DESTIN: Hey, it's me, Destin. Welcome back to
Smarter Every Day. Today, we're going to hang out
with the Thunderbirds of the US Air Force. We're going to see if we
can break the sound barrier. The temptation, when you're
making a video about yourself flying in an F-16, is to
use the power of editing to make yourself look
as awesome as possible. Do I need two chin straps
because I have two chins? But that's not this video,
because I'm not awesome. These pilots, however,
they're incredible. But I learned, through
this experience, that an F-16 is very
different than a T-38. Several years ago, I went
on a familiarization flight at Randolph Air Force base
in a T-38, a dual engine trainer they use to train
their fighter pilots. I learned a lot about
the effects of g-forces on your cardiovascular
system, and for the first time in my life, I felt the
forces of a fighter jet-- 5 G's, in fact. When I got the itinerary
from the Thunderbirds, and I started
reading stuff, and it said things like, get
plenty of sleep, I was like, oh, I haven't really done that. And then it's saying hydrate. And when you think you're
hydrated, drink some more. This looks like it's
pretty much a big deal, but, you know, I've done the
fighter jet thing before. So it's got to be
similar, right? I got this. Man, was I wrong. Let's start with who
the Thunderbirds are. They consist of 12
officers, eight of whom are highly experienced
fighter pilots, and 120 enlisted personnel
from nearly 30 different career fields. These are the crew
chiefs, the mechanics, and the technicians who make
sure the jets are always mission ready. Every member had
to apply and was handpicked in a highly
competitive selection process. Their mission is
to plan and present precision aerial maneuvers and
to exhibit the capabilities of modern high performance
aircraft and the high degree of professional skill required
to operate those aircraft. They've done this with a
variety of jets over the years, and they're currently operating
the F-16 Fighting Falcon, more commonly known as the Viper. The FAA and the military highly
restrict supersonic flight over land due to sonic booms. My flight was scheduled to
happen before an airshow practice at Keesler Air Force
base in Biloxi, Mississippi. Biloxi is right on
the Gulf of Mexico, and there's a stretch of
open water between there and my home state
of Alabama where supersonic flight is approved. I am finally going to get to
break the sound barrier, which is something I've been
dreaming about ever since I learned about the
physics of supersonic flight. This is my pilot, Thunderbird
8, call sign Flack, Major Jason Markzon. Turns out Flack
was trained by Supa the same pilot
instructor that took me up in the T-38, which made
me feel a little bit more confident about what
we were about to do. He explained to me
that the F-16 airframe was incredibly maneuverable, to
the point that the human body is the limiting factor. MAJOR JASON MARKZON:
Really, what we'll do when we first get into air
space is we're going to do a G awareness exercise, or g-ex. So we'll accelerate
to about 400 knots, and then we'll pull 4 to 5 G's. DESTIN: You're going
to test my limits. MAJOR JASON MARKZON: Yeah. DESTIN: You probably know
this, but just to review, right now you and I are in 1 G.
We feel like normal gravity is around us, right? If you're in a fighter jet,
and you pull back on the stick, and you fly in an
arc, it's going to feel like you're
being pressed through the seat because of
that radial acceleration. It's like when you're driving
a car and you turn real fast. Everything slides
across the dash-- same thing. So if you're in a 2 G
maneuver, your 10 pound head is going to feel like
it weighs 20 pounds. If you're in a 7 G maneuver,
your 10 pound head's going to feel like
it weighs 70 pounds. And I conceptually
know all this stuff, and I understand the math,
but what Flack wants to do is he actually wants to
subject me to this environment. MAJOR JASON MARKZON:
Well, it's a warm up. It's not so much a test
in it's like, hey, can I-- are we ready to pull G's? DESTIN: Are you an adult,
or are you a child? MAJOR JASON MARKZON: Make
sure our connections are good. Can you breathe appropriately? Things like that. DESTIN: OK. MAJOR JASON MARKZON:
So your G strain hasn't changed probably
since your T-38 ride. DESTIN: So when we start,
you're going to know instantly if I can hang or not. MAJOR JASON MARKZON:
Pretty close. Pretty close, yeah. DESTIN: OK, cool. MAJOR JASON MARKZON: Yeah, I'll
