Thanks for having me on Jell-O. I've been listening since 2018 and the Fighter Pilot Podcast is the premiere aviation podcast. Keep up the great work, I'm looking forward to our paths crossing again. I'm thinking some Extra 300 BFM in Vegas for an upcoming RU-vid video. AF vs Navy!
@HasardLee just imagine the stories those Israeli vipers would have if they could talk. As a maintenance tech each and every aircraft had its own little quirks for us on the ground. Have you noticed that between the different airframes you have flown, any little quirks on let's say between the vipers you flew and the same with F-35?
What an intellectual podcast. As a layperson I can’t get enough of it. Such an interesting guest and the amazing thing is he is so happy to share with us his experiences. Thank you Jell-O.
I've been listening to this podcast since 2019. As a former Army POG that always had a love for modern military aviation, there hasnt been a single episode that I havent enjoyed. Thank you for all you and your guests do! God bless!
That is a sharp dude. Long live the F-16!!! 1988 my friends dad told me the F-16 would be long gone by the time I'm an adult. That shit made me sad lol 2023 and that rocket with wings is still kicking ass and that warms my heart.
This is awesome yall are so right there is a lot of interest on this subject. It takes people like yall to help get rid of the stigma around the F35. Like Hazard said there can be 2 sides to the story. Thank you both for protecting us. Kids if you want to join then join. Worst mistake I made was being a chicken and not joining the Air Force. I regret that decision every day.
I flew private after becoming an aircraft C141 in USAF but never pursued flying due to a visual defect but still had bocoos fun. I got to meet a lot of pilots whose planes I fixed and traded war stories. I saw a SR71 up close a U2. I sat in the cockpit of a F15 all around 1982 to 84. I still watch these videos and relate to many of the interviewers. Never regret. Aviation is in our heart & gut.
My first time seeing a Hasard Lee interview. It was sensational! The way he explained the F35 was easy to understand phor a non pilot. Can’t wait to see interview #2!
Seeing you two together really highlights why you guys are my favourites; It’s the positivity you guys have. Your love of flying and all things revolving around it is infectious.
It’s so nice to hear Hasard used APKill(APKWS). We developed and tested that capability and we still do to this day. Such an amazing capability…. So damn precise and cheap compared to other solutions…. Not to mention we have so many hydras (2.75” rockets) still around from way back. Crazy thing about the deign though…. Hasard says there’s a laser seeker; it’s actually 4 separate “eyes” with one on each fin in the section that sits behind the warhead. So many thought it was going to be a hot mess to develop but it ended up being amazing. We the RDT&E side of the Navy stuck with it. The Army bowed out early and AF didn’t really care in the beginning. They were glad after though and ended up buying a huge amount after they saw the value and performance when maximized in its engagement envelope.
at 57 years old find my self looking back at things i wish i had done. military aviation has always been probably the highest thing on my list. have been pretty successful tool and die maker/cnc programmer for almost 40 year now, worked on few projects for the F18 and several they told me were for "communication satellites", which was known as code for you don't need to know what it's for. anyway, watch both you guys just to sort live vicariously through your stories. thanks much, keep it up. 👍
Excellent list of details on the extreme differences and capabilities of the F-35 and the requirements of the pilots. Redefines the mindset of where the direction of fighter aircraft is heading.
High-performance aircraft are expensive. You absolutely want to do everything you can to ensure that the squishy bit on the inside isn't why you aren't getting the most for your money.
I flew slick F-16’s all the time as an FCF pilot. In the dead of Winter in Wisconsin I had 800’ takeoff rolls and almost 500 KIAS at the end of a 9000’ runway. Also had many Mach 2 runs which not many pilots ever see. It doesn’t get any better than a slick winged Viper at 15° F near seal level.
Wish I could've seen the F35 Demo team at the FLL Air Show but the weather didnt cooperate. We missed the F16s from Homestead too. The F22 was... AMAZING. Great show!
Enjoyed this one immensely. Thanks. Concerning the NASA KC-136 Zero -G aircraft-I was a antimotion sickness medication test subject in 1979 at Pensacola NAS. We would at times travel to Ellington AFB, TX where the test was located. Flight profile was cruise at 25K feet, pull up at 45 degrees Mach .9, pull 2Gs, near 35K feet pull back and nose over. Dive back to 25K feet at 45 degrees, near the bottom pull out then back up. Only pulled 2 Gs on the climb and pullout. So we had 30 seconds of zero G. When in zero some of us were free floating. At the end of zero-G the drop from the ceiling was gradual and you could always make the transition back on your feet. However one day we had a less skilled pilot who sent us into negative abruptly and the same coming out. It got to where you know who was flying by how well the pilot flew the parabola. That was 1979. 4 days about 55 parabolas each day. If you got sick they leveled off, gave you a shot and continued the mission. My first day was brutal. I couldn't even do a push up at 2G much less these fighter pilots doing 9. Salute.
