a while um because raisin and and Igor Brandon Rasmussen um when they got missiles they got airborne foreign set up an X leg cap and then we waited until there was another set of s16s and I forget who that was um to replace SAS and me and you realize that it's an F-16 doing that type of mission you'd be able to stay airborne for four hours uh did you really feel actually yeah no you're right so normally even with the two bags of gas that we had because we were still configured for red flag we were in an air-to-ground configuration still that's normally only about two and a half hours so while SAS and I um when we came back we'd been in the cap for a little bit after you'd set it up and that's when um uh the Langley guys the quits showed up because they had gone out over the Atlantic and were finally able to get back into the airspace so they were up at 18 000 feet and they were working with niads they brought an a wax they brought their tanker and so um SAS and I are doing our thing down low and Potomac says uh hey uh Kaplan one we've got we've got a phone call from niaz they're trying to uh to reach you there's a quit on this frequency so SAS and I stayed plugged in um on our on our intro flight frequency and he stayed connected to Potomac and he sent me up over to talk to the quits the f-16s um I I think they're Fargo guys um that were a Detachment down down at lyingly and so then through that connection and communication was how it began how SAS then began to say okay you guys stay up high you've got the high look I want you um you know running east and west and they were the ones that brought the tanker um and then later on they were able to uh to bring in an a-wax but for that point in time um and that's that's how he ran it so SAS and I were able to go get fuel off the off of the tanker that that the quits had brought with them wow and that's how we stayed that's how we stayed Airborne for that period of time and so then SAS and I went down and landed um you know we we assess debriefed some of the Air National Guard Leadership and then we um went back up and flew a second flight um that day and that's when we brought uh Air Force One back in too wow that's amazing I say I say we again remember I'm a wingman so I'm ski roping this whole thing but you're doing a little more than that but uh yeah when you when you when you make that type of commitment to a mission um so you did two tours uh over in Iraq Goods it was so much fun tell me a little bit about that well one of the things that was really unique about our first deployment to Iraq was that we um the Air National Guard uh blocked 30 f-16s were selected specifically for the scud hunting Mission because of the unique equipment that we had on because the way the guard was able to independently modernize that airframe as older aircraft they were no longer supported by um no longer primarily supported by the active duty Air Force and so the guard could kind of do a little bit of their own stuff with that so they had integrated a saddle data link where we could do things like free text with the Army saddle was actually an army um data link we had a lightning targeting pod so laser tardy pod that was was actually ahead technologically ahead of the lantern pod which is what the active duty Air Force used so it had much much better the lantern pod was like looking at a 1970s sonogram I mean it was but the lightning pod not only the the resolution was phenomenal in the um the infrared uh whether or not it was black hot or white hot and it gave you a lot more control but it also had a laser marker and it also had what we called EO Electro Optical so it's kind of like black and white TV um at the time and they've clearly become far much more advanced and so you have both lightning and the sniper pod um today but so we had some really unique capabilities uh on the aircraft that made us um uh especially equipped to be able to hunt scuds and and work with the Special Operations uh forces that were also sharing that mission to hunt scuds in the western deserts and so um raisin and Drifter and um the weapons officers from our sister units that we deployed with uh the Montgomery guard and the Buckley guard so Alabama and Colorado um they work together to develop the tactics that would enable us to be incredibly effective and very quick at that job because we knew that they were going to use uh shoot and Scoot tactics so it was a very limited time window we had to hunt them um and we're happy to say that uh that no scuds got launched that's that's impressive and then the fact that you got that opportunity to go and essentially you know hunt these offensive weapons and uh and do it effectively yeah and I you know I was very fortunate I was Airborne with um with Kirk Pierce I was his wingman uh for the first part of uh we did combat pairs so you flew with the same same pair same two ship um every night for the for the first couple uh first couple of weeks and so I was uh take Pierce's uh combat wingman um fantastic fighter pilot by the way nothing but awesome things to say about him um and we were Airborne uh for the opening phases of combat operations and so we were in the western western part of Iraq uh hunting hunting those studs and of