Show Notes
This week's So There I Was episode is a Hangout -- that happens when you put pilots, controllers, and a few proud troublemakers in the same virtual room and hit “record.” We swap the kind of stories that never fit in a checklist: a Harrier night recovery that ended six inches from a very bad day, a Learjet that missed an airliner by 100 feet in IMC, and a “UFO” sighting that turned out to be Starlink doing accidental aerobatics in the sun’s glare.
Then Heater drops in and casually explains how Top Gun almost became a dark vampire movie (until someone showed the director what blue sky actually looks like). Add laser-strike rage, EMAS explained for non-pilots, and the annual reminder that the Marines were the in-flight entertainment.
Happy New Year—check six, and don’t touch the igniter wiring.
Sticks
Heater
Scotty
Bag O
Pawel
Dizzy
Porky
Fig
RePete
More from So There I Was
Why Smart Pilots Do Dumb Things is the title of Heater’s paper. It helped save the Red Eagles. However, this episode opens with a different lesson: never look at your ten o’clock at Groom Lake.
“Clara Ship” is what A-6 Intruder pilot Duker radioed when he couldn’t even see the carrier. Forget the ball. He couldn’t find the boat.
Navy P-3 pilot Derek "DA" Adametz beat a collapsed lung and Hodgkin's lymphoma, then fought the waiver board all the way to squadron command.
F-100 pilot Ike flew 195 combat missions with an iron sight and nerves of steel. He takes us from night close air support to a 50-pound-fuel landing to the 1986 Libya raid.
Retired Marine Lt. Col. Tim "Monk" Miller nearly punched out mid-nap over Ramadi, then built the Strike Fighter League, where guns are where it's at.