Speaking of SEAD, you should bring an E/A-18G pilot/EWO onto your show. Lots of confusion around the capabilities of that jet and just how essential it is in a modern conflict
I think a lot of the reason why people think the F-35 is the slow bird in the sky is because whenever people ask about BFM in the F-35, most F-35 pilots divert the question to why the F-35 doesn’t need to dogfight. This is further propelling the notion that the F-35 can’t dogfight. I think it would be nice to have a pilot just tell his stories of how the F-35 performs in the most intense and grueling aspect of air combat which is BFM, we already know its not the F-35’s greatest strength but it would still be nice to hear how it performs in that environment from the actual people who fly it
Seems you have to go to Dolby Hanche from Norway to get that and it's years old. Edit: They always say "it wasn't designed for that," which isn't true. It was designed to combine F-16 steady state turning with F-18 instantaneous turn when compared in a combat configuration. It's done that quite well and, when not loaded all the way with fuel vs. a slicked F-18C/D/404-402 or Block 50, it's a pretty mean opponent in a phone booth. What would be more accurate to say is, "that's the least important engineering criteria of this aircraft to achieve the mission."
@@corystansbury Dolby Hanche is one of the very few exceptions. Just compare it to the F-22 or Typhoon. Dogfighting is also the last resort for those aircraft but you will never hear their pilots say that, instead they rave about how powerful and agile those 2 aircraft are in BFM despite both not being designed as dogfighting aircraft primarily
The problem is that 1. It's small, doesn't carry a lot of fuel, and 2. The radar is liquid cooled, the small airframe presents little real estate for upper power levels in radar, 3. Avionics are liquid cooled, and it uses fuel to cool them. Less fuel, less cooling capacity. The F-35 can't BFM because it needs to be in the vicinity of a tanker for basically it's entire mission duration. There is no fuel for afterburner, or loiter or CAP missions. It's a Ferrari with a 6 gallon tank of fuel. I'm a former F-15C driver and there is a reason why the F-15X program is in scramble mode right now.
@@BasedF-15Pilot 1. Small and doesn’t carry a lot of fuel. Thats 18,000 lbs for the A model, 20,000 for the C model. 2. As per General Mike Hostage, due to the small amounts of F-22s available, he will need to have some F-35s perform air superiority in the 1st days of war. Thats where I want to hear the stories from. Those air superiority F-35s won’t be using their sensors at maximum power all the time, instead, they’ll rely on data linked information from other F-35s and will be able to use their fuel for AB more. There are some F-35 pilots that have said it performs very well in the BFM arena, however most F-35 pilots like Hazard and Chip Burke automatically dismiss the question into how the F-35 can avoid dogfights. Its as if they’re afraid of it when they’re in the F-35
These article excerpts show interesting insights from the F-35 in BFM: 1) “Remember, back the rumors were that the F-35 was a pig. The first time the opponents [F-16s] showed up [in the training area] they had wing tanks along with a bunch of missiles. I guess they figured that being in a dirty configuration wouldn't really matter and that they would still easily outmanoeuvre us. By the end of the week, though, they had dropped their wing tanks, transitioned to a single centerline fuel tank and were still doing everything they could not to get gunned by us. A week later they stripped the jets clean of all external stores, which made the BFM fights interesting, to say the least... On one of the sorties, my colleague, Maj Pascal 'Smiley' Smaal, decided he would fly BFM and still have enough fuel to go to the range afterwards and drop his weapon (GBU-12: Laser guided weapon). During the debrief, the adversary pilot told us he was confused as to why we went to the range after the fight. When 'Smiley' told him that he was carrying an inert GBU-12 the entire time and that he then dropped it afterwards during a test event, the silence on the other end of the line was golden.” - Lt Col Ian 'Gladys' Knight, CO of 323rd Test and Evaluation Squadron. (Out Of The Shadows: RNLAF experiences with the F-35A - Combat Aircraft Magazine May 2018). 2) “Thirty-one experienced pilots currently flying the F-35A were asked to rate the energy and maneuvering characteristics of their previous fourth-generation fighters in a combat configuration throughout the dogfighting maneuver envelope in a combat configuration[23] after jettisoning their external stores. They were then asked to rate the performance of the F-35A using the same scale, with fuel and internal munition loads associated with a combat loadout[24] under their current G and CLAW restrictions.[25] The F-35A compared well to the four other fighters (F-15C, F-15E, F-16C, and A-10) in most every regime. (For the total results and responses from the pilots of each respective fighter, see Chart 1.) Each pilot was then asked to select which fighter he would rather fly in combat if he were to face a clone flying the other jet in six different air-to-air situations. (See Chart 2.) If the pilot selected an F-15C in a short-range setup, for example, he felt he could outperform a pilot of equal abilities in the F-35A. Pilots selected the F-35A 100 percent of the time in beyond-visual-range situations and over 80 percent of dogfighting situations where energy and maneuverability are critical to success.” -“Operational Assessment of the F-35A Argues for Full Program Procurement and Concurrent Development Process”-Herit-ge or-.