be listening to your breathing, so I can give you feedback if
there's any things that I see. And then when we do our next-- our actual G awareness
exercise, it will be a 6 to 7 G 180 degree turn that we'll do. DESTIN: Holy cow. MAJOR JASON MARKZON: So we'll
sustain that for a while. DESTIN: 180? That's 6 to 7 G's for how long? MAJOR JASON MARKZON:
180 degrees of turn. So we'll sustain that
for-- that's probably about 20 seconds or so. DESTIN: What? OK. I'm going to level with you
about what I was thinking at this point in the game. We're sitting there talking
about all the stuff that's going to happen, and I'm
thinking, you know what? I can do this. I ran a half marathon. I can carry all the
groceries in the house at this-- in one go, one trip
I can get all the groceries. And if worse comes to worse,
I'm just going to lay there, and I'm just going
to receive the Gs, and I'm just going to take it. I might black out, but I'm good. I understand the math. I'm good. But I knew that I needed to fake
just a little bit of humility, because I didn't want-- if something bad happened, I
just wanted to be able to say, I told you you were
going to get me. So I was saying stuff
like this to Flack. MAJOR JASON MARKZON: We'll
do four aileron rolls in-- consecutively. And then we'll do our
max turn 9 G turn. DESTIN: After the aileron rolls? MAJOR JASON MARKZON:
Well, we can do it before the aileron
rolls if you want. DESTIN: So this is
the shake and bake? MAJOR JASON MARKZON: This
is is-- yeah, this is-- that's-- this is when the true
test of your mettle happens. DESTIN: So what happens is
you do the little stuff, and then you're like,
OK, just to remind you that I'm the fighter
pilot, and you're not, we're now going to
do these things. MAJOR JASON MARKZON:
It's not that. It's just to show you the
training and physical nature of being in the cockpit. DESTIN: After the
briefing, it was time for Sergeants Jasper
Roberts and Ed Portan to suit me up. They measured me,
fitted me for my helmet, made sure the mask fit
correctly so hypoxia wouldn't be an issue, trained me
on the ejection seat, and laced up my g-suit
to the right size. On the way out to
the flight line, I was kindly offered a pair
of aviator sunglasses, which I declined, and we
walked out to the jet. And to be honest, this is
where it started to feel real. You always walk to your
jet in slow motion? MAJOR JASON MARKZON: Everybody
walks in slow mo-- everybody else is moving fast, but
we're walking in slow motion. DESTIN: That's fun. There was a lot of tradition
going on at this point, and you feel really
special, but your feet are planted firmly
back on the ground when you have to put on the g-suit in
front of everybody at the jet. If you don't know
what you're doing, there's absolutely
no way to look cool putting the g-suit on in
front of other people. Getting in the g-suit's
half the workout, man. Climbing up to the cockpit of
an F-16 is absolutely surreal. MAN: Right foot, right here. DESTIN: Yes, sir. MAN: Take your left hand,
put it in front of your name. DESTIN: You put my name on it? MAN: Oh, absolutely. DESTIN: That's impressive. MAN: Sit down. DESTIN: This is cool. MAN: Throw that helmet on. Look cool. DESTIN: Look cool. That's going to be hard. MAJOR JASON MARKZON:
[INAUDIBLE].. DESTIN: Yeah. Left, right, left, right. MAJOR JASON MARKZON:
Tin can, that's my guy. That's my guy. DESTIN: OK, here we go, the
moment I've been waiting for. We're going to point
down the runway. He's going to kick on
the afterburner, which means putting fuel
in the exhaust to get additional thrust. Hard bank right, shoot
straight up to 16,000 feet. This is insane. It's what I imagine riding
a rocket might feel like. MAJOR JASON MARKZON: I am ready
if you are ready, my friend. DESTIN: I am ready, sir. MAJOR JASON MARKZON:
Let's do this. Rocket up. Smoke on. Ready now. Smoke off. Ready now. And on the roll. Here comes the afterburner. There she is. Airborne. The air is coming up. Right turn. Departure. [INAUDIBLE] eight airborne
and passing 200 for 5220. [INAUDIBLE] that's
eight go for departure. Radar contact. Climb and maintain. 1-6,000-- 16,000. Getting ready to
climbed to 1-6,000. DESTIN: And you're operating
radios while doing this. That's a delight. What's your thrust
to weight ratio? MAJOR JASON MARKZON:
It's about one to one. DESTIN: Man. Look at you turning
to avoid the sun. MAJOR JASON MARKZON:
Sure, we'll go with that. DESTIN: And just like
that, we're at 16,000 feet. So now that we're
airborne in an F-16, we should probably learn