course most everyone will was going into into Baghdad and it was it was something to see wow do you remember the the first time that you fired a weapon in combat yes yes any live weapon I had not done any live any live weapons it was a 500 pound um laser guided bomb and I remember being distinctly disappointed at uh it did not look like Hollywood at all oh that's what you were disappointed about with what the results yes it was not a big boom well at least you're on target wow um all right so that what brought you back then out of the military into the states and and and kind of got you towards your civilian the civilian side of your of your career I know you flew at Reno I wanna uh and we're running out of time to hear about that so you may end up having to come back but I want to hear some yeah well I mean like like everyone I mean the mission the mission ended it was time for us to come home we all came home and and that's when when everybody in the in the Air Force and the Air National Guard I mean we all began that high that high rotational Tempo um that uh that really just not only burned out a lot of our people but burned out a lot of our aircraft I mean remember like I said you know they of course got cut in half um in the 1990s and actually got even smaller um after uh after we entered Afghanistan in Iraq so we got even smaller after that which just meant that everyone had to fly harder and more often so so that that higher Ops Tempo just just burned everybody just burned everyone out um but you know I I came back um I got married I had two little girls and then and after my my second deployment uh it my first marriage was was not I was a single mom of two little girls and I could not handle um the deployments anymore I couldn't handle the Ops Tempo I couldn't remain a credible fighter pilot with the demands of being a single mom by then I was a part-timer so I was working for um for Lockheed Martin and I was burning the candle at every Edge and something was going to give and and I had to make a choice and it was one of the hardest days of my life to walk into my commander and say boss I can't do this anymore uh because not a day goes by that I don't miss the jet not a day goes by that I don't miss a mission and not a day goes by that I don't miss the Bros I am incredibly fortunate to have been able to serve with just some of the the finest people I have ever known um and to do it for a nation that I love in a jet that I love and let's just be honest it was awesome but I was fortunate that when I did have to call it quits the commander on the other side of Base um uh Woody agons Gary Akins uh uh he was an A-10 pilot he actually was a Desert Storm vet he flew the A-10 and Desert Storm amazing amazing fighter pilot and he had and he was he had we'd flown F-16 together he had actually been over in oif for the opening phases with us as well and when he he had gone over to the other side to our sister Squadron the tour first airlift Squadron which does uh VIP Sam so uh VIP special airlift missions so basically kind of like white house light right um Net Jets for generals so he heard I was I had called it quits with the F-16 and he called me because lucky come fly for me I said Woody you gotta know I got I got these two little girls I I I've gotta I I can't do these two-week International trips that you do with the C40 and taking codels everywhere Congressional delegations internationally goes no no I got I got these little astrojets and and you'll be fine and do you know what an astrojet is is so much fun it's so much fun what a great what a great thrusty little airplane it's got a duck-billed face that only its Mama could love but it was a blast to fly so I I was fortunate to get to to move from The Fighter world over to over to the corporate world for the uh for the military um and you get to get to learn that kind of Aviation and I'll tell you what you know um again consummate professionals um in the in that in the corporate world I say corporate it was a millet you know military it was still military military corporate transport yes but I'll tell you what I mean these guys came from c-130s they came from uh um KC 135s they came from KC tens um and or or even from like the little Lear Jets but they were so dedicated to Excellence in their kind of flying and they really it was it was a new world for me um I swear to God I thought that the the flight management system was going to kill me it was like it was harder to deal with than you know than than the weapon systems that I had over in the F-16 but um but it was a kind of line that I that I just really learned to love um and I'm so unfortunate you've been able to experience uh both sides of that so that you know and I'm fortunate again today to be able to continue to um to be a contract pilot on citation XLS now I'm out of the military I'm retired but I get to still dip my hand into it a little every once in a while in a while isn't that isn't that wonderful and you know one of the things I want to uh as we approach the top of the hour make sure that we point out is a lot of people I don't think give enough credit to the Air National Guard across the United States and this this where you serve the amount of actual combat