@@FighterPilotPodcast I follow you many years and enjoying your podcasts, it started somewhere, where you interviewed a LSO, that's a time ago, so you are also on the top of my list, Ward Carol is also there and many more. Each of you brings different topics, and I like that. Also Jocko Willink is on my list. Because I was 3 years in our military as an 5th battalion liberation under officer, a reconnaissance unit, best time of my life.
Guys, this was a great episode, listened on my iPhone out for a walk the other day and reminded me of Justin's F-35 production line tour video that I shared earlier today. Just bought Justin's book and it's on the 'Flight line' to be consumed 😀
Have been following “Hazard” for years. He is so dynamic one of my favorite fighter And this is the guy who loves his family and that is very close to my heart. ❤
@@FighterPilotPodcast 😉 YES‼️ you guys love your family and send you are the BEST of The BEST‼️ • Got to follow along Hazard as his first little one was born. And. - the funniest video he ever did was when he was stalking around in the kitchen one early morning before going off to work - with a bug-a-salt rifle. Followed Hazad a long time. Followed YOU a long time. RESPECT. 🫡
So nice to find this some time later and to hear someone employ APKWS on fixed wing. I tested that system so much and it was nice to see something so cheap do so damn well.
I completely agree with Jell-O. In that the previous lineages of fighter aircraft up until the F-22 and F-35, each successor was a significant, yet incremental improvement. I believe that both the F-22 and F-35 are in offshoot branches of their own. And it would not be an exaggeration to call the F-35 series, a generational leap in overall air combat capabilities. Beyond flying, it is capable of doing what no other aircraft weapon system has done before it.
The F35 is the 5th Generation equivalent to the F14 for fourth generation. It's an expensive organ which pushes the envelope of modern air combat capabilities well beyond that of our near peer adversaries. I used to hate the F35, but after sitting down and looking at the capabilities objectively, I'm genuinely impressed they've accomplished that goal with the aircraft they accomplished it with.
"Jell-O", you and "Mooch" (Carol) on his site, are two of the most likable people doing these topical forums. Thanks for all that you bring. I never flew, and the closest I ever came, was chatting up a girl, in the Canadian Air Cadets. I do ride one of those super High Performance motorcycles and try to emulate the discipline and attitudes of you professional military aviators. Been doing for decades, and I'm still in one piece.
Growing pains have always been associated with a lot of new hardware in the USA DOD pipeline.It`s good to be critical and that makes the final product the best IMO.I just wonder how many programs got axed that would have really been game changers but nervousness got them spiked?
Every one of these combat vets wants to write a book now, the last 10 plus, have been not too good for my money, it's the same old thing, sorry to say this. But I thank them for their services. God Bless them.
The F4 had an ash-tray?! Bro. As a nerd myself I like it that you can be this ultra manly mustachio'd drinking and smoking badass fighter pilot, in the end it's the nerd engineers and scientists that have the greatest impact on who wins.
I was at Bagram in 2019 with my Guard unit. AGR-20s had to be loaded with the laser codes by weapons monkeys. As avionics the pilots always bitched about the radios, sometimes without understanding that RF can't go through mountains. The mountains were just gorgeous in Bagram, at least when the wind/rain had cleared the air! I remember running over by the old Russian ramps a bunch at around 2300 before shift. Can confirm the F35 is just miles above anything out there. Having flown the F35 sim the familiarity with Block 30 F-16 switch functionality translates very easily to the F-35. I even got a gun kill on my co-worker, that was awesome.
God Bless this Man , your service in Afghanistan to those of us that lost our family members in that place , for us , too us , our Hearts and Minds are with you . Because this is NOT our home , every day , every single day , our thoughts , our hearts for only this brief moment in time are in Afghanistan . Simply knowing that Damn Fine Americans such as yourself continue on , for this alone , We Get on With it , Yes , that is what We do , We Get on With It .
I went to middle school with hasard , I know his first name! Lol . Crazy.. we allways talked about becoming fighter pilots he did I was to blind and am now a career ag pilot.