how to read our instruments. This is the heads up display,
otherwise known as the HUD. MAJOR JASON MARKZON: If you
look at the HUD, the left side, it says 351-- that's
our air speed. DESTIN: Yes. MAJOR JASON MARKZON:
If you go down from that, kind of down the
ladder, where it says SIM, S-I-M. DESTIN: Yep. MAJOR JASON MARKZON: The number
right below that is our current Mach number, so 0.70. And then below that to
the left, that 1.0-- that's the current--
sorry, that's the max G that we pulled. And then on the
top of that ladder is the current G
that we're pulling. DESTIN: So current G, 1.0. MAJOR JASON MARKZON: Yep. DESTIN: 1.3, 1.4, got it. MAJOR JASON MARKZON: Yep. 0.69 Mach is where we're at. DESTIN: Understood. MAJOR JASON MARKZON: Cool. All right, you ready to do
that g-ex that we talked about? DESTIN: Yeah, let's do it. OK, here we go. The first maneuver
according to the flight plan is the G awareness exercise--
two 180 degree turns, and when I feel the
G's, I'm supposed to clench everything up,
maintain my breathing, make sure I'm getting
enough oxygen in my brain. And I'm also wearing
the g-suit, which is supposed to squeeze my
legs, and that should help out. Tell me when I need to
start doing the maneuver. MAJOR JASON MARKZON:
Yep, so as we-- I'll say, here comes the G's. And when I say G's, that's when
I'm going to start pulling. So that's when I need you-- DESTIN: I need my head back? MAJOR JASON MARKZON:
That's when-- you don't need your
head back necessarily, but that's when you're going to
want to start applying your G strain. DESTIN: OK. MAJOR JASON MARKZON: Cool. All right, man. DESTIN: We don't know if my
suit's working yet, by the way. We didn't dry run it. MAJOR JASON MARKZON:
Man, I'm sure it's fine. All right, here we go. Here come the G's. All right, that is it. DESTIN: 4.6? MAJOR JASON MARKZON: 4.6. DESTIN: OK. MAJOR JASON MARKZON:
All right, ready? Here we go. 180 degree turn coming up. Here come the G's. All right. Destin, how you feeling? You got 6.7 there. DESTIN: Good. MAJOR JASON MARKZON: Nice, man. Yeah, that's impressive, dude. DESTIN: The first maneuver
we did in the F-16 was already far more difficult
than the most difficult maneuver we did
in the T-38, which made me realize this
is more than this, but it's going to be fine. It's going to be fine. Next, we went supersonic. We took the jet to
mill power, which means the fastest
the engine will go without the afterburner,
and we went for it. MAJOR JASON MARKZON: So you
can see I'm in mill power right now. DESTIN: Yeah. MAJOR JASON MARKZON:
And we're at 0.99 Machs. So as soon as I go afterburner,
we're going to break the Mach. DESTIN: OK, so I'm
looking down here. OK. MAJOR JASON MARKZON:
You see that 0.99 Mach? DESTIN: I do see that. MAJOR JASON MARKZON:
All right, ready? DESTIN: Yeah. MAJOR JASON MARKZON: Here we go. AB, here's the Mach, man. We just broke it. 1.02. DESTIN: Nothing happened. MAJOR JASON MARKZON: 1.04. 1.05. Well, so-- DESTIN: The
altimeter went crazy. MAJOR JASON MARKZON:
I can tell you that I can feel the
jet starting to climb. DESTIN: Yeah. MAJOR JASON MARKZON: And watch
what happens when I go idle. Feel yourself slow
down like that? DESTIN: Oh, wow. MAJOR JASON MARKZON: Yeah. DESTIN: Hard. MAJOR JASON MARKZON:
Really slow down, right? So-- DESTIN: And the-- and the
altimeter went ballistic. MAJOR JASON MARKZON: Yeah,
altimeter went crazy, right? So that's just the-- I think that's the pressure
over the Pitot tubes. DESTIN: Yeah, it's
the static pressure. MAJOR JASON MARKZON: Yeah. DESTIN: Breaking
the sound barrier in the cockpit of a
high performance jet is something I've dreamed about
and studied about for years, and it finally just happened. I was expecting a shake
or maybe a little rumble. Nothing happened. Other than these
gauges that bumped, I wouldn't have known
we went supersonic. But the reason the gauges
bumped is fascinating. Let's start with this. This is called a
Pitot tube, and this is how you measure how
fast a jet is going. This is essentially the
pointy part of the jet. This is an old one
that's kind of beat up, but if you look
at the end of it, there's a little bitty hole. As a jet flies through
the air, the air molecules come to the Pitot probe, and
they ram inside that hole. And if you've got a pressure
gauge on the back of that hole, you can measure what's called
the stagnation pressure. Basically, it's how
much air is stacking up, which is, of course, a function
of how fast you're going. Another thing about