that that the Air National Guard has in its history and the fact that it was Frontline defense during 9 11 uh is is so important and even as you mentioned that they had the freedom to even be technically advanced in some other ways yes and I'll tell you you know um thank you Jeff for bringing that up because forces suffering a massive pilot shortage right now and a lot of that has to do with the fact that we don't have enough aircraft we're not so so ironically on one hand we're not flying and training our our Pilots enough but then we're also asking them and tasking them at a very high Ops Tempo so we're burning them out at the same time it's a really strange Dynamic and so so guys are leaving because because they're just they're they're not able to do what they joined to do right and their families are fed up so the Air National Guard catches them yeah part-time Warriors that make up the International Guard and there's so much more than that concept yeah and so the the wealth of experienced combat combat actually is in the Air National Guard today wow that's that's very very interesting well Heather what I'd like I would love to uh have you back on the show because I want to talk about that I want to talk about a little bit more about some of your experience including at Reno but especially about the work that you're doing today um as a senior resident fellow at the Mitchell Institute and and talking about what we need to be thinking about for our the future of our nation's military and protecting the United States to do that Jeff I mean one of the reasons why I I love what I do at the Michelin Super Aerospace studies um is because as a defense expert focusing on Air Force and air power issues dealing with National Security thinking about future warfare thinking about the technology great power competition it's my way of continuing to serve and to make sure that the young men and women if we ask them that they are not sent on a suicide mission like I was on 911 I was sent on a suicide mission because we were not equipped we had lost our imagination and we had lost our Readiness as a nation we had become complacent and I feel like it's my moral obligation to make sure that the young men and women who are in service today are not put in the same situation yeah and I I think a lot of that starts with education of spreading the word as you as you spread the word on capitol hill and to Department of Defense and others through all of your studies I I would love to have you back and help spread the word of awareness to the constituents of those people and people who who vote and the average you know American and pilot who can understand where we really stand as a country and how much work needs to be done to face the potential threats of the future which I think are are more important now than they've ever been thank you Jeff um so for the listeners you can find our website um I just Google the Mitchell Institute for Aerospace studies we also have um we're on YouTube Aerospace Nation you can get on our email list we also have a podcast the Aerospace Advantage hosted by John slickbaum uh also another fighter pilot but uh he was also a Thunderbird so great dude you got to meet him wonderful wonderful well Heather thank you so so much for taking time out of your evening to join us here on social flight live and I cannot wait to get you booked for one more time to come back and talk about all these things I I'm grateful for your service sincerely and and your stories and your Insight on everything that you've been through and sharing all of that with us I'll let you know I'd love to come back and talk more about myself excellent thank you so much Heather thank you Jeff thank you have a wonderful evening good night good night and to all of you thank you so much for taking time out of your evening to join us here on social flight live we will be gone for the next two weeks we're doing travel and at Sun and Fun we'll be putting plenty of things out on our YouTube channel so be sure to check out YouTube just to search on one word social flight on YouTube check out our Channel you'll see all the different interviews and things that we are doing during this time and please come back two weeks from tonight on Tuesday April 4th at 8 pm and you'll be joined here with EAA president Jack Pelton talking us to us about the state of general aviation and of course about air Venture 2023 and as we mentioned we will also be having Heather penny back here on the show what a what an amazing show I I am just very very grateful for that thank you all again and I wish you all Blue Skies [Music] [Music]

Channel: SocialFlight

Views: 53,932

Keywords: SocialFlight, P-51, T-51, Titan Aircraft, Aspen Avionics, Avidyne, Whelen, Lightspeed Aviation, ADS-B, experimental aircraft, EAA, AOPA, Garmin, Jeff Simon, Bose, Continental Motors, Continental Aerospace Technologies, Wipaire, SocialFlight Live, air show, mike busch, mike patey, rod machado, airplane repo, USAF, barry schiff, harley davidson, NASA, astronaut, FAA, nicole malachowski, thunderbirds, F-15, supersonic, BD-5J, aircraft accidents, Mike Busch, MSB23-1, Airworthiness Directive

Id: KMea4dXY56Q

Length: 63min 4sec (3784 seconds)

Published: Wed Mar 15 2023