"..cleaning the rails on every flight..."; and he didn't mean clean with a rag and wd-40. Block-50; every pilot I've ever talked to (small sample size) has loved the GE-powered F-16's, the -129 particularly.
@@FighterPilotPodcast I spent time with the 99th bombwing heavy 66-70 Guam, Kadina, Utapao as a crew Chief. Each generation of fighter from F4’s till now just like performance race cars for me. Thanks again. I am pleased to have find your and Hasard’s podcasts. 👍
I have a rejection letter from NASA to be an Astronaut. They had 18,000 applicants to 12 slots. I joke that Jonny Kim stole my slot for the moon, but his credentials showcased how little of a chance I had. >99.9% rejection rate, meeting qualifications wasn't enough, they had the very best and brightest applying. And if I am being honest, that letter was all I expected and was happy to finally get it.
So now the challenge will be to monitor the opposing side's tankers, because that's where you can shoot the radar stealth jets. Because like with every other fighter jet, about once per hour, you need a new load of fuel. Or possibly shoot down the tankers to ground the fighters.
Some members of my Squadron were deployed to Bagram when the suicide attack happened. They were Dirt Boyz. They make sure the runway is fixed and cleared for flight operations after a mortar or bombing.
Quick question: can someone tell me what's on the middle pylon of the right wing at <a href="#" class="seekto" data-time="1290">21:30</a> ? Outside is an Amraam, then a Sidewinder I guess and then...? On the left wing there looks to be 2 guided 500 pound bombs. Thanks :-)
@@FighterPilotPodcastif you did I wouldn't mind going up against you or hasard. I would probably eat a fox 2 but knowing it was from a fighter weapons school grad I know I would learn something. Keep it up sir, always something educational on your podcast. Question though as a Hornet pilot did you ever train with the tomcat in ACM/BFM and would you do to defeat the tomcat?
I think a number of aircraft have gotten the reputation for falling out of the sky. I recall hearing that about the Harrier... "if you want a Harrier, just buy some land near Cherry Point".. or Beaufort or Yuma... that was back in the late 70's, with the AV-8A. Never saw a Harrier crash, but I did watch a VT-24 TA-4J crash on take-off in Yuma. The bird almost slid into the squadron's hangar. Awful.
Hi Jello, Hasard, thanks for a brilliant video but I wonder f you can help me (fully understanding that you are limited in what you can say). I was wondering that many people say that if the F35 reaches the merge something has gone wrong so it doesn't matter that it's not a great fighter. However, if you were in a situation like Vietnam where you had to visually ID before shooting how does that work? Am I wrong in thinking this situation would arise as its always part of a larger package so other more 'capable' aircraft would undertake that part of the mission? Or does it have a really good zoom on a camera or similar? Or would you just have to suck it up and hope for the best? Thanks.
I wouldve chosen F-15 but there are alot less of those. They built 1,600 F-15 over the years and 4600 F-16s. Exported many more F-16s though because they are cheaper.
hello, nice video, I have a question, below 280 knots fighting against an A-4, the F-14 can't maneuver against it? you can feel that the F-14 is a heavy plane against a very low wing loading A-4?
Curious that those that do not retire from the military, ie go to the Guard or Reserves, how they survive monetarily. With what the airlines are paying today, seems like it is an easy solution. Suprised that question was not asked. Great interview non the less.
<a href="#" class="seekto" data-time="2716">45:16</a> As a son of a (edit: retired, 20 years of service) F-16 fighter pilot. The easiest way to get my fathers attention, especially in a large crowd, where you cant use "dad" or his actual name... using his call sign is a blessing. That has paid "dividends" maybe at least for me and my family, my mother often does this too hah. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
@@FighterPilotPodcast It means a lot to me ! I am a fan from Bangladesh 🇧🇩. I watch Airliners, Bangladesh Air Force Mi-17, F-7s and Fulcrums fly everyday as I live just beside the Shahjalal Airport but sadly I can never fly them because of my health and financial conditions. Watching Your podcast really feels like I fly fighters with you.
Great chat & very informative thx. Question: Aerial warfare against Germany, Japan, VIetnam etc. Makes sense, but against donkey riders living in caves & still using old Soviet rusty firearms? .......
Can you ask what the deal is with this guy? Is it part of his job to be on RU-vid and be an influencer? I think he’s a part of a team like the blue angels is that true? If so, that would explain it. I’m seeing a few more pilots on RU-vid, active ones, and I know one growler jams is just doing this on his own. He’s trying to make a life for himself, but Hazard seems to have more resources, so I’m curious if he is supported by the military