Pitot tubes, though, is they have a second
pressure measurement, and that's on the side. If you see these
holes here, that's called the static
pressure ports, and they go to a
different pressure tap right back here in the back. And if you take the
difference of this and this, and you plug it into
a fancy equation, you can calculate the
airspeed of the aircraft. So if you think
about it, there's two main things that
influence a Pitot tube. Number one is the
velocity of the aircraft. The more air that comes
into that front port, the higher the
stagnation pressure. But on the static
pressure port, it's mainly affected by the
altitude of the aircraft. At lower sea levels, you'll
have a high static pressure, but as you go up
in altitude, you'll have a lower static
pressure because the air is thinner at higher altitudes. When you start breaking
the sound barrier, though, weird stuff happens. For example, the
Prandtl-Glauert transformation says that an aircraft should
experience infinite air pressures as it approaches
Mach 1, which, of course, would destroy the airplane. This theory is known as the
Prandtl-Glauert Singularity. So this theoretical
infinite pressure that the front of the aircraft
sees due to the Prandtl-Glauert Singularity-- turns
out, not a thing, which is great, because
now we can go past Mach 1. What we do see, however, is
a sudden increase in pressure right as we approach Mach 1. And we can see that by
looking at the altimeter. You see how the
altimeter reading seems to go down
by 500 foot just before punching through Mach 1? That's because the
pressure is increasing at the static port on the
front of the aircraft, but once you punch
through Mach 1, the altimeter reading goes
up by 1300 foot instantly, and this has a very
interesting explanation. When an object goes faster
than the speed of sound, a shockwave is created. And to take a
closer look at that, let's revisit a previous
episode of Smarter Every Day. We fired a supersonic bullet
and used Schlieren imagery to visualize the shockwave. The pressure on the
front of the shockwave is higher because the air
is piling up in front of it, but the pressure
behind the shockwave is what's called a
rare faction, meaning it's at a lower pressure. So now compare the shape of
a Pitot tube to that bullet. If we have shockwave
on the front here, that means the
static port is going to be behind that shockwave
in that rarer faction, which means it's going
to see a lower pressure. That makes the gauges on the
dash read a higher altitude because a higher altitude is
equated to a lower pressure, and that's why the
gauges bump when you go supersonic in a jet. I always knew that was a
thing, but I never knew why, and it feels really good
to finally understand the physics behind it. Another thing I
thought was interesting is this is the rare opportunity
to experience something firsthand that I've always
heard about in my classes, and that's the fact
that the speed of sound is lower at higher altitudes. MAJOR JASON MARKZON:
Yeah, so here we are. 0.99 Mach is about 390 and up. There we go. We just broke the Mach,
and I haven't even touched the afterburner. DESTIN: Really? MAJOR JASON MARKZON: So this jet
is technically super cruising. It's 390 knots, so it's a
little bit lower than before. Less drag on the airplane. DESTIN: On the left,
at 20,000 feet, you can see that we broke Mach
1 at an air speed of 473 knots calibrated, but on the right,
at a higher altitude of 29,000 feet, we broke Mach 1 at an
airspeed of only 392 knots calibrated. Now, this is
calibrated air speed, which is different
than true air speed. And yes, we were going
in different directions, and winds, and stuff
like that, but the upshot is the higher the altitude,
the lower the air speed required to break Mach 1. MAJOR JASON MARKZON: I think
we're a little bit more efficient at supersonic. It just depends
on your throttle. DESTIN: What's the
G loading right now? MAJOR JASON MARKZON:
We're at 3.3 G's. DESTIN: Wow. Yeah, I've lost the
ability to think. MAJOR JASON MARKZON: Oh, yeah? DESTIN: Yeah. MAJOR JASON MARKZON:
That's all good. DESTIN: If you're not trained
for 3 G's all the time-- Flack's just up there
like it's no big deal, but I'm in the back suffering. It was incredible. Anyway, so back to maneuvers. We're going to do a split-S,
which is flip it over upside down, 180 back the other way. So are you going to do
the other maneuvers? MAJOR JASON MARKZON: Yeah, man. You ready? DESTIN: Yeah, I am not-- I am not excited about the 9 G.
I'll tell you that right now. MAJOR JASON MARKZON: OK. DESTIN: I will G-LOC. MAJOR JASON MARKZON: Yeah,
make sure you hold on to your-- DESTIN: GoPro. MAJOR JASON MARKZON:
Your GoPro, because we're going to do a split-S
maneuver, all right? DESTIN: Right now
we're going a split-S? MAJOR JASON MARKZON: Yeah. DESTIN: All right. MAJOR JASON MARKZON: All
right, here come the G's. DESTIN: OK, let's pause it
right here, and back that up, and play. This right here is the precise
moment where I stopped winning. Somehow, the beginning of that
split-S caught me off guard, and the eggs began to scramble. MAJOR JASON MARKZON:
Smoke is on. DESTIN: That's awful. I am awake, but barely. MAJOR JASON MARKZON:
How are you doing? DESTIN: I am doing bad. MAJOR JASON MARKZON:
You're doing bad? DESTIN: Well, that was-- that was amazing, and I
cannot do any more than that. That was my limit. MAJOR JASON MARKZON: Oh, yeah? DESTIN: I stayed awake. What was it? MAJOR JASON MARKZON:
You got 7.2 G's on that. DESTIN: At 7.2 G's,
my head just felt like it weighed over 70 pounds. My vision came down
to a singular point, and I no longer had
the ability to think. I was getting worried about the
upcoming 9 G maneuver, which is why I was happy when
flight decided to let me rest with a knife edge maneuver. You're kicking my tail. MAJOR JASON MARKZON: All
right, here we go, man. Here comes the knife edge. Smoke on ready now. And a little left bank. A little bit of rudder, and a
little bit of light on the G. So you-- at this altitude,
it's tough for the aerodynamics to hold on. We'll try and put a little
bit more rudder in there. Yep. so at this altitude,
it's tougher to maintain its altitude? But at a lower altitude
that air speed-- as fast as we're going, it'll
maintain [INAUDIBLE] altitude. DESTIN: I'm going
to level with you. I don't even remember
that conversation. I was just hanging
on for dear life, but looking back at the
video, knife edge flight is pretty interesting. If you think about
how wings work, they have a lift vector
that comes straight out of the wings, keeping
you up in the air. But if you're turned like
this, that lift vector doesn't really help you. So what you have
to do is you have to use the body of
the aircraft itself and the rudder, which is why
this maneuver is performed much better down at lower
altitudes closer to sea level, because the density of
the air is much higher, and you can get much more
lift out of your rudder. Oh! When I edit this,
I will not lie. I will tell everyone
that you beat my tail. MAJOR JASON MARKZON: My iPad
actually rotated its view in that knife edge [INAUDIBLE]. DESTIN: Did it really? MAJOR JASON MARKZON: You want
to try the eight-point roll? DESTIN: Yeah, let's do it. MAJOR JASON MARKZON: OK, this
one's a little bit lower, but it's a lot of fun. All right, smoke's on
ready now, and here we go for eight-points. Don't stop. One, two, three, four,
five, six, seven, eight. DESTIN: We did it. MAJOR JASON MARKZON: We
can do a little inverted flying if you'd like. DESTIN: Sure. MAJOR JASON MARKZON:
All right, here we go. Smoke on ready now. You're just going to
feel a little push. DESTIN: Whoa! MAJOR JASON MARKZON:
There we go. We're inverted. Here comes a little
bit of a roll. DESTIN: OK, my body
does not like this. MAJOR JASON MARKZON:
All right, we'll roll back out real slowly. DESTIN: OK, I am tapping out. MAJOR JASON MARKZON:
All right, buddy. We'll cruise back to Gulfport. How about that? DESTIN: Yeah. MAJOR JASON MARKZON: Cool, man. DESTIN: And that was it. I tapped out, and I did not
think I was going to tap out. My plan was to get
in the seat, and just do whatever, and just take it. But in the moment, that split-S
boggled me a little bit, and I couldn't recover. My vision started coming in. Stuff was spinning. I started hitting limits
I didn't know I had, and it humbled me. That kind of humility
that's forced upon you-- it's different. I have to live with the fact
now that I had an opportunity to do a 9 G maneuver in
an F-16, and I tapped out. That's a hard thing. To learn more about
what my body was doing, let's take a look at these. These are the 3D versions
of the semi-circular canals on the inside of your body. This is the gyro
in your inner ear. I'm not even really
sure how these go, but to learn how these work,
let's go to Houston Texas to NASA's neutral
buoyancy lab and speak to a physiology expert
there named Sharon. She's got a really
good demonstration that shows us how these things work. SHARON: So what I
want you to do-- put your hands like this. DESTIN: OK. SHARON: You can put
them on your knees. It's probably easier. DESTIN: OK. SHARON: Now, when I turn
you in this direction, I want you to tell us
that we're going that way. DESTIN: OK. SHARON: When I turn you in
this direction, that way. DESTIN: OK. SHARON: If I stop you-- because
I'm going to mess with you, OK? DESTIN: OK. SHARON: All I want
you to do is not look. DESTIN: OK. Close my eyes? SHARON: Close your
eyes tight, and we're-- I'm just going to take
you for a little ride, OK? DESTIN: OK. SHARON: I'm going
to mess with you. DESTIN: OK, all right. So I think I'm going
in this direction. OK, I'm gone. I can't tell what
I'm doing anymore. SHARON: OK, open your eyes. DESTIN: Am I moving? SHARON: Nope. Your eyeballs sure are. DESTIN: Are you serious? SHARON: I'm very serious. DESTIN: Can you look
in close at my eyes? My eyeballs are-- OK,
they're not moving anymore. SHARON: No, but they sure were. DESTIN: Can you do
it one more time? SHARON: Sure thing. DESTIN: OK. Wow. SHARON: That's
going to be enough. OK, are you ready? DESTIN: Yeah. SHARON: I'm going to
stop you in 3, 2, 1. Stop. Open your eyes. DESTIN: That is messed up. I got sweaty. SHARON: I'll bet you did. DESTIN: Wow, OK. SHARON: Wow, indeed. DESTIN: That's what happens. SHARON: Yes. DESTIN: So it's my ear that
makes me messed up in the Air Force Thunderbirds jet. SHARON: Yes. This is what happens. You remember those
semi circular canals I was talking to you about? DESTIN: Yeah. SHARON: There's stuff
floating in there. This stuff hasn't
been made in years. DESTIN: Yeah. SHARON: But if I move the
glass, the fluid pretty much stays where it is because
there's not enough resistance. Well, if you had some
hair cells in there, when I move it
back and forth, you could imagine those hair
cells would be going back and forth, back and forth. DESTIN: Got it. SHARON: That's why, when
you turn your head this way, you can feel that motion. Now, watch what happens
when I start spinning it. Pretty soon the fluid catches
up with the sides of the glass. DESTIN: Got it. SHARON: In other words,
your semi circular canals. When I stop it, the
fluid keeps on going. So it's bending your hair cells
in the opposite direction. So what you're relying on is
what your semi circular canals are telling you. Now, what happened to you,
when you lift your head up, whoa, all of a sudden
you've got to-- the fluid starting to move
in the other one, as well. It's called a Coriolis effect. It feels like you're tumbling
in all different directions at once, and it's miserable. DESTIN: Thank you. SHARON: It's very miserable. DESTIN: Thank you
for explaining that. SHARON: Yeah. DESTIN: It explains
why I wasn't able to-- that's why I tapped out
with the Thunderbirds. SHARON: Yeah, it's not pleasant. DESTIN: So when my head
bobbled, my vestibular system had a different axis of
rotation it had to think about. Couple that with a maneuver
that gets my ear fluid spinning one way and
then the other, yeah. I just couldn't handle it. WOMAN: I'm sorry,
that was T-bird 8? MAN: [INAUDIBLE] standby
one second, ma'am. DESTIN: Flack flew
straight and level, and I started feeling
better really quickly. In fact, after exactly three
minutes, I had fully recovered. Man, now I'm back. By that time, though,
Flack had to get back for air show practice,
and we were already out of the airspace
slated for maneuvers. We did, however, get to do
something really awesome. We flew over to
Mobile Bay, which was a super special
thing for me, because granddaddy used to take
me there when I was little. The Battle of Mobile Bay
is where Admiral Farragut supposedly said those
famous words about torpedoes and full speed ahead,
so it was really cool to fly through
there in an F-16. The return to base was a little
weird for me, personally, because I knew there were
maneuvers left on the table that we didn't do. It's the upside down
that did it, I think. MAJOR JASON MARKZON: Yeah,
everybody's different, man. DESTIN: Even as we were
landing, I was still second guessing my decision to tap
out of that 9 G maneuver. MAN: All right, [INAUDIBLE]. DESTIN: He kicked my butt. I told you earlier that
the limitation of the F-16 is the human pilot inside. For example, the control
stick barely moves. What you're seeing
right now is not even a quarter of an inch of
movement on the stick, but that is a 6 G
pull you're watching, and that was enough
to totally own me. With that in mind, I'd
like to introduce you to one of the most impressive
people I've ever met. Her name is Major Michelle
Curran, call sign Mace. She's who the Air
Force has selected to do some of the most
difficult maneuvers performed by the Thunderbirds,
and let me tell you, I felt some of these
maneuvers, and it's hard to overstate how
difficult they are. What strikes me while talking
to Mace is how remarkably modest she is. Just listening to her talk,
you'll be like, oh, well, what she's doing clearly
isn't at the edge of human capability,
but it totally is. But what really strikes me about
Mace is how incredibly humble she is. This is Thunderbird 6. This is Mace. Mace, I don't know exactly
how the show goes down. So there's eight birds? MAJOR MICHELLE CURRAN:
There's six that are actually in the demonstration. So we kind of refer to
them as the diamond, which is 1 through 4, and then
the solos, which is 5, and then I am the opposing solo. So we come together, all
six, in close formation. We call that the delta
at the end of the show, but the first part
of the show, you see four jets together in
really close formation-- three loops, and rolls, and
all kinds of things like that. And then you have 5 and I,
who are doing opposing passes, max performing the aircraft. I'll pull 9 G's. I'll do vertical
rolls where I go from 200 feet over the ground
up to 15,000 feet in just a few seconds. So we're kind of the shock and
awe, and really showing you what the F-16 can do. DESTIN: I just flew, and I did
7.2 G's, and I could not think. And I'm told you do
9 G's in the show. MAJOR MICHELLE
CURRAN: Yeah, so it's an acquired tolerance, right? DESTIN: Is it, really? MAJOR MICHELLE CURRAN: I think
7 is a comfortable spot to be. Like, it's OK. But from 7 to 9, it's
substantially worse feeling, but we train for that, right? We fly for four months over the
winter, learning our profiles, getting used to pulling G's. We'll fly twice a day, so you
actually build up a tolerance. If I haven't flown
for a few weeks, it's a little bit harder
to come back to the pulling G's than when I'm
doing it all the time. We wear the g-suit,
like you wore today. Squeezes the life back into you. DESTIN: Yeah, but still
I could not think at all. My brain just quit
working, and you-- you're not only. You're talking on the radio, and
you're doing coordinated timing maneuvers, and all of that. MAJOR MICHELLE
CURRAN: Yeah, so I have parameters I have to hit. Not talking on the radio under
9, just because-- you felt it-- the air is being crushed out
of your lungs at that point, and we have specific
breathing techniques to do, exchanging that air to keep the
pressure in your lungs during 9 G's. But I am flying 200 feet over
the ground, doing a max turn, and then when I
roll out of that, and I go into my
half Cuban, which is where you pull up and over
the top, I'll pull about 8 going uphill for that, so. DESTIN: You're doing 9 G's
at 200 feet off the deck? MAJOR MICHELLE CURRAN: Mhm. DESTIN: Are you serious? MAJOR MICHELLE CURRAN: Yes. DESTIN: So what is the
angle of bank for that? Because-- MAJOR MICHELLE CURRAN:
It's almost 90. DESTIN: Is it, really? So how are you feathering that? MAJOR MICHELLE CURRAN:
So we have a flight path marker in our heads
up display, our HUD. And so you really just put
that on the horizon line, and as long as I'm
keeping that on there, and I get a solid pull,
it'll hold a level turn without a lot of
climbing and descending. DESTIN: That sounds like
she's just saying words, but that's super human stuff. That is-- MAJOR MICHELLE CURRAN:
We practice a lot. DESTIN: It's like
superhero stuff. That's amazing. Thank you so much. MAJOR MICHELLE CURRAN:
Yeah, absolutely. DESTIN: Yeah, 9 G's. That is impressive. MAJOR MICHELLE CURRAN: 7.5. DESTIN: Whatever. 7.2. I couldn't do 7.5. MAJOR MICHELLE
CURRAN: I was like-- DESTIN: Thank you. MAJOR MICHELLE CURRAN:
Yeah, of course. DESTIN: I don't
know if you really caught what Mace said there. She's pulling 9 G's,
almost 90 degrees, and she's 200 foot off the deck. If you're going hundreds
of miles an hour, it takes no time at
all to go 200 feet. There is no margin
for error here. This is what I learned
flying with the Air Force Thunderbirds. Sometimes in life I
get overconfident, and I'm probably not the
only one that does this, but maybe I'm overconfident
because of something I've learned in a book, or
overconfident because of a life experience I've already had
that's similar to this one, or maybe even because
of a past success I had. Here's where I'm at
right now, though. If I don't approach
each new experience with an appropriate
balance between confidence and humility,
there's a good chance I'm going to be
humbled by force. So moving forward, whether
it's a physical challenge or a discussion
with a friend, I'm going to try to maintain that
balance between confidence and humility, so I don't
end up looking stupid, which can happen, sometimes
in front of a lot of people on the internet. Teaching people how to maintain
this balance between confidence and humility-- that's
what the Air Force does. If you talk to any
of these pilots, they'll say there's
no room for error. We constantly have to
remain humble and be practicing to
improve the ability to operate an aircraft safely. But there's another thing the
United States Air Force does. They take people
who might not think they can do incredible things,
and show them that they can. That was amazing. If you are interested
in the Air Force, I will leave links down
in the video description. This was an opportunity
of a lifetime. So big thanks to
the Thunderbirds. Thanks to all the ground crew
getting the aircraft ready for Flack for taking me up. It was amazing. So check that out. Links down in the
video description. Go check them out. Thanks. Bye. You'll notice there's no
sponsor on this video, so big thanks to all
the patrons that support at Patreon.com/SmarterEveryDay. I hope this video earned
your subscription. If not, that's no big deal. I'm Destin. You're getting
smarter every day. Have a good one. Bye. MAJOR JASON MARKZON:
If you want, I can let you fly
for a little bit. DESTIN: Yeah. MAJOR JASON MARKZON: Cool. All right, man, you
have the aircraft. DESTIN: There's no
input whatsoever. MAJOR JASON MARKZON: Yea. Aileron rolls, left
turn, right turn. You can pull some
G's if you want. DESTIN: OK. I'm going to do a roll. MAJOR JASON MARKZON:
Yeah, do it, man.
Thanks for showing your human side and being able to admit defeat when faced with the physiological factors placed on your body. I appreciate you not editing that out to make you look cooler.
Been looking forward to this one for so long!! So amazing that you got to be able to do this.
So Destin.. How does the average person ever get an opportunity to do something like this? I would imagine either knowing someone, or with deep pockets but it seems chances like this are out of reach for the ordinary chap. Would be interested to know how you got so lucky with this
To anybody who want to know what even just 3 Gs sustained for awhile feels like...
there is a carnival ride which pushes as high as 3.X. It’s called the graviton or the starship 4000.
Just a centrifugal spinning ride. 3 Gs is enough to make me know 7.3 would be insane.
Amazing video. Thanks once again u/mrpennywhistle
Destin, I'm sorry, but is it bad of me that at 4:13 I really wanted to watch the video of you blacking out?
In all seriousness, good for you for knowing your limits. That's not a bad thing, being honest is a valued quality in someone. Sometimes we want to push our limits, but we need to know what's too far. In that moment you felt that any more G's would have been too far, and there's nothing wrong with that. You made the right choice.
U/MrPennywhistle is there any chance you're going to upload more of the flight? I'd love to watch you handle that bird atleast!
Finally a new video, thank you!! Saved the day
Great video! Really one of your best.
This enrichened my memories of the T-bird's flyby. I live by a flight path of T-38s, occasionally I'll see other fighter jets. After watching your video, I have a new profound respect for what I see in the sky and the people who have engineered, manufactured, maintain, and pilot those planes.
Congrats on the opportunity to experience that, and thank you for sharing/teaching me something rare & new.